Ahh, the beauty of a Spring morning. The glimmering sun, the fresh grass, the birds chirping, the squirrels chasing and the not too faint smell of fertilizer. Spring mornings always remind me of the good old days. Walking around outside, barefoot, without a care in the world. Sure you'd come back into the house with black feet that would get on the brand new living room carpet your mom just had put in, but until then you didn't have a care in the world. Then you'd be forced to stand in a bathtub half full of too hot water while your mother scrubbed your feet, shouted obscenities, and continually reminded you just how much money it cost for that new Stainmaster Active Family Dorchester White Frieze carpet.
When you're out of the tub, you have the feeling of guilt, sadness and in a weird way, accomplishment. I mean you accomplished to ruin something your mom was so proud of within seven hours. Way to go, kid! Once you're dry and head to your room your guilt feelings will immediately turn into loneliness since you're now grounded and cannot leave your room. You will hear the sound of the TV in your brother's room as he watches "The Simpsons" and it will be as torturous to you then as watching an episode of "The Simpsons" is now.
While you're sitting in your room, contemplating different ways to attempt suicide, you'll stumble on an idea that will really teach your parents a lesson. They deserve this lesson because, after all, they shouldn't have grounded you just for ruining the only thing they hold dear in this while rotten world. They went through beige shaggy carpet, a light orange and brown sheen carpet and now they've fallen in love with this weirdly milky white nonsense. They love this carpet more than they love you and your brothers, which is annoying, but completely understandable. The idea you come up is to grab the red magic marker you have in your desk drawer and draw on your wrist, thus making it look like you slashed your veins open in a psychotic rage. That'll learn 'em!
Once that is complete, you'll fake yell/cry for your precious mommy. She'll enter and right then you got her. "Oh, how could my perfect little baby have done this to himself? Why God, WHY?!!!!!!!" This is NOT what she'll be saying as she sees you. She will instead be even more furious because your marker wrist has rubbed all over the brand new one thousand thread count, eggshell bedsheets you insisted on having. Your mother will remind you how you begged and begged for these even though they were expensive. "You'll just ruin them" she said. "No, I won't." you'll respond. "I'm responsible and will never fake slash my wrists ever!" Point = Mommy.
Once you're grounded again and forced to sit on the ground without touching your red stained arms on anything, you will once again contemplate suicide. This time you'll do it right though. Nothing screams "cry for help" better than "gunshot to the head." When your parents go to bed, you'll sneak in there and grab your dad's handgun, you know, the one that you're not supposed to know where it is. Once you grab that, you'll load in the .22 caliber bullets, spin the cylinder like you're in '70's exploitation movie and head back to your lonesome room. You will think about that documentary you saw where a teenager shot himself in the head because the backwards lyrics of Judas Priest told him to. Personally, I'd shoot myself in the head because I'm listening to them normally. Backwards probably sounds better. Anyway, if that kid lived, you probably will too. You lift the fully loaded gun to your temple and say to yourself, "This ought to show them." Pull the trigger and... brains splatter all over the wall that your mom just spent a fortune painting in the most gorgeous Cornsilk white she could find at Sherwin-Williams.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, Spring mornings remind me of death.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Truth or Dare
When I was a wee lad, the season I looked forward to the most was the summer. School lets out in June, my birthday is in July and August, I'm sure, has some redeeming qualities. The main reason I loved the summertime is because of the camp I went to. It was a day camp at the Dallas Jewish Community Center called Performing Arts Camp. It was "Glee" minus the homo-eroticism. The highlight of summer camp every year was the sleepover we would have for one night during the second to last week. We would order pizza for dinner, perform in a talent show and have a dance featuring the hits of Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Bryan Adams and other singers that are no longer alive. After the dance, the counselors would go to sleep, and a few of the campers would partake in an epic game of "Truth or Dare." This was always my favorite part of the ENTIRE summer. It was better than 4th of July fireworks, vacations and any new Weird Al song rolled into one. As a child, there is no single event better than a game of Truth or Dare. As an adult, it's not so great.
I participated in T&D this past weekend. Since the group of participants were non-swinging couples in their 30's, it might as well have been D&D. As a kid, anything could happen. If you picked dare, the possibilities were endless. You could be forced to kiss someone you didn't like or have the fortune of kissing someone you did like all while trying to hide your boner. If you picked truth, you'd pretty much only be asked who you would want to kiss. Come to think of it, truth was pretty worthless. As a non swinging adult, the possibilities are anything but endless. For instance, if my girlfriend picks dare and I dare her to kiss some dude, then I'm an idiot. If she picks truth and I ask her who she wants to kiss, I'm a bigger idiot, because it for sure wouldn't be me.
