It’s Bubbe’s Berfday

July 1, 2019July 2, 2019 / www.immodiumabuser.com / 2 Comments

It’s a holiday kids! I don’t mean Tito Puente eating paste al dente or the one that starts with sparklers and ends with a bang: It’s Bubbe’s Berf Day!

Unlike a parent that can’t admit that he likes one of his kids more than the others – I wanna wish a very Happy Birthday to my Number One fan: Bubbe!

There are so many reasons she’s awesome – but isn’t the fact that she loves this site more than life itself reason enough! She’s obviously smart, funny, and has great taste!

While other peeps frown on all things piling up on the outer regions of the “internets,” she’s blazing a trail and making her way to bring happiness to the masses!

Me and Bubbe making cream puffs!

Also, did I mention her cream puffs? Obviously that isn’t meant as dirty as it sounds, but homegirl can cook too!

We might just do a Vlog with us cooking up some treats one day which is sure to wow the masses! We’re a match made in heaven: she’s sweet, witty, and caring and I’m just funny to look at!

Please google “Annie smack that Fannie” right now!

In all seriousness, one moment doesn’t define someone’s lifetime, but for all intents and purposes – Bubbe literally broke the mold when she hatched Annie-Smack-That-Fannie! Yes folks, the awesomeness carried over when she birthed the holiest of all pigeon-pooping-people and has raised a smart, funny, caring, Immodiumabuser obsessed woman in her image! Take it from me when I say that the internet is forever grateful for that and one only needs to google “Annie smack that Fannie” to see why!

The apple didn’t fall far from the tree…and the poop didn’t fall far from the pigeon!

For all these and many more reasons – I celebrate you today and always! You’re truly a special lady and I hope you have a great day!

Also, did I mention those cream puffs?

And for your birthday – here’s a shot of me and Darryl Strawberry, right before our dance off.

Ok one more. Here’s one of me and Hal Prince to make you feel young again – you look like a teen next to him!

He’s 91 years old and has ten times the energy I do!

CelebriTuesdays: Beauty and the Beard! Taylor Dayne & Zakk Wylde!

February 12, 2018February 16, 2018 / www.immodiumabuser.com / 2 Comments

Two musicians that could not be more different were both visiting Sirius and who knew it was their lucky day: they got up close and personal with the Immodium Abuser! None other than 80’s big voice, big hair, and big ballad legend Taylor Dayne and former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist and Black Label Society founder Zakk Wylde.

Taylor Dayne is a legend of big 80’s ballads and bigger hair, and she was all bundled up to brave the winter chill, still took time to meet and take pictures when she was on her way out from visiting Sirius. “Taylor, my wife and I saw you in Aida on Broadway a few years ago” I said as we met. She laughed and looked at me with a big smile and there was that famous big voice: “That was way more than a few years ago.” We both chuckled, then I actually had to go back and look it up and that was way back in 2001. She’s right that was way more than a few years ago which begs the obvious question – how does she still look so good and I look like Charlie Brown’s father?

Where the hell did the time go? I feel like it was just yesterday that she was signing Tell it to My Heart and I’ll Always Love You, but apparently that’s now called musac. Most of her songs are older than kids currently graduating college and that my friends is exactly why getting old sucks! But she was really cool and I was stoked to meet her!

Zakk Wylde on the other hand truly lives up to his name and certainly is a Wylde man. He’s the former guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne and founder of the band Black Label Society. I asked for a picture and as we were taking it, he looked at the way I was standing and said “No way Dude – you gotta pose like this with your fist!” Who was I to say no to a request like that? My wife thinks this picture makes me look tough and since they just announced a casting call for the West Side Story that Steven Spielberg is remaking, maybe I’ll use this as my headshot to illustrate my street cred…

Full disclosure, if I wasn’t terrified that Zakk would have kicked the shit out of me I would have asked him to drape that flowing beard over my head so I can see what I’d look like with hair – now that would have been a great picture! Also, the man was wearing a chain. I don’t mean he was wearing a chain like MR. T – I mean he was wearing a chain like the kind that Mr. T would lock his gates with!

Giving new meaning to the expression “Yanking my chain!”

