Hasn’t New Jersey been through enough?

toll booth

Forget Sandy, Snookie, and Soprano’s Swan song, New Jersey has had another awful disaster worse than the tanning mom: A man was arrested for defecating in a New Jersey Tollbooth!

http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2013/06/22/Man-arrested-after-exiting-car-and-defecating-in-Holland-Tunnel-booth/UPI-79161371957477/

Forget No Tresspassing - this is the sign they need to hang in there!

Forget No Tresspassing – this is the sign they need to hang in there!

I must credit my friend Ja for notifying me of this, but the first thing I thought of when hearing this is “Was he in the EZ Pass Lane?” That doesn’t sound very EZ to me? And why on earth don’t they lock those toll booths? Can anyone just enter and have your way with the booth? Who stops to go in them, but even if you live out in the boonies, you lock your doors. Not to be gross, but did this clown leave his special package on a chair or on the floor or on the desk; how big is this booth? More importantly, who has to go to work the next day and use that booth? They might clean it up and spray a little Febreeze in there, but I don’t even let people use my desk phone without cleaning it off, so there is absolutely no way that I would ever go back to work and step back into that booth. My favorite part is that he was arrested for trespassing. If someone takes a dump in the tollbooth – that’s a lot more than trespassing!

febreeze-commercials1

This of course reminded me of a story about my friend “Al”. Not many people will cop to as many embarrassing stories about themselves as I will, so he is a good sport for sharing this one. He was about eighteen at the time and was driving on the Expressway in his friend’s station wagon when his stomach started acting up. The Expressway always has traffic and can back up in a heartbeat and since Al was having the exact opposite of a backup, he made them pull that station wagon over.

He got out to squat in between the guardrails separating the two lanes and since it was summer, he wasn’t wearing a shirt, just khaki shorts and sneakers. As he was squatting and holding onto the guardrail for some semblance of support, he was crouching and doing his business while his shorts and tighty-whiteys were around his ankles. This is not an agile man by any means, nonetheless on the side of the road in a well-trafficked area and thus – his business ended up landing with a thud right into his pulled down tightie whiteys and his shorts. Now, if that wasn’t clear I cannot draw you a picture or explain it any further, so just go with me here. The way it landed, he might as well have never gotten out of the car in the first place because his clothing was ruined.

If you don't know this is Smokey from the movie Friday then I'm not sure we can continue to be friends...

If you don’t know this is Smokey from the movie Friday then I’m not sure we can continue to be friends…

Realizing he was in a bad state, Al stepped gingerly out of his underwear and shorts so as to avoid any and all contact, and then he crouched down in between the guardrails for coverage as he thought about what to do next. It was after about ten seconds that he did what anyone might have done in that position: he shot up like a rocket, jumped over the guardrail, and ran for all he was worth. Well, he then found out that his running was worth about ninety cents because his friends had been watching the whole time and once they saw him shoot up naked and start running towards them, they gunned it and sped away as he gave chase.

He was literally running on the side of the road chasing them wearing just a pair of sneakers and a gold chain around his neck with one hand giving his friends the finger and the other holding his junk. They’d slow down just til he got just close enough to almost reach the door handle and then gun it – laughing hysterically as they watched the show out the back window of that station wagon. Even if he ran like Usain Bolt, there was no way he could have caught them!

usain-bolt

About a mile down the road they finally let him in the car and agreed to take him home. Guess who didn’t think it was funny while they laughed their asses off? If you think that was the worst part of his day, then you should have seen the look on his face as they pulled off on his exit about forty minutes later. He almost lost control of himself again when he realized that his abandoned shat-on-shorts were still housing his wallet containing his fake ID and house keys in the pocket.

He made them drive him back to the scene of the earlier crime, but with traffic getting back there and actually finding the exact spot again, about two hours had passed by in that oppressive August heat. He was afraid of a repeat incident with them pulling away again (although now they had given him a towel to wrap around himself for modesty or to protect the seat from a bare ass in summer) so he took the car keys with him as he left to retrieve his wallet.

Who could predict the massive swarm of flies that would have been surrounding that awful pile of clothing laying there in the mid-day heat, but he needed his fake ID out of that wallet so he dug through and got it. He sprinted back to the car but not before throwing up on the side of the road. This was way before the days of Purell, so I’m sure he stunk to high heaven…

purell_handsoap

The moral of this story isn’t “be careful who you hang out with because friends can screw with you and this can happen to you.” The moral of the story is “Take Imodium AD and this CAN’T happen to you!
For all parties involved, thank God this was way before camera phones as no one should bear witness to that.

In all seriousness, this is the exact reason I am addicted to Imodium AD. I take toll roads, I commute on a train, I travel highways…I wouldn’t be able to leave the house because every misstep spreads like the wildfire through the internet that I’d be a viral sensation the next time I have something other than white rice for lunch.

