esp and me

If I had my way I’d hang out with Miss Cleo at least once a month.

We’d be good friends, the kind that get together and talk and talk.

She’d come and visit and she’d read my fortune and maybe tell me about why Christian Bale won’t reply to my emails.  I mean, all I ask is that he sends me one damn email for all the hundreds I’ve sent saying how awesome he is.  He can forget about me sending more chocolates to his house until he does, that’s for sure.

Big C (we’d be tight, so I could totally call her that) and I would talk trash about other psychics and drink whiskey and then I’d get her to do my favorite line from one of her ads, where a man has called in asking if his wife’s baby is really his or some other dudes, and she cuts him off mid-sentence by proclaiming, “That is not your baby!”

Fucking awesome.

After that I’d get her to give me the scoop on everything I’ve ever wondered about, like why my feet are always so hot and whether NASA is really Doing Things In Space or just wasting a bunch of money on cool looking toys like I suspect.

Then I’d get her to guess what number I was thinking about for at least an hour and a half because how fun would that be?

And when it was time for her to leave, I’d walk her to the train, and we’d exchange pleasantries along the way.

I wouldn’t have to say much because she’d already be answering my questions before I asked them:

“5:45.”

“No, but sometimes I forget to wash behind my knees.”

“More green.”

“Because they thought spelling it ‘Cap’n’ instead of ‘Captain’ is more fun.”

It’d be a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Just Big C and I, kicking it like only we can.

Her using her mystical abilities to shine light on the World’s Mysteries and me silently stewing over the newly discovered notion that somehow Christian Bale does not like my blog.

 

(Okay everybody – new links are up on the Okay Playa! page, so please go check them out and show those bloggers some love – they all deserve it.  Also, thanks again to Crissy for guest posting on Friday and providing a picture that both disturbed me and made me want to make out with myself.)

scan this

Hey Chris’s Internets!

I’m Crissy, from Crissy’s Page.

Don’t let the name fool you.

I’m a very big deal.

I was going to write about how I can never find a pair of underwear that fits nicely, but that’s too girly of a subject because things can be sort of testosterone-y around these parts.

Speaking of testosterone, it smells like stale L’Homme with an undertone of balls over here, doesn’t it?

It’s distracting.

And what’s this huge black dildo doing here?  It can’t be Ari’s.  This thing would impale the poor girl.

Huh.

I can’t say I’m surprised.  I had my suspicions, what with his love for Madonna and his taste for expensive suits and his fussiness about how his t-shirts fit and his intense fear of moths and everything.

Right?

RIGHT???

Anyhooter, Chris likes to rant a lot and stuff, so that’s what I’m going to do too so you don’t miss him too much.

Here.  Pretend I’m him.

So I’m at the grocery store and I’ve got one of those self-scanner things where you scan your store card and you win a chance to carry a gun and do all the work yourself with your very own scanner and bag your very own groceries as you go.

This is supposed to make shopping Fast and Easy.

And it would be if the fucking things worked right.  Maybe it’s because my daughter is always hurling them out of the carriage.

I have no idea.

So I was having a particularly tough shopping trip with my three-year-old and just about everything meant to be convenient and easy was broken and fucky particularly the self-weigh produce scales and so I wound up weighing a lemon but taking a cantaloupe but so. what. It’s their fault for having shitty scales. And then the scanner gun thingy tells me its battery is dying and that I had to go get a new one so I did, but that meant I had to unpack all of my stuff and rescan everything.

I may or may not have gotten it all.

What?

I was pissed.

Don’t. Judge.

And my kid was all “let me out! I want to talk! LET. ME. OUT. OF. HERE!!!”

Whatthefuck.

So I finished my painful, painful, shopping with little miss screams a lot and I go to the self check out and I scan the thing and the card and the other thing and find my coupons which were buried in the bottom of one of my repacked bags and I scanned the first one and the fucking machine freezes.

Nothing.

Crickets.

So I press the help button and the light on the top of the self check out is blinking, blinking, blinking, helplessly away and clerks and cashiers are walking by and chewing their gum and picking their asses and I’m still standing there and the thing is still blinking and I’m wrestling a 27-pound octopus who is trying to score herself a bag of M&Ms and also trying to commit suicide by jumping out of the cart and

NOBODY IS COMING TO HELP ME.

So finally I have to shout and I don’t like to shout because I’m the Queen of Fucking Everything and The Queen should never have to shout.

But I did.  I shouted.

“EXCUSE ME! I’VE BEEN STANDING HERE FOR LIKE FIVE MINUTES NOW AND EVERYONE IS IGNORING ME.”

And finally some teenage girl schlubs over with her attitude and her blue hair extensions and her keys and gives the machine a hand job and then left me to complete my purchase without so much as an apology or a free bag of Cheetos.