Another reason, truth or dare doesn't work too well for me and my friends as an adult is because there are no stakes. As a kid, someone dared you to strip down to your underwear and run down the hallway, you did it no questions asked. You'd probably be devastatingly embarrassed about having to do it but not nearly as embarrassed as you would be if you refused and everybody yelled at you. As an adult, who gives a shit if someone tries to peer pressure you. If someone dared me to slather my dick in peanut butter and have the family dog lick it off, I'd tell them to go "f'" themselves. I'm not going to waste delicious peanut butter on a fucking dog.
As a kid, the most exhilarating thing that could happen for a game of truth or dare is to be dared to spend a certain amount of time with someone in a private location. It could be a small closet or a large room. The important part was that the place needed to be as bare as my elementary school genitals. As an adult, we're far too lazy to actually move locations for a stupid dare. If I was dared to spend 2 minutes with my girlfriend in an unoccupied bathroom, we'd eventually do what we normally do in a bathroom: pee all over each other.
The next time you want to re-live your youth, instead of a game of truth and dare, I recommend you try something where the nostalgia holds up better. Maybe a game of horseshoes. Or even better, whore shoes. A prostitute's footwear always brings me back to the good old days. I think because of the smell.
I participated in T&D this past weekend. Since the group of participants were non-swinging couples in their 30's, it might as well have been D&D. As a kid, anything could happen. If you picked dare, the possibilities were endless. You could be forced to kiss someone you didn't like or have the fortune of kissing someone you did like all while trying to hide your boner. If you picked truth, you'd pretty much only be asked who you would want to kiss. Come to think of it, truth was pretty worthless. As a non swinging adult, the possibilities are anything but endless. For instance, if my girlfriend picks dare and I dare her to kiss some dude, then I'm an idiot. If she picks truth and I ask her who she wants to kiss, I'm a bigger idiot, because it for sure wouldn't be me.
Another reason, truth or dare doesn't work too well for me and my friends as an adult is because there are no stakes. As a kid, someone dared you to strip down to your underwear and run down the hallway, you did it no questions asked. You'd probably be devastatingly embarrassed about having to do it but not nearly as embarrassed as you would be if you refused and everybody yelled at you. As an adult, who gives a shit if someone tries to peer pressure you. If someone dared me to slather my dick in peanut butter and have the family dog lick it off, I'd tell them to go "f'" themselves. I'm not going to waste delicious peanut butter on a fucking dog.
As a kid, the most exhilarating thing that could happen for a game of truth or dare is to be dared to spend a certain amount of time with someone in a private location. It could be a small closet or a large room. The important part was that the place needed to be as bare as my elementary school genitals. As an adult, we're far too lazy to actually move locations for a stupid dare. If I was dared to spend 2 minutes with my girlfriend in an unoccupied bathroom, we'd eventually do what we normally do in a bathroom: pee all over each other.
The next time you want to re-live your youth, instead of a game of truth and dare, I recommend you try something where the nostalgia holds up better. Maybe a game of horseshoes. Or even better, whore shoes. A prostitute's footwear always brings me back to the good old days. I think because of the smell.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
How to Fully Enjoy Happy Hour
There are many ways to fill up week. Work, eat and sleep. Those three are pretty standard. I'd rather spend my week doing these three things: Drink, drink and drink. Pretty much every bar offers a Happy Hour, and I'm here to tell you the best way to utilize these hours.
First of all, find a place that's not too crowded. There are places that offer 2 for 1 drinks, free pizzas, ladies drink free. These are all good and fine, but it normally means that you'll be fighting for a place to sit and relax. The 3rd worst thing to happen at bars is having to drink while standing up. The other two things that are worse than that, in a very particular order, are: 1. drinking too much and vomiting all over the place, and 2. getting gang raped on a pinball machine.
Find a seat at the bar, not at a table. Here's the thing about happy hour, the waitstaff doesn't like it. Cheap drinks and cheap food usually means cheap people. The only thing worse to a waitress than a cheap dude is a drunk, cheap dude who, after downing his third drink, refers to her as "My future ex-wife." See, the reason that's funny is because the dude is saying that their marriage will never last. I guess it's hard to maintain a marriage when you're drinking gin and tonics at 3:30 PM while sexually harassing a community college student.
Full disclosure, when I was attending community college, I worked in a restaurant as a server and sometime bartender. On the rare occasion, that I was the "cocktail waiter" during happy hour, the sheer disappointment from the straight male patrons was rampant. I guess Steve and his cubicle mates at Texas Instruments have a hard time enjoying themselves when a penis is so close to the Coors Light they ordered. When you take a seat at the bar, you're never waiting too long for your next round. Plus it's much more difficult to sexually harass a bartender because they're too busy fake laughing at your racist jokes.
