Shopping

More Rugby Bulges?

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underwear ad

Just thought I’d revisit what people are searching for when they find me and low and behold it hasn’t changed all that much. The most common search term is still rugby bulges.  Also many different forms of my wifes’s mom dot com and Imodium shortage and a couple of notable highlights were ebony-goddess testicle whip & diana vagina.

 

keyboard

 

Nice to see that no matter how much some things change – the basics stay the same!

 

Here’s the original post:

https://immodiumabuser.com/2010/08/18/rugby-bulges-lead-you-herenow-ive-heard-everything/

 

violinist

 

A higher calling or are the standards falling?

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Right, this doesn't seem like an accident waiting to happen...

Right, this doesn’t seem like an accident waiting to happen…

Sort of how Moses was chosen to come down from Mount Sinai with the commandments, my higher calling in life is to deliver unto you crappy stories – literally. I am here to deliver all the poop that’s fit to print!

math

These things don’t happen to most people – except for lucky me. I’m not sure why I’m a turd magnet, but apparently I am. One of the earliest times was in eighth grade math class when Ms. Dickinson wouldn’t let a classmate named Rob out of the room to use the bathroom because she thought he would go smoke instead. She learned never to doubt again when he proceeded to march into her storage closet and take a shit four feet from her in full view. I bet she never made that mistake again – they suspended him for it, but he did ask her nicely for the pass so I kinda think she got what she deserved on that one…

As you can see, my love for the gym started at an early age...

As you can see, my love for the gym started at an early age…

One time at Fat Camp, there was a camper we all hated and he got one of his counselors in a lot of trouble when he ratted Dave out for being wasted during the day. I felt kinda bad because I was the one that made Dave drive me to the bar for happy hour in the first place but he was wasted and at least he didn’t sell me out too…The kid was only there for three weeks and Dave kept saying he was gonna get back at him, but we didn’t pay it any mind. When the kid’s parents came to pick him up, Dave walked him to the car and loaded his duffle bag personally into the trunk and hugged that kid as if they were brothers – very suspicious mind you. We realized why he was so over the top with them when we heard the blood-curdling screams from the kid’s mother moments later. Apparently, Dave got back at the kid by opening his packed duffle bag and hovering above it after lunch to send him home with a souvenir he’d never forget. Who could predict that the kid’s mother would reach into the bag to get his Walkman out for the car ride home before they left camp and she put her hand right into the duffle of defecation…I know the kid was a bastard, and I felt bad for the mother, but I couldn’t help but smile because I knew there was no way that family would ever set foot in the camp again!

What happened to Jordan Catalano? He ate hibachi...

What happened to Jordan Catalano? Hibachi fire…

My wife and I were meeting another couple out for dinner at a hibachi restaurant and we were running late because I was trying to force her to stop for food on the way. I don’t like a regular ethnic restaurant, nonetheless one where they cook it in front of you – without gloves mind you – and throw it around: They’re all like “Here, let me throw this shrimp in your shirt pocket” and I’m all like “Here, let me throw this shoe at your face.”  Also, doesn’t really seem safe now does it? Get a little too close and your face and eyebrows will melt off like my Aunt Wink. We meet up with the other couple and went to the hostess for seating. Since there would be a short wait, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to hit the little boy’s room and wash my hands.

who throws a show

As I walked in, I was overwhelmed with how bad the room smelled. I couldn’t immediately decipher if it was the odor of the bathroom or the spices being used in the kitchen. I went into the stall to get some toilet paper to blow my nose and stopped dead in my tracks. A dead body would have been less shocking, but right there in the stall was a pair of dirty men’s boxer shorts on the floor right in front of the toilet. When I say that there were dirty boxers on the floor, I don’t mean that they had a sweat stain on them; what I mean by dirty is that someone had shit their pants in a major way and left the boxer shorts in front of the toilet with the eggs still in the crate if you know what I mean.

As a person that has also lost their shit many times as if it was a hobby or my minor in college, I can empathize with the situation. What I cannot understand is how an animal might do that in a restaurant and then step out of the boxers and then leave them on the effing floor. Who does that? Did he go back to his table? Was he on a date? Imagine how lucky that lady is… Was there a patron in the dining room now going post-deuce commando? More importantly, did he seek medical attention, because that guy probably wasn’t OK after that…

After gagging in the sink, I ran out of the bathroom – lest anyone see that explosion in there and think it was my doing. I ran straight over to the hostess and explained. “It was not me! I have underwear on! I have underwear on! (At this point I lifted my shirt and pulled out the elastic of my underwear to show her and prove I wasn’t going commando.) She was looking at me like I was crazy as I tried to explain the disaster I just witnessed – but she glared at me almost mad with half suspicion that I was crazy and half disgust that I was telling her something so nasty. “Call housekeeping, call the police, or call your mother lady, but for God’s sake call someone in there right now!”

At that point, I tried to explain to my wife and the other couple because they thought I was fooling around. Who fools around and makes something like that up I do not know, but the restaurant sent reinforcements in right away. I didn’t want to eat there beforehand, but now that I had been traumatized, less so. Then I couldn’t stop fixating that it might be one of their employees so I was eyeing every waiter, bus boy, and cook up and down to see if anyone was walking strangely or seemed suspicious…Needless to say not a good night to be eating out…

As if that weren’t enough to make me sick, today at the gym it was de ja vu! I went to wash my face off after my workout and walked past the shower stalls when low and behold – there was a deuce in the stall. A deuce in the shower stall! I stopped dead in my tracks because I couldn’t believe that someone would do that not even ten feet from the bathroom stalls. Who shits in the shower? That can’t have possibly happened on accident – who accidentally shits themselves in the shower? I know it’s probably too late for me not to be disgusting, but it was a solid turd – there is no way that slipped out without someone knowing. If you really have no control of something like that happening, please consider a diaper if you run on the treadmill…Now who still doesn’t think they need flip flops in the gym showers?

flip flops in shower

I’m not condoning these actions because some of them are pretty gross – I’m just reporting it.  I am literally, giving you the turd’s eye view of the situation. This is just a sampling, but I think we need to start handing out Imodium on the street like pamphlets- it’s an outright contagion and I have to watch my step – literally.

You down with OCD, yeah you know me…my Toiletries regiminent revisited

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Anyone who knows me can tell you that I am under absolute duress to be ready for anything in any reasonable amount of time. Even more than that, I can’t even get ready in an unreasonable amount of time. Celebrities don’t take this long to prep for the Oscars – but for me to run to the supermarket is a production. I have tried things to quicken the pace, but sort of like a gentle soufflé, you cannot rush certain things.

