The other day, as I tried to maneuver my little car through the snow in a relatively busy shopping area, I suddenly noticed in my rearview mirror what I could only assume was a battleship that was terribly, terribly lost. Noting that the battleship was about two inches from my bumper, I thought it best to switch lanes and allow it to pass.
As I swerved into the slow lane, the battleship rushed past me and blared its horn so loudly that I couldn’t help but pee a little. I peered up to where I imagined the cabin would be, but rather than finding a stately sea captain gazing off into the horizon, I saw a red-faced, bug-eyed businessman grinding his teeth and giving me the one-finger salute as he blew past me in his sparkling, new Hummer.
For anyone who isn’t familiar with Hummers, I’ll do my best to summarize them in the most fair and objective way possible.
A Hummer is like a four-ton Viagra pill on wheels, usually driven by a guy with a temper shorter than Justin Guarini’s singing career. They weigh 6,500-8,500 pounds each and are about as aerodynamic as Anna Nicole Smith, which is most of the reason why they average 8-12 miles per gallon. I’m also pretty sure that they promote back-hair growth and shrivel one’s sexual organs, although I can’t prove it.
After being popularized during the Gulf War, these enormous military vehicles are now being marketed for $106,185-$117,508 to ordinary civilians, by which I mean people who make more money than the New York Yankees. Now, I’m not trying to judge anyone for the kind of vehicle they drive. Our Constitution gives every American the right to destroy the environment to the degree that he or she sees fit. All I’m saying is that people who drive Hummers will never, ever get into Heaven.
Hummers aren’t all bad, of course. For example, because of their tremendous size, most people whose cars collide with a Hummer are killed instantly. Wait, that isn’t right. What I meant to say was, because of Hummers’ ridiculously bad visibility, statistics show that Hummer owners as a group have developed the regrettable habit of backing over their own children in the driveway. Boy, this just isn’t coming out right.
But you know what’s boring? Facts. Let’s leave the indisputable truth behind (you know, like how SUV drivers tend to be “insecure and vain” and are “apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed,” according to market research conducted by the automakers themselves*) and try to concentrate on more ambiguous matters, like what attracts people to Hummers in the first place.
As far as I’m concerned, driving a Hummer anywhere in Central Pennsylvania is like trying to pick a piece of broccoli from your teeth with Ruben Studdard – sometimes the situation just calls for something a little smaller. Like Clay Aiken. I mean, maybe, maybe if you’re living in the frozen tundra, then perhaps you need a vehicle with a little more oomph to it. Something with an engine the size of, say, an Alaskan oil drill. But otherwise, driving a Hummer down our Pennsylvania streets is like trying to remove a splinter from your thumb with a bazooka.
In theory, sure, Hummers make for a great off-roading experience. But the truth is, not many of the Hummer drivers you see hogging up both lanes of our city streets are en route to an off-roading adventure, unless you count the speedbumps in the grocery store parking lot. And I don’t blame them – if I spent $100,000 on a car, I’d be afraid to get it scratched, too. For similar reasons, I’ve been a little hesitant to wear my new cashmere gym shorts when I take my dog to the dog park. I usually leave them at home, safely folded beside my diamond-encrusted jock strap.
Now, I’d be lying if I said that Hummer commercials didn’t resonate with my inner-frat boy. What red-blooded man doesn’t want a vehicle that is both as large as a tank and nimble enough to drive over a mound of Green Party protesters, should such a mound happen to cross your path?
I mean, with their size and agility, Hummers are one pair of bikini briefs away from being a professional wrestler, give or take a few IQ points. It’s like strapping a saddle on Stone Cold Steve Austin and riding him around town like a big, bald bronco – but in a totally chummy, hetero kind of way. But as attractive as that image may be to Hummer owners, certainly there are other, less destructive avenues of expressing one’s manliness, like refusing to shut the bathroom door when you pee, or eating your weight in beef jerky.
Now, there are those who would argue that men who drive such enormous vehicles are trying to compensate for certain shortcomings in their lives, if you catch my drift. I, for one, am not going to stoop to that level, primarily because I don’t think that Hummer drivers’ teeny little bits and pieces have anything to do with it. Nope, I don’t think that their itty-bitty twigs and berries have any bearing on this situation at all. As far as I’m concerned, there’s really no need to even mention their wee little pigs in a blanket. Let’s be mature and not drag their baby peas and carrots into this.
