The Price Of Eggs In China

In elementary school, my class used to get semi-regular visits from the Desk Fairy. The Desk Fairy, we were told, would stop by our classroom from time to time and inspect each student's desk for cleanliness and organization. The students who made the cut would come to class on Monday to find some sort of treat or classroom currency waiting for them. Suffice it to say that no one in elementary school was very impressed by this idea. Come on. By then we knew most every cuss word, Offspring song, and "ha ha you're gay" joke in existence. Rolos and raffle tickets were fine, but a fairy? I guess it all served a purpose, though, because it made what can now be understood as an invasion of privacy into something that conjured up images of our teacher prancing from boogery desk to boogery desk wearing a tutu and carrying a bucket of candy (and if you knew Mr. Stoneman, this would be hilarious to you, too). Most kids by default kept their desks clean enough to make the grade, possibly driven by a normal human desire to stay organized. I never got anything from the Desk Fairy, though. In fact, my desk might have been the reason the Desk Fairy started drinking.

Anyone who knows me knows this about me: I do not have my shit together. I never have. My desk used to be so dirty it wouldn't fully close. I dropped out of high school before I finished a semester. I leave things on the floor in front of my bed, then wake up every day and promptly trip over them (which is actually fine, because it turns out that screaming "fuck" or "cocksucker" is a good vocal cord exercise). Every time I take a test, I have to borrow a pencil from someone around me, then that person finishes first and I lose their pencil before I see them again. Basically, anything in life that involves even a modicum of organization or foresight is beyond me.

I've always envied people who somehow manage to stay on top of their responsibilities. If you've ever started a paper more than 8 hours before it's due, or made plans to go to a movie with friends like a week in advance and then honored those plans, or stayed on a consistent sleep schedule, then you're a better person than I am, and I hate you. I even envy those little everyday rituals that people develop, like doing the Jumble, or going for a jog, or hitting up Starbucks on the way to work. I guess it's just the level of comfort and rhythm that daily rituals seem to provide. I also realize that to be mystified by something so simple makes me sound like a robot from an '80s made-for-TV movie who becomes fascinated by a child's capacity to love unconditionally. I'm OK with it.

Recently, I've tried to develop some of these daily placeholders. By far the most successful of my efforts has been to drink some sort of hot beverage every morning. It's a pretty simple thing (which is why I can do it), but somehow it makes me feel like everything is right in the world. For 8 minutes or so a day, my shit is together, and not in diaspora. I'm not sure why or how it works, but I'm going to contend that it's the mug. Something about the act of sipping from a mug with a handle slows everything down and puts your metaphorical ducks in a row. Or it might just be my mug, because I found the stupidest/baddest-ass mug in the world. Just looking at it makes me unexplainably happy. Behold - Christmas Dogs!




This makes me laugh every time I see it. The picture is low-quality, but I'll take you through it. The dogs are posing in front of a Christmas tree, and in front of them are cookies and milk. There is a note affixed to the mug in the bottom-right, which I've blown up below.



First, I just have to point out that the artist missed a chance to be very meta by making the mug in the picture a Christmas Dogs mug, as well (kind of like writing an annoying blog post about blogging...shit). But anyway, did I mention that the puppies supposedly wrote a motherfucking note? At first glance you might just think that some lame asshole decided to pose some dogs with Santa hats in front of a tree. But no, this is a universe in which puppies are capable of writing. All of a sudden, the rules have changed. Then the letter reveals that these are not just adorable little puppies who can miraculously read and write. These are naughty little scamps, caught in the act of incorrigible superpuppy rascaldom. The one on the left has a candy cane in his mouth, the one in the middle a cookie, and the one on the right clearly just drank some of Santa's milk. And the puppies aren't just apologizing after the fact. They wrote the note ahead of time, then proceeded to keep eating Santa's goddamn food. There is no remorse here. These are cold, calculating, cuddly puppy bastards. Also, notice that the "e"s in "Dear" and "We" are backwards, but the "e" in "explain" is normal. They are getting smarter by the second. From the beginning of a one-sentence note to the end, you can detect improvement. Humanity is fucked. Armed with the knowledge that these puppies are capable of more planning and cunning than I am, we can start looking at the individual dogs in a new light.