The rest of the transaction went pretty okay but I was still irritated to shit and so I signed the credit card signature pad “Fuck You.”

Childish and immature?

Absolutely.

But it was satisfying Internet.

It felt good.

dance your way to love

I think we can all agree that Cheryl Lynn’s song, “Got To Be Real,” is a classic – one of the top ten songs of all time.

Most of the time when it comes on my iPod in the gym, I just want to shake my money maker, but this morning when its catchy, bouncing beat popped through my headphones, I started thinking about the song, and what it meant on a larger scale.

What you find-ah
What you feel now
What you know-ah
To be real!

At first glance, this appears pretty straightforward – Cheryl is talking to us about true love, and how you just “know” when it’s the real thing.

But I think that this is actually Cheryl pleading to us for help.

She has no idea what real love is, and she needs us to help her figure it out while dancing so feverishly that others suspect we are in need of medical attention.  Which we might be.  The diagnosis is clearly Oh I Am Dancing Until Someone Slightly Attractive Goes Home With Me-itis.

She’s asking us – what have you found to be real?  What has felt real?  And finally, what do you know to be real?

Then she gets even more depressing.

Ooh, your love’s for real now
You know that your love is my love
My love is your love
Our love is here to stay

Here she’s saying that because she has no idea what real love is – she’s going to live vicariously through the love we experience with others.  And she’s making sure we know it too by telling us that we “know” it and it “is here to stay.”

Sad.

In fact – here:

That’s how that makes me feel.

Poor Cheryl just wanted our help, and all we can do is dance, dance.  Like that problem Don Henley had.

Next time you listen to this song, I beg you, for just one second – stop moving your booty like only you can and think about poor Cheryl.

She just wants to know true love, and I think we owe it to her to pay some respect.

(Just a quick note:  I’m going to be entertaining some friends starting today, so tomorrow I will be away.  But have no fear!  I have a guest post (the first ever here!) all lined up and it is really fucking funny and you will love it and their blog – so please check tomorrow for the post and show the writer some love.  Oh the suspense!!!)

forcing the issue

I’m making the switch from boxers to boxer briefs (I realize that I should have done this years ago, but I am a Slow Learner) and yesterday I went to go buy some more.

I selected some that I thought would make me look Sexy As Hell and went to stand on line to pay for them.

While standing there and thinking that the models on my chosen boxes must be the most boring dudes on Earth, because in order to look like that they must never drink and maybe say things like, “No thanks, ice cream is just not part of my diet,” I noticed that some of the boxer briefs did not have an opening in the front of them.

I was shocked.

Why would anyone make boxer briefs without the hole in the front?  They essentially made a new product less desirable – kind of like how Super Mario Bros. 2 was far inferior to the original.

When it was my turn to pay, I broached this Important Discovery with the cashier; an elderly man with a moustache that would make Tom Selleck jealous.

Me: [Holding up a box to show him] “Did you know they make these without a hole in the front???”

Old Cashier Dude: [Caught off guard by the zeal in my question] “Um, excuse me sir?”

Me: [Shaking the box wildly] “These.  I almost bought these, but they don’t have a hole in the front.  Why would anyone want boxer briefs without a hole in the front?”

Old Cashier Dude: “Oh, sorry, so you don’t want to buy these then.”

Me: “No.  Just these ones that have the hole in the front.”  

[He is ringing me up, and I am just dying to know what he thinks of the situation]

Me: “I mean, they’re making it harder for you!  Do you want more work?  I certainly don’t.  I just don’t understand this.”

Old Cashier Dude: [Obviously uncomfortable with the subject at hand] “Right, well, I’m not sure sir.”

After that I gave up.

He clearly did not want to talk with a stranger about underwear that day, and I guess I can’t blame him.

But I’m telling you, next time I go to buy some more, I’m going back to that Macy’s and I’m going to get some sort of opinion out of that guy.

There is no way he can’t have a strong reaction to this, these are things that must be talked about!

He is going to talk underwear with another adult male and he is going to like it. 

hold that thought

I had a really weird dream last night.

But you don’t want to hear about it, do you?

No.

Of course you don’t.

Because hearing or reading about someone else’s dreams is absolute torture.

When people begin their sentences with “I had this crazy dream last night…”  I immediately check out of the conversation.  I don’t fucking care that you “dreamed that my friend was a lizard and he couldn’t recognize me, which is weird because we’re so close.”

And no, I don’t have a clue what it means.  Maybe it just meant that you were going to annoy the fuck out of some unlucky soul the next day by telling them about it.

Dreams are personal things.

No one can quite grasp how odd it is to dream about your Uncle Jeff weaving a blanket while watching Mama’s Family other than you.