I’m sure that once this article comes out I’ll be getting plenty of friendly fan mail from Hummer owners, mostly to the effect of, “I’m going to drive over you with my Hummer.”
To which I boldly reply, “Please don’t.”
* “High and Mighty,” Keith Bradsher
It’s my belief that, if you’ve already got one bad dog dominating your home life by eating, then puking up, then re-eating everything in your house that’s not chained down, then one thing you clearly do not need is a second bad dog. Four out of five doctors agree that a second bad dog, when added to the first bad dog, would make a total of two bad dogs, which also means twice as much destruction and puppy vomit waiting for you when you get home from work.
The fifth doctor is my wife.
At some point, my wife got the idea into her head that a second dog is exactly what we need to cure our first dog’s behavioral problems. And not just any second dog will do. What my wife wants is a pug dog. A stupid, stupid pug dog.
For those of you who don’t know, pug dogs have the mental capacity of a washrag, which in turn has the mental capacity of Anna Nicole Smith. Which is why no one keeps Anna Nicole Smiths as house pets. Not anymore, anyway.
If you put a pug dog and a pair of gym shorts at the beginning of a maze, the gym shorts would find their way out first. Then the pug dog would eat them. Then he’d throw them up on your slippers.
In summary, trying to fix our dog’s problems by getting a pug dog is like trying to cure Keanu Reeves of bad acting by making him study old Patrick Swayze tapes.
Our first dog, Henry, is a Jack Russel terrier, which is basically like a tiny alligator that’s covered with fur and never stops bouncing. Although they sometimes hide it very well, Jack Russels are known for their intelligence and ability to be trained. For example, if we command Henry to stop chewing on that defenseless baby and put it back where he got it, and to cough up its shoe, plus its rattle, and its brother, nine times out of 10, he’ll do it.
A pug dog, on the other hand, would just stand there with the baby in its mouth, snorting and looking all crazy with its bug eyes rolling around in different directions. Then he’d throw up on your slippers.
My wife’s idea, which actually started making sense after a while, was that our two idiot puppies would spend all day jumping all over each other while mommy and daddy were at work. Then, when we came home, our two exhausted puppies would lay at our feet, all tuckered out from a long, hard day of hiney sniffing.
Enamored with the idea of spending an evening at home that didn’t involve prying our dog’s teeth off of the neighbor kids, I agreed to a test run with a pug dog belonging to a friend who, for reasons that are obvious to me now, was looking to dish the the little drool factory off on someone else.
I knew we were going to have problems when, by the time he had waddled from our friend’s car to our front door, the little pug was snorting harder than George W. at a frat party. His bug eyes were bulging out of his head and his entire body was shaking like Rush Limbaugh stumbling past the pharmaceutical counter at the supermarket. (Jeff 2, republicans 0).
See Henry. See Henry run. See Henry bulldoze the little pug dog and jump on top of him like he was the last defenseless baby on earth. See Henry step on the pug’s face, bite his legs, shove his nose where no sun shines, and sit down where the pug’s neck ought to be.
“Oh boy, oh boy, this is gonna be fun, fun, fun!” said Henry, rolling the pug across the carpet like a White House intern. (Jeff 3, democrats 0)
“Snort, snort, wheez!” went the inverted pug, gasping for air and pedaling his legs like he was trying to get his imaginary bicycle up a very large imaginary hill.
I started to panic. Do dogs get heart attacks? If he doesn’t survive, could we be charged for involuntary dogslaughter? I’m too young and pretty to go to jail!
Our obviously appalled friend snatched up her dog and bolted out the door. As she fled to her car, she looked back over her shoulder, where she saw Henry popping up and down at our front door like the devil on a pogo stick.
True story: we never saw that girl or the pug dog again.
After the pug dog episode came the three-legged dog episode, which some of you might remember from a previous column. To recap: my wife tried to kidnap a three-legged dog she found in a parking lot. Why? Because it had three legs, and she loved it.