My wife always argues with me about how long it takes me to get ready, but while she looks absolutely perfect and requires very little touch-ups from the moment she rises out of bed, when I wake up I look like one of the zombies marching in back of the float in the Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance video.

My toiletry regimen alone is a great big process in and of itself: I set my Ipod for one song and then get in the shower. It should not take longer to shower than one random song. That’s not the time-consuming part. The exception to this one-song rule is if you have fallen into the cesspool (Lance) or had a plumbing pipe full of shit (literally, full of shit) explode into your mouth and onto your chest (Hal) – At that point, take as long as you feel necessary in there and no one will say a word.

Back to the routine; I like to start at the top and then work my way down. The opening act, or my first facial scrub, is just a tingly little wake-up call and then we head straight for the follow-up nourishing face wash and immediately into the Bliss face wash after that. I then grab my two thickening shampoos (it’s sort of the same philosophy that I have with Pumpkin muffins, where if one is good – two will be much better) and wash my hair. Obviously, the shampoo is dripping down my body and I would need to scrub again after it – so it just makes sense to use the body bar after the hair is done. Moving on to my Oil of Olay Age Defying soap for certain parts of the body – though never on this gentle face with a bar soap! I actually don’t understand why anyone would choose to use a bar of soap to wash their body and then use that SAME bar to wash their face. Any bar of soap that touches my feet or cleans my balls surely isn’t going anywhere near my face!

Blue Body wash is next for the rest of my body that the soap doesn’t cover. I don’t mind scents, but I feel like it needs to be blue or it won’t fully clean me. I don’t know why blue body wash strikes me as more thorough – but I just can’t use another color. Then I dry off and get my robe and waist towel (what my wife lovingly refers to as a skirt) and put on my Birkenstocks so my clean feet won’t touch the ground. Did I forget to mention that I HATE to be barefoot and just cannot do it? Nothing gets me worked up more than that. OK, the beach does – I mean you’re sitting in dirt – It doesn’t make any sense!!!

(I actually had a mini panic attack at the airport last summer when I rushed out of the house in flip-flops not thinking and then had to go through security when I got to the airport. I almost scrapped the whole trade show that I was going to for work when they told me I had to take the flip-flops off. I asked for some napkins or paper towels so I wouldn’t have to walk on the floor – but they looked at me like I was the crazy one. Needless to say the sight of me scrubbing my feet in the men’s bathroom sink immediately after going through security didn’t go over well. Two people looked at me like I just escaped from the mental hospital and another told me that I was crazy. Screw them – people can shave in the sink and hair is everywhere, but one foot on the counter sets them off? I was balancing like Nadia Comaneci because if one of my barefoot little toes had touched that disgusting airport bathroom floor – they would have taken me out on a stretcher right into the ambulance.)

For my next act, I move straight into oral hygiene and start with my Listerine pre-rinse and floss and Q-Tips to check for wax or and then grab my Radius toothbrush to start on the choppers with my Tom’s of Maine fennel toothpaste. Don’t let them fool you, if it’s not fennel – it’s not fine. I will not use a toothbrush that isn’t Radius – it just gets the job done! If you haven’t tried it – get one right now. Your brushing will shoot right up to the next level and you’ll be thanking me for it for years to come. The zesty tingle after a good brushing just starts me on the right path and keeps me going all day.

If you were just thinking that I was finished and ready to leave the bathroom, you would be mistaken. The next stop on the OCD Express is my eye serum for the bags under my eyes (regular face creams are just not gentle enough for this area) then we move on to the T-Zone cream (for the nose and forehead) which tends to be an oilier area so you have to use a product of a different consistency and then I finish up with my gentle SPF Facial cream for the chin, cheeks, and neck area.

I hit the Styling Paste to spruce up this thin crow’s nest I’m calling my hair these days, and then an extra healthy spot of Rogaine Foam. Rogaine is the only one of my toiletries I have a heavy hand with – you never know. I now head for the brush to get my hair under control and give it a “look.” With my hair, I try to go for the “messy, cover-up” look to make it look thicker, but it usually just comes across as the “desperate, comb-over” look.

We haven’t even gotten to the deodorant (Spray? No way!) and cologne yet. Lately, I have been going back and forth between Tiffany for Men and Diesel. I’m actually a little scared of using the Diesel at full force with more than one squirt – so I go very sparingly. It says right there on the bottle in big letters to “Use with Caution” and I take that warning very seriously. Seriously, the last thing I need is to go waltzing into work after one too many squirts of Diesel and set that little minx in Accounting off into a Diesel infused stupor. Instead of her flirting with the Subway guy at lunch like she usually does, she’ll be trying to steal the pickle off my McRib sandwich! That’s the power of Diesel!

I grab the tweezers for a quick little maintenance check and to make sure there is no hair trying to escape out of my nostrils or ears. There is absolutely nothing more offensive or careless than nose hair. There’s just no excuse for it. Why don’t we use this as the general rule of thumb for nose hair from now on: If you can grab it and twirl it or if small children can jump rope with it – there’s a problem. If your nose hair is long enough to floss your teeth with – stay the hell home and trim it!

If this is you – by all means trim that!

One last check in the mirror for the once over and then I am ready to leave the bathroom and pick out clothes to wear. I did leave out one minor detail which doesn’t help my time spent in the bathroom: I have to do all of these things a certain number of times and simply cannot veer off of that. If I don’t brush my teeth forty-five times – I need to start over. If I don’t rub the Rogaine on my head into a circle seventy-five times – I need to start over. Also, if I go out of order in my routine in any way, I need to start over. That’s not a joke either – I don’t think of it as compulsive, I think of it as thorough. I will literally get back in the shower and start over.

If this sounds excessive or crazy, just imagine that I shower multiple (3 – 5) times a day. When I wake up (obviously), every time I take a shit, if it’s summer and I’m sweaty – add at least two more showers that day, before I got to the gym, when I get back from the gym…It’s actually a good thing that I’m overweight and have decided to cut out my time at the gym so I don’t risk a heart attack or I would have to get up even earlier than I already do to take another shower.

This doesn’t even take into consideration me wearing gloves to sleep in after I apply the hand cream. Since I wash my hands so much, I constantly have really dry hands. They’re so dry that when I shake hands with someone, they wince in pain because my paws feel like sandpaper. Add my blinders that I can’t sleep without and you can imagine how much my wife enjoys co-habitating with me.

