FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS!!! (Part 2)

I apologize for the delay in getting to Part II of the story. As it turns out, at my age a weekend-long bachelor party binge in Vegas sets me back a few days. One thing worth noting – the majority of text below was either written in Vegas or on the flight home, I’ve just edited since then. Anyway, on with the story…

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I hate my colon. Not really; I actually love my colon and all it does for me, but I’ve treated it like a step brother the last few days so I can't be surprised that it's trying to pay me back in the worst way now that I'm trapped within the fuselage of this Boeing 747 at 30,000 feet.

I've been on bachelor parties like this before and it's always the same – 9 dudes in Vegas might as well be 9 anorexic supermodels; they lay by the pool all day, routinely throw up (sometimes at the pool) and wouldn't eat a morsel of food to save their lives. My delicate digestive system just doesn't put up with that so it turns me into a guerilla eater, sneaking around taking in meals wherever I can. After drinking our faces off Thursday night several of the guys followed me to a 24-hour restaurant in the casino and watched me eat a meal at 3:30 in the morning. We met a group of girls at the bar - and by "met" I mean “they latched onto to us like blood sucking leeches,” if by "blood" I mean "money," and if by "girls" I mean "not the least but physically attractive with horrible emotional issues that might as well have been worn on their faces,” and by “leeches” I mean “whores” - who followed us to the restaurant and even they ate a meal. It's worth noting that they were seriously pissed when I made them pay for their portion of the bill. Apparently that's not very chivalrous. Well, apparently you're not driving me to or from the airport in a taxi so I'm not going to just give you my fucking money. Whores.

In one epic stretch of time from Thursday night to Friday evening that was split up by just a few hours of sleep and resulted in one dude getting thrown out of the pool for vomiting, one dude passing out on the bathroom floor at 3 in the afternoon, a lost Blackberry, a broken hotel room phone, and unfathomable amounts of alcohol (that's probably the most unnecessarily redundant statement I've ever made), I alone ate two meals and a snack while the other 8 guys collectively ate two meals. The only other food consumed during that time occurred when one dude opened a bag of chips in the pool as a protest statement for the other dude getting kicked out that he then ate out of the pool and chased down with a glass of pool water. He hates his colon too.

Fortunately by Friday night things turned around and we all started eating proper meals, albeit generally around 3 or 4 in the morning. 

I hate Patron. You wouldn't know that based on the number of single and double shots I poured into my mouth, but I really do hate Patron. Suffice it to say I didn't order a single one of them but apparently I didn't need to. We had three at one setting alone, courtesy of the bachelor, at an Irish pub in Old Downtown. Irish pubs are not typically known for shots of tequila, nor should they be. Irish pubs are, however, known for groups of obscenely drunk dudes singing and chanting at the top of their lungs including the chant, "Every-Thing's-A-Chant! Every-Thing's-A-Chant! Every-Thing's-A-Chant!" or "Mon-No-Rail! Mon-No-Rail! Mon-No-Rail!" Yeah, I don't fucking know either, but the place loved us.

I love Old Downtown Vegas, and so does my wallet. After hemorrhaging money all weekend we finally made the wise and frugal decision to head downtown Saturday afternoon. The first casino we saw advertised $2 Blackjack and $2 Corona’s. After spending $17 on a beer the night before, I was more than ready to abuse my liver in the name of economic sensibility. At one point while most of the guys were at the tables I went to the bar to order a round of 4 beers. The bartender looked me up and down and said, “four?”

“Uh, quatro???”

“Are they for you?” he asked skeptically.

What the fuck do you care who they’re for??? “Uh, no. My friends are over at the craps table.”

“Inside the casino?”

What??? “What?”

“Are they inside the casino?”

Listen Shithead; I don’t care if I want 25 beers to I’ll pour down my pants while dancing a jig along Fremont Street. Here’s my fucking money, give me my fucking beer!

I ordered 12 more beers from him throughout the afternoon out of spite. Well, not really out of spite because we drank them all, but suffice it to say that I ordered them with spite.

To be continued…

FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS!!! (Part 1)

That’s right, bitches! This post is coming to you from 30,000 feet above the Plain States on my return from the one and only Las Vegas, Nevada where I spent the last 64 hours, 52 of them awake, for the single greatest bachelor party ever imagined. As a result I can now say unequivocally that I hate Las Vegas - and by “hate” I mean “love”, and by “love” I mean “hate.” Therefore, consider this my love/hate recount of how Sin City welcomed us into to her loving bosom then chewed us up and spit us out.

Let me digress immediately in order to set the scene though. There were eight other dudes, 1. the bachelor: my great friend from college and multi-year roommate, responsible for more damage to my personal property than anyone else; 2. The best man: also from college and also a multi-year roommate of the bachelor as well as a one-year roommate with the bachelor and I in the single greatest habitational situation ever, which is far too complicated to get into here but picture 6 guys, a kegerator, a fisher price basketball hoop, and fewer credit hours than should be legal to subsidize with student loans; 3. Another friend from college and incidentally the Grandfather of the aforementioned greatest habitational situation ever; 4. Another friend from college and current history teacher who had to take the redeye home Saturday night in order to prepare a lesson plan for the first day of classes on Monday, which likely included a lesson on the history of Patron Tequila; 5. A friend of a friend who incidentally was also friends of friends of goddamn near everyone in Las Vegas; 6. The brother of the bride who spent more time gambling after the bars closed and before the sun came up than is healthy for any checking account; and 7 & 8. Two high school friends of the bride and brother of the bride, one who had a strong penchant for dancing any time music was playing, even if it was just in the elevator, and both who spent more time closing down bars than is healthy for the liver.

The expectation for the weekend was set exceptionally high from the start. Four of the guys on this trip, including the bachelor, went on a nearly identical bachelor party almost one year ago to the weekend and that trip ended in someone getting married… to a stranger… after a dare… While none of them would claim a direct affiliation to the now unhappily married husband, it none-the-less set a precedent and as we all know, precedents are only set in order to be met. Otherwise, tattoos, body piercings, and crystal meth addictions wouldn’t exist.

