Survival of the Weak and Lazy

“Why are you doing this? These weights are heavy!!”…

I’m pretty sure Darwin’s concept of survival of the fittest didn’t involve nautilus machines and stairmasters. However, according to him, only the strongest will survive and after I struggled to carry a case of beer from the store to my house, I decided that perhaps I wasn’t going to be one of the survivors.

I decided to “do something” about my physical make-up and did an activity I hadn’t done in months: I picked up heavy pieces of metal and moved them repeatedly in an action called “Working Out”.

Most people who work out suck it up and join a gym. Me? I’m still convinced that I can beat the system and be physically fit without spending $80 a month and having to ever say, “Yes, I’m next in line for the row machine”. Basically, I’ve seen the work out montage in Rocky IV too many times and think working out in a gym is for communist steroid users.

Of course, for every ounce of joy I get from not working out with other people as vain as me, I get an equal amount of embarrassment from doing mad up exercises in my room.

At first the plan was to be like Bruce Lee and just use my own body weight as a form of resistance (when the cheapest option is Bruce Lee’s option, you know I’m giving that one a shot). That plan was nixed when I flexed for a friend and he said, “Your muscles just look like big veins.”

The next plan was to get a chin-up bar and work out like a psycho killer would. How many movies have you seen where the psycho killed does a hundred chin-ups with a giant tattoo on his back? Five? Ten? A hundred? It was a good plan until I realized that a) I didn’t have a tattoo on my back and b) maxing out at five chin-ups wasn’t impressive or giving me psycho killer strength.

Eventually I bought two 25lb weights and stuck them in my closet hoping to somehow get fit and trim through osmosis. Apparently this isn’t how physical fitness works and I was forced to actually use them.

I made a playlist on my iPod of songs I would describe as “angry” or “adrenaline coercing.” The idea was that when I needed just a little bit extra to pull the stupid iron blocks up to my shoulders one more time, I’d find the strength in a guitar solo. The music also served a second purpose – to hide the stupid sounds of exertion you’re bound to make and your roommates are bound to get suspicious of.

Half-way through the first set of arm curl…things…I was bored, tired, and hearing my body start to ask the question, “Why are you doing this?!” To distract myself, I decided to visualize all the positive things that would happen from working out.

I imagined myself much older at a dinner table. I’m surrounded by my wife, a friend, and his wife. All of a sudden, my friend grabs his chest and starts gasping for air. It’s a heart attack and he falls off the chair, dead. Both women look at me and scootch their chairs toward me. I pick them up, one in each hand, and hold them high above my head as they cheer in delight because I’m physically more fit than the dead guy on the floor.

Back in reality, I switched to a different exercise.

This time my mind took me to the beach. A group of us get out of a van. It’s a beautiful day and we’re the only ones there. The people I’m with all take off for the water, pushing each other playfully as they run towards the oncoming waves. As they drift off into the distance I take off my shirt and slowly stroll towards the water, easing myself in. Within seconds the tide sweeps my friends away and I am left bobbing up and down laughing as I easily swim back to shore because I’m more fit than they are. Then, for some reason, I start playing an acoustic guitar and am surrounded by a group of people. Everyone is moved to tears - partially because of my muscles, but mainly because they’ve never heard a song that made them feel this way before.

I stopped trying to lift these hunks of heaviness and put them down on the ground. I felt tired. I felt a little embarrassed and I knew the most I could hope for from working out was a “You sure you got that?” comment the next time I helped someone move. I lay there for a few minutes, starring at the ceiling. The muscles in my body were starting to ache and my heart was beating fast. The question of, “Why are you doing this?” kept drifting back into my head and without the crazy day dreaming, it started to be a valid question I couldn’t ignore.

I sat up, went into the living room, found a Snickers bar I hid in the fridge, and grabbed two beers. I went back to my room, opened up my laptop, and typed in wikipedia.com to look up Darwin. My only hope at survival was to find out that I’d misinterpreted the quote.

Rules on Spending Free Money

Picture this:
It’s Christmas morning. You’re ten years old. You don’t slowly wake up as much as explode into a giddy state because of the promise your father had made. For the past few months he’s been promising to buy you a brand new, state of the art, can’t help but be jealous when you see it glide by -bicycle. You run down the stairs, wondering if falling would get you down faster and burst into the living room to find…no bike.

Not only is there no bike, but your father’s not there either. He didn’t come home last night. When you’re almost done opening all the presents which don’t fill the void left by the let down of not getting the bike you coveted, your father shows up. He stumbles into the house completely drunk and almost knocks over the Christmas tree because he can’t keep himself upright. Your mother is embarrassed so she tries to make light of the situation. However, this angers your father and he slugs her in the face, vomits on your brother and kicks the dog in the grain. Everyone in the room is crying. Christmas is ruined.

Now picture your father sobering up a few hours later, seeing the mess he created and going out to buy you a bike out of guilt. When he comes home with the new shiny bike, what do you do?

In other words…what do you plan to do with your $600 economic relief money?