Benoit

The streetwise and devious leader of the group. I think it goes without saying that Benoit is the leader here. I mean, come on, he looks like Wishbone - you know he's the brains of the outfit. But there's just a certain je ne sais quoi about the guy. He's got style. I mean, there's wearing a hat, and there's wearing a hat, knowhati'msayin'? Also, Benoit is a ladies' man. While his lackies greedily devour their ill-gotten food, Benoit carries around a candy cane like it's a rose. But there's something menacing about the guy. The left side of his face is bathed in darkness like he's Vito Corleone, and there's something cold and detached in his eyes. You just get the idea that Benoit will murder you with the pointy end of that candy cane if you so much as look at him funny. Maybe his bark is worse than his bite, who knows. But don't you fucking dare make fun of his "Joy" sweater. Joy is his mother's name, and through years of painstaking research I know exactly two things about dogs: 1. They love their moms, and 2. They are too hairy to get tattoos.

Carbuncle

The group's enforcer/chameleon. Carbuncle is a soi-disant moron. He is known for his general loutishness and poor conjugation skills, but this is all a ruse. Carbuncle knows how to manage expectations and make them work to his own benefit. He could have been a successful businessdog, if he hadn't grown up on Benoit's side of the tracks. He lacks Benoit's natural charisma and leadership skills, and is more comfortable when he's pretending to be someone else.

Percy

Poor Percy. Yeah, he's greedily drinking Santa's milk, but you know he doesn't feel good about it. There is a quiet desperation in his eyes that lets you know that he never thought he'd end up here. But way leads on to way, and here he is, debasing himself and depriving St. Nick a hard-earned swig of cow lactation. Benoit and Carbuncle are his childhood pals, and he's always tagged along and put up with their abuse because they're the closest thing he has to family. But the eyes don't lie: he can't take it anymore. I like to think that this is Percy's last job; he's getting out. He has dreams of opening an eponymous bistro and settling down. If this were a ridiculous movie, and not a ridiculous mug (and why can't it be? Those stupid Geico caveman commercials became a stupid TV series), Percy would never get his chance. His last job would go horribly awry, and he'd be killed by a vengeful Santa Claus. Benoit and Carbuncle would be crushed. Sure, they often treated him poorly, but he was like their kid brother. He was innocent. Cue the badass third act, where Benoit and Carbuncle regroup and devise an elaborate revenge plot, which involves Carbuncle dressing up like a woman and seducing Santa while Benoit leads Mrs. Claus to the scene, leading to Santa's ultimate fall from grace and a high building. Then, cut to sixth months later. Carbuncle has opened up Percy's Bistro, and it's a resounding success. The kitchen is staffed by Santa's elves, and Benoit saunters on in with the newly liberated Jessica Claus, and orders a scone. Benoit couldn't give up the life of crime. He's bummed that Carbuncle dropped out, but at least he's got his lady with him. After exchanging a few pleasantries, they head out the door, and through the window we see them take off in Santa's sleigh. "Merry Christmas" writes itself across the screen in big red cursive. The end.

Anyway, I love this mug. It is so unbelievably stupid and lame that it's impossible not to love it. If the person who painted this was being completely sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek, I would call that person a genius. I'm guessing, though, that this painter truly believes in that special magic that can only result when Christmas and puppy scampishness collide. According to the bottom of the mug, that artist is one J. Newland. I am afraid for J. Newland. Anyone who could envision a universe this over-the-top, this nauseatingly adorable, is going through a pretty bleak time. I want to reach out and help, but I'm scared that to do so might deny repressed and sad WASP mothers everywhere the seminal voice of their generation. If someone had cured Van Gogh's depression, we wouldn't have Starry Night. J. Newland might live a desperate, lonely, ephemeral life, but Christmas Dogs will be loved forever. Of course, you might say that to question J. Newland's sanity so soon after crafting elaborate backstories for painted dogs might be akin to Carlos Mencia telling someone they're not funny. Fuck you.

GUEST WRITER: Cornelius T. McJesus, Professional Hobo

Dear Sir,

You may think that you have received this letter in error; I can assure you that this is not the case. You know me, sir – or at least you would, were it not for your seeming resolution to cross the street at the very sight of me. You’re a busy man, I understand, and you don’t have time to stop and talk to everyone you see during the day. But would it kill you to acknowledge me as a fellow human being when I say “Good morning” to you? Would it hurt you so much to offer a little more than your standard cursory mumbles and averted gazes? At least have the common decency, sir, to look me in the penis when I’m talking to you.

Times are tough, I get it. I, better than anyone, understand what a man has to lose when he allows himself to be diverted from the task at hand. It is true; I have fallen from the good graces of society, of responsibility. But I do not seek to detain you, sir. I merely seek a brief moment of human contact. Am I now subhuman? Am I no longer a man? Am I no longer worthy of even a fleeting acknowledgment of my manhood? While not everyone can afford to stop and fondle my exposed genitals, the least you could do is pause for a millisecond and look past your prejudgments, look past your ideology - indeed, look past your disdain - and simply look a man in the penis, in spite of his hardship.