If you didn’t feel bad for my wife before this – I’m sure you have now joined the growing crowd that does. I actually used to feel really bad for her too because she is so patient, but then one day I stopped. The day that I stopped feeling bad was the day that her and her crazy sister actually jumped me in their mother’s basement to try to “Cure me” of my OCD. They had seen a documentary where this lady got a vacuum cleaner dumped on her head while she was duct taped to a chair and they got inspired. She sat there crying her eyes out and the light bulb went off above their heads.

When I say that they jumped me, I actually mean that they jumped on top of me and threw me to the ground while the two of them tried to remove their shoes and put their bare feet on my face. Their fucking bare feet on my face! Who they thought that would help, I certainly don’t know, but I went all Wu Tang on them like I was back on the streets. OK, I was never actually on the streets and there are grade School kids tougher than me, but at that moment – I imagined myself a gang member or as the epitome of strength and courage: Chuck Norris.

At this point in the game when two crazy bitches get all up in your grill like that – the “don’t hit a girl” rules fail to apply. I was all Chris Brown throwing punches left and right at those girls. Luckily for them I have as much coordination as a newborn kitten and I punch like a five-year old girl, so I was mostly hitting myself. I was screaming for help to old lady Ann that lived next door but to no avail. I was bobbing and weaving like Muhammad Ali and was finally able to get away and run up the stairs to freedom (and another shower.) Yep – they knocked me to that basement floor and there was no way that I wasn’t going to need a shower.

I grew up in a house with a crazy kamikaze sister who would turn into the flying Whoozini and attack out of nowhere and now here I was married to another ninja attacker and her crazy wombat sidekick. Needless to say, it’s been years since that happened, but I still never turn my back on either sister at family functions for fear of a repeat performance. Sometimes life just isn’t fair!

One of my many Ah-Shit Moments (Literally!) – Part One

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In case you've ever wondered about my office - this is where I write all my posts.

Whenever people tell me “You know what made me think of you the other day…” I always interrupt them because I know where it’s going. I say “I bet you were in the bathroom or it has to do with poop, right?” and you know what, it almost always (like 99.99% of the time) is one of those two scenarios.  Some people might think that’s weird, but I take it as a huge compliment. In the same way that Oprah taught us to understand and share our Aha! moments – I want to give the world a forum for their “Ah-Shit” moments. I’ll start with one of mine.

I’m sure that if you were brave enough to delve deep through the cavernous pile of nonsense in my noggin – this incident might have been one of the driving forces of my Imodium AD addiction.  As I’ve mentioned before, when I was in Elementary School I used to incite the girls that I liked so that they’d chase me around and then beat me up when they caught me. There was a girl in second grade named Jennifer who could run faster than any of the other girls (and most of the boys) in our class. When she eventually caught up to me – and she always did – she would tackle me, take hold of my hand and ankle and then swing me around so fast like a carnival ride…Granted, she would eventually let me go and I’d usually go flying face-first into a chain link fence or a brick wall, but she did hold my hand for those few brief moments…She was crazy but I never minded being the Tina to her Ike.

One day, after a particularly rowdy dose of ass-kicking, Mrs. D (the aide on the playground that afternoon) called me over and made me stand against the Gym wall as punishment for letting the girls beat me up again. “It’s OK though, I like it” I tried to explain to her, but apparently that was the wrong thing to say. Far be it from me to argue, but isn’t it odd to punish the victim? Wasn’t I the one who was tossed into the air like a Frisbee? I wasn’t one to question authority back then so I went and took my place of shame against the dreaded wall. I tried to ask how long I had to stand there, but it was no use – I was shut down with every syllable.
As I stood there thinking about my next flight into orbit courtesy of Jennifer’s private airline, I started to get really bad stomach pains. As an adult, I know those pains oh so well and recognize the significance of them, but as a young lad – I couldn’t begin to understand the tell-tale warning alarms that were going off right then.  It was a Quick-Hitter and time was of the essence.

“Mrs. D, I don’t feel so well…” I muttered. “Don’t pretend to be sick – you’re staying against that wall!” she said as she walked away tooting her whistle at another kid acting up.

My stomach was making some crazy noises and gurgling something fierce and I just knew something was wrong; it was like a wave of warmth came over my body and it just didn’t feel right. It subsided for a second and I thought that I might be OK when I realized (a little too late) that I need to get off that playground and head into higher ground (i.e. get to a bathroom). I took a few gentle steps in the direction of the gym door but after the first step I realized it was a big mistake to rock the applecart. I tried to quicken my pace, but after about five steps, I had to grab onto the wall to steady myself because there was an explosion. It felt like a bullet had pierced my stomach because there was intense pain and then it was as if a flash of lightning shot right through my body. “Oh God” I cried out and braced for impact.

Clenching was futile as this was a force that was just too powerful for my nine year old buttocks – it was like a tornado tearing through a fence. This may sound strange, but as soon as the warmth shot through me (along with everything that I had eaten for lunch) there was a moment of relief that the pain had stopped. Granted, it was a quick moment immediately followed by the realization that I was on a playground full of people covered in shit.

I made a full-on sprint towards the door as fast as I could, but I’m not sure if you realize how difficult it actually is to try and run with a full pair of tightie whities immediately after a gastric explosion. By the time I got to the door, I was covered head to toe and there was shit everywhere. It was running up my body, down my legs, across my back (because my shirt had been tucked in) and falling out my pant legs. I was leaving a trail that Hansel and Gretel couldn’t miss, but I just couldn’t stop running.

I headed straight in the door and right towards the one place that always offered me solace: the nurse’s office. As I was running, I was hoping upon everything holy that there wasn’t a line of kids for lice checks in there. By the time I made it to Ms. O’Donnell’s office I thanked God that it was empty. She took one look at me, jumped up from her desk, and sprung into action. I tried to say “You’re not going to believe what happened to me” but before I could even get half the words out of my mouth, she was at my side. In hindsight, I’m not sure that really I needed to explain it to her as it was fairly obvious what had occurred. It might have been the stench I was trailing through the hallway or the fact that I actually looked like I had been dipped in something, but she could tell immediately what was wrong. “Let’s get you out of these clothes” she said gently as she guided me behind the curtain for privacy.