Our president has spent the last 7.5 years finding ways to take proverbial dumps on the public’s chests. Even when he’s tried to do something good, such as giving back a diminutive amount of money as inflation grows and consumer confidence plummets, I can’t help but feel like the decision to do so involved him asking, “How much should we give these retards?”

Don’t get me wrong, I love getting money. Like most people, my morals are susceptible to bribes. I can be bought and $600 sounds like a pretty good number to me.

The real question is: How should I spend my $600?

I know I’m not the only person asking this question this week. While everyone knows they should be putting their money into a high-yield savings account, few will. Even fewer will spend the money correctly. Here are some rules on spending your economic relief fund check.

Don’t Give It To The Bad Guys

There are certain companies who should not get your $600. They are:
1) Gas companies – somewhere in America there is a board room where gasoline executives are sitting around taking advice from Mr. Burns.
2) Apple – I could have only $40 and I would somehow find a way to buy the new $200 iPod (which is almost exactly like the one I bought 9 months ago). They don’t need any help by people getting a lump of cash in the middle of the month.
3) Credit Card Companies – I’m convinced George Bush runs these too.
4) KFC – the last time I went there they forgot to give me my potato wedges.

Most Purchased Products

The two most purchased products in the next few weeks will be bags and sunglasses. I’ll put my economic relief fund on it. Why those two things? As summer approaches we want to show we’ve escaped a dark, dirty and crud-filled winter to emerge in a world where the sun is bright, things are clean and everything has a bright white shine to it.

Sunglasses and bags are what people in the industry call “I’ve been treated unfairly, I’m going to splurge on something that has been designed to make me happy at this moment, but will never give me even a second of satisfaction after this”-products. Give people extra cash and they’re going to be helpless against the urge to buy them.

How Much Is That Memory

Ultimately, if you’re not going to put the money in savings, you should spend your money on something you’ll always remember. If a picture is worth 1,000 words than a memory must be worth $600, right?
Two words:
1) Ski
2) Ball

Not only will you have a blast playing ski-ball for roughly 120 hours (I really did the math – I assumed each game was 3 minutes long and you found a place to play for a quarter), but you might get a perfect game at some point. That may not mean much to you, but I know I’d pay $600 to be able to say I was perfect without knowing it was a lie.

Practicality Isn’t Enjoyable

One Christmas, my brother and I received $30 worth of gift certificates to KFC (this blog is brought to you by Kentucky Fried Chicken, Mmmm…). We thought about using them over time to pay for our meals, but at the last minute, decided to buy 60 biscuits instead. We marched out of that place with four huge bags filled with nothing but biscuits and enjoyed throwing them all over town more than all the thigh and leg meals in the world.

Buy a Laugh

I’m hoping to see at least one person with a T-shirt that says:

“I got $600 as part of the economic relief package and all I got was this dumb T-shirt”

It makes just enough sense, while being completely confusing at the same time.

No matter what you spend your money on, try to enjoy it. There’s nothing worse than hearing someone talk about the TV they bought last year with their $600 and remembering yourself paying an electrical bill and getting a comforter dry-cleaned. This is your money; you’ve earned it by enduring all the mishaps, collapses and moments of shear panic. Get on that bike and ride it around the block.

Say What You Mean

Ever heard the phrase “do as I do, not as I say,”? How about “do as I say, not as I mean,”?

- What I said -
It’s not a problem.

- What I meant -
Thank you for making me wait for so long. You’ve pushed me to my complete limit and I’ve discovered a whole new side of homicidal thoughts I never thought possible. Chances are, the anger I’m holding in right now is going to make me say something stupid to my girlfriend like “it’s not that you’re stupid…it’s that you’re a woman,” and get us into a huge fight.

- What I said –
I don’t particularly like that show

- What I meant –
That show is for morons. Every time the writers for that show get together they start by saying “ok, name some things idiots like.” I’d rather watch a five year old cry as his parents scream at him than watch that show.

- What I said –
Do you think these pants are too tight?

- What I meant –
Let’s face it…I’m starting a period in my life that will be marked by an incredibly swift decline. The last thing I want is to be one of those fat old guys in skinny jeans. Those people always look like they have no idea how old and fat they’ve become.

Maybe I should just wear a bed sheet with two eye holes so I look like a ghost instead of having my stomach pop out from under my tight t-shirt while I’m struggling to get some change out of my pocket.

Don’t let me be that guy.

- What I said –
He’s like a mentor to me.

- What I meant –
I’ve learned more from Donald Duck than I’ve learned from that guy. I wouldn’t take lessons from him on how to put on pants because I’m sure he’d screw it up and they’d burst into flames at one point.

- What I said –
I’m not a big gin drinker

- What I meant –
When I was younger, my great Aunt went to hug me and simultaneously spilled her gin on the rocks on my chest and did one of those gin burp/throw-up combos on my face. Her only reaction was to kiss me on the cheek and inform me “gin don’t stain…now get me another one of these in a much bigger glass.”