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a lot about fashion, but a chain like that definitely makes a statement. What statement that is exactly, I’m not sure, but I certainly couldn’t pull that off. For one thing, how strong must your belt loops be to hold that baby up? Seriously, what kind of special pants are they – the chain weighs more than a toddler and yet he’s rolling though like its business casual. I’m tired walking to my car just holding my head up so I’d be exhausted hauling that thing around all day.

How does one even sit down with that chain on? It’s almost like there should be a gigantic pocket watch attached to the end of it just to show how absurd it is – but on him it works! The real challenge I see is if you’re walking by and your jam comes on: You Can’t Stop the Feeling when those hips start shaking. One wrong hip shake and you’ll see exactly what LL Cool J meant in Mama Said Knock You Out!

Mama said knock you out music video

Either way, it was my very own version of Beauty and the Beard without the teapot! Wylde man was awesome as was the Dayne with the Mane and at the end of the day, couldn’t we all use just a little more Taylor Dayne in our day?

CelebriTuesdays: My fight with Floyd Mayweather!

August 29, 2017 / www.immodiumabuser.com / Leave a comment

I didn’t actually realize that there’d be a fight this weekend as I didn’t hear a peep about it anywhere. I’m so amazed that none of my 5,000 friends on Facebook even talked about it – especially because I seem to know such boxing experts.

OK, obviously I’m kidding around because I really am very lucky to be friends with such boxing aficionados. The non-stop barrage of memes and posts and then the begging for any way to get out of paying to watch the fight (so not ghetto at all) that I’d forgotten about when I had my tussle with Floyd Mayweather.

Don’t mind me, just stalking here in the window. As you were…

Full disclosure, I never really had a tussle with Mayweather so much as I had to hustle which rhymes with tussle, which is a pretty close distinction in my book. After hearing about the Mayweather – McGregor fight relentlessly, my wife said “didn’t you see him on the street?” and I was like “No, where would I see him – Macy’s? as if we run in the same circles totally forgetting that in fact, we do. I was leaving work one day and stumbled upon a massive crowd while he was out jewelry shopping in NYC. As most people do, he was just trying to blend in nonchalantly like an everyday guy out shopping. No one might have even noticed him except for the crowd of paparazzi with cameras and his gigantic posse of security. I mean gigantic in the number of security members and size of said guards. It was like he had his very own Grizz and Dot Com – TIMES TEN.

I’m really not one to question anyone’s physical abilities – especially considering the fact that I’m about as tough as a third grade girl on crutches – but I thought he was a pretty tough dude and he was traveling with more security than certain government dignitaries.

I’m not the most alert person in the world, but seeing a crowd of about a hundred people staring into the window of a jewelry store gave me a hint that someone was around, but I couldn’t tell who it was. All I could see through the big crowd of people jockeying for position was those security guards and glimpses of his big sunglasses which were totally unnecessary for a January afternoon by the way. The lady next to me told me what was going on with a sneer, as if I should be able to readily identify anyone with no line of sight through a big crowd like that; another reason to wish I had that bionic eye like Colonel Steve Austin. The stalker in me went into stealth mode, and repeated the mantra my training instilled in me: What would Mr. T do?

With Mr. T in my corner, I’m unstoppable! No fools will be pitied today!

As Floyd was leaving the store, I hit the pavement bobbing and weaving like him on Saturday night to get through the crowd. I ducked, I dodged, I zigged, zagged then ran to the corner – just like my training taught me. Side note: by “my training”, I mean repeat viewings of Mr. T’s iconic performance as Clubber Lang in Rocky III. As fast as I was, Mayweather rushed out quickly and he wasn’t stopping. No one, and I mean no one, was getting close enough to get a picture with him so I had to settle for my patented chase and snap. I got a few pics and actually was close enough to hear him chatting up the reporters, but he didn’t get a real interaction with me which we can all agree was a big loss for him that day!

So as we digest and regurgitate last weekend’s fight until all of my Facebook boxing experts move on to their next area of expertise – Texas flooding and destruction – let’s remember that if only I talked smack and possibly got closer to pop him in the chops right there on Fifth Avenue, I could have gotten my ass kicked last week in Vegas and scored a huge payday.