I stood there limp as she started by peeling my T-shirt off of me. It was now soaked through and stuck to me like everything else that I was wearing. She was so nice and calming, and I started to feel a tiny bit better until she tried to take my sneaker off. “Oh my God, it’s everywhere!” she gasped, as one sneaker slipped off, spilling me all over the floor and she realized that my socks were soaked through as well. She peeled my clothes off one layer at a time and immediately placed them into a giant black garbage bag on the floor next to me. I don’t know why she thought there was any chance in hell that bag was getting on the school bus with me, but she soon changed topics and asked me for the phone number to call my mother to come and bring me some new clothes to put on. I started hysterical crying and had to tell her that my mother started a new job and I didn’t know the number. She offered to call my brother out of his class to see if he knew the number, but that was the absolute last thing I wanted her to do. I was still under the deluded impression that no one would ever find out what just happened to me.

Don't drink that coffee!!!

Since we couldn’t call my mother, she said for me to sit tight and she would go look through the lost and found for something I could change into.You think it’s embarrassing when the school nurse has to wipe your ass? Imagine the embarrassment level when she has to hose you off because you’re covered head to toe with shit! And those paper towels might as well have been sandpaper because they most certainly were not Scott tissue. By this time, she had used about fifty four wet paper towels to clean me off and still hadn’t gotten all the shit removed. I stood there while she went into the back closet to find me something to wear. As if I hadn’t been through enough, I heard the office door open and someone come in. All of a sudden, the curtain swung open and there was Mary, a girl that lived up the street from me, staring with an equal mix of curiosity and disgust in her beady little eyes.

I tried to cover myself as best I could, but it was no use; there was shit all over my body, the room smelled like a cesspool, and my soiled clothes were in a heap on the floor next to me – who was I trying to fool?  All I could do was cry while the nurse shuffled her out of the office and locked the door. As she was escorted out, I could hear Mary asking “Oh My God! What did he eat? Oh My God – Is he OK?” (Years later I actually went to one of my proms with Mary, and I wore a white tuxedo. Believe it or not, I sat down on the seat in the limo directly onto a peppermint patty she had dropped and the chocolate got all over the back of my pants. What are the odds that I would soil the seat of my pants twice in front of the same girl? That must be a record of some sorts!)

I would like to tell you that the story ends there, that Mary was the only one who ever found out about what happened to me, and that I eventually lived that horror down – but it didn’t end there. When the nurse came back from the closet she laid out the clothes for me to put on and I started hysterically crying again. It was a pair of red and white checkered girl’s pants, a tight green V- neck tee shirt with a butterfly on it (also a girls) and a pair of girl’s white sneakers that were a half size too small on me. I had no other choice since I couldn’t call my mother to bring me something to change into and there was nothing else in the lost and found. I was content to wait in her office until the bus came at the end of the day, but she wasn’t having it. I looked at myself in the mirror and the pants ended up being too short for me. The pants legs stopped mid calf and capri pants might be “in” now, but back then a little boy in short pants tended to stand out from the crowd. If the butterfly wasn’t so prominent on the green shirt, it might not have been as obvious that it was a girl’s shirt.

As I went back to class people were asking me where I had been and why I changed. I tried to play dumb, but one girl recognized the shirt and told me she had a very similar shirt and I wanted to tell her that since it was in the lost and found it might actually be her shirt, but I was afraid she would try and take it from me. The only other shirt left in lost and found after this one was pink, so I kept quiet. It’s actually very hard to keep quiet and pretend nothing is up when twenty kids are making fun of you and asking why you’re now wearing girl’s clothing, but I did. Needless to say I was devastated and was out of school for over a week because I got myself so worked up from what had happened I just couldn’t go. It’s funny to think of it now, but that was the longest day of my life and has most definitely played into my neurosis and obsession with Imodium, cleanliness, and butterflies.

The Legend of Weeva the Diva

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Get Well Soon Weeva!

My friend Weeva is recuperating from surgery, so I thought that I’d tell you a little about her so you can send lots of Imodium love her way. As a note to my other friends: Don’t go and get hospitalized so I’ll write about you too! This is a one-time only,  isolated occurrence!

Weeva and I used to work together and we always had a blast. She’s twice as old as me but three times as crazy as and ten times more fun than almost anyone else I have ever worked with. The rearview mirror in her car is about three inches shorter than the Hubble Telescope but can see just as far. She has been known to rock a neck brace for no apparent reason, created her own hands free cell phone with duct tape on her steering wheel, and she’s a Dunkin Junkie that goes there multiple times a day for her fix.

At least she isn't texting while she drives...

When I say multiple times a day, I mean it. She lives in the building across the street and is in there more than some of the employees. She reads her morning paper there and one time a homeless guy took pity on her because he thought she was homeless too when he saw her there in a paint-splattered baseball hat and sweatpants.

If you think remembering the correct lyrics to REM’s “It’s The End of the World As We Know It” is tough – try remembering Weeva’s coffee order. She gets this humungous jug filled with half coffee, a quarter espresso, one part wolf tears, two parts parsnip, a half ounce of Columbian sugar cane, two hits of patchouli extract and a drop of kerosene. That isn’t the exact combo she orders, but it’s fairly close.

I am not a coffee drinker (need I remind you of my stomach and the reason this site is called Immodiumabuser? Me drinking coffee is like someone pulling the pin off a grenade!) so I’d get tea or Diet Pepsi. One time I went and forgot my note with her secret formula scratched on it and was about to turn around and go back when I randomly thought to ask the cashier. “On the off chance, do you know how to make the weird mixture for the crazy lady I work with…?” “You mean Weeva? Of course I know what she gets” and then she made it correctly. That was when I realized exactly how much time she spends in there.

Should be required reading for any movie lover!

Our local movie theatre was showing The Graduate and having a talk and signing with the writer Mark Harris, who was there to present his brilliant book Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of a New Hollywood after the screening. It was a great book (If you’re a movie lover – this is a must read!) about the back stories of the five Best Picture nominees from the 1968 Academy Awards (of which The Graduate was one) and we both love The Graduate, so it was a no brainer. Mid-way through the question and answer section, a look of realization comes over her and Weeva nudge me and says (A little bit too loudly) “Oh my God, these people here probably think I’m your Ms. Robinson!” Picture me crying with laughter.

I'm all for trying a new look Weeva, but this is ridiculous!

 

One day she came in with a new short do and everyone was complimenting, but I knew. The next day, her hair was three times as long and more compliments. It made me realize that I work with the most polite people in the world or the most oblivious. After Weeva walked by, I looked over and said to Christine “You know that she’s wearing a weave, right? “What makes you think that?” she replied. “Are you kidding, her hair was shorter than mine yesterday and today it’s hanging past her ass…that’s not a sign?” “Really? Are you sure?”