- What I said –
Nice to meet you.

- What I meant –
The other day, I called my best friend by the name of my first dog – Scruffles. My memory has been reduced to a pile of baba ganoush…do you think there is anyway I’m going to remember who you are? I have roughly 75 different passwords for various accounts. Those I have to remember. Meeting some guy who is friends with someone I know at a bar. You’re as easily forgotten as the state capitals, baby.

- What I said –
What does your boyfriend do?

- What I meant –
I’m pretty sure it’s only a matter of time till my girlfriend figures out there are better options out there and I’m wondering if I need to keep you away from her so she doesn’t get any ideas while listening to you talk about your boyfriend who has a better job than me.

- What I said –
Thanks, man.

- What I meant –
I was on the fence about this shirt and now I’m 100% sure it’s a horrible shirt? Why? Cause if you liked it so much, you would have been so jealous you didn’t own it that you wouldn’t even mention it. Guys only compliment three things:
1) cars
2) golf clubs
And
3) things that make you look stupid – i.e. “nice shades…dude”.

The simple fact you’ve acknowledged its existence is proof you’re thinking how much this shirt makes me look like a joke.

Coffee Thoughts

While standing in line at a Starbucks, the mind starts to wander…and wander…

One medium coffee and one tall, soy, cinnamon dolce latte. I hope I have enough money. I should have enough. One medium coffee and one tall, soy, cinnamon dolce latte. I’m not going to say Tall or Grande. I don’t do Starbucks speak. When I was in Puerto Rico, I said “grande coffee” and that made sense. Here, I feel like a cult member. I might as well place my order, say “s’l vous plait” and make a fart noise with my mouth.

One medium coffee and one small, soy, cinnamon dolce latte. I wonder if I should tell them there’s a huge dead fly on that piece of lemon cake. I bet they’d say, “No, sir, that’s a dead Grande fly.”

I hope this woman gets off her cell phone before she has to order. It’s annoying enough standing in line with her talking to someone who I’ll assume is an idiot for my own amusement. I’m making myself a promise – if she is still on her cell phone when she orders I’m going pull out my cell phone and say, “Hey, Frank. I’m at Starbucks. Yeah, there’s this real huge bitch in front of me who won’t get off her cell phone. Is pushing someone considered assault?”

One medium coffee and one small, soy, cinnamon dolce latte. I think there should only be two acceptable responses when someone asks, “I’m going out to get coffee, does anyone want anything?” Those two responses are, “No,” and “I’ll come with you.” I don’t even know if Ms. Soy Cinnamon Dolce Latte is going to pay me back or if she thinks this one is on the house. I’m not handing it to her until I see at least $4 from her.

If coffee is supposed to put hair on your chest…what takes it off? Whatever it is, I should be drinking that stuff. I remember my first cup of coffee. I was into sports, but one time, I found myself at a Denny’s with a bunch of kids in theater. The theater crowd likes coffee. I didn’t know how many sugars to ask for so I just said “the usual,” hoping the waiter might confuse me with someone else’s “usual” order.

One medium coffee and one small, soy, cinnamon dolce latte. Why aren’t there energy drink bars? Red Bull can’t open up a little shop? I don’t know how coffee did it, but it somehow became the perfect drink for picking yourself up AND for calming down. There’s a guy right over there drinking a cup of coffee and quietly reading the newspaper. If I opened a Red Bull bar, there would be padded walls and everything in the bar could be thrown all over the place.

I wonder if the person behind me is starring at my ass. I’m starring at the person’s ass in front of me. I should check.

Great! Now the guy behind me thinks I’m checking him out. He definitely wasn’t starring at my ass. Should I be insulted? Even better, I’m ordering a completely feminine drink. He’s going to think I’m gay for sure. Maybe I’ll order my coffee and then say “this big breasted hottie I’m sleeping with would like a…” Would that fly? Is that sexual harassment? Oh well, I’d rather be thought of as gay than the poor sucker who orders the lemon cake.

I’m going to ask the barista if there’s one drink they hate to make. What if it’s mine? Should I feel guilty? Should I make my co-worker feel guilty? I’m going to tell my co-worker it’s her drink no matter what the barista says.

One medium coffee and one small, soy, cinnamon dolce latte. I really should update my blog. It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. I bet people are annoyed. I’m not sure who I think these people are, but I have to think people care about my blog or else it’s…well, a blog. There has to be a few people who go home each night and say, “Honey, I had another shitty day. ThePatrickRules.com remains un-updated. It’s getting really hard to get out of bed in the morning.” Maybe?

I should just write down my thoughts. My thoughts? Those aren’t interesting. I should make up a story. Maybe the Starbucks gets held up and someone tells me there’s a gun behind the Venti cups – but since I refuse to acknowledge the Starbucks speak, the robber gets away. Naaahhh, those stories are boring.

That’s the problem:
Real life is boring and made up stories are obviously made up because they’re NOT boring.

I think I’m going to get the wrong order for my co-worker just so she never lets me get coffee for her again.