So, we had almost killed a pug dog, and we almost got caught trying to kidnap a three-legged mutt in the middle of a rain storm. Was fate trying to send us a message? Don’t be ridiculous.
As we speak, my darling wife is making arrangements for another test-run, this time with my sister’s geriatric cocker spaniel. She’s also decided that she wants a pair of ducks (like, actual living ducks) and a goat. Seriously.
But sometimes a man’s got to put his foot down. I draw the line at goats. The choice for me is goat-free. I’m laying down the law here.
Which means that we’ll probably have a goat by the end of the month.
(Goat 1, Jeff 0)
I mean, sure, her car looks like it just lost a wrestling match with Anna Nicole Smith over the last Twinkie on earth. But for all we know, all of the damage to her car was caused by a series of completely unavoidable accidents. Maybe it wasn’t really my wife’s fault at all.
Like how her front bumper is twisted up like a pretzel and practically dragging on the ground – I think it would be a mistake to just assume that this was caused by my wife’s allegedly terrible driving. Maybe her car was charged by an angry rhinocerous, and she was lucky to escape with just a busted bumper. Or maybe she saw a bank robbery in progress and rammed the getaway car to foil the crime. You can’t rule that kind of stuff out.
Or how her right tail light has been shattered – who says it’s because she backed into a telephone pole because she never, ever, ever looks behind her before going into reverse? For all we know, she was outside doing some gardening one day when suddenly she saw a senior citizen in a wheelchair speeding wildly down the hill without any brakes, so she jumped in her car, raced down the hill, surpassed the senior citizen, let the wheelchair gently bump into the back of her car, and eased the old man to a stop mere yards from the dangerous intersection at the bottom of the hill.
Sure, the impact of the wheelchair shattered her tail light, but it was a small price to pay for the life of the hapless senior citizen.
Or consider the countless scrapes, scratches and dents that cover her entire car from dangling bumper to bumper. You can’t just assume that these were the result of my wife being the absolute worst driver ever in the history of the world. I mean, maybe she was on her way to the grocery store one afternoon when ... uh ... an airplane transporting thousands of frozen turkeys flew overhead and ... um ... and right when the airplane was over her car, it was struck by lightening and cracked in half, and all of the turkeys fell out and plummeted through the sky right at my wife’s car, and ...
No, I would never, ever call my wife a bad driver. Because she’s not a bad driver. She’s just a terrible parker.
Watching my wife trying to maneuver her car into our garage is like watching Jessica Simpson trying to work her way into a childproof bottle of aspirin. It’s embarrassing for everyone involved, but try as you might, you just can’t make yourself look away from the carnage.
I’ll be standing in the kitchen, tirelessly slaving over dinner as usual, when suddenly I hear the sound of crumpling metal screeching through the air like Joan Rivers on fire. Through the window, I’ll see a hubcap slowly rolling its way from the garage to the front door.
“Hi honey. How was your day?” I’ll say.
“Fine. How was yours?” she’ll reply.
“Pretty good. Was that our hubcap?”
“Shut up.”
“Honey, you can’t just ...”
“Shut up.”
“How hard is it to just ...”
“Shut up.”
“But ...”
“Shut up.”
Fortunately for my blood pressure, I care as much about our cars as I do about Joan Rivers on fire, which is to say, not much. No, that’s not true. If Joan Rivers was really on fire, I’d probably throw some water on her; if my car was on fire, I’d rescue my box of casette tapes and then toast some marshmallows.
But my wife brings up a very good point just now as I’m writing this: without a functioning car, how in the world would she get to Payless each day to buy a new pair of shoes? This is something I had neglected to consider.
But in order to keep her car in top shopping condition, I have to take it to the mechanic approximately once every 15 minutes, which is about how long it takes for my wife to drive her car home from the mechanic’s and try to park it.
The problem with that is, my mechanic is the devil.
I wouldn’t be as frustrated with my mechanic if I didn’t have the sneaking suspicion that he was making stuff up.
“Unfortunately, it looks like you’ve got a major problem with your pim-pom,” my mechanic reported during my last visit.
“My pim-pom?” I winced.