Was it not Albert Schweitzer who said, “Think occasionally of the penises of which you spare yourself the sight”? It is true – time’s ravages have taken their toll. One look into my penis will reveal the years of suffering and pain. But you don’t have time, do you? I see you walking your children to school. You shield their eyes. You hurry them on by. You are terrified that they might see the seedy nether regions of society – the America they never learn about in school. You want to shield them from the mangled, herpetic truth. But here it is, sir, in the full light of day. To simply refuse to acknowledge my penis will not make it go away. To look at my penis is not to see the American Dream; there is no story of rags-to-riches, only crags and stitches. My penis’s story is not the tidy story of George Washington’s penis, or Betsy Ross's penis. But you are too cowardly to acknowledge the tale my penis can tell, aren’t you? Home of the brave, indeed.

Again, I understand that you don’t want to lend a helping handjob. All I ask is a little understanding. Next time you’re in front of a mirror, I want you to look yourself in the penis, and ask yourself what it would be like to pee through my eye for a day. Walk a day in my penis, sir, then ask yourself who is really the blue-veined monster here. Do you have the balls to answer that question? You don’t have to suck me off, sir. Just don’t blow me off.

Circumspectly and Circumcisedly yours,

Cornelius T. McJesus

Cornelius T. McJesus is the author of several essays, including “The Government: Friend, Foe, or Run by Giraffe-Necked Aliens With Debatable Intentions?” and “On the Merits of Skeet”. He has recently authored a series of pamphlets, entitled “Double Your Aluminum Cans in 30 days, or Your Handjobs Back!”. He is a regular contributor to “Raving Hobo Quarterly”, “Bridge Aficionado”, and “The Panhandler”. He currently resides in Hackensack, New Jersey with his loyal dog Nixon.

Obligatory Holiday Post

I almost forgot it was Halloween, the most evil of the secular holidays (OK, besides Abortion Day... and Earth Day). I get closer and closer to forgetting it every year. I'd say about 4 years from now, I'll forget entirely and just think that my boss has somehow been transformed into a big foam dinosaur.

Say what you will about it, but at least today everyone gets to be what they want. People who want attention can get it, and people who like to blend into a crowd are happy, too. I think we've all had one of those paranoid days when it feels like everyone is looking at us when we'd rather just feel anonymous. But today, as I walked in front of Peter Pan and behind a Giant Sperm, I realized that that type of day isn't very likely to ever be Halloween.

This post won't be very long, because I'm writing it in class. In a couple of minutes, I'll have to pack up and take the Buff Bus to the place I illegally parked my car. For anyone lucky enough not to attend CU, the Buff Bus just runs in a continuous 2-mile-or-so circle, and takes students from off-campus housing to campus. It's usually fine, but it can be annoying if you're running late, or if you're next to someone who smells like feet, or if you're riding it when people are packed inside, clown-car-style (especially if one of those clowns has the aforementioned "Smells like feet" distinction). The worst part, though, is riding LeRoy. To clarify, "LeRoy" is, for whatever reason, the sticker that's affixed to the front of the shittiest bus in the Buff Bus fleet. But if you thought "riding LeRoy" meant something else, and it applies to you, then good for you. Anyway, LeRoy sucks. It's rickety and squeaky and miserable. The tiniest potholes rattle your brain, and it seems counterintuitive to give students concussions just before they get to class. I don't know why they don't just get it over with and donate it to a prison. Today I was lucky enough to be riding LeRoy and standing in the aisle, when an abrupt stop-and-start made a girl slip a little and fall into me. Which leads us to the lame/awkward conversation snippet of the day, starring me:

Her: I'm sorry
Me: Oh, it's cool. I don't blame you for inertia.
Her: *Nervous chuckle* (Inside brain: This guy sucks)
Anyone Who Heard This Conversation: (Inside brain: This guy sucks)
Me: (Inside brain: I suck)

To be fair, I probably had a concussion. And, on that note, back to the Buff Bus. Happy Halloween.