I wish the guitar solo for We Will Rock You was better. It starts off great, but after that it’s kinda blah. I need new sneakers.

Oh good, the woman in front of me got off her cell phone. Now I feel kind of guilty for starring at her ass this whole time. Maybe the guy in back of me noticed I was starring and knows I’m not gay. I hope he starred at my ass for just a second though.

Beware of Awesome

Try to guess which phrase my father forbids me to say:

a) I quit
b) I’ll try
c) How bad could it be

If you knew my father and his less than secret quest to destroy me, you would have guessed the correct answer, C. When it comes to quitting my father said, “The only thing more noble than trying to conquer a challenge is not trying to do something you stink at.”

When it came to the phrase, “I’ll try,” he says, “Failure is unavoidable. You’ll lead an empty life if you don’t at least try.”

However, when it comes to the phrase, “How bad could it be,” my father is adamantly against it. The reason for this is because he is convinced there is a ripple in the cosmic sphere which can be opened and a power of great significance will be unleashed to smite anyone who had utters the phrase. In other words, if you say “how bad could it be,” you are about to find out it is worse than you could have ever expected.

Most people would find my father’s logic flawed, un-correlated and downright dumber than a can of tuna. My father, however, thinks his theory is scientific fact due to the incredible times he has been proven right. If he sees a sign that says, “Two Lobsters for the Price of One,” he might say, “That’s a great deal. How bad could they be?” only to find out they were fatty crayfish and one was $40. If we sees a hotel that said it has a heated pool he would say, “How bad could it be” and he’d find out the pool was as big and as deep as a wheelbarrow and was only heated by the incredible amount of urine left behind by previous users.

There are times when I see a drink special for something called an “Oil Burn” and think, “How bad can it be,” but I keep my mouth shut. I’ve grown into a superstitious man who thinks the universe is out to get me.

That’s probably why I’ve created a new phrase to be intrinsically leery of. Some people think it might be when my girlfriend tells me, “I’m late,” or when my boss brings me into his office and says, “Shut the door.” No, the phrase that stops me dead in my tracks is, “It’s gonna be awesome.”

I’ve come to learn that the phrase, “It’s gonna be awesome,” is code for, “What is about to happen is going to be horrible. Awesome is actually the last word you will describe it as.”

Think of all the times someone has told you it’s going to be awesome. No matter what “it” is, “it” is going to fall short and either leaves you in the hospital or having wasted a lot of money.

Here are some common examples of when you might hear someone say, “It’s going to be awesome,”:
 - “Hey, man. Let’s get in these trash cans and roll down this hill. It’s gonna be awesome!”
 - “Let’s add cheese to this chocolate cake. It’s gonna be awesome!”
 - “Let’s drive ten hours to a casino in Ohio! It’s gonna be awesome!”
 - “I found this gun. You want to shoot it? It’s gonna be awesome!”

Not to be overlooked is the fact that most of the time the phrase is predicated by the also sketchy phrase of, “Trust me.” Someone who says this is almost afraid you might see through his rouse and that breaking a bottle over your head ISN’T going to be awesome, so he decides to add trust in as an added confidence factor. Giving trust to someone who is proposing a, “It’s gonna be awesome” scenario is like getting a receipt from someone who sells TVs out of the back of a truck.

The other thing about the phrase that gets me is that I mostly hear it from people who are drunk or high. That’s a red flag right there. ANYTHING that is directly associated with drinking and drugs should immediately be met with a level of skepticism. Not necessarily avoid, but carefully examined.

Do you know what never gets the phrase, “It’s gonna be awesome” attached to it? Things that are actually awesome. They don’t need to be sold. It’s like beach front property or a party filled with models – there doesn’t need to be much else said.

Maybe I’m being too uptight. Who knows how many historical moments came together based on the common concept that, “It’s gonna be awesome,”? Is it possible George Washington pronounced, “We shall take the British at Yorktown…It’s gonna be awesome,” or Michelangelo said, “I’m gonna paint the shit out of this church’s ceiling… It’s gonna be awesome,”?

Regardless of what actually was said that inspired the great things in our existence, I stay away from the phrase now. I’ve learned things that are awesome (fireworks) should be left as is and not made into things that are gonna be awesome (firing them at each other).

A Yard Sale for Change

The girl I dated in high school didn’t get my parent’s sense of humor. She thought they were weird and tacky. The predominance of her opinion was based on a piece of “art” my parents exhibited in the entry way. To most people, it was an almost unnoticeable little plastic statue. To her, it was a cause for concern.

The statue was a plate of spaghetti, with the noodles stretched high above the plate and wrapped around a suspended fork that looked like it had been plucked out of someone’s hand. My parents called it, “in medias res,” which is Latin for “in the middle of things.” My girlfriend, however, called it “trashy,” which is Latin for “If we had kids together, your parents wouldn’t be allowed to see them.”

We got into more than a few fights over this particular statue. To me, it was the embodiment of levity and summarized my family’s quirky, not to be taken too seriously, attitude. Any insults directed towards the statue were personal assaults towards me and I would defend it as if it were my child.