Another great way to get the most of your happy hour experience is to not fall for their "famous cocktail concoctions." These are the drinks that are offered "for half price" at happy hour but are actually made up drinks that aren't on menu. Since they're not on menu, there is no price. "half price"is really just "price." Plus they're not real drinks. It's pretty much a watered down daiquiri with a stupid name that you'd only find at a cheesy happy hour. Would you ever order a "Small Smokin' Sombrero" at a cocktail reception? I guess you would if that reception is for the wedding of Willie Nelson to a dwarf named Rosarita.
There are many reasons that happy hours exist, but mainly because it's a great way to wind down after a long day at the office, kick back with a few cold ones, and complain to your co-workers about how your wife stopped having sex with you once she started her tennis lessons with Gustavo. The weird thing is that she's been going to her lessons for two and half years and still doesn't own a tennis racket. Even weirder, the lessons take place at a Rodeway Inn at the intersection of Washington and 123rd street. And I'll tell you the weirdest part, I had no idea that tennis can give you a wicked case of cold sores on your mouth. It happens to my wife every couple of months since she started her lessons.
Well, it's 5:00 somewhere which means I better get to happy hour.
First of all, find a place that's not too crowded. There are places that offer 2 for 1 drinks, free pizzas, ladies drink free. These are all good and fine, but it normally means that you'll be fighting for a place to sit and relax. The 3rd worst thing to happen at bars is having to drink while standing up. The other two things that are worse than that, in a very particular order, are: 1. drinking too much and vomiting all over the place, and 2. getting gang raped on a pinball machine.
Find a seat at the bar, not at a table. Here's the thing about happy hour, the waitstaff doesn't like it. Cheap drinks and cheap food usually means cheap people. The only thing worse to a waitress than a cheap dude is a drunk, cheap dude who, after downing his third drink, refers to her as "My future ex-wife." See, the reason that's funny is because the dude is saying that their marriage will never last. I guess it's hard to maintain a marriage when you're drinking gin and tonics at 3:30 PM while sexually harassing a community college student.
Full disclosure, when I was attending community college, I worked in a restaurant as a server and sometime bartender. On the rare occasion, that I was the "cocktail waiter" during happy hour, the sheer disappointment from the straight male patrons was rampant. I guess Steve and his cubicle mates at Texas Instruments have a hard time enjoying themselves when a penis is so close to the Coors Light they ordered. When you take a seat at the bar, you're never waiting too long for your next round. Plus it's much more difficult to sexually harass a bartender because they're too busy fake laughing at your racist jokes.
Another great way to get the most of your happy hour experience is to not fall for their "famous cocktail concoctions." These are the drinks that are offered "for half price" at happy hour but are actually made up drinks that aren't on menu. Since they're not on menu, there is no price. "half price"is really just "price." Plus they're not real drinks. It's pretty much a watered down daiquiri with a stupid name that you'd only find at a cheesy happy hour. Would you ever order a "Small Smokin' Sombrero" at a cocktail reception? I guess you would if that reception is for the wedding of Willie Nelson to a dwarf named Rosarita.
There are many reasons that happy hours exist, but mainly because it's a great way to wind down after a long day at the office, kick back with a few cold ones, and complain to your co-workers about how your wife stopped having sex with you once she started her tennis lessons with Gustavo. The weird thing is that she's been going to her lessons for two and half years and still doesn't own a tennis racket. Even weirder, the lessons take place at a Rodeway Inn at the intersection of Washington and 123rd street. And I'll tell you the weirdest part, I had no idea that tennis can give you a wicked case of cold sores on your mouth. It happens to my wife every couple of months since she started her lessons.
Well, it's 5:00 somewhere which means I better get to happy hour.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
What to Do When Your Back Hurts
I, like many other people in the world, experience some back pain every once in a while. I'm sure it's from the many years of playing All American level football for my State Championship winning High School football team, helping Grandpappy out on the farm during the grueling summers of North Carolina, or from making up wild claims about how I spent my youth. It's probably from sitting weird on the couch for 30 years while watching TV. It doesn't matter how I hurt my back, it only matters that it hurts, so I'll give you a few ways you can diminish your pain.
1. Stretch - The doctor told me to do yoga. I tried to, but when I went to the studio, the yoga instructor asked me how long I've been doing it. I said, with a smile, "It's my first time!" She replied, without a smile, "Oh, you can't be in here then. I don't want you to hurt yourself." Now if you know anything about me, it's that when someone tells me I can't do something, I spend every waking hour of my life practicing, getting better and ultimately proving to them that I deserve to be there. And you if you REALLY know anything about me, you'll know that when someone says, "You can't do that." I immediately react by saying, "Yeah, I know. I can't do anything. I'm a failure and a worthless human being. Thank you for being honest and forthright with me. The fact that you're even speaking to such a lower class person makes you a saint in the eyes of the Lord." Needless to say, I've never been back to a Yoga studio.