For a smart guy, I’m actually pretty dumb at times: PART TWO

August 9, 2017November 23, 2018 / www.immodiumabuser.com / Leave a comment

Most people look back at something lthey’ve written five years ago and think about how they’ve grown and matured, but I look back at this and think: I haven’t learned one damn thing! I’m still the same stupid ass I always was, if not worse because I’m now older and more set in my ways. The one thing I do know for sure is that I still always think people are kidding with me and it still gets me into trouble every time.

One would think after the countless times that I’ve embarrassed myself that I’d have learned a lesson or two, but the only thing I’ve learned is that of the senses I have – common sense isn’t one of them.

One day at work, my boss ambled in to our morning meeting looking scattered and disheveled as usual, so I didn’t think anything of it. He looked up and paused before he said “Sorry I’m late, we had to have my wife committed last night.” Take that in and think about what a normal response to that should be. Now think what my reaction was. Apparently, its bad form and not the correct response to start laughing hysterically when someone shares that kind of personal information, but I truly didn’t realize he was being serious. He wasn’t a jokester or anything like that, but everyone has their moment now and then. Everyone was staring at me as if I was the crazy one, when I said “Oh right, my wife is nuts, should I commit her too?” Come to find out – the wife really was all sorts of crazy and he really did have her committed the night before. Of course I felt terrible when I realized he wasn’t kidding, I’m not an animal…but he did have to tell me three more times because I really thought he was playing around on a Monday morning. I mean, who says personal things like that in front of a moron like me? Thank God he was used to being around crazy at home so he didn’t hold a grudge against me.

I won’t even get into the time that I didn’t believe that my uncle had committed suicide because it was April First. I got the call and was like “April Fool’s Day? Sure it’s real. Ha ha, jokes on you.” Never once did it occur to me that no one in their right mind (even my crazy, crazy sister) would ever joke about something like that. In my defense, I was also really wasted so my sister had to repeat it to me more than ten times before I took her seriously. I’m not proud of that, but it was April first and I was wasted and I mean, come on, it was April Fool’s Day – I’m not counting that one. I will admit though, it wasn’t a shining moment for my highlight real…

Worse than that, if you can believe it, was the time I was at work and we had a new assistant named Miriam who was on her second day of work. Her second day of work and there she was, doubled over in pain at her desk. I’m pretty sure we can stop here and safely say that any person in the world with absolutely any sense whatsoever would have immediately stopped and called an ambulance, but of course, not me. I thought for sure that she was messing around. No joke, I was a hundred percent convinced that she was screwing with me. In hindsight, who in their right mind would kid around about that on their second day of work, but at that moment in time, I could have sworn that she was kidding. Here she is doubled over kneeling on the floor next to her desk and I was standing there grilling her – trying to “catch her” in the joke. She’s groaning in pain and says “Tony, I need an ambulance…I’m not sure what’s wrong with…” and I cut her off and I was like “Oh right…you’re not doing well…what happened? Did you eat in the employee cafeteria?” and was laughing to myself. She nodded yes and then I thought for sure she was kidding. It was right around then that she had started to attract a crowd of other people around who thankfully had a lot more sense than me and called an ambulance.

I was trying to tell her to stop playing around because if they call the ambulance, there’s no turning back and they won’t think it’s funny if she’s fooling around, but all I got were confused looks and icy stares…it wasn’t until the paramedics finally showed up and as they were loading her onto the stretcher, they asked her who she wanted to go in the ambulance with her, that I started to almost believe that she might not be kidding after all. She looked at them and then at me with fear and concern, and then she shot me the look that told me very loud and clear that there was absolutely no way she wanted me to go with her, and she chose Lauren instead. Obviously a smart move. I wasn’t officially offering to go, but if she would have requested me, how could I say no. Even I’m not that mean.

I’m not proud to say, that even after seeing her rolled out on that stretcher moaning in pain, that for some odd reason I still didn’t really, one hundred percent believe that she wasn’t kidding until Lauren called from the hospital a few hours later to say that Miriam was being prepped for surgery. Apparently, it was really serious and she needed to have her gall bladder removed because it had ruptured. Picture me with egg on my face as everyone was mad at me as if it were my fault and I was the one that ruptured that gall bladder. I did feel terrible when I heard that and then I felt even worse when her husband called me to apologize because she’d have to be out of work for a week or two and he wanted to tell me how sorry she was for this happening at work on day two. I could not apologize enough and reassure him that it was OK, but I’m sure he was thinking what an ass I was the whole time.