It’s not a Murse – I prefer to call it my Mocketbook!

If Indy says it's not a murse, who am I to argue?

I came to a realization at work today: My black messenger bag has turned into a full throttle purse. I’m sure that it’s the real intention Kenneth Cole had when he designed the bag, but no one else will admit it. Why do they even call it a messenger bag anyway? Have you ever seen a messenger deliver something with a bag strapped across his chest? Of course not.

While searching for a pen, I had to remove two sets of ipod headphones (an extra in case one break) a tide to go stick, Burt’s bees hand sanitizer, six loose quarters, three dimes and four pennies. That was just in the front pocket. So I looked further and here are the items currently residing in my bag:

-Money clip

-Ipod

-2 granola bars – mind you I don’t even like granola bars

-Pack of tissues (unopened and actually forgotten about)

-11 loose napkins

-Ipod portable speakers

-Extra pair of cuff links

-Small bottle of Purell hand sanitizer

-Napkin note of a website I might one day visit for discount eyeglasses that I know I will never use but can’t throw out, just in case.

-Extra six pack of Imodium AD (do I even need to explain that one?)

-1 package of Sweat blotting forehead strips (sometimes the noggin gets oily midday – sue me)

I can't help it - I glisten!

-Ipod AC power adapter

-Autozone receipt for replacement alternator belt

-Blackberry wall charger

-Chapstick

-1 straw (By the way, I don’t even use straws – there’s nothing masculine about straws anyway! People do not take you seriously as you’re sitting there sucking that plastic for all your worth.)

-2 AA Batteries

-1 red pen

-9 Cross pens – silver

-Receipt for CVS for Easter card for my wife

-1 immodiumabuser.com pen

-Extra key to my office

-Master key for the doors at work

-4 packs of Listerine breath strips

-49 business cards

-6 quarters

-4 dimes

-3 pennies

-Ford Focus shaped jump drive

-A handwritten quote from the crazy facilitator at last month’s training session that says “I like to have my eggs poached really hard” with the word really underlined to stress his inflection.

-Another Tide to go stick

-Pocket pal calendar

-Small leather reporter-style notepad with important notes that I took in August 2010 and forgot about

-Large Leather notebook with important notes I took in September 2010 and forgot about

-Portable mouse pad

Wireless mouse

-4 White collar stays (in case the current ones give way or get stolen mid-way through the day)

-3 paperclips

-Toilet seat covers (even thought I never shit in public – JUST IN CASE)

-Miniature roll of toilet paper (it’s a small roll but having it in there is a Big relief – you never know)

GQ Magazine with Zach Galafanakis on the cover

I don’t care for the word “murse” either. I think it’s demeaning and it really doesn’t convey the true value and convenience or the emotional significance that my mocketbook affords me. I can relax and feel comfortable knowing that anything I need is right at my side. It’s my very own relaxation station. Sure, it does get heavy after a while, but I’ll bear that burden if it means that when (not if) I stain my tie at lunch, I can dab it out immediately.

Besides the shoe horn, is this not the best invention ever?

At least I’m not like my wife’s father who actually does carry a purse when he travels. He uses her step-mother’s old Coach bag to carry his stuff through the airport. At the very least, my bag is black, it is NOT a woman’s bag, and is at least functional! He’s carrying a small colorful pocketbook for God’s sake – and how much can that even hold? I have a beer holster strapped to my leg that can carry more than his bag can. I don’t know how he isn’t afraid of purse snatchers… Not to sound sexist, but is it still called a purse snatching when the carrier of the purse is a man?   
 

My wife carries a diaper bag for my son, yet I try to put one or two (or ten) things into it and all of a sudden I’m a bad person. That bag is bigger than the both of us, yet I can’t get a tiny corner for my essentials? It’s not like we can’t take his stuff and mine together in the bag – there’s not a space limit or weight restriction that I don’t know about is there? Why not get a bag with wheels anyway? It’s much more convenient to drag than carry it…

 

While we’re on the subject, I’m not even sure there is a difference between my son’s diaper bag and my mocketbook anyway.  The bottom line is that we both have emergency supplies for cleanup on the off chance one of us shits our pants! Am I wrong? Believe me, if I could fit a change of clothes and toiletries in my bag with all my other shit, I would.      

 

You're telling me there's no room for a few of my things in there?

 

If you’re reading this and thinking that I’m ready for my Hoarders audition, just imagine what my office looks like! This is coming from the same person that keeps an extra bottle of febreze in my car just in case a fart gets trapped in there…

 

I’m all for having something handy in case there’s an emergency, but this is ridiculous – even for me. The bag is heavier than my coffee table and yet I cannot think of one of these things that shouldn’t be in there or that I don’t absolutely need. I realize that I am being obsessive and at this point, excessive, but this shouldn’t count – I need these things.  What’s a guy to do? And guys, what random things are you carrying in your mocketbook?