My favorite Weeva story happened one day while they were renovating our building. They got us pink and blue hardhats embossed with the company logo for our client appointments during the construction and no one loved their pink hardhat more than Weeva. All of the Spanish guys on the crew used to always point and giggle as she pranced around because she rocked that plastic lid like a mini Donald Trump surveying the land.

As I was sitting at my desk in my god-awful cubicle, Weeva walked up and was standing next to me as I turned around. She had on slacks and a blazer and we were chatting as Renee walked up and said “Weeva, what’s that hanging out of the back of your pants?” Weeva turned to look and there it was – half a roll of toilet paper overflowing out the back of her pants and hanging well past her knees. She ran to the restroom grabbing at the mounds of paper and it actually took a few tries before she got it all out – while we were rolling on the floor hysterical laughing.

She came out of the bathroom laughing harder than any of us were and she was mortified, but not from us seeing it. “Oh my god, I haven’t been in the bathroom for over two hours – how long has that been like that? I had a client appointment and I went to Dunkin Donuts like that! No wonder all the guys on the construction team were laughing and pointing – this time it wasn’t the hardhat!” I can still see all that paper flying by me like a tail as she ran off…

This is similar to how much paper was hanging out the back.

Weeva – you rock it like no one else can and your weave always look good! Keep it up! If Scheherazade had 1,000 tales, you are my Supreme Princess of a thousand hairpieces, get better soon and remember CYA! Always cover your ass – you never know what’s hanging out of it!

The Saddest Thing I Ever Saw!!!

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You think your day sucks? I went to CVS and low & behold I got hit with a ton of bricks:

And you thought you were having a bad day?

They better raise the terror alert to orange because this is some scary stuff right here. People are gonna freak out and start panicking and it could get messy… OK, I’m probably the only one panicking, but something is definitely up here and if I’m not able to get my Imodium it might actually get messy! This is the third CVS I went to over the past few days that didn’t have Imodium AD. One store might be a stocking issue, and two might be a coincidence, but three stores not having it? I’m not trying to get anyone nervous but if you ask me, this seems like the cruel and hurtful things that would be the work of a vast terror network that rhymes with Hal Shmyda.

I know this sounds nutty, but my immediate reaction was that I might be using too much Imodium and they can’t keep up with me…then I came to my senses and got the manager. I asked what was going on and he looked at me like I was crazy, then pointed at the sign and told me to buy the store brand, as if that was the solution. I leaned in close and whispered “Is something else going on here? You can tell me, don’t worry I won’t tell anyone else” and that’s when he really looked at me like I was crazy and walked away. As if other people aren’t getting the manager and asking the same thing – come on.

Before you even suggest that I use the store brand; you wouldn’t use wrapping paper if toilet paper wasn’t available would you? Would you put Crisco into your gas tank instead of going to Shell to fill up? No and you better not! I am not gonna try an untested substitute when I know very well that Imodium is what works andwhat I need. If it’s not the AD – it’s not for me!  As a side note since you mentioned Crisco, I have a friend that actually used to be called Crisco by her family. I was at her house for dinner and asked why her father had just said “Crisco get the ketchup” and she said “You know – fat in the can” and pointed at her backside. You gotta love families,  building self-esteem day by day.   

Speaking of families and gas stations, did I ever tell you about how my brother Angelo got run over by the same guy twice? He was at the gas station walking back to his car after prepaying with the cashier when an old man ran him down the first time. Realizing he had hit something, the old guy immediately backed his car up (once again driving over my brother). All the while, my brother was on the ground screaming for the attendant to give him his money back because he had prepaid for the gas. An ambulance finally showed up and they immediately started attending to the old guy instead of my brother – who was still on the ground writhing in pain. Apparently, the old guy had suffered a stroke a few months back and shouldn’t have been driving anyway. Sure, he really did get hurt and the old guy tore up his leg real bad, but I still can’t think about it without busting out laughing…on the plus side, it gave me a great anecdote for his wedding toast “Marriage is like getting run over twice by the same guy in a Merit Gas Station – sometimes it hurts.”     

I’ll check in with the media outlets and update the progress on my Imodium investigation as I find out more. Before you roll your eyes at me, they say if you see something say something and they don’t just mean that for the people I work with who got suspicious when our Fedex guy’s truck broke down in the parking lot. The poor guy was out there transferring his packages into a rented U-Haul truck so he could finish his deliveries when my two coworkers got nervous and called the Popo. When the police showed up imagine how funny the Fedex guy did not find the situation. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t our regular guy, but he’s here almost every day and now it’s a little bit awkward…some people hold a grudge, I tell ya…

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

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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?

Shoe better believe she had these on!!!

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So I was at work being the little Yenta that I am and  just minding my business, when all of a sudden one of my coworkers walked in. I immediately hung up with the client that I was talking to so I could check and make sure she was OK because with just one look at her shoes I could tell that she must have been the victim of a hit and run assault.  It looked like someone had stolen her shoes and left her standing in her socks. It’s either that or there was a half off sale at the she store because they literally took half off the shoes! Take a look:

 

Shoe better not wear these n the rain or your feet will get soaked!

 

I’m all for individuality and creating your own style, but even The Others on Lost had more ankular support than this! What if you get chased by someone and have to run? I guess they would be cooler for the summer than a full shoe would, but with a heel that high you’re definitely risking a broken ankle. And what about if you have kankles? Do you just loosen the straps a little. I’ll just stick with my orthopedic oxfords thank you very much! I actually have an American Flag thong that offers more coverage than these shoes do!!!

Let me know what you think of these shoes or if you have a pair of your own.

Someone help me – I’m afraid of turning into my father!!!

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Unlike The Incredible Hulk who changed immediately, one of my greatest fears is that fate will sneak up on me and I’ll undergo a slow and painstaking transition into a heightened version of my father. Some people might think this is a compliment, but I’m not sure the world is ready for another one like him. To know my father is to laugh because he is crazy and hysterical (even if it is at and not with him), but for people that don’t know my father, let me explain.

This might as well be my father's Birth Certificate.