After that incident, we actually had to institute the use of a safe word at work which I will circle back and talk about another time. I would like to say that a lot of people that I worked with needed the safe word to know when something was serious, but I’m pretty sure it really was just for me…I bet a lot of people have this happen to them, but since I was in charge of the department, apparently, I should have been an example and come to find out – it’s frowned upon when the boss is an idiot and can’t recognize that someone in distress obviously needs medical attention. I’d like to say that I have learned my lesson, but I wouldn’t hang around me if you’re not feeling well. After all, I am the same idiot my wife had to tell ten times that she was in labor after her water broke, because I thought she was kidding around. In fairness to me, it was during a hurricane where we had no power and it was storming like mad outside, so I thought for sure that she was messing with me. Apparently, a lot of women don’t really play jokes when they’re in labor…Point taken.

Hopefully in five more years, I won’t be revisiting another debacle I caused because I didn’t believe someone, but odds are pretty set against me learning any lessons or gaining any insight into the inner workings of a normal mind. Be careful folks and if you’re friends with me, be extra careful as my stupidity knows no bounds…

My life story

Three Quick Things

November 22, 2013November 22, 2013 / www.immodiumabuser.com / 16 Comments

1. Glozell’s Cinnamon Twerk video is absolutely awesome. She’s taken her Cinnamon Challenge to another level – and it’s hysterical. Check her out and then look around her you tube channel – she’s got some crazy stuff on there…

2. The Mayor of Toronto Rob Ford is my second favorite politician. (No one will ever top The Rent is Too Damn High Guy – Jimmy McMillan. Besides buying crack from Somali drug dealers and getting filmed smoking it, he rammed into a lady like he was one of the bulls in Pamplona, and he gave a fantastic press conference extolling the virtues of marriage while denying kitty cat snack accusations (watch the second video clip below and this will make sense). If he is not the next reality show superstar – a great injustice will have been done. Ron Burgundy sang a reelection song for him and had Kanye not already got down on bended knee and already proposed, Kim KarTrashian would have been stuck to him like wallpaper…

It makes me a little sad that the Surreal World isn’t still on. Can’t you just see Mr. Mayor, Chuck Norris, Mr. T, Flavor Flav, Charo, and David Hasselhoff all trying to just get along and live together?

YOU MUST SEE HIS GREATEST HITS VIDEOS HERE AND HERE!!!

3. I am grateful and thanked my wife for supporting me through the NYC Marathon training and on Race Day, but there is another thank you that is due: I want to take this moment to thank the makers of NipEaze.

When they say that this product discreetly conceals and protects nipples, they mean it. I was so confident that I felt like I had my own security team guarding my guns. Not to be gross, but I have been that guy with the blood soaked shirt. I walked in from the park one day and my shirt looked as if I had just taken two gun shots to the chest in a driveby. Unbeknownst to me, I was running around rocking a sweaty tee with giant red stains through the park. Who knew nipples bled and who knew nipples bled that much? I mean, there was a lot of blood…

NipEaze, you have earned your rightful place next to Imodium AD in my life. What you have given me can never be repaid and the extent to which I appreciate you can never be fully verbalized…They’re sweat proof, breathable, discreet, and really stay on there. I sweat like a whore in church, but those little anchors were firmly in place for the duration. They even come in two sizes, but remember that for best results, NipEAZE should not be larger than the outside diameter of the areola.

I know what you must be thinking “what’s the big deal and why is this fool talking about his nipples so much?” and before I was a runner I didn’t understand and appreciate my nips either. Like the Shakira song says “These Nips Don’t Lie.” I took them for granted and abused them when I ran a half marathon over the Summer and thought a Pacman band aid could do the job of a mighty hero. It was no use, these poor little nips were hurt, sore, and irritated like nobody’s business. It was as if I got a super-sized purple nurple by King Kong nine times in a row.