2. Eat Better - How does locally grown green vegetables, grass fed organic hormone free beef, and free range vegetarian fed chicken eggs sound? Pretty good, right? Now, how does a Frito Pie with extra chili and cheese, a dozen Cadbury Cream Eggs, and a thick Peanut Butter and Chocolate Milkshake sound? Now that I think about it, it's my back that hurts, not my mouth. I'm going to eat whatever I damn well please.
3. Lift with your Legs, not with your Back - Whoa, wait a second. I lift with my arms like a normal person. What kind of a moron lifts things with their legs. Oh, are you talking about one of those Youtube vidoes where people that are missing their arms make peanut butter sandwiches, draw a picture and drive a car with their feet? Those people are amazing. Making peanut butter sandwiches with their feet! So inspiring. It inspires me to never eat another peanut butter sandwich. Gross! You want to hear the worst part? I Love peanut butter. Thanks for ruining my favorite food, Armless Betty.
4. Apply Ice or Heat - Some people will tell you to ice down your back. Others will tell you to place a heating pad on the sore area. Some, crazily enough, will tell you to do both. Well, I'm not falling for that. Both heat and cold? Not a fan. I once used a Trojan Fire and Ice condom that promises you a "warming and tingling sensation for you and your partner." What it should promise you is "all the pain and confusion of gonorrhea without the pleasure of having sex with a bachelor party stripper."
5. Take a couple aspirin - Sounds legit. Take a few pills and the pain will subside for a few hours. I'll tell you what I learned. Take a couple Vicodins and wash them down with three quarters of a bottle of Jack Daniels and you won't feel the pain all night. The next day you will, however, have a splitting headache, Sahara Desert like dryness of your mouth and the pain and confusion of gonorrhea from a bachelor party stripper.
Hope this helps!
1. Stretch - The doctor told me to do yoga. I tried to, but when I went to the studio, the yoga instructor asked me how long I've been doing it. I said, with a smile, "It's my first time!" She replied, without a smile, "Oh, you can't be in here then. I don't want you to hurt yourself." Now if you know anything about me, it's that when someone tells me I can't do something, I spend every waking hour of my life practicing, getting better and ultimately proving to them that I deserve to be there. And you if you REALLY know anything about me, you'll know that when someone says, "You can't do that." I immediately react by saying, "Yeah, I know. I can't do anything. I'm a failure and a worthless human being. Thank you for being honest and forthright with me. The fact that you're even speaking to such a lower class person makes you a saint in the eyes of the Lord." Needless to say, I've never been back to a Yoga studio.
2. Eat Better - How does locally grown green vegetables, grass fed organic hormone free beef, and free range vegetarian fed chicken eggs sound? Pretty good, right? Now, how does a Frito Pie with extra chili and cheese, a dozen Cadbury Cream Eggs, and a thick Peanut Butter and Chocolate Milkshake sound? Now that I think about it, it's my back that hurts, not my mouth. I'm going to eat whatever I damn well please.
3. Lift with your Legs, not with your Back - Whoa, wait a second. I lift with my arms like a normal person. What kind of a moron lifts things with their legs. Oh, are you talking about one of those Youtube vidoes where people that are missing their arms make peanut butter sandwiches, draw a picture and drive a car with their feet? Those people are amazing. Making peanut butter sandwiches with their feet! So inspiring. It inspires me to never eat another peanut butter sandwich. Gross! You want to hear the worst part? I Love peanut butter. Thanks for ruining my favorite food, Armless Betty.
4. Apply Ice or Heat - Some people will tell you to ice down your back. Others will tell you to place a heating pad on the sore area. Some, crazily enough, will tell you to do both. Well, I'm not falling for that. Both heat and cold? Not a fan. I once used a Trojan Fire and Ice condom that promises you a "warming and tingling sensation for you and your partner." What it should promise you is "all the pain and confusion of gonorrhea without the pleasure of having sex with a bachelor party stripper."
5. Take a couple aspirin - Sounds legit. Take a few pills and the pain will subside for a few hours. I'll tell you what I learned. Take a couple Vicodins and wash them down with three quarters of a bottle of Jack Daniels and you won't feel the pain all night. The next day you will, however, have a splitting headache, Sahara Desert like dryness of your mouth and the pain and confusion of gonorrhea from a bachelor party stripper.
Hope this helps!
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