To say that my father is one-of-a-kind is to do a disservice to unique glacial formations created to bring beauty to the world. My father was actually created in another era from spontaneous combustion. He was one of ten children and called Baby Boy at the hospital. They literally named him Baby Boy. Every time he presents that birth certificate, there’s an issue. I guess if you have ten kids, who cares what you name them after a while, right? It’s not like you can remember all of those names anyway. We all think it’s funny, but The Department of Motor Vehicles never got as much of a kick out of it as we did.

Patience was never his strong suit either. How being the father of five kids that should have been caged and tranquilized at times didn’t teach him patience, I’ll never know. I don’t know how or why, but one of us always did something that would force him to clasp his hands outward with disgust while chewing on his tongue and chanting “You Kids…” For instance, “You Kids…Always go out of the house with a wet head-you’ll be barking like as dog”, You kids…think it grew legs and walked out on its own? “You kids…Always think I’m supposed to remember to come back and pick you up when I drop you off somewhere…”

I will say that my father unwittingly taught me the best quality that I possess: the uncanny ability to laugh in someone’s face. He didn’t teach me that skill outright, but he put me into situations which instilled in me a sense that it was something that just couldn’t be helped. Don’t even get me started on his car either, because it was crazy. It was a Navy Blue Diesel Mercedes that you had to plug in during the winter nights. Imagine how awkward it was to go over to someone’s house after dusk and have to ask them for an extension cord to plug it the car in with. That car was always a very sore topic with him anyway; Hit one gas pump and then two parked cars in the middle of the night looking for alcohol all in the span of one week and he brands you a bad driver for life…

  

  

Speaking of that car, anyone who knows my father can see where this is going. One day, my sister and I were sitting in it (more than most likely making fun of him) as he was adding more air to the back tire at a gas station. He was always convinced that it was “riding low” whatever that meant. Don’t you know that as her and I were dancing around and being stupid (No, we weren’t young kids – I was twenty and she was seventeen) my father looked away from the inflating tire to peek into the back window and yell at us to stop horsing around. No sooner did he turn back to the tire before it exploded in his face. BOOM!!!  Seconds later, we were immediately laughing hysterically, and then looking at each other with that knowing glance which said that in his version of this story – somehow this was going to be our fault. All of a sudden, this bald head launched up into my window like a jack in the box and screamed “IT BLEW!” as if we wouldn’t have heard the boom. Talk about thanking God for a strong bladder – those are actually the moments Depends were created for. Needless to say, we were steps away from walking home because he didn’t find it half as funny as the two of us did. His response (with hands were clasped outward and chewing on his tongue “You kids…Think everything’s a fucking joke…”      

  

My father always says that things aren’t made the way they used to be and he means it; Proof of this being the pair of brown pants that he has worn to every family function since 1978. When I said earlier that patience wasn’t his strong suit, I meant it. Those brown pants are his strong suit! Birthdays, Christenings, Backyard Barbecues, Anniversaries, or Card Games there hasn’t been one function that those pants haven’t been invited to. The OCD part of me likes a good ritual as much as the next guy, but when it becomes a uniform something is wrong. When actually confronted with this query, my father swears that he’s never worn those pants. Apparently, all the pictures from over twenty family functions in the past three decades while wearing the little brown knickers isn’t what he would refer to as “proof.”

This is actually the very first of many, many pictures of my father in the brown pants...

My wife actually owns the pants now, believe it or not. Two years ago, my family did a Secret Santa Yankee Swap gift exchange and my father (never one to be thought of as funny) really rocked the Yuletide Spirit. Not only was he wearing a new pair of brown pants, but he wrapped the classic brown knickers as his Secret Santa gift. My wife opened that box and did everyone a public service by taking one for the team and retiring their number. Now if only I could get her to stop wearing them when we go out…Apparently her and my father are in a sisterhood of the Jimmy Carter pants!!! Talk about a pair of pants lasting a long time! Hit me with an Internet High-Five below if anyone in your family has clothes that are older than you…  

One thing that my father has never been mistaken for is sentimental. One only needs to ask my brother Angelo to repeat the conversation he had with my father in January to illustrate this.

 Dad: “I don’t know if I told you this, but this year was the best Christmas I’ve ever had. Everything just couldn’t have been better”

Angelo: “Dad, I wasn’t even fucking there! What are you talking about? (Angelo was bedridden at home with the flu when we got together)

Dad: “Either way, it was the best one I can remember in a long time…”

He’s never been one to worry about feelings or to not kick someone when they’re down I guess…

I am omitting the incriminating and obviously embarrassing parts of his insanity for everyone’s benefit. Does anyone need me to tell them about my father’s uncanny ability to fart on command and he will do it no matter where or when it is? Your friends are in the house, there he goes. You’re in the church for a christening – oops, he did it again! You get the point – the less said the better. How about I put the next part this way? I’m not saying that this actually happened, but if it did – this is how I imagine his response to be: If he were to start selling illegal cable boxes (I’m not saying he did, just projecting here) and I asked for one to take with me to college, I imagine that he’d reply “That’s 250 bucks – we’re not doing this to make friends!” Shortly after that, I’d find out that he sold one to my friend Annie for 200 bucks. So much for a family discount!!!

How it doesn’t chafe a testicle I will never understand, but the waistline of my father’s pants rides so high that his belt could actually be mistaken for a choker necklace. Upon first glance, you scratch your head because you can’t tell if his shirt collar is sagging or if he just got an atomic wedgie…It defies explanation and just cannot be comfortable. I guess after all these years it must seem normal to him, but Oh God if it isn’t a conversation starter for the people passing by. My wife and I actually have an unwritten pact that if one day she sees me going to leave the house and my pants are pulled up past my nipples like his always are, she will euthanize me immediately!!! People wonder how I turned out to be so crazy – No need to look any further than the chap in the faded brown pants for the answer to that one…

Remove the glasses and jacket and this is my father!

As a postscript for this post, I promise that I will record an audio version as well because a lot is lost in the text. You need the inflection and overall, the insanity translates much better with audio…

The Greatest Love of All

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I bet that if you were to ask my wife, she would say it was her – but let’s be honest here: My soulmate and the great love of my adult life has been Imodium AD. I love my wife to death, but this is a no-brainer and pretty obvious. Imodium  AD has touched me in an obscene, all-consuming way that no woman could ever truly understand. It’s done more to support me and has just always been there for me – it’s ‘had my back’ as we used to say on the street. I would never stray, but lately I’ve been having these overwhelming feelings and I’m torn – Don’t tell Imodium, but my Rogaine is fighting to get control of my heart!    