Plot Outlines for the Next 3 Bud Light Commercials

1. Two unshaven dudes wearing holey jeans and faded t-shirts find an ingenious way to sneak Bud Light into their best friend’s funeral: stash a few in the coffin beforehand. Unfortunately, they later find that their dead buddy’s hands have somehow become tightly wrapped around the bottles. Hilarity ensues.
2. Two unshaven dudes wearing holey jeans and faded t-shirts sit in a room talking about what a bummer it is that they have to put down their Bud Light when they have to go pee. Guy #1 says “Check it”, and proceeds to demonstrate how he’s trained his dog to pull his zipper up and down for him. Now they can drink while taking a leak. Guys 1 and 2 clink their bottles together to celebrate their ingenuity.
3. Two unshaven dudes wearing holey jeans and faded t-shirts lament that they can’t enjoy Bud Light and football on Sunday, because they have to help Guy #1’s legally blind grandmother move into a nursing home. Unless…Cut to Nana’s house, where Guys 1 and 2 sit on her couch, drinking Bud Light and watching football. Zoom out to reveal two scary-looking ex-cons moving Nana’s stuff. Nana pats one of the cons on the shoulder and notes how strong her grandson has gotten, but wonders when he started smoking. Guys 1 and 2 clink their bottles together to celebrate their ingenuity. Nana’s stuff is never seen again. Neither is Nana.
   

The Usual: Big Love, School, Personal Portrait of Hell

Quick question: Why is it that every time someone mentions Big Love, anyone within earshot who has seen the show makes orgasm noises? I've now heard this multiple times, and it typically goes down like this:

Person A: ...kind of like that one episode of Big Love.
People within earshot who've seen the show (gutturally): Uuurrnggg. Such a great show.
Everyone else within earshot: What the fuck was that?

I'm generally a pretty stubborn person when it comes to heeding the suggestions of others. Never seen The Wire. Don't care how much you love Lost. Will not, for Christ's sake, put some pants on. But I might have to give Big Love a shot. Not many shows can claim to be getting orgasmic reviews. Maybe next time I'm hard-up for a date I'll check it out, and I'll be sure to have extra...everything handy. Apparently it could get messy. I'll report back sometime with some sort of scaled Uuurrnggg ratings system.

Anyway, this disturbing thought was made possible by the fact that school is back again. This semester is the first time since I up-and-decided to give gittin' ma edyewcaytion one more shot that I have been completely against the prospect of summer ending and school starting back up. I mean, in any given semester I become cynical and fed up a few weeks in, but this time it's been there from the get-go. It might just be that I know the drill. We parse. We talk about some apparently heavy duality. And one kid starts out the semester timidly raising his/her hand to squeak out an observation, is told "good point" one too many times by the professor, and suddenly morphs into the blowhardiest knowitallface this side of AM radio. Other students cower beneath the blustery assbaggitude. Anyone who raises a hand and speaks knows that there will be a response from the professor, and a response from Godcomplexzilla - and not necessarily in that order. I never offer my opinion in class anyway, but I used to just sit there in amusement while everyone else fantasized about the loudmouth's spectacular and well-deserved demise. And now I'm just tired of all of it.

None of which is helped by the amount of commuting I've been doing. I'll find out soon enough, but I'm pretty sure that if hell is made-to-order depending on what makes a particular person miserable, then my own personal hell will look something like the oil refinery in Commerce City. Yep. I'll be stuck in an endless traffic jam on 270 alongside the oil refinery. A little part of my soul dies every time I drive by those post-apocalyptic-looking towers, especially when they're all lit up at night. Anyway, my hell will be pretty much like my Wednesdays, except that in hell the refinery's skies are patrolled by horrible, gigantic mechanical vultures with glowing sulfur-yellow eyes, that feed on oily sludge and shit rusty bolts. And the flapping of their wings makes a terrible creaking, clanging sound as their razor-blade beaks blast Creed's greatest hits, on repeat, forever. And while one of the worst parts of the real commute past Commerce City is the disgusting, seemingly ever-changing smell that refining oil apparently produces, in hell it will be made even worse by the knowledge that the smell is actually the result of 2,000 huge, sweaty sumo wrestlers having endless sex with each other in an enormous vat of rotten eggs with the world's largest fan behind them, propelling the stench into my nostrils. Oh, and all the cars in the traffic jam will have homiletic bumper stickers plastered all over them, so everywhere I look I'll get uninvited life-lessons in the form of a lame rhyme or pun or creative use of bold letters and underlines. Suck on that, Alighieri.

In short: who's lookin' for a roommate? C'mon, it'll be fun!