Situations like this are pretty common. Inanimate objects are given personal feelings and often times they take on a life of their own. That’s why we love a particular bowl, are sad to throw out an old pair of snow boots and why the most emotionally exhausting experience in the world is a yard sale.

A yard sale is clothes you should have never purchased, tables that wobble, dressers with drawers that screech and electronics that haven’t worked for a long time. It’s a collection of things you don’t want anymore or can’t justify keeping any longer, but, since you paid good money for that rock tumbler, you want something, anything, in return.

The lead up to the yard sale can be emotionally difficult. It’s the time when you have to cut your losses and admit you’ve made poor purchases in the past. It’s the time you have to say good-bye to a piece of garbage you’ve grown emotionally attached to. Some people are better than others at this, but almost everyone has a hard time getting rid of something.

A lot of the sentimental garbage doesn’t make it out to the lawn as someone in the family puts up a big enough fight to keep their broken skis they used in high school. Some of the sentimental garbage makes it out to the lawn, but it’s clearly not for sale. When I say, “not for sale,” I mean an old mug priced at $40 or a lamp placed to the side that you can’t approach without the owner making you nervous.

The summer after my freshman year of college, a yard sale was my summer’s goal. The previous year I’d spent broke and I needed to make enough money to last me my entire sophomore year.

Like most kids who return home after a year away from the nest, I felt like I had completely changed. I was a new man. I was surprised anyone could recognize me. I thought, “Don’t they see that I’ve experienced so much? Can’t they see how I’m wearing my hair now?! Doesn’t that say EVERYTHING!!”

The combination of making a few bucks and cleansing myself of my former junk yielded an obvious solution – the mother of all yard sales. Everything had to go. Nothing I owned seemed to fit in with my new, “sophisticated and mature,” lifestyle.

I convinced my entire family to join in and Labor Day weekend, we had ourselves a yard sale.

The first lesson I learned about yard sales is that some people show up early. People show up so early, I’d have to imagine their thought process goes like this:

“The Morris’s yard sale starts at 9:00…which means all the good stuff will be gone by 8:00…which means the people who will try to beat the early birds will get there at 7:00, so I should get there at 4:00.”

My first sale of our 9:00 a.m. yard sale was a bedside table to a guy who said, “That’s the smallest damn thing I’ve ever seen. I’ll take it!” at 5:43 a.m.

As I was drinking my first cup of coffee (which I didn’t like yet, but felt like faking since, “I’ve changed so much since high school!”) I transitioned from the first phase of a yard sale into the second.

In case you didn’t know, yard sales have three phases:
I. “This is kind of fun. Wow! I’m making money! Maybe I should have charged double.”
II. “I’m so bored of this. These people are disgusting. Yes, I’ll take a $.25 off that $1.25 lamp if that will make you buy it.”
III. “What am I going to do if I don’t sell this crap?! I’m not lugging this stuff back inside! Does that dresser say $30? It’s supposed to say $.30.”

By 12:15 I had a new rule that anyone who tried to barter was immediately banished from buying anything while people who didn’t were rewarded with getting what they’d picked out for free. It’s pretty much the worst business model for a yard sale, but I’d just spent 40 minutes with a woman who forced me to talk her through the entire yard sale. Every time I’d say, “And over here we have a set of old magazines,” she’d ask, “How much?” When I told her the price she would say, “Sooooollllldd.” After showing her roughly 400 items and hearing her say, “Sooooolllldd,” 400 times she proceeded to purchase a bucket shaped like an owl and nothing more.

As the afternoon came to a close, the flow of desperate garbage pickers…I mean customers, slowed to a trickle and I had a lot of time to stare at my old stuff that had meant a lot to me, but meant nothing to anyone else. I thought about the past year and how eager I was to depart from the rest of my life to exhibit how many new experiences I had had.

The one thing that had remained consistent between those times was my girlfriend, who had just arrived with her mother as a courtesy. As her mother looked around at the scattered remnants of the yard sale, I told my girlfriend about the guy who bought the tiny table, the girl who walked away from a dinette set because I refused to mark it down to a dollar and the woman who was “Soooolllddd” on everything. She patted my head in a condescending way and began to talk about how her legs were sore from running.

The yard sale had been a waste. I was angry with myself for thinking I’d feel better the further I got from everything I’d once known. I’d take the money I’d made on that day and probably spend it over the course of a month on cheap beer. Cheap beer for memories.

My girlfriend went inside to use the bathroom and I continued to regret how eager I was to run away from everything I’d known. As I was pouting, my girlfriend’s mother came up to me and said, “I’ll take this.” She was holding my parent’s spaghetti statue. “Your daughter always loved this statue. Maybe you should give it to her for her birthday.”

While having the last laugh against my girlfriend made my day, it was still a somber experience. I learned that day that things are never a real representation of who you are or where you’ve been. The only way to truly show how much you’ve changed…is to get a new haircut.