This is an actual picture of me resting after finishing the marathon…

Don’t even ask about the pictures they take on race day either. My shirt was sweaty and stuck to me like saran wrap around chopped meat so badly that my nipples were protruding through my shirt like a meerkat on sentinel duty. I looked like a third string extra from Baywatch…Did you ever see Meatloaf in Fight Club – that was me! I was actually looking at the pictures taken at the race when my friend Beena came rolling by and took one look at them and told me that I needed to call the photographer immediately and threaten legal action if he didn’t delete those shots immediately. Not my best moment…

Either way, I appreciate the support (literally) and wanted to thank them. If anyone had told me six months ago that I’d be parading running tights, a du rag and nipple shields publicly and proudly through Central Park, I would have popped them right in the chops but here I am today sharing my bits and pieces for the world!

Can I get a side of whoop ass with that toast Jan?

August 23, 2012February 5, 2018 / www.immodiumabuser.com / 3 Comments

There’s really not anyplace to eat near the fat camp, especially late at night. After closing down the local bar, we were always hungry and looking for someone to take us to the diner. It was the only place to get something to eat 24 hours a day and I could never drive because I was always completely drunk. The food was unbearable if you were sober but, like I said, it was the only thing open late-night and thankfully, we were never sober in there. We went there so much that Jan the waitress became quite fond of me. When I say that she became quite fond of me, I mean that she would put up with my nonsense because I was always drunk and obnoxious…

Jan was very patient with the drunks and she made really good toast. She had a tendency to screw up my order, but I usually attributed that to my pickiness and slurring drunken speech – not her waitressing skills. Jan was in her mid-fifties, had big hair like Flo from Mel’s Diner, had extremely long nails, and had a deep raspy voice from many years of chain smoking. I know exactly what you’re thinking and you’re right; she was hot!

Jan, Is that you?

One night I was out with my cousin Leaky and her friend Diana. She was a nice enough girl, but she was extremely intimidating and she didn’t take shit from anyone. She didn’t appreciate my sarcasm – which she let me know often – and was actually more like a bodyguard than a friend. Let me try to paint a picture and tell you about Diana – she was built just like a FedEx drop-off box, had both her eyebrows, her lips, and ears pierced with all manner of metallic symbols and objects, a razor-thin moustache over that constant frown, and she had really short curly red hair like a certain little orphan whose name rhymes with Fannie. Picture a female Mr. T without the jewelry and you’re not far off. I used to like to refer to her as “the Enforcer” but obviously not to her face since I was afraid of her. I really do say it about a lot of people, but she truly was crazy.

Put a curly wig on top and it’s not that far off from what she actually looks like.

To illustrate her insanity, we were in her car after picking up another friend, when she saw a guy randomly walking down the street. She threw on the brights and gassed it to the floor! The guy saw her veering towards him and bolted off while she was screaming out the window “Why are you running? Why are you hiding behind that car” as she was holding the horn down and swerving at him. Did I mention it was after midnight on a weeknight on a random side street? I was like; “Hello crazy, of course he’s running away like Carl Johnson – You’re chasing him down a dark street”…Needless to say the guy went running scared through someone’s yard towards the next block over to get away from this lunatic.

So back to the diner – Diana agreed to take us because she hadn’t been drinking and I was starving and whining non-stop about going. As we walked in the diner, I could see the look of grave concern on Jan’s face and I just assumed that she was as puzzled about Diana’s hair and clothing choices as we were. Apparently, I was much worse than usual in my level of drunkedness. I thought I was acting all subtle and smooth like jazz but, in hindsight, there was nothing subtle about me stumbling in the door and screaming: “Jan, I will fuck you on this counter RIGHT NOW if you bring me some rye bread toast immediately.” I’m not saying for sure whether she wanted it or not, but that was the quickest toast I have ever gotten in any diner, anywhere before or since.

Everyone in the diner thought it was funny and was laughing: everyone except for Jan. Jan proceeded to scold me and threaten to throw me out…”You can’t act like that in here. You better behave or you’re out again” to which I started giggling uncontrollably. Then she got mad and screamed “Out! You’re not doing this tonight” and had her hand strategically positioned on her hip while the other hand waived me towards the door like an air traffic controller with a flare. I begged her to let me stay since I was starving and anyway I didn’t have the keys to the car – I should have taken her advice and left then- little did I know.