Now on with the story:

I hate spending money. More importantly I hate losing money, which is why I don’t gamble. The kick in the balls about Vegas though, is you don’t need to gamble to lose money because you can’t take a shit without someone waiting to empty your wallet. For instance, I was in Vegas for less than 5 minutes when someone stole money from me. I told the cabbie to take me to The Palms so he promptly pulled out of the airport and took a right onto some street that was conveniently blocked off by a police checkpoint. Thinking they were there for me, I quickly shit my pants then buckled my seat belt as if the cop would have been like, “well son, we were going to arrest you for trafficking 12 kilos of coke but since you’re safely buckled in back there we’ll let you off with a warning this time.” In fact the checkpoint was not set up for me; it was set up for the goddamn cabbie. Apparently turning right out of the airport is not the way to get to the Palms Hotel and Casino. Maybe when I said “The Palms” he thought I meant, “please take me to the desert and bash my face in with a tire iron and steal all my money.” After a lengthy and stern lecture from the cop we made a u-turn and drove directly to the Palms. The fucked up thing about me almost getting taken for an expensive cab ride across Nevada was that it actually was a fucking expensive cab ride because the meter was running the entire time we were being deposed at the checkpoint. Try protesting that with the cab driver who just stares back at you like he doesn’t understand what you’re saying. Welcome to Las-Fucking-Vegas.

I hate douche bags and Las Vegas is like the big steaming turd that attracts the douche bags like flies. Actually, I don’t hate them entirely, I just hate their lives. I like having them around though because they make me feel better about myself. Do you know how to spot the douche bags? They travel in packs of 2 to a thousand and 90% of them have horrible tribal tattoos for tribes that don’t and never did exist unless the barbed wire tribe is an ancient group residing in the Polynesian jungle or some shit. They also have really big, tan muscles, greasy hair and lots of male jewelry. You couldn’t throw up anywhere in Vegas without splashing some chunks on one or more of their Ed Hardy graphic t-shirts.

We went to the Ditch party at the Palms from 9 am to 3 pm on Friday, which is this huge pirate-themed pool party. I’m not sure why it was pirate themed and not just alcohol themed other than douche bags really like pirates or something. I would estimate there were 3,000 people there, 2,900 of which were douche bags or the girls the douche bags were hitting on. At one point there were easily 300 people in one small pool alone and it looked like the fucking Exxon Valdez with all the douche bag hair oil in the water. Green Peace had to send a disaster relief team to pull the little anorexic girls out of the pool and clean them off with Dawn dish soap like they were endangered herrings or some shit.

To be continued...

Thug Life

That little trip down memory lane yesterday got me reminiscing about the rest of my childhood days. From elementary school through high school I had my small group of friends but I always considered myself a friendly transitional individual. Which is to say, my good friends were all fine upstanding lads who are now dentists, lawyers, and business owners, but in the underworld of the public school system I had to be able to transition and be friendly to the less desirable groups of people as a matter of survival. All of those individuals have gone on to become prisoners, prison guards, or fugitives from prison.

Take gym class for instance. None of my friends were ever in my gym classes. Instead my classes were always filled with the girls that wore lots of makeup and smoked Marlboros and the dudes with behavioral issues that took classes in the little trailers behind the school. In every case these dudes were 2-8 years older than me and 10-50 times more badass than me. But I always played it cool with them and inevitably we were always boys. For instance, in Jr High, Sean Hall was perhaps the badest dude in school. I imagine he’s now the undisputed light-heavyweight boxing champion of the Ohio State Penitentiary System. At the time, he was probably 4 years older than me and he was literally a boxer, whether in legally sanctioned fights or not. We had gym class together and I made sure we were boys for those 52 minutes every day largely because we had an understanding: I understood that Sean could beat my ass and Sean understood that I understood that he could beat my ass. It was a solid friendship.

That gym class friendship served me well when Sean and I were stuck at the same table in Study Hall the next semester. Our friendship blossomed there because we still had the same understanding with one additional caveat: we both understood that Sean could barely read. So I helped him with his studies and he repaid me by splitting his Milky Way bar with me everyday. I didn’t and still don’t like candy bars but you can fucking believe I ate that half of a Milky Way every damn day while I helped him write his book reports on the Cat in the Hat.

What does this have to do with anything? Not much, but it was ironic that I wrote all that this afternoon then came home to find two errant pieces of mail in our mailbox. As it turns out, the mail belonged to our neighbors from two houses down – you know, the cracker-ass ghetto thug white dude with the cornrows. The safest and easiest option would have been for me to just throw the mail away. Concerned that they were subpoenas, I thought instead that I should casually walk by and place them in his mailbox. As I approached the driveway I had a change of heart and decided for the sake of the blog I would deliver the mail directly to the front door. Up close and in person my Cracker Thug neighbor was not a disappointment. He was wearing red shorts and t-shirt that would have been better suited on an elephant and dude had tattoos everywhere. I could barely take it all in during our brief exchange but he had two full sleeves of tatts, and a tatt on his throat. His throat I tell you! Not even just his neck. He was tatted on his Adam’s apple! The crème de la crème however was the two tatts on his face. His face I tell you! One was next to his left eye and the other was right between his eyes! You know, that little area of real estate that requires constant manscaping to prevent the dreaded unibrow?!? He had a tattoo there!

As mentioned our exchange was brief and consisted of me saying, “Here, your mail was in my mailbox,” after which he very politely thanked me for the delivery. 

Then he invited me in and we smoked a big fat blunt and discussed such things as whether or not Michael Phelps is a gift or a curse to the sport of swimming and if the escalating cost of food will have a dramatic effect on the Middle Tennessee area. Now we’re boys. 