10 Stupid Things I’ve ACTUALLY Done

I put a shirt in the microwave because I wanted it to dry. Little did I know that this doesn’t work at all.

I went to a friend’s work function and after one of his co-workers told a story about how she ruined a client’s ad and felt so guilty about it, I said, “Don’t worry about it. We’ve all made mistakes. One time I drowned this cat by accident.” When she said, “Are you comparing a silly botched ad with murdering a cat?” I said, “It wasn’t really a big deal. It wasn’t MY cat!”

At a company event I was handing out slices of cake. When I got to this woman who weighs close to 300 lbs I said, “Would you like a bigger piece?” When she said no I followed it up with, “Oh, you’re probably on a diet”.

Tried washing my hair with toothpaste to “See What Happened.”

When on the phone with the electric company, I forgot the word “deposit” and kept asking if I was required to pay the “severance charge.”

Kept talking to this girl about how much I liked the movie Wild at Heart the David Lynch movie with Nicolas Cage, but kept calling it Wild Things, the movie with Denise Richards, Neve Campbell and a sex scene.

When my phone rang, and I saw who was calling, I said, “I’m not talking to that guy until he admits to himself that he is gay,” and realized I had pressed “answer” instead of “silence”.

Tried to wake up my vegan friend by putting a cold piece of fried chicken on his face only to have him jolt awake and cut himself on the bone.

Told someone how I had hurt my back stretching and when they accused me of stretching incorrectly I showed them exactly how I had been stretching and hurt myself again.

After a late night, I got onto the subway. I immediately fall asleep. Then, all of a sudden, I woke up and saw the doors are closing. “How long have I been asleep? I must have missed my stop!” I jumped off and realized that I was still at the stop where I had gotten onto the train.

You’re Damn Right I Want Fries With That

For four years I walked by a White Castle two times a day. That’s almost 3,000 times. Some of those times I was too poor to buy a healthy meal. Some of those times I was drunk and craved something greasy. However, I only went in 3 times. The first time was because I had to try the food. Something about the advertised “chicken rings” just drew me in like a tractor beam. 10 Hamburgers, an order of chicken rings and $4 later, and I heard sounds come from my stomach that sounded like a pig getting run over by a steamroller and decided White Castle might not be so great.

I found myself going through the hallowed doors a second time when I couldn’t believe they were actually selling a suitcase of hamburgers for $8. They do and the rest of my weekend was spent praising god for placing so many Starbucks and their relatively clean bathrooms so closely together.

The final time I went into White Castle was after a night of heroic drinking. I was walking home and decided the night had room for one more bad decision. For some reason I only bought an order of onion rings and for some reason I walked a good thirty feet and then threw them at a passing car. That was the end of my White Castle days.

I didn’t resist going to White Castle because I’m health nut by any means. I think I respect my body as much as a big company respects a college intern. The real reason I didn’t grab a fist-full of burgers everyday on my way home was because I wanted Fast Food to be special.

When I was growing up, Fast Food felt like the only thing in my world that made sense. Everything in small town Vermont looked like crappy shows like Little House on the Prairie while Fast Food places looked like cool shows like Miami Vice. Everything in a Fast Food place came in individual packets, was built to be climbed on and tasted like salt. My house was all about lentils in bulk, “careful, that’s an antique” furniture and food that I described as tasting like a wet pair of underwear.

Even though I loved Fast Food, I almost never got to eat it. Due to the ruralness of my town, the nearest fast food place was almost an hour away and my “You can eat bark and not die”-parents never liked feeding me something as kitschy as a Big Mac. Instead it was reserved as incentive to coax us onto the road at 5:00 a.m. or into a “surprise” that almost always turned out to be a trip to the dentist.

That’s why my head almost blew up when, in 8th grade, my family moved to a town that had every form of Fast Food known to man. Carl’s Jr., Jack in The Box, and Del Taco? We’d never heard of these places before!

The first day after we arrived in our new town, I grabbed my bike off the moving truck and headed towards downtown. The wonderful, world-is-at-your-fingertips freedom! It was almost too much to handle. You know what else was too much to handle? A frosty, a jr. cheeseburger deluxe and a large fries while I rode on my bike. As I was crossing the street of a hectic intersection, my bag ripped open and all my fries fell onto the pavement. I should have just accepted my losses and walked away, but my country boy attitude told me there were a few fries that were still good. I frantically picked up as many loose fries off the pavement as I could while cars honked and people yelled at me.

From then on, I forced my dad to drive me for Fast Food. And drive he did. He felt so guilty about uprooting my brother and me that he caved every time we started chanting “K-F-C!! K-F-C!!”

After a few months my brother and I created “The Perfect Meal,” and on Sunday nights we would make my dad drive from place to place picking up essential elements before The Simpsons came on. Here’s how the meal generally went:
- Whopper from Burger King
- Potato Wedges from KFC
- French Fries from Carl’s Jr.
- Chicken Nuggets from McDonalds
- Soda from Taco Bell (we were convinced they had the best dr. pepper)

My father finally put his foot down when we requested he stop at Wendy’s because they had the best plastic forks.