Random And Annoying Parsing of Common Human Practices

So on Thursday, at about 1:00 PM, I realized that I should write a new post. To pinpoint a reason for such a sudden and powerful impulse would be difficult; anyone who's seen Titanic knows that the heart just wants what it wants. Sometimes it's sex aboard a doomed megaship with an urchin in a Model T, and sometimes it's writing a post on the internet. Still, if I had to venture a guess, I'd say it had something to do with the fact that I was at a Rockies game, and it was just about Star Spangled Banner time. Y'know, that obligatory pre-sporting event ritual where everyone puts on their best self-consciously solemn face, turns toward Old Glory, and sings out of key along with a (choose one):

-long-winded, run-loving American Idol hopeful.
-church choir.
-military veteran in full military veteran regalia.
-child with an iron will, a golden voice, and six months to live.

Don't get me wrong: I love me some jingoistic pomp. It's a good-thing, too. Because just as the announcer was asking us to please rise and kindly remove our caps, the guy next to me asked me a favor. He wanted me to help him remove his cap (he'd figured out the 'rising' thing all on his own). Sometimes in the space of about two seconds you can do about a written page's worth of thinking. In this case, I immediately thought that this guy had some sort of physical disability. Maybe he didn't have hands. I even thought about what an asshole I was for thinking that the word "handicap" contains both "hand" and "cap". Anyway, I said "sure" and surreptitiously looked down to figure out this guy's plight. And immediately the burden of assholery shifted away from me, because it turns out his only notable disability was that he is apparently an incredibly messy and impatient eater. Because in his (fully-functioning and fully-fingered) hands he held an overloaded, half-eaten footlong hot dog, which was overflowing with all your standard hot dog accouterments.

As I stood there clutching the hat of this ketchup-fingered douchelord (I'd already said "sure", and I was way too amused to do anything but laugh and peel his stupid hat off his stupid head), listening to him boisterously sing along with the choir-du-jour, I suddenly, after all these years, knew exactly how it feels to be fully and hopelessly American, with a capital 'G'. (Because when someone would rather ask a complete stranger to awkwardly remove his hat from his head than simply leave it on through an overwrought song about the War of 1812, the fear of God just has to be to blame). But just like that, all my empathy was gone. It was just one of those zoom-out moments when your subjective understanding fades away and you're left wondering why the fuck everything is so weird. I couldn't really shake it for the rest of the game - especially as I watched a fat, middle-aged woman a few rows down who felt it necessary to stand and do the macarena every half-inning, whether the song was, in fact, the macarena, or whether it was Tim McGraw.

Clapping in particular is fucking strange. I'd just love to be able to see the moment in the history of mankind when we decided that while grunts of approval and virgin sacrifices were all well and good, nothing better serves to honor those we hold in high esteem than to hit ourselves repeatedly. Somewhere as you read this, a bunch of sophisticates are dressing up nice, sampling Brie, and banging their hands together to signal scholarly appreciation. Still, I think you can learn a lot about a person based on the way he/she claps. It sounds like the start of a Cosmo article or something. But it's not. It's much worse. Sorry:

• First, we have your wannabe trendsetting clapper. This person badly wants to be the one to spur a large round of applause, but lacks the social awareness to pick opportune moments, leading to a puny smattering at best. Only the weak-willed follow this person. Additionally, this person might have a tendency to start knee-jerk facebook groups before gathering all the facts. 9 people join, and they all leave within a week. Let's run through a few others, because I'm not tired yet:

• your Johnny-come-lately clapper, who, once the applause has been safely established, jumps in wholeheartedly and vociferously, staying on until he/she is the very last one clapping. Is likely known to still "raise the roof", make fun of Viagra's "erections that last more than 4 hours" disclaimer, and write "Wash me" on dirty car windows.

• your intense, smart clapper, who, unlike the wannabe-trendsetter, is smart enough to know when to start, and determined enough to stay on until the very end. Likely to wear down his/her loved ones until he/she ends up broken and alone.

• clapper who claps outside of the social settings for which clapping is generally allowed and expected. A grab bag:
  
1. may be overly self-conscious about how he is perceived, and must let others know exactly how he feels about something. May see everyone laughing at a movie, and must one-up them, leading to clapping in broad, exaggerated motions, as if smashing two giant cymbals together. Possibly accompanied by a tilting back of the head and a lifting of one leg off of the ground.
2. person who disdainfully pantomimes clapping, often raising the hands unnaturally high and close to the face, as if to say, "Look, what you said is so uninteresting that I'm willing to make an enormous douche out of myself in order to show you. I rule."
   
3. person who claps while urging you on toward some possibly unattainable or lame-ass goal. Is almost certainly your boss. Not only does the exhortative hand-clapping fail to rile you up, it actually makes you want to strangle the clapper, because your job sucks and you are hung over.