For all I know Jeff might be quite the fucking blanket maker.  If he is, tell him to mail me one.  But it better not be all scratchy.  Blankets are supposed to be soft, goddammit.

The worst part about having someone tell you about their dream is when they forget some parts of it, and try and remember them because it is just so imperative to the dream.

When you hear someone stall about the dream, you immediately think you’re in the clear.  You try and start a new conversation: “Okay, now we can start talking about interesting stuff.  I feel uncomfortable saying it, but sometimes I tear up when I listen to ‘Not Ready To Make Nice‘ by the Dixie Chicks.”

But just when you get this new conversation starter out of your mouth, the person resumes the dream, because they somehow think that you can’t possibly go on with your day without knowing what happens at the end.

I just don’t understand why people think it’s okay to tell others about their dreams.

It’s not.

Unless it involves Eva Mendes, Beyonce and Gabrielle Union engaging in Something Inappropriate.

Then please, I’m all ears.

hurts so good

I’m a big fan of making fun of people.

It’s one of the main reasons that, if Hell does exist, you’ll eventually find me there playing cards with Fab and Rob from Milli Vanilli while trying to keep Geraldo from stealing my last Entenmann’s danish.

It’s really a fun thing to do, so I am always in search of new and exciting ways to put people down in order to feel better about myself.

One of the best insults that I’ve ever heard comes from my good friend Mason, who would hurl it at an unsuspecting person with the greatest of ease.

Whenever Mason was drinking A Couple Cool Ones and someone made him upset, you heard it:

“That dude is such a bag of dicks!”

Brilliant, right?

A bag of dicks.

Think about that for a minute.

I don’t want to be one dick, let alone an entire bag of them.

It’s like telling someone that they are upsetting you in so many ways that you can’t even describe each one, so you just have to lump them all together in one huge Bag Of Upsetness.

Whenever someone would hear Mason tell them that they were, unfortunately, a bag of dicks, they would always have a stunned expression.

They could not understand what it meant to be a bag of dicks, and because of that, Mason and I would enjoy a good laugh before deciding it was time to Drink More and maybe talk about how awesome the Steelers are.

Not to mention the fact that I imagine a bag of dicks would not be that pleasant to look at.  You know, because they’d be all mushed up in there and all that.

Forget “asshole.”

Forget “motherfucker.”

And most certainly forget “douche” and any form of it, because that is the most overplayed insult there is.

Next time you want to really make fun of someone, call them a bag of dicks and let the fun ensue.

Just be ready for an eternity of damnation and Geraldo telling you, “I swear, I’ll buy you another box!”

Trust me, he won’t.

the thought is mightier than the punch

Last night Ari and I were arguing about who had nicer feet when she threatened me with violence.

She waved her fist in my face and said, “You better watch it buddy.”  Needless to say, I was very intimidated. When people call you “buddy,” you know you are in for Trouble.

As she shook her fist at me, I noticed something odd about it, so I asked her, “Uh, what are you doing with your fist?”

She had no idea what I was talking about.

So I said, “Why is your one finger poking out?  You don’t have to do that, you know.”

This is when she said, “Oh that?  That’s my Dagger Fist.”

Behold, my friends, The Dagger Fist.

I hope that didn’t scare you too much.  Please, it’s okay.  Come back to the computer.  I promise you – you are in no danger of getting hit with The Dagger Fist.

Ari’s attempt at a fist just reminded me of how terribly incompetent women are at physical violence.  Of course there are exceptions – like when Britney Spears attacked that car with an umbrella.

But more often than not, when women try and Bring The Ruckus, they fail.

That’s because physical violence is not a woman’s best weapon.  Mental violence like nagging is.

A woman’s ability to nag is uncanny.  It is something they are born with and then cultivate into a full-blown Weapon Of Destruction as they age.

If a woman wants something out of a man, she will get it.  And if she doesn’t, she will attack until she does.

She will bring up the same subject until it has beaten a man’s will to live into the ground, and then, even after the man gives up and does what she wants, the woman will deal one more Mental Blow by stating, “Well, you should have just done it the first time I said something.”

Like telling a man fourteen times in two days to call the cable company wasn’t torture enough for him.

Men are made for Physical Violence, women are made for Mental Violence.

This has been evident ever since the Stone Age (sorry for the technical term) when Man made fire by thrashing sticks and stones together.

He went and grabbed his Woman to tell her about his Accomplishment, and all she could say was, “That’s very nice Steve, but you still haven’t swept the cave like I asked you to.”

choose wisely

I’m a big fan of using Paper-Rock-Scissors to solve any Difficult Decisions in my life.

If Ari and I are trying to figure out who has to take Jack out in the rain – we’re throwing down.  If a friend and I are choosing which bar to go to – better get ready to rumble.