Through our Fast Food gluttony, we amassed a stockpile of condiments. My brother and I insisted we keep them until we could figure out what to do with 20 lbs of small ketchup packets. My parents, however, figured out a plan first. They handed each condiment packet out at Halloween instead of candy. What better way to say “Hi, we’re new here. Fuck you!” than shoving a handful of mustard packets into someone’s candy sack. I became “The kid who lives at that house that gave away mayo packets for Halloween” and then later “The kid who lives at that house that keeps getting egged.”

Hundreds of Whoppers later, I burned myself out on Fast Food. Now, I only reserve it for when I’m on the road. It gives me something to distract me from wondering “Will I get a speeding ticket” or “How much further!?” I can wonder if the Whopper has as many pickles on it as I remember or if they ever got rid of that stupid bun in the middle of a Big Mac. The beauty of Fast Food has always been the anticipation, the thought of something a little salty, a little greasy. It’s never been the “that feeling you might soil yourself means you’re full” taste.

Till Your Hair Hurts

It was time to take a shower when my hair hurt, not a second sooner. I didn’t care if I had mud on my lips or had been sprayed by a skunk, I wasn’t combining soap, water and my skin until my hair felt like a brillo pad that would crunch and crack if I touched it.

The good news is that this moment wasn’t as infrequent as you might suspect. I wore hats for every second of my pre-pubescent life and my hair hurt frequently.

At first I wore hats because I wanted to look like my baseball heroes. I wanted to be Wade Boggs, Marty Barrett, Jody Reed and Roger Clemens. Since I couldn’t grow facial hair and my parents wouldn’t let me wear a baseball uniform to school, baseball hats were the closest I could get.

My parents warned me of the perils of wearing a hat 24 hours a day. They used to say, “You’re going to go bald by the time you’re 18!!” To me this was a misguided threat. The only people cooler than baseball players were basketball players and they made being bald seem cool. Charles Barkley and Michael Jordon were both bald and cool. Larry Bird and Kevin McHale, while my favorite basketball players, looked like normal people who hung out in my town. Why would I want to grow up to look like the guy who shovels my driveway when looking like MJ was an option?

My obsession with hats hit a new high when I realized one day that I was in control of how I looked (which somehow was important to me all of a sudden). Before I had relied on my parents to provide me with hats, but now I was the boss and I could wear a turquoise hat if I wanted. I could wear a white hat that had an off centered logo if I was trying to appear “casual” and I could wear a bright red hat that said “Pogo” if I wanted everyone around me to know that I was a good time.

For most kids, 13 is a difficult year because their body is changing, they’re discovering girls for the first time and they’re stuck in a world where they’re not quite ready to embrace the act of growing up. For me, 13 was an incredibly difficult year. I couldn’t find a fitted hat.

Growing up to me meant wearing hats that could fit your head and no one else’s. It meant showing people you had elevated yourself from a world of adjustable hats and was ready to wear a hat backwards without your hair sticking out. The problem was, it was difficult to find a fitted hat in the size “pinhead.”

While my friends noticed their voices were changing, I noticed my head went from a round pumpkin-like shape to something that resembled a lava lamp. Nothing fit my small, pointy head correctly. Still, I spent the entire year looking for a hat meant for a head like a parking cone.

A year or two later, I was once again ready to expand my hat horizon. Baseball hats were well and good, but they were too casual for a sophisticated socialite like myself. I tried to simulate my brother, who wore a barrette, but for some reason it was difficult to see “sophistication” in the mirror when the barrette was overshadowed by the replica basketball jerseys I wore daily.

When my brother informed me that a hat should accent and not completely contrast your style I went to the thrift store and bought a woman’s blouse, thinking it would match the barrette better. I still can’t decide if I was way off or right on the money.

Somewhere along the lines, my obsession for hats abruptly ended. I’d like to think it was because my social activities changed and I started going to fancy dinners and fooling around with girls. But I think the real reason is that I just grew up and didn’t want to look like I did when I was 12 anymore.

Every once in a while, when I’m way beyond bored or seeking for a slice of unique identity, I consider wearing a hat to create an identity. I think of people who made their hat an icon and wonder if I could do the same. It worked for Indiana Jones. It worked for Abraham Lincoln (which, by the way, that tall, lanky, freak of a genetic disorder guy wearing a tall stove pipe hat is as overkill as a fat guy wearing a meatball on his head).

I think to myself, ‘What about a dunce cap or a civil war hat? Wouldn’t those instantly create an identity?’

The answer is yes. They would, but they’d be forced. I will never be able to wear a hat so sincerely and with such pleasure as I did when I was nine so what’s the point. Maybe I’ll find a hat that works for me, but right now, they all just like things that will make my hair hurt. Besides, I don’t need to wear a fedora for people to know that I’m a dick.

1200 is More Indie: The SATs

I studied for the SATs. I studied for them the entire ride to the testing center. Not such an easy thing to do when you’re the one driving, but I figured the slightest advantage would help.