• finally, we have the biggest douche of them all: the single-clap guy. Rather than sit there in stony silence, he claps but once. Confronted with the prospect of being regarded as the prick who didn't clap, he chooses instead to be regarded as the prick who made a mockery of clapping. He lifts his arms ever-so slightly, starting with his hands almost together in his lap. He then proceeds to slowly spread his hands apart, as if he is holding a slowly expanding object. When his hands are about a shoulder's width apart, he pauses, then casually flings each one toward the other, to illustrate that he doesn't even really care whether the appendages actually hit each other. Generally, though, they at least make glancing contact. The second the hands hit each other, they fall lifelessly back into the asshole's lap, communicating the fact that he is so bored by whatever he is watching that it has drained all of his strength, and the last little bit he could muster was used to throw one disapproving clap. In the aftermath of such a display, the asshole will typically either yawn or check his watch. The recipient of the one-clap should not be too offended, though. It is entirely possible that the clapper's arms are tired from a late night of beating the homeless, which accounts for the one clap and the yawn. And the watch-checking could simply indicate that he is late for traffic court, or that he needs to pick up his kids for their monthly visit.

• and not to be forgotten, the non-applauding whistler, who eschews clapping in order to demonstrate at every possible juncture the ability to produce an ear drum-piercing whistle. Is possibly the devil.

Anyway, I'd like to leave you with a word of advice. Maybe I'll make it a recurring feature. Probably not:

If you're ever lucky enough to win a penis-measuring contest, you definitely shouldn't rub it in the loser's face.

That advice may be a bit male-centric. Couple that with my sporadic use of gender-neutral pronouns during this post, and it's clear that I'm not being very forward-minded here. But have no fear - I'll dispense some advice for the ladies, too:

If you ever happen to win a penis-measuring contest, you'd better fucking rub it in the loser's face. Because that shit will be hilarious.

Goodnight.

22

In the interest of full-disclosure, I already wrote a post today. It was called "Exciting News", and I proceeded to explain that yesterday was my birthday. I really meant to write something amusing, but when I finished and looked over it, I realized that I came across like some self-important 22-year-old who thought his world was ending because 22-year-olds are no longer children by any definition, and are therefore very old. And adulthood sucks. And I haven't really accomplished anything. And in another country, I'd be a full-fledged warlord with like 12 kids by now. Basically, I was crying like a child about how my childhood is over and I have nothing to show for it.

And it's funny, because if I've realized anything, it's that the whole black-and-white childhood/adulthood distinction is false. Every birthday, someone thinks it's funny to half-facetiously ask you if you feel any older. And you never do. I mean, obviously people grow up, and grow old, but old people are usually just as goofy, stubborn, and ridiculous as kids (albeit more wrinkly and hairy). I wake up on May 3rd every year, and for just a few seconds I wonder whether the odometer rolling over has caused some metamorphosis in my life. Maybe I've finally crossed that magical threshold into full-fledged adulthood. Then, I turn on my TV, and sure enough, cartoons are still hilarious. I go to class and still have to stifle giggles when I hear someone broke their coccyx or has angina. Then I cry and kick things when my overambitious celebratory three-scoop ice cream cone goes splat.

Even the supposedly awesome birthday milestones that I'm leaving behind are overrated. Teenagers can't wait till they turn 18. After all, at 18 you can buy cigarettes, play the lottery, enlist in the army, vote, go to strip clubs, and be tried as an adult for any number of offenses. And it's the age of consent, which means that you can expect that 60-year-old from across the way - who was gumming at the bit over you - to come a-knockin'. In other words, turning 18 mostly sucks for those of us who don't have a hyphenated first name. Turn 21, and you hit the nominally important, but practically worthless drinking age. People still get excited, though, because though they've been drinking for years, they just now earned the right to get drunk in bars, clubs, and sports arenas for much more than it costs to drink at a house party. Hooray! You haven't really been drunk till you've been drunk with 38-year-old thrice-divorcees, anyway.

Still, I guess I'll miss having birthdays to look forward to. There might not be many entitlements left that accompany birthdays, and it's tempting to stop counting. I know at a certain age, colonoscopies become a pain in the ass (wow), and Old Guy Discounts at Denny's will be pretty sweet, but those just don't hold the same kind of excitement that turning 18 did, for some reason. So I've decided that I'm going to mine each forthcoming birthday for some awesome (read: lame) numerical meaning, and deprive myself of something arbitrary until I reach it. For instance, 22 is my second-ever palindromic double-digit birthday. I can now eat Jello. I can't wait until my Michael Jordan-themed 23rd birthday, at which point I'll be allowed to watch reruns of Happy Days. And then there's the 24th, which is my second "first digit is half of the second digit" birthday, which means I get to go to Minnesota! Life is good.