In case you don’t know what I look like, I’ll give you a visual. Picture a younger George Costanza with contact lenses instead of the glasses and that’s me. I’m short, overweight, balding, and unemployed, and those are just the highlights! I have actually come to accept these quirks and try not to harp on them anymore. I mean, I can’t do anything about the shortness (especially since I fell the last time that I wore platform boots), I’m actually eating more to bulk up for the eventual stomach band surgery I’ll get, but baldness is where I draw the line.

I say balding, because I have been fighting an uphill battle to keep those baldness dogs at bay for a few years now. I don’t have the luscious mane that I had in high school or the bleached blond (just like Slim Shady) full head of hair from college, but I’ve still got a bit up there. If you go through my family tree, no man in my family has hair past twenty years old. It starts thinning and thinning, until the only thing left is a memory. My brother Arthur finally shaved his head, but until he did, the front of his head looked like a yoyo – all surface and one little string in the center.

I’ve actually considered (and still might) converting to become a Jew so I can have the yarmulke cover my bald spot.

Funny little side story: At my brother Anthony’s wedding I was an usher and we were waiting in the bridal room for the DJ to announce the wedding party. We were drinking for a while and I had already soaked the flower girl with a pitcher of water because she touched my food (don’t you dare say that’s a mean thing to do – that little bitch deserved it!) I found a yarmulke with Daniel’s Bar Mitzvah emblazoned across it in rhinestone in a drawer so I put it on my head figuring that it would cover my bald spot for the photos, but my brother Arthur saw it and asked what the hell I was doing. “Get that off your head, are you an asshole? Why are you wearing that?” I didn’t miss a beat and said, “Are you kidding, you were at my wedding! You know my wife is Jewish and I converted. I’m Jewish!” (which was a crock of shit that I made up just then and really, what self-respecting Jew is wearing their Daniel’s Bar Mitzvah Rhinestone-covered yarmulke at a wedding?) He apologized immediately said “I’m sorry, I forgot that you did.” I replied as gingerly as a drunk fool could “Are you an idiot? -You don’t even know if I’m Jewish or not? I made it up – I’m not Jewish!”  “Come on” he replied “Are you Jewish or not?” My own brother didn’t even know if I was Jewish and it wasn’t like I got married years before – it was only a few months before this wedding – I love it.

I know that some people might be offended by that, but I am more of a shallow man than I am a religious man, so converting religions to cover a bald spot isn’t a lot to do. I know people think it’s not a big deal and I am acting crazy with this fascination with my hair, but on this one I will defer to Babs from Making the Band 2 when she fought with Chopper: “I TOLD YOU CHOPPER, YOU DON’T GO MESSING WITH MY HAIR” when he didn’t give her a phone message from the stylist and she was trying to get her weave done. Sing it Sister – I hear ya!

When I was younger, I swore that I would never be bald because I was still holding out hope that I was adopted or switched at birth or left on the doorstep and that I would have wonderful thick hair, but fate and my lineage turned on me like a cold-hearted bitch…so I ran to the open arms of the Rogaine. I was actually afraid of the Rogaine at first. You had to touch it to apply it and I’m OCD so I got rubber gloves. It was also messy and would drip down the back of my neck or my forehead when I applied it. I was terrified that I would end up with a thick mane of hair running down the back of my neck like a giraffe. Also, what if I started growing hair on the tips of my fingers? If Rogaine will make hair grow on my head, why not on my fingertips? Forget about shaking someone’s hand, how the hell would I ever wipe my ass while holding a ball of yarn in my hand? That isn’t sterile.

As if hearing my concerns/prayers, they worked out a compromise and came out with Rogaine Foam which has changed my life. Gone is the eye dropper to apply it and then dabbing the tissues to stop it from dripping off my scalp. It now looks like shaving cream and dissolves when you rub it in. You obviously still need the rubber gloves, but that’s not so bad. Just like the institution of marriage – this has been a blessed union. And just like the first time I had a strawberry flavored Charleston Chew (Bemish’s favorite) – I was hooked.

Although I would love it one day, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to have dreadlocks and I have accepted that. I won’t be able to have a ponytail and I have accepted that. I’m still holding out hope for the cornrows, but I will get over that too eventually. For the chance at a full-fledged mullet, I might even consider trading a kidney…I know that I would look ridiculous with each and every one of those hairstyles, but I would at least like to have the option…Rogaine is making a play for my affections and I am torn. At the end of the day – there’s enough room in my heart for both of them, but my Imodium AD will always get the top shelf.     

     

If you don’t expect that much from me, I might not let you down

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In case you haven’t guessed it yet from these ramblings, I wasn’t always a very responsible person. I never really minded it though, because no one relied on me and no one ever asked me to do anything because they knew that I would find some way to screw it up. It was actually really liberating because there was never any expectations or pressure and Fat Camp was no exception.

There was a guy that worked there that looked just like the Boar’s Head Pig on the label of the cold cuts. I know that might possibly come across as mean or insulting, but I’m not even kidding. I’m not ready to walk down any runways and no one would put this face on a magazine cover either, but he really does look just like that. He’s also six-foot four and extremely overweight, which didn’t help his image in any way. I guess there are worse things you can look like…O.K. there really aren’t that many things that you can look like that are worse than the Boar’s Head Pig, but that’s really not the point. Anyway, he was considered more responsible than me, so they sent him and I to get bread because the Chef’s delivery got delayed and the kitchen needed it for lunch and they didn’t trust me to go by myself. It was a twenty-minute drive that should have taken us no longer than an hour to get there and back, but they were about to find out that I wasn’t the only irresponsible one.  

We didn’t even make it out the front gate before we lit up. Although in my defense, you had to be stoned in order to drive that van. It was a huge, fifteen passenger, white monstrosity and when behind the wheel in there, it always felt like you were driving a big rig. It took every bump and pothole like a gunshot and that thing rocked back and forth while driving. Granted, it was soothing if you just smoked up and were a passenger in the back of it, but while piloting it felt like you were playing a video game and the windshield was the screen.

So we get down to the corner and just as I’m daydreaming about what goodies I’ll get at the supermarket to snack on, Boar’s Head announces that we aren’t going to the supermarket – we’re going to the Hostess Outlet instead. Now I’m certainly not one to argue with logic like that and the very thought of all those Twinkies brought a huge smile to my face instantly.  