I was 17, a smart kid from a rural town and I thought the only thing standing between me and the school of my choice was a silly test I could beat by skimming a 300 page book ten minutes before the moderator said, “You may begin.”

I’m not sure where this confidence came from. Maybe I’m the product of overly supportive parents. One time when I was a few years younger I was a very average wrestler. You could tell I wasn’t legit by the fact I used to walk out onto the mat with my arms crossed and my boxers sticking out the bottom of my stupidly tight singlet. Fortunately, there weren’t a lot of wrestlers my age as skinny as I was so I got to beat up on a lot of kids much younger than me. It felt great to throw a 12 year old to the ground.

There was one kid who was my age and significantly better than me. Every tournament the two of us would destroy the children and meet in the finals. Every tournament he would throttle me and accept his medal while I was still laying on the mat.

One day before a tournament, my father decided to be overly supportive. The embarrassment of cheering for me when an 11-year-old’s father next to him was screaming, “That kid with a beard is trying to kill my boy!” only to have every father gang up on him when I was planted into the mat had gotten to him. He wanted a victory. He wanted it so bad he did what most fathers do – blatantly lie to their children in the hopes of boosting their confidence.

He instructed me to look my frequent conqueror right in the eyes before the referee started the match and say, “Bet you’re thinking about getting first place, huh? I don’t think things are going to work out for you this time. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Bad ass, huh? There never was a surprise, but the illusion and possibility that something might be different was supposed to be enough to give me an edge. Unfortunately, I didn’t deliver the line correctly and I got pinned right after saying, “Bet you’re thinking about getting first place. Hope things work out for you.”

The false confidence I had flat on my back was the same I felt as I parked the car at the SAT test center. I thought “would a 1400 make me look too much like a nerd? Maybe something in the high 1300’s would be better. Looks more indie.”

My first sign that I was overestimating the ease of the test came when instructions were given. Pencils, scrap paper, questions, bathroom breaks and objects allowed in the room were all strictly outlined. I knew I might be in trouble when I got lost at step 12 of how to report a broken pencil.

As soon as the test started, I began a slow decent into disgusting self-doubt. I’ll never forget the first question:

What is the average (arithmetic mean) of all the integers from -39 to 40, inclusive?

Math was not my expertise. The question would have made more sense to me if it were written as “What is the bramble (sunder kong) of all the windasels from -39 to 40, standango?

Not only did I have ZERO idea what they were asking for, but I knew the question was built to make fun of people…like me…who weren’t hip to the mathematical lingo. It would be like asking a nerd:

What’s the percent you should ask a girl to pay for dinner on the first date in order to have the greatest chance for a second date?

While they’re slamming through their calculators trying to find a percentage of X, you’re calmly circling D – the guy should pay for dinner on the first date.

Unfortunately, after staring at the question for roughly twelve minutes I realized I needed to add up the range of numbers they gave and find the average. After another twelve minutes I was adding -28 to -374 and decided perhaps this isn’t how the strategy book would suggest I answer this question. I circled B and moved on to the next question thinking it would be something simple like:

What is the chance you got the previous question right?

When the moderator circled a large 5 on the board to signify I had five minute to answer…all but one of the questions, I started trying to convince myself that a 1200 score was MUCH more indie and planned to make fun of people who got anything higher.

First break – I thought about making a run for it. Yes, there would be some shame in running away and yes, I would have to practice telling my parents “I’ve always wanted to work as an unskilled laborer,” but the alternative would entail an elaborate lie about how I was kidnapped and forced to answer every question wrong in order to be set free.

I elected to return to the test in hopes of acing the English portion of the test. English was my forte. Little did I know that none of the questions would entail the English I’d been using for the past 17 years.

…
My pencil was firmly planted on my desk when the instructor told us to put our pencils down. I’d finished the test in record time due to a new system I called “fuck it!”

The car trip home was the worst because my mind was still in over-analyzing mode. It felt like the STOP signs had question marks on the end of them, and the 24 hour gas station had a sign saying, “Open the average number of continuous integers from the standard deviation of prime numbers in the following range…”

It’s taken me a while to get over that sinking feeling that the only question you know the answer to is:  Who is the stupidest person in the room right now? No matter how many times I say, “I just don’t take standardized tests well,” I feel like adding “because I’m stupid.” The good news is that every day I wake up, that daunting combined verbal and math score fades further and further into the distance. Within a decade, I’ll be unable to differentiate between my real score and the score I like to tell people.

And that’s the beauty of standardized testing. It’s weighted so heavily in one moment in time and never again. After college, it’s hard to imagine your worth and intelligence is measured by your ability to find the section of a passage which states the author’s feelings towards the crab population in the Bay of Bengal. Your worth and intelligence is more aptly based on your ability to pay your bills, figure out the next book to read and find a way to keep the rest of the world from crushing you.

That and your paycheck – which, for me, is scarily similar to my SAT score now that I think about it.