Now, in light of my palindromic birthday, I would like to leave you with a palindrome (it's very deep):

No! Come on, ol’ lad. Lose? We’re Yanks! (A revenge biodome in rot). Dog sits if fist is God! Torn? I, Emo? Do I beg? Never! Ask? Nay! (Ere we sold all). O no! Emo con!

Thank you.

Today Is Not April Fool's Day

Gotcha! It totally is April Fool's Day. Man, you should have seen the look on your face! Quick, turn off your monitor and try to make out your expression in the dim reflection. Fuck, nevermind - the moment passed. If you do it now, you'll just look like a squinting dumbshit in dire need of a handheld mirror. But that dark screen does make you look more tan. So it's up to you - look or don't. I'll wait.

April Fool's Day is a seriously goofy holiday. It's the one day when you're given carte blanche to use someone else's trust in you for frivolous evil. The idea, as far as I can tell, is that you spend the rest of the year cultivating relationships and establishing a mutual trust, and on April Fool's Day you take that emotional capital and blow the entire wad on a giant, douche-til-you-drop douching spree against those to whom you mean the most. That's the evil genius of the day. It's designed to make someone look foolish, but it only works when the prankster is a person so close to the prankee that callous acts of assholery should really be out of the question. If all your best friends are the types of people who draw on you or hit you in the nuts when you fall asleep, then they're not in a very good position to take advantage of April Fool's Day. But the friend who sees you sleeping and sees fit to put a blanket on you and defend you from would-be testicle vandals - that friend is well-equipped to fucking rock your world for 10-to-15 seconds before the inevitable snort seeps out and explodes into an avalanche of loved-one-mocking laughter. The one perceived as least likely to participate is the one who can pull the legendary prank. That's why I never take calls from my grandparents on April 1st. All of April, actually. You just can't be too careful.

But if we're being realistic, for every legendary prank that is passed down from generation to generation and immortalized in song (who hasn't heard "'Twas Ellersbury Who Trick'd Ye" around a campfire?) , there are a million poorly planned, poorly executed, poorly remembered desperate grasps at hilarity. The fact that April Fool's Day is universally known to even the most gullible would-be patsy obviously limits a prankster's options. If it were "April: Fool's Month", it'd be way easier. So most people who can operate within the stringent timeframe to pull off something awesome are so trustworthy that they would never even dream of abusing their power. It just isn't very likely that your priest is going to show up at your door saying the apocalypse is nigh, only to start laughing and reveal that it was Sister Josephine, not Jesus, who set all your bushes on fire. Although I guess I can think of a few cases of priest untrustworthiness, so that might have been a poor example.

What are we left with, then? Mostly, we're left with uncreative, untrustworthy assholes who lack the requisite cache to pull off anything cool. The most they're getting away with is tapping you on the shoulder and shouting "APRIL FOOL'S, DUDE!" when you look the wrong way. So either they are self-aware enough to know this (in which case any prank that they successfully pull off is so mundane that it's akin to the St. Patrick's Day "no-green pinch", and therefore is lame), or they plan something so farfetched and ridiculous that it ends up being debatable that "April Fool's Day" isn't actually referring to them. What you end up with is a potentially awesome day that almost never delivers, and in fact is often more irritating than any average day. Like when you turn 50, and every individual gift-giver thinks their gag-gift will be hilarious and a nice change of pace, but in the end you get a bunch of lame cards, 20 enemas, and a few Viagra flyers, but no real gifts.

But enough about April Fool's Day. APRIL FOOL'S! I'm not done yet! Gotcha again! No, I am done. Gotcha again, again. Sorry. Just kidding. Nevermind. Shit.

This Post Has No Title (Except For This One)

I was kind of a punkass little kid. In the course of my childhood, I...

- broke windows while hitting balls around my neighborhood.
- broke a kid's tooth with a "bowstaff" (random stick strategically wrapped with tape) while playing Ninja Turtles.
- broke the rules of board games when I thought no one was looking.
- broke numerous promises.
- regularly hit, kicked, manipulated, and otherwise antagonized siblings and neighborhood children.
- stole baseball cards from my little brother.
- was an all-around dick. To everyone.