We got to the Hostess Outlet and I was like a kid on Christmas morning. I literally got out of the van and started running into the store like I was on The Amazing Race. We got two shopping carts and starting putting as much in our mouth as we were putting into each of the carts. It was a fat kid’s wet dream: There were Twinkies and Suzy-Q‘s and what seemed like hundreds of flavors of Fruit Pies (which I don’t even like, but I started opening and eating them anyway) and Snoballs and Ding Dongs and everything. All the people we passed in the store were staring at us sort of like we were celebrities that they just couldn’t quite recognize. It seemed to make the most sense to me at the time that it was because of his obvious, spitting-image, resemblance to the Boar’s Head Pig logo – but then I quickly realized it wasn’t looks of curiosity – they were actually looks of disgust! The site of me and Boar’s Head strolling up and down each of those aisles with overflowing carts (they were overflowing with just our snacks that we were eating – we hadn’t even started to get what we actually came for) was apparently repulsive to some people. Each of our faces and shirts were covered in chocolate and crumbs and a little bit of the soda that I spilled from the liter bottle of Diet Pepsi that I had brought in with me; We were not doing anything to dispel the stereotype against fat people in a Hostess Outlet by any means – but those were the best Suzy-Q’s I have ever tasted before or since.

We literally filled that enormous, fifteen passenger, empty van with bread, rolls, buns, all of our Suzy-Q’s, Fruit Pies and assorted junk foods and I carved out a nice little spot between the fresh italian breads stacked neatly on the second to last seat for a tiny little nap. I awoke to Boar’s Head slamming on the brakes forcing the breads and me to go flying off the seat. Cupcakes were everywhere and ended up getting smushed when I landed on them. I made my way up to the passenger seat to find Boar’s Head chugging a half-gallon of skim milk (he actually told me later with a straight face and he was dead serious, that skim milk has fewer calories in it which I took to mean that he thought it evened out the four thousand and counting Hostess calories he had just consumed…) and asking if I wanted a sip. “No, thanks! Where did you even get that?” He apparently stopped off for gas and got it at the Mobil Mart. “Where are we?” I asked looking around at the houses on this random street in who knows where.

 “Timmy’s house” as if I should have known what that meant.

“Timmy who?”

“I Can’t tell you his last name – come on and Don’t say anything!”

What happened next was like something out of a bad 70’s Cheech and Chong movie. A normal person that wasn’t coming down off the drugs and sugar high would have stayed put, but I was getting a little nauseous from all that chocolate and needed to get out of that van. We walked around the corner and down the block because apparently, we weren’t allowed to park in front of Timmy’s house.

We went around the block and came up to a random house and walked up to a side door and Boar’s Head knocked softly. Timmy, late thirties, long hair, very dirty looking opens the door and looks around searching the area and whispering about who I am before he’ll let us in. “He’s with me; He talks a lot, but he’s O.K.” Boar’s Head said. It wasn’t really wrong, certainly it was a rude comment, but not wrong – so I didn’t say anything. Besides, I had no idea why everyone was whispering. We entered a normal looking house with his mother in the kitchen – an older lady almost sixty cooking something. We passed through the Living Room and went down the hallway toward the back of the house. This Bedroom – or what I thought was a bedroom – had a huge padlock on it. Who put’s a padlock on a door inside their house when they live with their mother? Was she a klepto?

When he opened the door, it was far from a bedroom – it was more like an Arboretum in there. This huge room and walk-in closet had been converted into a greenhouse and there were tons of lights hanging from the ceiling over lots of plants, what looked like a bathroom exhaust fan on the ceiling, and there were tables of plants and scales everywhere with small clear plastic bags strewn about. It didn’t smell offensive, just overpowering. Some people would have gotten it right away because it should have been obvious, but I was like “What’s with all the plants – do you like gardening or something?” before it clicked in my head that Timmy was obviously a drug dealer. That’s who puts a padlock on the inside door of a house he lives in with his mother! Boar’s Head made a fist at me and told me to shut the fuck up so I didn’t piss Timmy off. Of course my curiosity got the best of me and as they were “conducting business” – I couldn’t help but touch the scales and walk around to check everything out, I had gotten drugs before, but never actually seen the operation like this.

‘Timmy, does your Mom live with you? That’s nice to have company, isn’t it?” I innocently asked to which he replied “It’s obviously her house – why the fuck else would she be in the kitchen cooking?” I replied  “Why do you live with your mother?” to which he replied to Boar’s Head “What’s with him  – my mother gets lonely when she’s by herself and it helps me save money on rent.” I had never heard a drug dealer cry poverty before, I guess I just always thought they were rolling in it like in the movies and could afford any type of place they wanted – shows me how wrong it is to assume. From the looks of his clothes and this dump,  they weren’t making anything. There really wasn’t much in the way of conversation after that…we stayed for about an hour or two (I started to lose track of the time again) and tested out all his bongs and I gotta tell you – that was some good shit! Timmy’s not much for friendly conversation, but he has a real green thumb.

As we stumbled back to the van for more Hostess delights – Boar’s Head proceeded to rip me a new asshole about asking Timmy if he liked gardening…”Are you a fucking moron, you wanna get your ass kicked?” “By who, Timmy’s hot mother?” I maturely replied which set us both into hysterics…Needless to say, Timmy told Boar’s Head never to bring me back to his house again. After a trip to McDonald’s and Burger King (because we couldn’t stop arguing over which of them had better french fries) and another tiny nap with the smushed cupcakes for me, we headed back to the camp.

We pulled into the entrance about 6:30 PM (Keep in mind that we left at 10:00 AM that morning and that we were only supposed to be gone for an hour) and headed over to the kitchen. The Chef came running out from serving dinner and started screaming (which I didn’t appreciate at all) that he needed that bread for the lunch AT NOON and we come back hours later and didn’t even get the bread he wanted – just a truck full of shit! Also, why did we bring all that junk food back to a WEIGHT LOSS CAMP? Talk about an ungrateful person; Two people do you a favor and go to the store for you, and that’s how you respond? You think that he didn’t get it, imagine how the bookkeeper felt when we gave her the receipt for almost six hundred dollars worth of junk food and stuff that couldn’t even be used. Some people just don’t understand the munchies.

Needless to say, in addition to them not trusting me already, they never sent him on an errand again after that and Boar’s Head never did let me go back to Timmy’s house.  Timmy actually told Boar’s Head that if he ever found out that I was talking about his “set-up” and where it was (as if I had any idea where the hell we were) he would find me and beat the shit out of me; so if you ever run into a dirty looking guy in jeans and a sweatshirt with really good shit, and his mother’s in the kitchen cooking – don’t mention me.