One, two, three  - shoot!  And just like that, all decisions are made for you.  Of course, it’s best to do two out of three.  I’m not some idiot who lives life on the edge by just throwing once.

I really think that if Paper-Rock-Scissors was more prominent in our society, it would lead to nothing but positives.

Important Political Dude: “So, this is it, I win this last one and we don’t invade Iraq.”

Bush: “Yeah, yeah I got it. Quit yer stalling, city boy – you’re going down!”

[Important Political Dude throws rock, effectively crushing Bush's scissors play]

Important Political Dude: “Yes!  Okay, you lose, no invading Iraq.”

Bush: [Face red with anger] “Dangnabbit!  Fine.  What other countries have lots of brown people?”

And not only on this scale – imagine how much better your life would be if Paper-Rock-Scissors was used in everyday situations.

Like when you and your Special Someone are deciding whether to have kids.

Your Other wants to have kids, you don’t.  Obviously the best way to determine this decision is to play the game.  And don’t you dare go with some rookie move of playing scissors first – if you do, diarrhea diapers here you come buddy.

I am asking you, what better way is there to make Difficult Decisons?  And no, don’t even try and tell me about Drawing Straws, I’m not a little boy.

I’m a man and I need Man Things like Paper-Rock-Scissors to determine my path in life.

That’s how I roll, and I suggest you do the same.

surprise attack

I don’t have a big problem with bugs because we have a deal – they don’t fuck with me and I let them live to be Generally Gross another day.

And really I don’t even encounter that many bugs living here, which is a perk of the city. You know how gnats are the most annoying thing ever, aside from Heidi Montag? Well, there are no gnats here. Sadly, Ari still worships The Hills, but that’s another story.

This morning though, a bug broke our deal.

Of course it was a moth, because I could care less about every single bug except moths. Those things are fucking nasty.

They have fur and they have wings! What kind of creature has fur and wings??? A Devil Creature, that’s what.

My encounter with the moth happened when I entered the bathroom in our office this morning.

We leave the windows open even though there are no screens because some people make Smells That Hurt My Feelings in there, so the moth must have come in overnight.

I went to flush the urinal and the Devil Creature was hiding under the handle.

Thus the battle began.

He immediately made his move. Right for my neck.

I reeled backwards and yelled “Ahhhwhatthefuckgetawayfrommeeee!” as I swatted the air helplessly.

Mind you my pants were still unzipped, so if someone had come in, it would have made me look like I was so happy to be in the bathroom that I undid my pants and started dancing. Not something I normally do. Well, at least not on Wednesdays.

Unphased by my scream and zipper-down dance of hysteria, the moth kept swooping down at me – over and over again. Kind of like that Nelly song.

This is when I tried to blow him out the window.

I was swatting and blowing, “Phoooo!” “Phoooo!,” the moth was swooping, and I started to think that this must be what it’s like to go insane. It looked like I was having a complete mental breakdown, but inside my head, everything made perfect sense.

Finally, as if the Bug Gods had taken pity on me, I swatted the moth out through the window.

I looked around.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead.

I zipped up.

Now somewhere out in the streets of Manhattan, there is a moth laughing at me with all his moth friends.

And I just think that’s pretty mean.

i’m only as young as my things

I have a problem.

It’s this:

No, not my dog.  He’s fine.  Well, fine in that he hasn’t peed on my shoe in about a month.  I tried to just take a picture of my bag, but every time I did, Jack would start biting my leg, so I had to agree to his terms of being in the picture.  He can be such a diva.

It’s my bag.

It’s the bag that I use to carry my clothes that I use for the gym every day – and it’s an Eddie Bauer bag.

That’s right.

Eddie Bauer.

I carry a bag that proudly declares “Eddie Bauer” on its side every single day of the week.

Do you know who uses Eddie Bauer stuff?

This guy.

Sure, he seems like he’s nice.

But he’s old.  Very, very old.  And while he may have been The Tops back in his day, it is safe to say that he is not on top of his game any longer.

Old people wear/use Eddie Bauer stuff.

I should not be using a bag that immediately adds 73 years to my life.

When people see me with this bag, they automatically assume I wear adult diapers, miss I Love Lucy and eat dinner at 1:30 in the afternoon.

They don’t understand that I am – in fact – Really Cool.

See?

Even with a thumb in the picture I pulled off a “Man, I am too cool for this” look. Actually, I was just pissed off that the train was taking forever, but you get my point.

My bag is giving people the wrong idea about who I am as a person, and I have got to put a stop to it.

It’d be different if people didn’t judge others on material possessions, but c’mon – who the hell doesn’t do that?

(Now that you’re done here, please go read my guest post over at Oh! How Lovely! It’s amazing and will make you love life even more than that time you found that hidden bag of Doritos in your cupboard. And if you don’t regularly read Oh! How Lovely! start now.)