And aside from the occasional grounding or admonishment, I got off scot free. Adults can't hold a grudge against an 8-year-old, and kids forgive easily. When I try to play Ninja Turtles now, I can't get away with half of what I used to. And no one wants to play. Is it because I always get to be Leonardo? Well tough shit. I'm the one with the He-Man sword. And it's not my fault if you don't wear a mouthguard.

I think this lack of consequences was the best part about being a kid. Everything was kind of a haze, and you would have to do something pretty horrible or great to interrupt the dreamlike status quo. One day's sworn enemy was the next day's lunch-swapping partner. Nowadays, if you happen to, say, put an earthworm in a girl's hair, you're apparently a "dickhole" or "douchebag" for the rest of your natural-born life. Whatever. Totally worth it.

Since consequences are so few, kids can be relatively guileless in their interactions. Piss someone off, and it'll pass. Do something stupid, and the other kids will forget. Get shot down for a recess date at the swingset, just cross her name off the note and send it to someone else. I really think the elementary school note is due for crossover success in adulthood. I miss the simplicity. Rather than wasting time trying to suss out whether someone likes you using inexact heuristics like body language or frequency of laughter, you can just ask. And by doing it in note form, you spare yourself a potentially awkward face-to-face rejection (and you get a hardcopy for your files).


I remember my note sending/receiving days. I know what you're thinking - "Shawn, your notes must have been great. No one could have possibly rejected you." Well thank you for thinking that. I remember thinking that as well, third-person perspective and all. But believe it or not, I wasn't always up to my ears in pigtails and retainers. Apparently I overestimated the coolness of writing. Some things never change. Still, I did alright. While I didn't have my own sleek, personal pencil sharpener, or a No Fear shirt, or Jonathan Taylor Thomas ("JTT", according to the posters) good looks, I made up for these obvious deficiencies with more mature, less superficial fare - like conversational skills, a Captain Planet lunchbox, and a totally killer POG collection. And I could run really fast. So I did get the occasional "Do you like me? Check 'yes' or 'no'" letter. But that doesn't mean I always said yes. Cooties were (and are) a real and present danger, and some of those girls were walking repositories. That's what happens when you hold the hand of every goofy, slimy 10-year-old boy who so much as loans you a colored pencil. If I'd given in to the temptation of those letters, who knows where I'd be today. Cooties have derailed untold kajillions of young lives.

But somehow, at any age, it always comes back to appearance. I remember one day in 3rd or 4th grade when a note made its way around the room to me. It was from a redheaded girl with freckles and a hole-filled smile. I was pretty happy to have an admirer - and a relatively cootie-free one, at that. I wondered whether it was my soccer skills or my coloring ability that she admired most. Either way, I knew she'd love getting one of the NFL Valentine's Day cards that I gave out every year. I'd sneak her a few extra heart candies, because that's what admirers do. Was she a good hand-holder? Had she given any thought to where we'd live after the wedding? (I voted Moon). How many babies would Santa's stork Milo bring us? I opened the note up, fully prepared to check "Yes" (or play it cool with "Maybe", if such a choice was offered).

I looked down excitedly, but the note did not contain a profession of like, or even answer boxes (blasphemy in those days). Instead, there was a crudely drawn spectrum, labeled "Cute" at one end, and "Ugly" at the other. It threw me off for a second, then I saw what she was getting at. Below, I have faithfully recreated the gist of the note:

----------------------------------------Shawn
Ugly-------------------------------------X-----------------------------------Cute

I guess it could've been worse. But at that moment, I knew we wouldn't be getting married. To this day, that note confuses me. She actually took time out of her busy life to not only ponder my appearance, but also to unsolicitedly let me know of the conclusion she'd come to. She could have been reading Goosebumps or Wayside School, but she instead decided to go out of her way to inform me of my averageness. It's like frantically sprinting a mile to the store so that you can lazily browse through magazines you know you won't buy. Was she trying to knock me down a peg? Maybe I deserved it. Maybe I'd shown her up earlier by pointing out that it was Paul Revere, not the Babysitter's Club, who yelled "The British Are Coming!". Who knows. Or maybe everyone secretly talked about how ugly I was, and her note was actually written out of kindness, letting me know that I wasn't really all that bad. Probably not. If I was smart, though, I would have turned the tables and made up my own Attractiveness Spectrum. It could have looked something like this:

That'd have shown her. I am patiently waiting for time travel, and for no other reason but this one. You might say that putting her so far to the left that she's subzero would be really mean, and I'd be inclined to agree. It would have ruled. All of this serves to prove that Little Me was, in spite of all the horrible things he did, still both a pussy and a much more mature person than 21-year-old Me.

The End.