It's Hip To Be Square

Now solidly in my second week of work, I can say that things are going well. There are quite a few notable differences between this job and my previous employment that have left me with a sizable learning curve to catch up to though. One such difference is the manner in which work is completed. At my earlier job I had the capacity to do a lot of the computer drafting myself in order to get the work done. In the absence of that I could do some quick sketches and hand them off to one of the junior engineers to draft on the computer.

At this job as an engineer I’m expected to draw everything by hand then give my drawings to a drafter who completes the work on the computer. Just to be clear, I’m expected to draw ­everything by hand. That includes writing all the notes out by hand and showing all the necessary detail. For those that don’t know, Computer Aided Design programs have existed since the early 80’s. Granted, back then the computer was the size of my house, but the point is, people have been using computers to draft for almost three decades. The drafting software is quite advanced now and you can imagine how easy it is to represent different things using various colors, line styles, and line thicknesses. It’s really quite amazing.

In the absence of a personal computer, which incidentally are more readily available than water these days, to aid in the drawing, you can also imagine how fucking hard it is to do a plumbing design by hand. My early sketches are just one big hot mess. Just picture my desk right now: graph paper, a ruler, and sets of red, blue, green and yellow pens, pencils, and highlighters. Throw some Crayons and Play-doh in there and I'll be right back in Preschool.

That reminds me of two stories from my Preschool days. I wore sweatpants and a sweatshirt everyday of my childhood, and by 'childhood' I mean until I was like 12 or 13. One day I wore my favorite royal blue sweatpants with a yellow sweatshirt and fuck me if it wasn't color day at Preschool! When discussing the primary colors, the teacher pulled me to the front of the class to explain how yellow and blue make green. I was so damn proud; I wore that outfit every day for the rest of the year. Sadly I was disappointed that we never went over colors again. Such is life.

In the other story, I recall playing with Play-doh one day while the teacher's assistant was sitting at the miniature table with me. I rolled a long thin piece of Play-doh then offered it to her as a hot dog. She accepted and pretended to take a bite of it and I was like, "Oh, I lied! That wasn't a hot dog, that was a snake!" Her reaction was priceless and I derived great enjoyment out of it. I took the Play-doh back and told her I'd make her a hot dog for real. I rolled another long thin piece and offered it to her again. She took a bite and again I was like, "Oh, I lied again! That wasn't a hot dog, it was another snake!!!" Again, priceless reaction. This went on for like 8 or 10 iterations and even as a child I remember thinking to myself, "man, this woman is S-T-U-P-I-D! I can't believe she doesn't know I'm just going to keep giving her this fucking snake." In retrospect, now I think, "man, that woman had a kind and generous heart to put up with my retarded game for so long."

Those two incidents taught me a valuable lesson: yellow and blue may in fact make green but you can't mix yellow and blue Play-doh to make green Play-doh. All you get is a messy ball of yellow and blue Play-doh that can't ever be separated back into autonomous yellow and blue balls.

All of this reminds me of another story from my childhood. As previously mentioned, I wore sweatpants through the better part of my elementary school years. I had two or three pairs of navy blue ones in particular that I wore all the time. Each had their own unique set of holes in and around the knee area that my mother dutifully patched up several dozen times. As anyone who frequently wore sweatpants knows, the weakest link in the entire sweatpant construction was always the drawstring. On one particular afternoon I stopped off at the boys room just before our square dancing lesson in gym class (which is probably worthy of an entire blog post in and of itself) when fuck me if the drawstring didn't break right then and there. I instantly panicked and broke into a cold sweat. What the fuck was I going to do? In like 30 seconds I had to be dosey-dohing across the gym floor and my pants were more inclined to be around my ankles than my waist. Thankfully even as a sapling I was an innovative problem solver so I quickly removed the two sections of drawstring, tied the broken ends together, looped it around the outside of the pants, and tied it as tightly as I could. This resolution wasn't foolproof though as the sweatpants lacked the loopholes on the outside to hold the pants up in a belt-like fashion, so I spent the entire square dancing session alternating hands as I tried to swing my partner round and round with one and hold up my pants with the other. Thankfully the ladies didn't get a view of my tighty whities and especially not Melanie Anderson because even as a 4^th grader she was SMOKIN'!

I think part of the reason I wore sweatpants all the time was because the gym teacher wore them all the time too. To a youngster growing up all precocious and full of wonderment, the gym teacher was always the coolest guy in school (followed closely by the janitor), so I think part of me was just emulating him. Now I realize he really wasn't all that cool for wearing sweatpants, he was just poor.

Plumber's Butt

We finally moved into the house this weekend.

Despite the fact that we ‘re living here now I had a frustrating weekend trying to get the new sink and disposal installed. Don’t tell anyone I work with because I’m getting paid to be a Plumbing Engineer. Thankfully I’m not getting paid to be a plumber because it took me damn near one entire day to get the water and waste piping hooked up under the sink. Normally I brag about how badass I am when it comes to this stuff but in this case the plumbing was kicking my ass like it was Donald Rumsfeld and I was a prisoner at Abu Ghraib. And just like a prisoner, even though it ultimately ended up well for me, I’m still all paranoid it’s not over, like Rumy is hanging out under my sink with a guard dog just waiting to fuck me up again.

As a result of the plumbing debacle, I made 4 separate trips to Home Depot within 24 hours. Who knew there was such a difference between 1-1/4" and 1-1/2" and you can't make up the difference with plumber's putty? Anyone who is upset about the state of the economy these days, don't come crying to me, I'm doing my part one plumbing fitting at a time. Now if Bush would get off his lame-duck ass and pass another economic stimulus package to hook me up with another big fat check, I wouldn't be complaining.