Not one of my shining moments…

I really needed to pee so I took a bite of some of that delicious toast and stumbled off to the bathroom urinal to relieve myself. The next thing I remember was someone grabbing my arm and I went all Wu-Tang. I was swinging like Marky Mark in The Fighter because you do not mess with a guy at a urinal in the Men’s Room. That’s how I remember things going down.

What ACTUALLY happened was that I was peeing at the urinal and leaned against the wall for balance and apparently blacked out/fell asleep in the process. Sensing something was wrong since I obviously don’t shit in public with all this Imodium AD flowing through my veins, my cousin thought I needed someone to check on me. I think you can see where this is leading…

She senses something might be off, yet sends Diana in to see if I’m OK. She came in, saw me passed out and grabbed my arm so as not to startle me when I came to. Needless to say, when she grabbed me it startled me and I immediately went all funky bunch and tried to throw a cuff or two. A normal person in that situation would be a little more understanding when a drunken person with absolutely no coordination is throwing punches – not Diana.

Once I went all Iron Mike, Diana responded like Jackie Chan. She threw an elbow, somehow kicked me in the face as I was falling and then threw me onto the floor. She threw me onto the filthy public bathroom floor! As if that wasn’t enough – she dropped on top of me with the sharpest elbow on the East Coast and started punching the drunk out of me. Homegirl got all out crazy and was giving me a full throttle beat-down right there at the urinal. She seemed heavy before – but with the sheer might and gravity of her torso pummeling me, I really thought that deuce and a half of Diana might literally break me. Remember what Bane did to Batman in The Dark Knight Rises – well He’s got nothing on Diana!

Bane or Diana?

I’d like to tell you that I connected with a few good shots in on her as she was picking up her next title fight belt, but the truth is I didn’t connect with anything but the bathroom floor. She was doing a real number on me, but in my defense, I was mostly just trying to get my pants buttoned up and put my junk away. Not the best visual, but imagine my fear about having my privates hit that very public and filthy bathroom floor! No amount of penicillin is gonna make that go away.

Usually in circumstances like this, there is a savior – someone who sees the wrong in this situation and does what they can to assist because it is the right thing to do – not that night! You know who my savior was? Not my cousin, who was laughing at my screams while she finished eating my toast back at our table. No, my savior was Jan who heard the commotion and screaming (mine) and came running in. She kicked the bathroom door open (almost hitting me in the face with it, by the way), grabbed me by my ear and proceeded to drag me out the bathroom towards the front door like I was a rolling suitcase. Turns out she wasn’t saving me at all – she was throwing me out! I thought she was coming to my rescue and was like “Thank God, she’s kicking the shit out of me! What took you so long? Wait, why are you throwing me out – she attacked me!!! Hey that hurts – let go of my ear! Can I at least take the toast to go?” Needless to say, the view from my perch on the front steps where she deposited me was not pretty.

As I sat on the front steps beaten and defeated, I tried trying to compose what was left of my tattered pride and shake it off. I had just been the victim of a drive by ass kicking, and there they were eating and having a good laugh at my expense. I’m sure it would have bothered me more if I hadn’t passed out again while I sat there on the steps leaning against the glass door.

Rye Bread Toast, how I love thee…

Jan actually did bring me some toast out on the steps a little while later – which made me laugh because it confirmed what I already knew to be true: she wanted me….she’s lucky the bully beat down took every drop of energy I had in me or I might have tried to make a move on her…Granted, she didn’t apologize for dragging me out by my poor little delicate ear, but the toast was all I needed to know everything would be all right…

This has absolutely nothing to do with this post – I just thought it was funny.

Is it really the thought that counts or what the f*ck were you thinking?

September 13, 2010December 4, 2015 / www.immodiumabuser.com / 7 Comments

People say that it’s the thought that counts when receiving gifts – but do you know who really says that? The people who don’t get the crappy gift! When you are the one who actually receives and opens the shitty gift, you never think “Oh, it’s the thought”…you think – “What a douche”…

If you don’t agree with that last statement then you obviously have never been given a bath towel that has a white side marked with the word Face and a brown side marked with the word Butt by your father-in-law for Christmas. He said he saw it and thought of me instantly. Not sure what that means exactly, but I never took it too personally because this is the same man who carried one of his wife’s old purses through Europe so he had all of his things at the ready on the plane trips. It’s not even like it could pass for an attaché case or a messenger bag – it was a God damn Coach pocketbook!

