If you haven’t seen it, A&E has a great television program called Intervention. For those not familiar with the premise, the producers of the show find some fine, upstanding American citizens who also happen to have debilitating addictions to heroin, crack or crystal meth. As the viewer, you get to go along as they follow the addict around for a few weeks to watch them destroy their jobs, personal relationships, and financial nest eggs as they sneak around to score a fix then smoke or light up in broad daylight. With the help of the show the family confronts the addict with an overwhelming show of support in an effort to get them to agree to an all expense paid trip to Malibu for rehab. Think of it as Extreme Makeover: Liver Edition.
It’s actually a really fun show to watch because you can turn it into a drinking game as you bet on whether or not the addict will go to rehab.
In last night’s episode the addict, Chad, was a professional cyclist until he walked up to Lance Armstrong of all people, called him fat, and punched him in the stomach. I’m not sure if that was the catalyst that led to the Livestrong campaign or not, but I’m sure it contributed. Chad then went a step further to prove he was leaner and meaner than Lance by picking up crack as a hobby, losing his professional cycling contract, and moving out of his apartment in favor of living on the street. Chad fed his addiction by panhandling, which he was remarkably good at. By his estimation he could make $2,000 – 3,000 a month just by begging on the street. $2-3K a month! That’s $24-36k a year! Tax free! Why the hell did I go to college and get a job? All I need to do is stop showering and shaving and I’m on my way to easy street, flying high under Uncle Sam’s radar. Do you have any idea how much I despise showering and shaving as it is?
Anyway, Chad agreed to go to rehab after the intervention, got cleaned up, and was ultimately able to land another cycling contract. It was actually extremely touching. I also won the drinking game.
The only reason I’m bringing this up is, if you recall from several months ago I had a mild “cocaine addiction” of my own that lasted about 24 hours and resulted in several very public bloody nose incidents, including one at work. Well fuck me - it happened again today! For the record I have not been using cocaine nor have I been remotely sick; that’s why it was so surprising. I had just arrived at work and was still getting settled in, doing what I normally do for the first 30 or so minutes of the day – nothing. I felt a little tickle in my nose but before I could even grab a Kleenex a spurt of blood just jumped right out of my nostril. I immediately ran to the bathroom and the damndest thing, it was already over practically before it even started. When I got to the bathroom thankfully there wasn’t any more blood. I just washed my hands and face to make sure we were golden and that was it. It was like my body just made a little too much blood and my heart didn’t know what to do with it so it decided to spit the excess out my goddamn nose. So much for recycling.
I was just about to leave the bathroom when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye, “What the fuck is that!?!” I looked down in horror to find blood splattered across the front of my pants. The front of my pants, I tell you! “What the hell is this!” I panicked, “It looks like I just had my goddamn period!”
I immediately wetted a paper towel to dab at the blood but I might as well have been using a bb gun to kill a vampire. It was futile. Do you know what you can use to get a bloodstain out of your clothing? Fire. Fire is the only thing that will work with some very obvious downsides. All other home remedies are crap and besides, it’s not like I had a little dop kit of hydrogen peroxide, salt, and club soda to mix up a little blood removal experiment1. Plus, what the hell was I going to do? Take my pants off and wash them in the sink? Or worse, the toilet bowl???
Oh man, I’m telling you, it was horrible. I did my best to stay in my cubicle the entire rest of the day. The two times I did get up - to get lunch and go to the bathroom - I had to carry a folder around with me to hide the front of my pants. Do you know how goddamn weird it looks to walk into the bathroom carrying a folder in front of your crotch??? It looks fucking weird!
There’s an urban clothing store around the corner from my office and I was so damn close to walking down there to buy a new pair of pants.
“John, are you wearing different pants than when you came to work this morning?”
“Huh? Different pants? No, wha- what are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. It’s not that I’m taking note of what you’re wearing, I just thought you had on some khakis or something this morning and now you’re wearing 42” waist Rocawear jeans. I mean, I could be wrong…”
“Yeah. Yeah, you must be wrong. I mean, these are my favorite pants. I’m wearing these all the time. I can’t believe you haven’t noticed before. I mean, it’s just like the slogan says, ‘It’s Rocawear or it ain’t nuffin’ else...’”
On a similar note a friend of mine was at work one day finishing up his business in the bathroom when his zipper broke. It’s not like it just stopped zipping, the little zipper mechanism actually broke off of the zipper. He didn’t have a moment’s hesitation; he walked right out of the bathroom, out the side door, got in his car, and drove home to change his pants.
I wish I had that luxury today.
1. Since I’ve been home this evening, I’ve done an extensive Google search to find recommendations for removing blood from fabric. Fire will indeed work, but apparently so will saliva and urine. That’s right – urine. I’m kind of glad I didn’t know that a few hours ago. However saliva seems to be a fairly accessible, reliable alternative so if this ever happens to you, you can thank me later.
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