Now that everything is functional and I can breathe a sigh of relief, I have a new appreciation for the contractors that do this stuff on a daily basis. Plus, I also think I have some more credibility with them for having gone through it. Next time a plumber calls me up to bitch me out because my plumbing design sucks and he asks if I know the first thing about plumbing, I'll be all like, "heck yeah I do! This one time I installed all the drain piping under my sink. I mean, I royally fucked it up for like two days but then I got it right and it was awesome. I felt so proud of myself… Now as for you and this problem you're having with the raw sewage coming out of the sink faucet… I don't know what to tell you."

This is a picture of the final masterpiece:

This is a picture of everything that I bought that somehow didn't make the situation any better.

Here is the new fridge with the Ikea cabinet above, the Ikea cabinets below to the right, the Paperstone counter top, and the custom wine cabinet.

This is the giant slab of counter top.

Get In My Belly!

I’ve only been working downtown for a week but I’m already becoming familiar with a lot of the little restaurants and delis and I’m realizing that downtown has more to offer than I once gave it credit for. Everyday I drive by one section in particular called Printer’s Alley. It is in fact an alley and according to the official website, it’s one of the oldest streets in the downtown area and is home to some of the oldest and most unique establishments in Nashville.

One such establishment, The Brass Rail Stables, was described on the website as, and I can assure you I didn’t make this up:

“The last remaining exotic dance club, this place is loaded with history. Originally a fine gormet resturant, it's name was the Brass Rail Stables and Lounge.

The Brass Rail Stables was originally really a horst stable in downtown Nashville where President Andrew Jackson boarded his horse when he was governor of Tennessee. The original barnwood of the old stable frames up the walls in this historic venue.”

Did you catch that??? The “horst stable”??? I swear I didn’t make any of that up or edit a single letter! That is actually how it appears on the website. Maybe it was originally a horst stable, but you can bet your new Andrew Jackson $1 coins that starting tomorrow night it’s going to be a Horst stable again! Shit yeah!

Today at work one of the dudes on my team brought in his 3 month old son. The kid was seriously as cute as a button and had a complete full head of hair. No joke, the kid looked like Steve Nash. He was showing the kid around when some women materialized out of nowhere like fucking Shadowcat from the X-Men. In a very creepy adult-talking-to-a-baby-voice, the woman was like, “I just thought I smelled a baby here. That’s right, I did. I thought I smelled you. Uhh-boo-boo-boo-boo-boo. Uhh-boo-boo-boo-boo-boo…” Holy shit I must have looked like someone had just kicked me in the face. I had no idea how to react to the woman. She continued talking to the child in the horrifying voice and then she started talking to the adults yet still in the same voice and still through the child. “Now how old are you? Are you sleeping very well at night? Are you sleeping? Are you a good boy and sleeping for mommy and daddy? Are you? Uhh-boo-boo-boo-boo-boo.” I started to panic and break out into a sweat. This woman was more than I could handle. I tried to gracefully back away from the situation but I felt powerless like the baby was the Death Star and it had me locked in its tractor beam like I was the Millennium Falcon. The woman carried on like that forever even though no one was paying attention to her. Then she got downright fucked up when she was like, “oh you’re just so cute. Yes you are. You’re just so cute. You’re so cute I could just eat you. Yes I could. I could just eat your little foot. Uhh-mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm. Uhh-mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm.” And she was literally pretending to eat the baby’s foot. At that point, my face must have looked like someone farted in my mouth. I honestly think that if the parents had turned away that woman would have bitten the kid’s foot off like it was chocolate or some shit. I’ve never seen someone so stupidly insane over a baby before. It was disgusting. 

I couldn’t eat lunch after that because everything tasted like a baby to me. 

This Preview Has Been Approved for All Audiences

My new company has a quarterly newsletter posted on the intranet containing articles and relevant news to the entire company. Last quarter’s newsletter contained a very informative article from the CEO as well as some lighter fare like baby announcements, new hire profiles, and upcoming intramural sporting events. With little else to do on my first day, I read the entire newsletter from cover to cover, so to speak. Located at the bottom of the newsletter was the following article:

“Some Nashville employees are expressing their outrage at the recent announcement of “Doughnut Un-Appreciation Day” to be observed on the second Tuesday of each month. You might recall the second Tuesday was previously hailed as “Doughnut Day” in which 50 dozen boxes of Krispy Kremes were distributed to all floors [of the building].

“Currently, each floor is allotted 1 glazed and 1 assorted box of doughnuts per large kitchen which has historically been plenty to go around. However, in recent weeks, our roving reporters have witnessed employees going “under the radar”, stealing one, sometimes two boxes from other kitchens and bringing to theirs. These acts have wreaked havoc on the whole doughnut distribution system, causing unnecessary recounts and nasty voice mails from unhappy employees wondering why they did not receive their fair share of glazed goodness.

“Management heard of the recent events and decided to take action before the situation got out of hand. A committee, reportedly named D.U.D., was formed to analyze the program and word got out last week that they voted unanimously to establish “Doughnut Un-Appreciation Day”. Our sources state they plan to serve week-old stale doughnuts rather than the tasty warm favorites our employees had come to know and love.

“Word around the office is Doughnut Day is taken very seriously. What started out as a positive employee morale gesture has taken on a life of its own. When Doughnut Day was born, nobody could’ve imagined how far some employees would go to get one of the fried delights. Some might think they were nearing extinction the way employees treat the event. For instance, many employees arrive extra early to stake their claim on their favorite glazed goodness. Some go as far as to mark it on their calendar so as not to miss out on the monthly Krispy Kreme treats.

“If I don’t get here by 7:30 and start hovering around the kitchen, I will not get a chocolate covered glazed doughnut,” one employee told the Bug. “One time, I actually had to steal one from the 8th floor because I was running late due to a backup on I-40. It was really frustrating,” he added.”

The article went on in this manner with several other quotes and reactions to the news presented by the DUD committee. Now, I was as confused as you are. I mean, it’s obviously intended to be humorous but it lacks enough irony to make it truly satirical and, quite frankly, it lacks enough humor to be truly humorous. So I was left scratching my head.

After further investigation I found the article is part of a section of the newsletter called “Below the Scroll,” which is in fact intended to be a satirical take on the news around the office, much like The Onion. In short, the article was completely fabricated and supposedly funny. Since it wasn’t, it begs the question: How long before I can get an article published in the newsletter?

Consider the following headlines a small preview of what I’ll be working on in hopes that I’ll get something approved for the publication:

-Monster vs Red Bull vs Rock Star: A Comprehensive Study of the Correlation Between Modern Day Energy Drinks and Workplace Productivity

-Do You Think You’ve Been Sexually Harassed At Work? Take This Fun and Interactive Quiz

-Who Dropped A Deuce In My Filing Cabinet?

My First Day

My first day of work was not bad at all. In fact, it was really good. Everyone on my new team was very welcoming and my manager has to be the nicest guy I have ever met. I don’t think he has an evil thought in his head. That’s probably good because he’ll be able to offset all the ones in mine.

But what would a first day be without a few funny stories?

In the hustle and bustle of preparing for my first day of work (new pants, new shirt, new shoes, new douchebag haircut) I forgot my bagel. For those that don't know, I bring a Vitamin Water and a Thomas Cinnamon and Raisin bagel to work every day. I've been doing this for six years (actually, it started with Gatorade and Pop Tarts, but then along came Vitamin Water and specifically the Formula 50, Revive, and Energy flavors; I switched to the bagel the same day Kellogg’s stopped producing the apple cinnamon Pop Tarts). If I don't eat my bagel by 10 am I get cranky and angry and devolve into some sort of 28-Days-Later-Zombie-esque creature.

"Dude, why is the new guy sucking the brain out of Bob's head?"

"I don't know, but I wish he'd keep it down, I'm about to beat this Solitaire game."

I'm so loyal to the bagel and Vitamin Water that I can barely stand to substitute them. My former company would provide Panera bagels for all the associates on Friday mornings. For awhile I would go along with everyone to get a bagel, mainly to talk about The OC or The Office from the night before, but after awhile I couldn't even put up with that charade – eating a hard, crusty, flavorless bagel - when I had the wholesome goodness of a Thomas bagel in my shoulder bag at my desk. I'm a bagel snob, so what?

I work in the Nashville City Center building – a 27-story high-rise in the middle of downtown. Security cards are necessary to ride the elevator or access the offices on any floor in the building. It feels like the CIA headquarters in Langley. I found there's nothing more embarrassing than getting off the elevator on the wrong floor, swiping your security badge to access the office hallway, then slamming your body into the glass door that is still securely locked because you don't have access to it.

I also found the water pressure in the bathrooms on the 9^th floor is phenomenal. That's fine if you need to power wash some ink off your hands; otherwise it's a recipe for disaster. The sinks in the men's room have separate knobs for the hot and cold water rather than a single lever to control both, just like the sink at our new house. However, the knobs on the sinks at work rotate opposite of the knobs at the house, so the first time I washed my hands instead of shutting the water off, I turned it on full blast. With the unnecessarily excessive pressure I sprayed water all over the front of my pants. After something like that happens you don't have a lot of options that don't result in an embarrassing and awkward encounter with one or more of your associates.

As a general rule you should never fart in an elevator. Everyone knows that. A more important rule is to never get on an elevator that someone else has just recently farted in, especially if the elevator is empty. Firstly, you don’t want to be in a confined space with the remnants of someone else’s recently busted ass. Secondly, when someone else gets on, you can’t possibly explain to them that the stank air in the elevator wasn’t just residing next to the shit in your colon.

Circle the Wagons

I’m a man of principles. I have many, but they can all be boiled down to one basic principle – Don’t do anything stupid. I live my life making decisions day in and day out simply to avoid doing something stupid that will result in me looking like a turd-rocket.

Therefore, I’m not proud to say, I quite nearly broke that principle today.

Before you get too excited, the incident actually had nothing to do with my first day of work, which I’ll write about later.

The only thing keeping us from moving out of the Shitsworth Apartment Complex & Roach Motel and into our house has been the absence of a functional sink, which is actually because the counter tops have not yet arrived. Trying to do the right thing for the environment, I ordered some pretty cool solid surface counters made out of recycled paper. They shipped out of Virginia last week and should have arrived on Thursday. They didn’t. I spoke with the retailer this morning only to find that the counter tops have in fact been in Nashville since last Thursday, just not at my house. A misunderstanding by the shipping company had left my counter tops in the back of a semi-truck at a shipping/receiving warehouse halfway to Murfreesboro. By “misunderstanding” I can only assume he meant there was an entire freight company in southeast Nashville standing around with their heads up their asses. Or perhaps up each other’s asses like a circle of stage coaches on the Oregon Trail.

When I spoke with a disarmingly nice guy at the freight company later this morning, he explained it wouldn’t be a problem for them to deliver the shipment to my house today; I would just need to ensure that an 18-wheel semi-truck could drive up and down my street and my crew would be available to unload the 12’ long, 600 pound pallet.

“My crew?” I asked.

“Yeah. You’ll just need your contractor or whoever’s doing your work to unload it from the semi.”

“Well, my contractor is me, and I’m sitting at work right now, and even if I was there I couldn’t unload it myself.”

“Hmmm. Well, I don’t know what to tell you…” That really pissed me off because that seems to be the common response around here when someone is fixing to really screw me over.

“If you can’t drop it off, how do I get my counter tops?”

“You can come pick it up if you want.” Now how the fuck am I going to do that???

“Now how am I going to do that???”

“I don’t know, but it’ll be here waiting for you.”

I spent the rest of the morning stewing over the problem, and when I get to stewing over something, I tend to get desperate and aggressive. So I did the last thing I thought I’d ever do: I called the Pack Rat again.

Thank god he didn’t answer and thank god he didn’t call me back. I was high and dry but I did not want to encounter that piece of shit again.

So after work I drove down to the freight company to see what I was getting myself into and found 20-some people standing around in a circle with their heads up each other’s asses. Not really, but they might as well have been. The guy helping me out probably had the equivalent of a 4^th grade education and he was probably the pride of his family. He showed me to my shipment, which was conveniently located in the very front of an 18-wheel semi-truck behind approximately 48 other pallets of really heavy shit. He was like, you can go look at it.” So there I was, crawling through the back of a semi to look at my pallet of counter tops and holy crap if it wasn’t 12’ long and 600 pounds.

I asked the guy if I could reasonably put the monstrosity on top of my Jeep Cherokee and he said, “I’m sure you can,” but I could tell he was thinking, “I sure hope you do; I’d like to see that shit.” So I stood by and watched while some guy with the equivalent of a 2^nd grade education unloaded the contents of the semi with a tow-motor. It took 15 minutes and in the process word spread through the entire warehouse that some ass-clown was going to put a 12’ long, 600 pound shipment on top of his Jeep and drive off into the sunset. There was literally a group of guys in the next room laughing out load about it. “I can’t wait to see this. He’s gonna put it on his Jeep and drive away. Hahahahaha… Hahahahaha…. HAHAHAHAHA… HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!” I was so fucking furious at the situation that I was determined to make it work.

That was until they pulled the pallet out and set it on the floor and it was 12-fucking-feet long. I stood there, staring at the pallet, heart pounding, brow sweating, cursing mother earth, and thinking, “even if I do get this on my jeep, and even if it doesn’t crush the roof of my car, and even if it doesn’t fly off my car in the middle of I-24 west causing a 29 car pile-up, and even if I don’t get arrested for just being an idiot, how in the fuck am I going to get it off of my car???” I actually had the thought that I could scoot it off the luggage rack just enough that if I pulled away really fast it would just fly off the top of my car and land on the ground like pulling a table cloth out from under a dinner plate. Thank god I let that thought pass.

I was still furious but I came to my senses – and by “came to my senses” I mean “listened to my wife,” who was relentlessly telling me how horrible this whole idea was on the phone the entire time.

And then I got an idea, like I get so many great ideas: Go to Home Depot.

So I went to Home Depot and holy shit if it wasn’t the same Home Depot in Smyrna, TN that I designed and visited like 3 years ago, sitting atop a hill like a shining beacon of hope. I rented one of their trucks for $20, drove back to the freight warehouse, and said, “load up my pallet, bitches!”

They did, and you know what? The whole warehouse came out to watch. The manager even came over and was like, “you got this truck at Home Depot?”

“Yup.” That’s why it says Home-fucking-Depot on all 37 sides of it.

“How much wus it???”

“$20 for 75 minutes.” Just like it says right there on the goddamn door.

“20 bucks!?! What’s the cost per mile?”

“Nothing.” As previously stated, it’s 20 DOLLARS FOR 75 MINUTES! MAYBE IF YOU DIDN’T HAVE RANDY’S POO IN YOUR EYES YOU COULD READ!

“That’s a great deal. You really done okay for yurself here.”

Even the old-ass security guard came over to look at the truck and couldn’t believe it was only $20.

So there I was, counter tops in the back of my Home Depot truck, driving off into the sunset, just as happy as a clam.

--

It’s worth noting that I had to completely break the pallet apart and separate the two sections of counter top and employee the help of one of the strongest people I know to get it off the truck, but the overall moral of the story is, I have my counter tops, and I survived another day without looking like a turd-wagon¹.

1. Until I write about my first day of work.

End Of An Era

I have to apologize about the sporadic nature of the blog posts in the last week. I’ve been putting in overtime at the house trying to get it ready, primarily because my contribution to the US unemployment statistics ends tomorrow. That’s right, I’m going back to work, which I’m looking forward to like I’m looking forward to my next encounter with the Pack Rat.

Now, I don’t want you to get all excited that I’ll be posting every hilarious juicy detail about my new job on the blog, because I won’t. As much as I love not working, I don’t want to be collecting unemployment checks for the next 4 years because I couldn’t resist talking about the Divisional VP’s overactive sweat glands on my blog.

With everything going on at the house I didn’t have time to cut my hair before my big first day so I was forced to find a business that would accept cash in exchange for a haircut – something I’ve only done once since our wedding, which was understandably an occasion for a professional haircut – and by “professional” I mean “prohibitively expensive.”

So I went to a little place called Heads Up (clever), which advertised on their front window that walk-ins were welcomed. What they should have said was, “walk-ins are welcome but you might as well make an appointment 6 months in advance because we operate this place like a doctor’s office who’s being whored out by the HMO’s,” except the front window wasn’t that big. After waiting for an hour, which is how long it takes me to cut my own hair, I sat down in the chair for the most unsatisfying haircut of my life. I felt like the woman ran the clippers up the sides and back then charged me $15 for changing the part on top of my head. It was over before I knew it and I came out of there looking like an ROTC recruit if the ROTC exclusively recruited douchebags. I basically paid them to waste my time and make me look like an ass. Next time I’ll just eat $15 and let Sara fuck up my hair while watching an episode of The Closer and at least I’ll have the excitement of wondering how many dollar bills will come out in my next shit.

As part of my new employment orientation I have to fill out a form listing my personal interests and hobbies. I’m struggling with it because I did something similar when I started my last job 6 years ago, only that time it was just an interview on my first day with the goofy lady that published the internal e-zine, something I was entirely unprepared for. When asked what my hobbies were, I couldn’t think of anything. Having just spent the previous month watching the World Cup and making homemade art for our apartment because we were too poor to buy it, I was like, “I like watching soccer and painting.” She was like, “what kind of painting?” What do you mean, ‘what kind of painting?’ It’s not like I’m a fucking impressionist; I just put paint on canvas. So when my new-hire profile was published in the e-zine it said I liked to watch soccer and do still-life painting. Fucking still-life painting!!! It made me sound like some French yuppie asshole.

I want to avoid the same social setback at this job so I need to be careful about what I list for my current interests. I’m toying with idea of coyote hunting, mixed martial arts, and tribal tattoos. That should give me sufficient street cred until people find out I actually do like watching soccer and painting still-life’s, and even then they’ll think twice about kicking my ass in the elevator when they’re not sure if I’m a Submission Grappler or a Muay Thai Kickboxer. 

The Pack Rat

It was an all around crazy affair at the house today. I’ve been trying to locate a company that would drop off a roll away dumpster in my driveway so I could get rid of the 17 tons of construction debris that’s been hanging out in front of my house. It was proving to be more difficult than it should have been and the best I could get was a 20-yard long dumpster that was going to cost me a small fortune. Yes, you read that correctly – I said 20 YARDS. That’s approximately 60 feet. I was going to have a 60-fucking-foot long dumpster in my driveway. I’m not sure my driveway is 60 feet long but I am damn sure I wouldn’t need but 20% of its capacity.

So, I stumbled upon some dude that runs a business called Pack Rat, and all he does is haul truckloads of crap to the dump. I gave him a call and he agreed to come out this afternoon. The second he pulled up I knew I was in for a treat. He had a big old pick-up truck towing a huge trailer and he hopped out of the cab carrying his shirt in his hand. As he lumbered down the driveway he put his shirt on but didn’t even attempt to button it up. I was like, dude, I appreciate you putting your shirt on, but you're pretty much showing me everything I don’t want to see, what with your beer belly and hairy chest all hanging out everywhere. Plus, he smelled like a hamster. A hamster I tell you! Like he rolls around in a big plastic ball and sleeps on sawdust.

When I showed him my two massive piles of debris, he was quite literally beside himself. He said nothing for several very long moments and I could tell he was thinking, “What-the-fuck is going on inside this house???” He scratched his head and said, “well, this is going to be some work, but I’m the man for the job. Let me see what we have here before I commit to a number.” I shit you not, he spent the next 15 minutes just walking around my piles of shit, scratching his head, then crouching down, them wiping his brow, then walking around again, then scratching… FOR 15 FUCKING MINUTES. Finally he came up with a cost that, quite frankly, would have been a nice down payment on a yacht or an Apache Helicopter. I had no choice though – it was cheaper than the Olympic-size dumpster and he agreed to haul everything away today.

The dumbest thing I did today was offer to help him load it up. My logic was that it was going to take him about 9 hours to do it himself, and I could rid myself of the hamster smell in an hour if I helped. Stupid logic.

Once we finally got to work, I jumped right in and grabbed arm full’s of debris to throw in to the back of his truck. After several trips I looked up to see the dude carrying hands of stuff. Not handfuls; just what he could comfortably hold in one hand or the other like we were moving fucking teacups or some shit. When he caught my glance he was like, “oh, there’s an art to loading stuff up so as to distribute the weight properly.” Fuck off! Hauling shit to the dump is not an art, Picasso! Just shovel it in and then shovel it out. Get a move on it.

Once it was clearly evident that I was doing 75% of the work, I decided to slow my roll and let him catch up. Unfortunately, that was a signal to him to slow down too and chat about whatever was on his mind, “these are impenetrable boots… typically I haul sofas and recliners… I used to be a real estate agent… it sure is hot out here… that trailer has a new tire on it… this has to be the biggest load I’ve ever hauled… you know who I really like? Sheryl Crow…” Holy shit, if you don’t shut up I’m going to smash this shovel into your face. I’m not paying you for the chit-chat, ass-clown!

Once we started making progress he paused for a second and said, “I bet you have something to drink inside…”

“I’m sorry?” I said, not understanding the statement.

“I bet you have something to drink inside.”

“You want something to drink???”

“Oh yeah, that’d be great. I sure am thirsty.”

What the fuck!?! “I have water…”

“Water would be great. I mean, I’d really like a Coca-cola, but I’ll take a water.”

Coca-fucking-cola??? I’d really like to kick you in the throat right now, you sawed-off piece of shit! For what I’m paying you, you should be able to have elective surgery to start pissing Coca-cola.

The nerve this little bastard had to ask me for a drink and then request something other than what I had to provide…

When it was all said and done an hour and a half later, I paid the guy and he was like, “I sure appreciate all your help; couldn’t a-done it without ya! I wish I could save you some money for your effort but I’ll tell you what – next time you need something hauled off, give me a call; I’ll make it worth your while.” Oh man, I was so furious I blew a hemorrhoid.

If that wasn’t crazy enough, while I was in he process of loading his trailer, a car drove by the house real slow like. Then it turned around and drove back, real slow again like I was about to be the victim of a drive by in broad daylight in the middle of Nashville. Eventually the car parked and some old dude got out and walked up the driveway.

He was all official looking and said, “You got a big project going on here…” I shit my pants thinking he was the building inspector coming to levy a massive fine the size of a helicopter down payment for not getting a permit to do all the work.

Then he was like, “I sold this house two weeks ago.”

WTF??? “I bought this house two weeks ago,” I said.

He looked at me like, “Huh?” So I looked back at him like, “Huh, to you!” Then I realized, he thought me and the hamster were just two low-life contractors out there working on the house.

“Well you must be the engineer then,” he finally said. I nodded. “My wife drove by the other day and saw the sink sitting in the front yard. I figured I’d stop over and see what was going on.” Hmm, that’s fucking weird.

So I showed him around. He was impressed; “it looks so much bigger in here without these walls. Wow. It’s like you’re making an old country kitchen.” Jigga what??? I don’t even know what that is. I’m making a functional kitchen, you turd wagon. Country kitchen my ass!

After all that went down I just had to sit in a chair for like 20 minutes while my brain tried to comprehend what just happened. The lasting thought that stuck with me was, “this is why I don’t interact with people.” 

Bring the Pain

My good buddy, Nick Waites, sent me a link to an article the other day detailing the connection between cell phone use and cancer. In fact, the study suggested that cell phone use could increase your risk two to four times. At first I was like, there is no way that something as pervasive as a cell phone could cause cancer; I mean, everyone has one. There’s just no way that type of risk would be allowed. But then I got to thinking as I’ve been remodeling this house over the past few days that just like I’ve been cursing my parent’s and grandparent’s generations for being so retarded for using shit like asbestos, lead-based paint, and the color pink - all things that were used everywhere in everything that we now know to be dangerous and harmful - I’m sure in 40 years I’ll be talking about how retarded we were for holding cancer-inducing communication devices up to our faces. Then I’ll turn on my electromagnetic teleportation device and instantly transport myself from my bed to my shitter and forget what I was talking about.

The study went on to suggest that while there is no current link between carrying a cell phone in your pocket and testicular cancer, some researchers suspect a link to decreased fertility. That’s some scary shit and I don’t intend to take any chances – I’m going out tomorrow and buying a bunch of cargo pants and like 6 more cell phones. I need a framing nail gun, not a baby.

Speaking of nail guns, my finish nailer was far and away the MVT the past two days. The only other things that could even compete were Gunner and T-Bone, my twin python arms. But really, they’re rocking it every day like they’re on a job interview for a position called Vice President of Kicking Ass where the required experience is a Bachelor’s Degree in Bringing the Pain. 

Alpha Sigma Omega

We had a great weekend at the house and got loads of work done – and by “we” I mean “me.” Sara painted the equivalent of a closet and complained the whole time about how much work it was while I felt like a fucking mule in 1865.

Everything got off to a great start on Friday as I met another neighbor. This time Chip from across the street came over to introduce himself and say hello. Chip is a talker, and a very charming one at that. He’ new to the neighborhood as well so he gave me the rundown on all there is to know before he launched into his life’s story. He grew up in Tennessee but has only been in Nashville for about 4 years. He started college at the University of Tennessee but indicated that he didn’t exactly make it through all four years at UT because, “I just loved partying way too much.” I gave him a reassuring nod and chuckle of understanding but I didn’t really understand. I liked partying too, as did most everyone I know, and we all made it through. Apparently whatever decision-making led to him getting his fraternity letters tattooed on his ankle also led him to miss the majority of his classes. So he transferred to Belmont where he just graduated and is currently “looking” for employment. I gave him another reassuring nod and chuckle of understanding, only this time I did in fact understand.

As he was touring me newly-demoed-and-presently-under-construction house he said he was quite the DIY-er himself, with an unnecessary air of bravado. That’s sweet, dude. So while you’re changing light bulbs over at your place, I’m over here putting the badass in DIY… Don’t touch my crowbar.

For all my joking I really liked Chip and have this excited yet somewhat uneasy feeling that he’s going to be my new Scotch-drinking buddy.

On Saturday, Chip brought over his living-in-sin girlfriend, Sarah. I don’t know for a fact that she spells her name with an ‘h’, but the Sara I know always finds it very important to know exactly how one spells one’s version of Sara(h) because the h-less Sara is clearly the best, and even more so because she’s pretty much the only Sara on the planet without an ‘h’. At any rate, living-in-sin Sarah was clearly Chip’s better half and I have an excited yet somewhat uneasy feeling that she’ll be Sara’s new consoler when Chip and I are wasted on Scotch.

At one point over the weekend I was looking for something in the garage (probably my stash of meth – it always seems to get misplaced during a big move) and moved a box to find a massive fucking cockroach hanging out on the wall. I can tell you, a cockroach is just as disgusting and scary in broad daylight as it is running across your floor at night. I grabbed the first thing I could find and in one swift motion lopped its head off with my hatchet. In the process I discovered that the theory that a cockroach can survive without its head is true. So if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, be prepared to and/or don’t be surprised that you’ll need to swing the hatchet several times to complete the job.

With all the work that got done at the house this weekend, it was hard to pick the MVT – the nail gun was a huge contributor; strangely the 24” and 48” levels were seriously vying for the co-MVT; but again it was an unlikely candidate that came through in the end. We went to Depot on Saturday for some odds and ends, which somehow always adds up to like $200. Seriously, my shopping list said, “(2) single-gang junction boxes,” and I still spent $200. Partly because we decided to purchase a cool three-lamp track light for the kitchen while we were there. The overtly polite yet uselessly un-helpful associate informed us that all of the track lights on the display were discontinued but he’d be willing to sell us the display model at a reduced price. Always in the market for a deal, we accepted the offer, which soon resulted in the associate standing precariously on a step ladder trying to remove the light from the display. Clearly unsure about how to do so, I offered him a philips-head screwdriver, which I produced from my pocket. “You have a screw driver in your pocket???” he questioned. Of course I do, shithead. I also have a flat head, a utility knife, a pair of needle-nose pliers, and a voltprobe. Maybe if you were a little more prepared like me, you wouldn’t be the biggest douchebag I’ve met in the last 5 minutes.  

He went about his business of removing the light from the display with my screwdriver when it occurred to me that while everything on the display was off, the display itself still had power to it. I knew that because I used to design Home Depots and I had tested that very display like a hundred times in a hundred different stores (thanks TAV!). I should have said something to the guy but it wasn’t my place – he was the electrical expert of the Home Depot for crying out loud. Well, I really should have said something because not more than a few seconds later there was a loud “POP!” a huge spark, and dude was teetering on the step ladder about to plummet to the floor having just shit his pants. Fortunately he didn’t fall because while I was thinking, “man, I hope he didn’t fuck up my screwdriver, because I am not buying a new one,” Sara was thinking, “man, I hope he didn’t fuck up his heart because I am not resuscitating this shithead.” He was fine, he just touched the metal part of the screwdriver to the hot and neutral wires causing the spark and the subsequent emptying of the bowels.

After it was all said and done he handed me my screwdriver and I walked away thinking, “congratulations Mr. philips-head, you just made the blog again.”