It’s not even like I got the matching soap that comes with it!

I’ve never been really good at faking my disappointment at bad gifts. I’ve never been as bad as my sister Marlene who once opened a crayola crayon sweater from an uncle and said “Are you kidding – I’m not wearing this thing.” She was justified when my brother Anthony told her he was sick of giving her bad gifts every year, so he would give her cash for Christmas instead. Come December 25th, she saw a big box with her name on it and sensed trouble right away. She knew that there was no way the box could be filled with cash and she gave him that knowing glance. that glance usually precedes a violent outburst at our family gatherings and he said “I know, I was going to just give you money, but when I saw this I just knew that you would love it.” She proceeded to open a pre-Sue Sylvester red polyester track suit, strikingly similar to the ones worn by those weird kids in The Royal Tannenbaums and she looked at my brother to see if he was serious. He had such a proud smile as if he just gave her the keys to a Range Rover and then she noticed the $14.99 price tag that he had left on it. She first checked the pockets for the gift card that would normally accompany a gag gift like that and then said “Are you fucking kidding me?” she offered – “What happened to you being sorry about always giving bad gifts, so you were going to give me money instead. You spent $14.99 on this.” He didn’t get it and tried to ask where her holiday spirit was, but needless to say that Christmas gift ranks up top with her just above the Island of Misfit Toys dolls that he gave her just two years earlier.

There is a difference if you give a bad gift with a funny intention or if the gift is truly funny. Last year for my Christmas grab bag at work, I put in a bright orange Mr. T Soap on a Rope. It was brand new, but when our admin opened it, she totally didn’t get it. Granted, she is brain-dead and is the queen of the blank stare, but that is a classic gift that people fight over. You just can’t get that everywhere! I gave it to Weezie for her birthday one year and she gave it the ultimate respect that it normally commands – she placed in right into the cleavage of her low-cut shirt and wore it for the rest of the night at the bar.

I usually put a ton of time into thinking what to get a person, but I too have fallen to the dark side and gotten a bad gift or two. Let me start out by saying that I am a whore for a compliment. I was in the mall at Christmastime and you know those kiosks in the aisles that always have the cute foreign girls coming up to you saying they just want to talk to you? They’re dangerous. All it took was two Armenian girls sweet talking me and I left their kiosk with four of The Original Head Trip Tingler Copper Head Massagers:

Copper Head Tingler – Who wouldn’t want to get this as a gift?

Needles to say when my sister unwrapped it – my wife started to laugh; She certainly didn’t expect to find one under our tree at home or one for her mother and sister either. She also didn’t expect that I would spend 100 bucks on shit that no one wants. I fall victim to a compliment from a pretty girl and believe every word – that’s why I can’t be left to shop alone. I once bought a ruffled white shirt that cost $150.00 because the sales girl in Kenneth Cole told me I looked cute like Usher when I tried it on. I, of course, bought it hook, line, and sinker and then got the jeans too because she told me they completed the outfit. I got home thinking how hot I would look and my wife then reminded me that I look nothing like Usher. In fact, I look more like Oprah than Usher – especially since I’m white!!!

arrives at the 52nd Annual GRAMMY Awards held at Staples Center on January 31, 2010 in Los Angeles, California.

The timing of this post might seem suspicious, but I don’t throw this out there now because my birthday is next week and I am afraid of bad gifts. I put this out there now because if you give me bad gifts, I am gonna let you know. And don’t get me a towel that says Butt on it – I didn’t need one, but I certainly don’t need two! And if you give me a bad gift – I will write it here!

Hey Yenta - tell your friends!

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Hey Yenta - tell your friends!

Like this:

Hey Yenta - tell your friends!

Like this:

Hey Yenta - tell your friends!

Like this:

Hey Yenta - tell your friends!

Like this:

Hey Yenta - tell your friends!

Like this:

Hey Yenta - tell your friends!

Like this: