I've been too lazy this past week to post anything, so I'll go ahead and post something that was already written. This was a story that I wrote in my Personal Narrative class during my senior year at James Madison. The instructions were to write a narrative about family. Here it is:
At the Speed of Stupid
Older brothers don’t have good ideas. Consequently, little brothers are stupid for going along with said ideas, despite the fact that they’re bad ones. But there’s something inherently half-baked about any idea stumbled upon by brothers. For simply being a construct of their fucked-up brotherly minds, the idea will fail. Always. No questions asked. Unless that question is “What in God’s name were you thinking?” which normally comes before “Go to your room.”
I was 13 years-old the first time my brother tried to murder me. Now, as a 13 year-old boy in the suburbs of western Pennsylvania, summer is everything. It is everything in the way that it is nothing at all. Obligations will disappear for a glorious three months of sun and sleep. I will accomplish nothing of value. I will sit inside and complain about boredom then go outside and complain about heat. The afternoon of my impending doom, however, was one of the few summer days that I actually had something planned to do. Before departing on vacation, my neighbors told my family to feel free to use their pool. Finally, a sign of life! There will be no sweat on my back today. It will be water. Beautiful, cool, chlorine-filled water. For at least two hours on this day, I will not be consumed by summer boredom. My mother, free from work, will accompany me to the neighbor’s pool with – gasp – my older brother.
I’m already convinced that this will lead to my end. My brother will have an awful idea, I will die, and he will survive to laugh at me. It will be the perfect ending. My mother will cry out to God, wondering how she could raise such a stupid son, and my brother will retort “It should have been me,” or something equally heartbreaking that will render him my mother’s little angel for the rest of his dumb life. If only I had been born first, I could kill my brother. I’m pretty sure it’s allowed. The older can kill the younger. It’s not illegal, just frowned upon.
You’d think I would have learned from our home videos. There’s a particularly appropriate one where my brother and I are doing simultaneous leaping somersaults from the floor onto our bed. How could this accident have been prevented? The ending to this is painfully obvious (pun intended). My brother lands on my head and, because of this, my future wife will now have the pleasure of watching me cry on home video. Our relationship will sour after her viewing of this unfortunate piece of family history. Every ensuing fight we have will end in some sort of off-hand remark that calls into question my manhood and four year-old tears. Insulted, I will say something unnecessary about her mother’s weight, or bodily appearance in general, and then I will sleep on the couch. As I stare at our unpainted ceiling, which she will probably nag me about tomorrow, I will curse my brother’s name under my breath. It’s your fucking fault I won’t get sex for a week, Anthony.
We have been swimming for nearly two hours and I have not drowned at the hands of my brother. Success. But as my mother declares that we have to leave to start making dinner, the brotherly dumb-tuition kicks in. Anthony and I collaborate on our newest effort, which, to my mother, probably sounds like a suicide pact.
“Okay, Vincent. Let’s do one more jump.”
“Yay! One more jump!”
“Let’s make the biggest splash possible.”
“Yay! Biggest splash possible!”
“Stop saying yay.”
“Sorry.”
My brother and I decide that, to make the biggest splash possible, we will probably have to start on opposite sides of the pool. I’m not sure why. But brother ideas normally formulate in this absurd manner. What’s the one thing we could do that would put our immediate lives in the most possible danger? In this case, it is to start on opposite sides of the pool, run across the deck as fast as possible, and cannonball into the center of the water. At the age of thirteen, there is no such thing as flawed logic. It’s like the brother code – the worse the idea is, the better the idea is. Or something like that.
I take a look at our surroundings. A giant wooden deck surrounds the pool. After two hours of incessantly flailing our thirteen and fifteen year-old bodies into the water, the wood has been soaked. As my brother and I survey this scene before our final jump, we decide that conditions for immediate life danger are perfect. With mom’s head buried in her latest Danielle Steele novel, there is no third party to intervene.
My brother and I take off at the speed of stupid, giggling like brothers do when their genius plans are coming to fruition. It starts off fine. The cannonball is in sight. The world’s biggest splash is about to rain down on the neighborhood. I can see the headline in tomorrow’s paper: “Totally awesome local boys flood neighborhood with totally awesome cannonball”. When all the girls at school hear about how much of a badass I am, they will invite me to their place when their parents are out of town. I can see myself on Leno. They will set up a replica pool and make me and my brother perform our death-defying stunt on national television. I start racking my brain to figure out a catchy name for the new clothing line that will inevitably be granted to us during our ascent into fame. How should I wear my hair? I need a gimmick.
At this precise moment, two things happen. First, my feet slip on the water-soaked wooden deck and I feel a strange scratching sensation on the bottom of my left foot. Second, I forget to cannonball. As I fall into the water, hardly on purpose, I know that something is very wrong. Nothing hurts. I just feel odd. I pull myself up out of the water as quickly as possible and lift my left foot to inspect the damage. As soon as my eyes meet the gash, the blood begins to seep out slowly like toothpaste from a tube. For the first few desperate seconds, I am torn between bleeding to death and giving my mother a heart attack. The severity of the gash makes the decision for my thirteen year-old self. Shit, I’m not invincible after all.
“Um, Mom?”
“…” (head buried in the Danielle Steele novel).
“Uh, Mom? Look at my foot.”
The words are torturous, I know. It seems odd that if I were playing a practical joke on my mother, I would probably use the same phrase. Look at my foot! Covered in ketchup, of course. But this is not ketchup. This is crimson death spilling from one of my extremities. My mother looks up from her novel and panics with the token panic of ten thousand mothers, reciting my first and middle names in succession, meaning “You will be the death of me” in mom-speak.
“Vincent Andrew!”
It has never occurred to me until now that the infamous “No Running” rule may not have been crafted for my safety, but rather the sanity of pool-going parents.
“I think I slipped on something.”
“Oh my gosh, Vincent!”
She grabs a towel in mid-panic, sits me down in a plastic deck chair, and applies pressure to the bottom of my left foot. I sit staring at that Danielle Steel novel. How many books has this woman written? What does she write about? Why does my mom own four thousand Danielle Steele novels? My mother’s shaky voice interrupts my curiosity as my brother stands idly by, probably disappointed that I have ruined the world’s biggest splash with such a trivial wound.
“Does it hurt?”
“No, actually.”
This is absolutely true. If I did not see the blood, I would not even know that I was bleeding. I feel nothing. My brother is incredulous.
“What?!”
“Dude, I’m bleeding.”
“But it doesn’t hurt?”
“No.”
“Cool.”
It should be noted that brothers never acknowledge when their brilliant ideas fail. It’s always someone or something else’s fault. The plan was never fucked from the start, even when it obviously was. And this time, it most definitely was. I am dying, but too pissed off at my brother to care. As I go toward the light, I fully intend on explaining to God why he must take my brother next. After my mother helps me limp across the street, I rehearse my persuasive argument for the death of my brother. I cryptically plan his future as I am driven to the emergency room where seventeen stitches seal what will become a beautiful scar.
I wish I had a justifying end to the story – like my brother becomes my slave while I sit crippled on the couch and eat fudgesicles for the duration of the summer – but I don’t. I do, however, thank God that I had slipped on the pool deck that summer day, because I know what would have happened if I hadn’t. My brother and I would have collided in mid-air and died on impact. At the Pearly Gates, St. Peter would say something of consolation like “valiant effort” and then usher us into heaven. Once inside, he would introduce us to Cain and Abel, and we would all share a hearty chuckle about brothers and how fucking awful their ideas are. Then my brother would inevitably say “Hey, I’ve got an idea” and we would be cast out of heaven, plummeting to hell at the speed of stupid.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Ruminations #2
- The 80s never left. They just got stuck in K-mart.
- With all of the roadkill that appears each new day, you'd think various rodents would be close to extinction, or at least endangered. But no. Nothing. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough.
- I know it's probably impossible to be right about EVERYTHING, but David Cross sure gets damn close.
- I can't shop in a clothing store when people are watching. I get flustered and can't focus on the clothes in front of me.
- Seriously though, what is it about K-mart? It's like a fucking time warp when you walk through those doors. Every woman has "big" hair, the floor doesn't appear to have met a broom in upwards of a decade, and even the so-called "new" items look like hand me downs from the cousins you've never met that your parents insist you have.
- Little Caesar's screams middle school. Also, there's one in the K-mart that's existed near my house ever since I was born. I'm fairly certain the same woman has worked in that Little Caesar's since I was a kid. And I'm fairly certain she's still kneading the same dough. And I'm fairly certain it's still fricking delicious.
- Without going into another Mountain Dew diatribe, I will say this: this new Mountain Dew "Distortion" tastes like straight alcohol. It's supposed to just be Mountain Dew with a "blast" of lime. Well it tastes like alcohol. And I'm not even upset. It's actually pretty impressive. Pepsi Co. just continues to inspire and delight my palate.
- If ghosts do exist, they're pretty fucking boring. When's the last time a ghost did anything? I'm bored.
- I don't like to be preachy or quick to recommend music to people because I think that every individual person feels music in a very specific way. Someone might be totally and completely indifferent to what you consider to be life-changing. That said, Adam Haworth Stephens has an album coming out on September 28th entitled "We Live on Cliffs" and I'm already convinced it's going to be one of the best albums that I've ever heard. What that means to you is probably nothing. But what it means to me is this - on September 28, I will weep tears of ultimate joy and redemption upon popping the disc into my Honda Civic's CD player and cruising the beleaguered streets of my youth, rear view mirror tilted toward the passenger seat to hide myself from myself.
- The phrase "Character is what you do when nobody's looking" is terrifying. If every one of us was actually judged by what we do when nobody's looking, we'd all be under house arrest. Side note: whenever I'm home alone, I always get the sneaking suspicion that someone has left a hidden camera to document my behavior. And truth be told, the day that actually happens is the day that I'm committed to a psych ward. Because I talk to myself A LOT.
- For all people who have misspelled "heroin" and "heroine" in the past, fear not. They basically mean the same thing. The drug's name was actually taken from the German word heroisch, meaning "heroic", supposedly because of the heroic effect it had upon the people using it. And a heroine is heroic too. So they mean the same thing, whether you add the extra "e" or not. I prefer the "e" on the end. It makes it look more sophisticated. Like five-star restaurant heroine. Or heroin. Whatever.
Well. That's it for tonight. I'm going to go eat some leftover crazy bread that I bought at K-mart today. I think it was named after the hair of the women who shop at K-mart. Though it could also be a street name for heroin. And "Little Caesar" could easily be some shifty Italian gangster who's five feet tall and talks in a high register. God, no wonder K-mart has existed for so long. It's a cover up for an underground drug ring! But damnit if that crazy heroin bread isn't delicious.
- With all of the roadkill that appears each new day, you'd think various rodents would be close to extinction, or at least endangered. But no. Nothing. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough.
- I know it's probably impossible to be right about EVERYTHING, but David Cross sure gets damn close.
- I can't shop in a clothing store when people are watching. I get flustered and can't focus on the clothes in front of me.
- Seriously though, what is it about K-mart? It's like a fucking time warp when you walk through those doors. Every woman has "big" hair, the floor doesn't appear to have met a broom in upwards of a decade, and even the so-called "new" items look like hand me downs from the cousins you've never met that your parents insist you have.
- Little Caesar's screams middle school. Also, there's one in the K-mart that's existed near my house ever since I was born. I'm fairly certain the same woman has worked in that Little Caesar's since I was a kid. And I'm fairly certain she's still kneading the same dough. And I'm fairly certain it's still fricking delicious.
- Without going into another Mountain Dew diatribe, I will say this: this new Mountain Dew "Distortion" tastes like straight alcohol. It's supposed to just be Mountain Dew with a "blast" of lime. Well it tastes like alcohol. And I'm not even upset. It's actually pretty impressive. Pepsi Co. just continues to inspire and delight my palate.
- If ghosts do exist, they're pretty fucking boring. When's the last time a ghost did anything? I'm bored.
- I don't like to be preachy or quick to recommend music to people because I think that every individual person feels music in a very specific way. Someone might be totally and completely indifferent to what you consider to be life-changing. That said, Adam Haworth Stephens has an album coming out on September 28th entitled "We Live on Cliffs" and I'm already convinced it's going to be one of the best albums that I've ever heard. What that means to you is probably nothing. But what it means to me is this - on September 28, I will weep tears of ultimate joy and redemption upon popping the disc into my Honda Civic's CD player and cruising the beleaguered streets of my youth, rear view mirror tilted toward the passenger seat to hide myself from myself.
- The phrase "Character is what you do when nobody's looking" is terrifying. If every one of us was actually judged by what we do when nobody's looking, we'd all be under house arrest. Side note: whenever I'm home alone, I always get the sneaking suspicion that someone has left a hidden camera to document my behavior. And truth be told, the day that actually happens is the day that I'm committed to a psych ward. Because I talk to myself A LOT.
- For all people who have misspelled "heroin" and "heroine" in the past, fear not. They basically mean the same thing. The drug's name was actually taken from the German word heroisch, meaning "heroic", supposedly because of the heroic effect it had upon the people using it. And a heroine is heroic too. So they mean the same thing, whether you add the extra "e" or not. I prefer the "e" on the end. It makes it look more sophisticated. Like five-star restaurant heroine. Or heroin. Whatever.
Well. That's it for tonight. I'm going to go eat some leftover crazy bread that I bought at K-mart today. I think it was named after the hair of the women who shop at K-mart. Though it could also be a street name for heroin. And "Little Caesar" could easily be some shifty Italian gangster who's five feet tall and talks in a high register. God, no wonder K-mart has existed for so long. It's a cover up for an underground drug ring! But damnit if that crazy heroin bread isn't delicious.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
A Visit From the Ghost of Kenny Vasoli
There was a point in my not-too-distant youth where I worshipped The Starting Line. Each song stirred my teenage angst and fleeting feelings of infatuation, each lyric about a girl I had every intention of pursuing but just "never got around to it". I had a giant, throbbing, possibly heterosexual man-crush on the lead singer, Kenny Vasoli. I wanted his voice, his hair, and above all, the girls he appeared to be singing about. The Starting Line's first album, Say It Like You Mean It, was my Abbey Road, however pathetic that may sound. But at that age, most things you think are pathetic. So you can't really blame me. If I had iTunes on my computer during the time that I spent obsessing over Kenny's shamelessly sappy songs, I can safely say that the song "The Best of Me" would have racked up at least 500 plays in the span of one sad excuse for a high school relationship (one sad excuse for a high school relationship equates to roughly one month in real time).
When TSL's second album came out, entitled Based On A True Story, I was three years older and probably not three years wiser. I more than likely felt the same exact feelings of teenage angst and infatuation that Say It Like You Mean It confided in me. So when Kenny Vasoli starting singing about sex, shouting lyrics such as "I'm gonna tear your ass up like we just got married", I was unprepared. Surprised. Perhaps most appropriately - caught with my pants down. It seemed that Kenny was aging about five years to every one year that went by in my own life. His hair, formerly short and blonde, had become long and dark. I immediately wanted long hair. I listened to the album again and again, loving every lyric and hook nearly as much as Say It Like You Mean It. But there was one seriously important element that it became clear was missing - relatability. As much as I wanted to empathize with Kenny about his vigorous wishes for apparently physically abusive sex, I couldn't. I was still lost in the maze of puppy love, not quite thinking of having sex any time soon, even though that was still the first thought that crossed all of our minds in high school.
Even though I couldn't quite relate, I loved the songs nonetheless. I loved them in spite of the messages, messages I was unfortunately not yet ready to hear. By the time The Starting Line released their third album, Direction, I was hardly even a fan anymore. It was the summer after my freshman year of college, and I was now experiencing things in my life that demanded something of a more mature sound from my music library. I never bought Direction. I remember finding the album in the mall one day, months after its release, and listening to a few song samples in the store. I quickly removed the headphones in disgust. This was not the same band I had fallen in love with some six years earlier. They were far from The Starting Line that I associated with being a lost and confused teenager, wandering the halls of a bland, high school hallway. And although my experiences were now approaching something similar to what Kenny had been trying to tell me on Based On A True Story, I still could not find it in me to go back to the music. The songs existed on my computer somewhere, but they had been totally played out. I had new favorite bands, new favorite songs, and new totally heterosexual man-crushes to occupy my time. It seemed that my relationship with The Starting Line had met an all-too-quick end.
Why does any of this matter? Because today I felt an overwhelming urge to listen to the old pop-punk bands that I became so enamored with in my teenage years. While browsing my collection of CDs, I came across such treasures as New Found Glory, Taking Back Sunday, Dashboard Confessional, and - the tearjerker - The Starting Line. At this point, I had not listened to any TSL songs in years. I immediately thought about the one album I did not own - Direction. I wondered, would I now be able to relate to the more adult messages of the band? I checked out some samples from the album while surfing the iTunes store. My reaction shocked me. The songs sucked. A few were okay, but I couldn't get into the music at all. It seemed so bland, so void of originality, so...high school hallway-ish. The shocking part, however, was that I didn't mind the lyrics. I understood them. The life Kenny seemed to be singing of now sounded familiar.
The song "Somebody's Gonna Miss Us" seemed to be speaking directly to the death of TSL as my favorite teenage band. In the song, Kenny laments the awful truth that plenty of fans - myself included - have abandoned the band over the years due to the progression of their musical sound. When he sings "This is no attempt to abandon anyone/It is the influence of music we love", you almost feel bad for leaving in the first place. But Kenny understands your departure, offering "Well, if you can't relate and refuse to sing along/Then maybe I can interest you in some other song". It's true, Kenny could interest me in plenty of other songs. I'm just not so sure they would be the ones I want to hear. Even if I can relate to his more recent lyrics, I'll never feel more connected with the music than I did when I was a kid listening to Say It Like You Mean It. It's not Kenny's fault and it's not mine. The sound didn't change because Kenny changed the sound. It changed because he changed. Because I changed. Because everything changed. I can still sing along to Say It Like You Mean It, remembering every word and melody, but the words don't mean anything anymore. After listening to Direction today, I still didn't buy it. It didn't make sense to. The album had nothing to offer me, save for the sense of nostalgic obligation I felt to buy it. I'll always love The Starting Line. Maybe not because I love them now, but because I loved them once. And once is enough to make it true.
When TSL's second album came out, entitled Based On A True Story, I was three years older and probably not three years wiser. I more than likely felt the same exact feelings of teenage angst and infatuation that Say It Like You Mean It confided in me. So when Kenny Vasoli starting singing about sex, shouting lyrics such as "I'm gonna tear your ass up like we just got married", I was unprepared. Surprised. Perhaps most appropriately - caught with my pants down. It seemed that Kenny was aging about five years to every one year that went by in my own life. His hair, formerly short and blonde, had become long and dark. I immediately wanted long hair. I listened to the album again and again, loving every lyric and hook nearly as much as Say It Like You Mean It. But there was one seriously important element that it became clear was missing - relatability. As much as I wanted to empathize with Kenny about his vigorous wishes for apparently physically abusive sex, I couldn't. I was still lost in the maze of puppy love, not quite thinking of having sex any time soon, even though that was still the first thought that crossed all of our minds in high school.
Even though I couldn't quite relate, I loved the songs nonetheless. I loved them in spite of the messages, messages I was unfortunately not yet ready to hear. By the time The Starting Line released their third album, Direction, I was hardly even a fan anymore. It was the summer after my freshman year of college, and I was now experiencing things in my life that demanded something of a more mature sound from my music library. I never bought Direction. I remember finding the album in the mall one day, months after its release, and listening to a few song samples in the store. I quickly removed the headphones in disgust. This was not the same band I had fallen in love with some six years earlier. They were far from The Starting Line that I associated with being a lost and confused teenager, wandering the halls of a bland, high school hallway. And although my experiences were now approaching something similar to what Kenny had been trying to tell me on Based On A True Story, I still could not find it in me to go back to the music. The songs existed on my computer somewhere, but they had been totally played out. I had new favorite bands, new favorite songs, and new totally heterosexual man-crushes to occupy my time. It seemed that my relationship with The Starting Line had met an all-too-quick end.
Why does any of this matter? Because today I felt an overwhelming urge to listen to the old pop-punk bands that I became so enamored with in my teenage years. While browsing my collection of CDs, I came across such treasures as New Found Glory, Taking Back Sunday, Dashboard Confessional, and - the tearjerker - The Starting Line. At this point, I had not listened to any TSL songs in years. I immediately thought about the one album I did not own - Direction. I wondered, would I now be able to relate to the more adult messages of the band? I checked out some samples from the album while surfing the iTunes store. My reaction shocked me. The songs sucked. A few were okay, but I couldn't get into the music at all. It seemed so bland, so void of originality, so...high school hallway-ish. The shocking part, however, was that I didn't mind the lyrics. I understood them. The life Kenny seemed to be singing of now sounded familiar.
The song "Somebody's Gonna Miss Us" seemed to be speaking directly to the death of TSL as my favorite teenage band. In the song, Kenny laments the awful truth that plenty of fans - myself included - have abandoned the band over the years due to the progression of their musical sound. When he sings "This is no attempt to abandon anyone/It is the influence of music we love", you almost feel bad for leaving in the first place. But Kenny understands your departure, offering "Well, if you can't relate and refuse to sing along/Then maybe I can interest you in some other song". It's true, Kenny could interest me in plenty of other songs. I'm just not so sure they would be the ones I want to hear. Even if I can relate to his more recent lyrics, I'll never feel more connected with the music than I did when I was a kid listening to Say It Like You Mean It. It's not Kenny's fault and it's not mine. The sound didn't change because Kenny changed the sound. It changed because he changed. Because I changed. Because everything changed. I can still sing along to Say It Like You Mean It, remembering every word and melody, but the words don't mean anything anymore. After listening to Direction today, I still didn't buy it. It didn't make sense to. The album had nothing to offer me, save for the sense of nostalgic obligation I felt to buy it. I'll always love The Starting Line. Maybe not because I love them now, but because I loved them once. And once is enough to make it true.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Ruminations.
- When something goes wrong and a customer complains, it seems that they get even more angry when the employees are being super nice about it. Saying "Oh, I'm sorry sir, what can I do to help?" almost sounds more condescending than apologetic.
- It doesn't seem human to treat someone with such respect when they're belittling you with their utmost dickishness...until you work in food service. Then someone can shit in your mouth and you'd have to apologize for not swallowing it.
- Drunken, loud, out-of-key singing is annoying. But call it "Karaoke" and suddenly everyone's on board.
- There's an easy way to tell when someone is drunk without even speaking to them. They do "head circles". It's when they're not quite standing still and they're not quite moving. Just the head spins in tiny, almost unnoticeable circles. Usually accompanied by the empty eyes of a blank stare, followed by a delayed smile.
- A woman wants a man who'll admit that he's wrong. A man just wants a woman who'll admit that she farted.
- There is one white guy on EVERY sports team that you will hate when he plays against your team.
- The mail doesn't come today, yet I have to go to work tonight. Call me crazy, but isn't the U.S. Postal Service a little more important than somebody's umpteenth dinner option? You want me to drive around and stick envelopes inside of mailboxes? Because I'll quit my job and do it. Today.
That's all for today. Happy Labor Day! Seriously don't understand why this is a holiday. Go Wikipedia it if you want to be utterly fucking confused about what's going on. Something about Grover Cleveland.
- It doesn't seem human to treat someone with such respect when they're belittling you with their utmost dickishness...until you work in food service. Then someone can shit in your mouth and you'd have to apologize for not swallowing it.
- Drunken, loud, out-of-key singing is annoying. But call it "Karaoke" and suddenly everyone's on board.
- There's an easy way to tell when someone is drunk without even speaking to them. They do "head circles". It's when they're not quite standing still and they're not quite moving. Just the head spins in tiny, almost unnoticeable circles. Usually accompanied by the empty eyes of a blank stare, followed by a delayed smile.
- A woman wants a man who'll admit that he's wrong. A man just wants a woman who'll admit that she farted.
- There is one white guy on EVERY sports team that you will hate when he plays against your team.
- The mail doesn't come today, yet I have to go to work tonight. Call me crazy, but isn't the U.S. Postal Service a little more important than somebody's umpteenth dinner option? You want me to drive around and stick envelopes inside of mailboxes? Because I'll quit my job and do it. Today.
That's all for today. Happy Labor Day! Seriously don't understand why this is a holiday. Go Wikipedia it if you want to be utterly fucking confused about what's going on. Something about Grover Cleveland.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Mountain Dew: A Liquid Lust Redux
While aimlessly meandering through the aisles of Big K-Mart, in search of nothing in particular, I came across what I perceived as a "must-buy". I stopped, mid-saunter, making eyeball-love with the cascading curves of a sexy citrus soda. The beautiful lime-green sheen reflected in my now-innocent eyes, erasing all evils that sought to envelope my soul, while simultaneously sending my taste buds into a frivolous and somewhat Pavlovian rain dance of sorts. The deep-throated croon of the God who occupies my innards spoke out, a beacon beckoning through the dull, dimly lit, generally shitty-looking K-Mart. Do you reject Satan, and all his works, and all his empty promises? My convalescent voice spoke but a whisper, assuring the carbonated beverage its rightful place as my one and only, my love for eternity.
"I dew."
This, quite simply, is the physiological reaction of my body upon spotting a lonely Mountain Dew. Except this time, there was something different about my lover. A vintage-looking logo. Some strange old man, decked out in plaid, inexplicably shooting a cork through his patchwork cowboy hat. Dew? Are you in there? I thought, cocoons in my lower intestine threatening to explode into a circus of butterflies. I picked up the bottle to inspect further. Mountain Dew Throwback? WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MOUNTAIN DEW?! I pulled the bottle even closer, clutching it with the lusty fervor of a hopeless spinster and studying it with the menacing eyes of a fat baby in a Hardee's. Made with real sugar, eh? That's kinky, MD. I could get into that.
So I bought it. And it was delicious. And the love I felt during the consumption of the dastardly Dew reminded me of an essay I wrote a few years back entitled "Mountain Dew: A Liquid Lust". The essay is part of a now-deceased blog I had during my junior year of college, a blog created solely to showcase a collection of essays I had been writing. (I say "collection" like I'm David Sedaris or something. There were only five essays by my count, one of which was a poem I wrote for Sarah, my girlfriend at the time. Hardly a collection.) But the essay about Mountain Dew fits perfectly with this blog post, so I'll go ahead and post it as a bookend to this carbonated romance novel of sorts. Here you are:
MOUNTAIN DEW: A LIQUID LUST
Can one have a genetic predisposition to Mountain Dew consumption? As an Italian, I know that I am genetically predisposed to eating spaghetti. That's more or less an ethnic fact. But Mountain Dew, as far as I can tell, has no immediate connection to Italy excluding the fact that it's colors are that of the Italian flag. Also, it turns your piss a lush, vibrant yellow. But that's more of an added bonus than anything.
How have I arrived at this point, you ask? Well, there was a period in my life, appearing more like a void in retrospect, where the citrus soda was inexplicably absent from my life and, more importantly, my refrigerator. Even amongst varying degrees of sobriety, nary once did I ever encounter a dew during this carbonated ice-age of sorts. In the immediate, I don't inherently know why one would consider nature's own dew drops fit for consumption. All I know is that if nature's dew drops ever rivaled that of its soft drink counterpart, I would ascend the nearest mountainside, mouth agape, over-indulging at the rate of Barney Gumble on a Sunday afternoon at Moe's. But that's just me.
Let's get down to the nitty-gritty. Mountain Dew is awesome. That's a perpetual given. However, there are two arguments (and ONLY two) that I often hear against the beverage. Both are bullshit. The first argument comes from those who don't even enjoy carbonated beverages to begin with, and goes a little something like this:
"Blegh! I don't drink soft drinks." - Person A
Person A is a douchebag. Not only do they sound whiny, but their so-called "argument" is also devoid of credibility. I mean, what else does this person not enjoy? Puppies? Babbling babies? Diet Mountain Dew? It's bullshit. Also, refraining from drinking soft drinks isn't something you just instinctively do. You do it because you've either drank it before and didn't like it or you thought it was unhealthy. This can mean one of two things - a) God didn't bless you with half-decent taste buds or b) you care far more about your health than you do about having fun. But sugar = fun. So what the heck is your problem? Okay, so maybe you're not a fan of sugar. Which means you probably had a lot of cavities as a child. Which, again, eliminates all of your credibility. You are now completely biased because you're afraid of your family dentist, and therefore averse to all things sugar. But c'mon, if you aren't ingesting sugar at an alarming rate in this country then what are you doing? Sudoku? That's no fun. And fun is exactly what Mountain Dew preaches - "Do the Dew". Assuredly, the excluded final word in the slogan is "bitch". And to anyone who remains unconvinced about the deliciousness of the aforementioned beverage, I say - "Do the Dew, bitch."
The second and only alternative argument against Mountain Dew is that it kills your sperm. And in one way, that's a fact. If you ejaculate into a container filled with Mountain Dew, it will most definitely kill all of that sperm. And why is that? Because the air kills your sperm. I don't hear anyone knocking air consumption though. So if you continue insisting that Mountain Dew is a "spurderer" (that's 'sperm' and 'murder' combined) then you probably don't like breathing. Thusly, anyone using this argument against the Dew has ultimately already met their demise. Justly? Don't ask me. I'm not here to judge the living and the dead. That's what Jesus is for. And do you know why he is seated at the right hand of the Father? Because the left hand was holding a dew. And God was like "Don't even think about it."
Ok, ok. So the ACTUAL way that Mountain Dew supposedly kills your sperm is from within, not post-ejaculation. I know that. And you know what? That's STILL bullshit. In fact, I remember hearing something along the lines of, "All soft drinks lower your sperm count. Not just the dew." Even though this is probably false, I will prove it wrong anyway:
I suppose if I were to question each and every male with a child, they would, probably in a fit of joy, exclaim that they have never consumed a soft drink in their lifetime and thusly, have a child to show for it. Not a chance. It's much more likely and probably certain that every male ever has, at some point, felt the rush of the frothy, cold carbonation in his mouth. Under the assumption that sperm will die, you can safely assume any and all males will refrain from participating in the event at hand. Mother is to child as man is to sperm.
And such am I to Mountain Dew.
"I dew."
This, quite simply, is the physiological reaction of my body upon spotting a lonely Mountain Dew. Except this time, there was something different about my lover. A vintage-looking logo. Some strange old man, decked out in plaid, inexplicably shooting a cork through his patchwork cowboy hat. Dew? Are you in there? I thought, cocoons in my lower intestine threatening to explode into a circus of butterflies. I picked up the bottle to inspect further. Mountain Dew Throwback? WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MOUNTAIN DEW?! I pulled the bottle even closer, clutching it with the lusty fervor of a hopeless spinster and studying it with the menacing eyes of a fat baby in a Hardee's. Made with real sugar, eh? That's kinky, MD. I could get into that.
So I bought it. And it was delicious. And the love I felt during the consumption of the dastardly Dew reminded me of an essay I wrote a few years back entitled "Mountain Dew: A Liquid Lust". The essay is part of a now-deceased blog I had during my junior year of college, a blog created solely to showcase a collection of essays I had been writing. (I say "collection" like I'm David Sedaris or something. There were only five essays by my count, one of which was a poem I wrote for Sarah, my girlfriend at the time. Hardly a collection.) But the essay about Mountain Dew fits perfectly with this blog post, so I'll go ahead and post it as a bookend to this carbonated romance novel of sorts. Here you are:
MOUNTAIN DEW: A LIQUID LUST
Can one have a genetic predisposition to Mountain Dew consumption? As an Italian, I know that I am genetically predisposed to eating spaghetti. That's more or less an ethnic fact. But Mountain Dew, as far as I can tell, has no immediate connection to Italy excluding the fact that it's colors are that of the Italian flag. Also, it turns your piss a lush, vibrant yellow. But that's more of an added bonus than anything.
How have I arrived at this point, you ask? Well, there was a period in my life, appearing more like a void in retrospect, where the citrus soda was inexplicably absent from my life and, more importantly, my refrigerator. Even amongst varying degrees of sobriety, nary once did I ever encounter a dew during this carbonated ice-age of sorts. In the immediate, I don't inherently know why one would consider nature's own dew drops fit for consumption. All I know is that if nature's dew drops ever rivaled that of its soft drink counterpart, I would ascend the nearest mountainside, mouth agape, over-indulging at the rate of Barney Gumble on a Sunday afternoon at Moe's. But that's just me.
Let's get down to the nitty-gritty. Mountain Dew is awesome. That's a perpetual given. However, there are two arguments (and ONLY two) that I often hear against the beverage. Both are bullshit. The first argument comes from those who don't even enjoy carbonated beverages to begin with, and goes a little something like this:
"Blegh! I don't drink soft drinks." - Person A
Person A is a douchebag. Not only do they sound whiny, but their so-called "argument" is also devoid of credibility. I mean, what else does this person not enjoy? Puppies? Babbling babies? Diet Mountain Dew? It's bullshit. Also, refraining from drinking soft drinks isn't something you just instinctively do. You do it because you've either drank it before and didn't like it or you thought it was unhealthy. This can mean one of two things - a) God didn't bless you with half-decent taste buds or b) you care far more about your health than you do about having fun. But sugar = fun. So what the heck is your problem? Okay, so maybe you're not a fan of sugar. Which means you probably had a lot of cavities as a child. Which, again, eliminates all of your credibility. You are now completely biased because you're afraid of your family dentist, and therefore averse to all things sugar. But c'mon, if you aren't ingesting sugar at an alarming rate in this country then what are you doing? Sudoku? That's no fun. And fun is exactly what Mountain Dew preaches - "Do the Dew". Assuredly, the excluded final word in the slogan is "bitch". And to anyone who remains unconvinced about the deliciousness of the aforementioned beverage, I say - "Do the Dew, bitch."
The second and only alternative argument against Mountain Dew is that it kills your sperm. And in one way, that's a fact. If you ejaculate into a container filled with Mountain Dew, it will most definitely kill all of that sperm. And why is that? Because the air kills your sperm. I don't hear anyone knocking air consumption though. So if you continue insisting that Mountain Dew is a "spurderer" (that's 'sperm' and 'murder' combined) then you probably don't like breathing. Thusly, anyone using this argument against the Dew has ultimately already met their demise. Justly? Don't ask me. I'm not here to judge the living and the dead. That's what Jesus is for. And do you know why he is seated at the right hand of the Father? Because the left hand was holding a dew. And God was like "Don't even think about it."
Ok, ok. So the ACTUAL way that Mountain Dew supposedly kills your sperm is from within, not post-ejaculation. I know that. And you know what? That's STILL bullshit. In fact, I remember hearing something along the lines of, "All soft drinks lower your sperm count. Not just the dew." Even though this is probably false, I will prove it wrong anyway:
I suppose if I were to question each and every male with a child, they would, probably in a fit of joy, exclaim that they have never consumed a soft drink in their lifetime and thusly, have a child to show for it. Not a chance. It's much more likely and probably certain that every male ever has, at some point, felt the rush of the frothy, cold carbonation in his mouth. Under the assumption that sperm will die, you can safely assume any and all males will refrain from participating in the event at hand. Mother is to child as man is to sperm.
And such am I to Mountain Dew.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Stop it, Coinstar, you're embarrassing me!
I'm sure everyone has little things that bother them. Seemingly harmless things that end up being the bane of their existence. For me, it's going to the Coinstar. If you've never been to a Coinstar, allow me to explain it to you. It's a machine usually found in the front area of grocery stores where you can take all of your useless spare change and turn it into cold, hard cash. You simply dump your ziplock bag of dirty nickels, dimes, pennies, and quarters into the magic little machine and it counts them up for you. Gee, thanks. That's nice of you, Coinstar. But it'd be even nicer of you to do it without being SO FUCKING LOUD.
This is the only part of Coinstar that sucks. Spare change is loud. In my estimation, the sound of spare change is half of the reason most self-respecting people discard it in the first place. It's incredible when you think about it. There are actual people in this world that would rather lose money than carry around coins in their pocket. I've worked in retail and now in food service, and have come across some extremely odd opinions of spare change. Some people will get pissed if you don't give them back their penny or two of change. Some people will get pissed if you do give them a penny or two of change. Funny, those same people don't seem to give two shits about giving you change as part of your tip. Bastards.
I like spare change. I keep all of the change that I get and throw it into a jar in my bedroom. It's so easy. After only a few months and a trip to the Coinstar, you could have a crisp twenty dollar bill making love to the inside of your wallet. All because you kept your loud, jingling, sonofabitch change instead of giving it to your waiter, who would probably murder you if his job didn't depend on it. Now don't get me wrong, it sucks to lug around coins in your pants pocket, constantly worrying about whether or not they have mysteriously vanished under the driver's seat. But still...it's money. Four quarters are worth just as much as that slip of paper with a number "1" printed on it. So are ten dimes. And 20 nickels. Do you know how many pennies are worth just as much as that paper with a "1" on it? Good. It's 100. Now that I'm done patronizing, I'll begin cursing.
SHUT THE FUCK UP, COINSTAR! You are SO fucking loud. As I let all of my hard-earned coinage slip out of the ziplock bag and into the machine, I have to bury my head in my hands. It's that loud. And I know that every person in the general vicinity of the self-service machine is thinking "What the fuck is that racket?!" And God forbid someone gets behind me in line to use the machine. They'd need earplugs. Or at least just a handgun to blow their brains out. The noise is unbearable. You'd think I had just cast fourteen stainless steel salad forks into my garbage disposal. That might literally be the only thing that could rival the noises coming from the Coinstar machine. It sounds like renegade spare change, sure, but it could easily be a five year-old boy crying in the grocery store because he can't find his Mommy or something. Well, she's probably buying cigarettes. Get over it, kid, your parents don't love you anyway. Honestly, if Coinstar was my child, I would give it up for adoption so fast I wouldn't even have time to name it. For real.
While my head is buried in my hands, I am also annoyed. I'm annoyed, but I'm also embarrassed that I am annoying everyone else. It's just an awful cycle of annoyance and embarrassment that I never get to apologize for. I want to start carrying a mega-phone to the grocery store and alerting everyone that "It will all be over soon! Bear with me! I hate it too!" But I'm silent. Each and every time I'm silent. I half-expect to turn around after my all my change has been counted and look into the judging eyes of every customer and employee in the grocery store. But I'm always too afraid to look up, so I keep my eyes on my shoes as I flee the scene. By the time it has counted my change and printed out the voucher that I can exhange for $20.59, I don't even want my money anymore. Just making it out of the store is reward enough for the punishment I've endured. So, next time you see someone at the Coinstar, stand awkwardly near them and wear a disgusted look on your face. I promise that day will be the first time you see a dead body.
So, until we meet again...FUCK YOU, COINSTAR!
This is the only part of Coinstar that sucks. Spare change is loud. In my estimation, the sound of spare change is half of the reason most self-respecting people discard it in the first place. It's incredible when you think about it. There are actual people in this world that would rather lose money than carry around coins in their pocket. I've worked in retail and now in food service, and have come across some extremely odd opinions of spare change. Some people will get pissed if you don't give them back their penny or two of change. Some people will get pissed if you do give them a penny or two of change. Funny, those same people don't seem to give two shits about giving you change as part of your tip. Bastards.
I like spare change. I keep all of the change that I get and throw it into a jar in my bedroom. It's so easy. After only a few months and a trip to the Coinstar, you could have a crisp twenty dollar bill making love to the inside of your wallet. All because you kept your loud, jingling, sonofabitch change instead of giving it to your waiter, who would probably murder you if his job didn't depend on it. Now don't get me wrong, it sucks to lug around coins in your pants pocket, constantly worrying about whether or not they have mysteriously vanished under the driver's seat. But still...it's money. Four quarters are worth just as much as that slip of paper with a number "1" printed on it. So are ten dimes. And 20 nickels. Do you know how many pennies are worth just as much as that paper with a "1" on it? Good. It's 100. Now that I'm done patronizing, I'll begin cursing.
SHUT THE FUCK UP, COINSTAR! You are SO fucking loud. As I let all of my hard-earned coinage slip out of the ziplock bag and into the machine, I have to bury my head in my hands. It's that loud. And I know that every person in the general vicinity of the self-service machine is thinking "What the fuck is that racket?!" And God forbid someone gets behind me in line to use the machine. They'd need earplugs. Or at least just a handgun to blow their brains out. The noise is unbearable. You'd think I had just cast fourteen stainless steel salad forks into my garbage disposal. That might literally be the only thing that could rival the noises coming from the Coinstar machine. It sounds like renegade spare change, sure, but it could easily be a five year-old boy crying in the grocery store because he can't find his Mommy or something. Well, she's probably buying cigarettes. Get over it, kid, your parents don't love you anyway. Honestly, if Coinstar was my child, I would give it up for adoption so fast I wouldn't even have time to name it. For real.
While my head is buried in my hands, I am also annoyed. I'm annoyed, but I'm also embarrassed that I am annoying everyone else. It's just an awful cycle of annoyance and embarrassment that I never get to apologize for. I want to start carrying a mega-phone to the grocery store and alerting everyone that "It will all be over soon! Bear with me! I hate it too!" But I'm silent. Each and every time I'm silent. I half-expect to turn around after my all my change has been counted and look into the judging eyes of every customer and employee in the grocery store. But I'm always too afraid to look up, so I keep my eyes on my shoes as I flee the scene. By the time it has counted my change and printed out the voucher that I can exhange for $20.59, I don't even want my money anymore. Just making it out of the store is reward enough for the punishment I've endured. So, next time you see someone at the Coinstar, stand awkwardly near them and wear a disgusted look on your face. I promise that day will be the first time you see a dead body.
So, until we meet again...FUCK YOU, COINSTAR!
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