“Oh, yeah. Big time. You’re lucky we caught it when we did. A few more days of driving, and your pim-pom would probably have been grinding right into your patooter – and you know what that means!”
“What?” I gasped.
“Well, for one thing, the heat from your patooter would have worn your snoozle all the way down to the gingerdoodle!” he exclaimed. “And patooter-provoked snoozle-wear on your gingerdoodle is no laughing matter. Why, you’d be lucky to get another five miles out of this car!”
“Five miles?” I cried.
“Tops.”
“Oh, man!”
“Yeah!”
“Whew!”
“Uh-huh!”
“That was close!”
“You bet!”
We stood in silence for a while, shaking our heads and marveling at our good fortune.
“So,” I said, taking in a deep breath, “How much does it cost to replace my ... uh ...”
“Your pim-pom.”
“Sure.”
“Let’s see ...,” said the mechanic, picking up a clipboard and furrowing his brow. “After parts, labor and sales tax, automotive repair tax, repair-of-automotive tax, charging-you-way-too-much-because-you-don’t-know-any-better tax, breaking-stuff-myself-so-I-can-charge-you-to-fix-it tax, and tax tax, your total would be ... $800.”
I peed my pants a little. “$800? American dollars? Like, U.S. dollars? I need to sit down.”
When your car is worth less than the Backstreet Boys’ autograph, it’s difficult to invest another $800 into it. But my wife brings up another very good point just now: if we spent all of our money on a new car instead of fixing up our junker, how in the world would we be able to afford more dogs and the multiple doggie sweaters, doggie hats, and doggie toys that each of them would clearly require?
Yes ... I hadn’t thought of that.
If only our insurance covered rhinocerous attacks.
Obviously, none of these people have ever burned the inside of their noses with a jalapeño pepper.
I should probably explain.
A few weeks ago, I was busy in the kitchen cooking dinner for my wife, which as far as you know is something I do on a regular basis. You could say that I really know my way around the kitchen. You could also say that there’s no way I could eat my body weight in Krispy Kremes. You’d be terribly wrong on both accounts.
The truth is, the minute I open a cookbook, my brain shuts down and I’m left with the mental capacity of a toddler and/or Jessica Simpson. Any recipe that involves more than one pan and five ingredients might as well be written in hieroglyphics. Or, in Jessica Simpson’s case, English.
Let me preface the rest of this story by saying that, while I have about as much competence in the kitchen as Anna Nicole Smith has at a chess match, this is a mistake that could happen to anybody. In doing my usual extensive research for this month’s article, I was appalled to discover that nowhere on a jalapeño pepper is it written that you should wear gloves when chopping them. Clearly, I am a victim here.
We journalists are the last watchdogs of society, and I am here to throw up a cautionary flag about the jalapeño pepper industry. If we allow this corporate giant to continue with such negligent behavior, we are opening the door to anarchy.
Before you know it, we’ll be living in a world without warnings, where some kind of “magic intuition” is supposed to let us know that our carry-out coffee is hot and our hairdryers should not be taken into the bathtub. And to that world I, for one, say, “No thank you!”
Sure, my wife might have offered up a few ambiguous warnings. “Honey, you should wear gloves when you’re chopping the peppers.” “Honey, you really should put on some gloves.” “Honey, you’re an idiot.”
But I made the mistake of assuming that my wife’s need to wear gloves while chopping peppers was like, say, her need to wad together an entire roll of paper towels in order to squash a spider. Because I’m so tough, I figured that the “terrible burning sensation” she was babbling about wasn’t going to be a big deal. I was wrong.
After a few minutes of dicing and slicing, I started experiencing a pain that I can only compare to shaving your entire body with a rusty straight razor and sitting down in a tub of rubbing alcohol. Not that I would know what that feels like.
I started shaking my fingers around in the air, knocking a few dishes onto the floor in the process. My eyes were tearing up a little bit, but in a totally manly way, like when your team loses the Super Bowl. The tearing up, of course, led to sniffling, and the sniffling led to me grabbing a tissue and blowing my nose, and blowing my nose led to me shoving a burning jalapeño finger right up each nostril.
My entire world was consumed by flames. If you’ve ever been walking near a fireplace and tripped and accidentally speared yourself in the nostril with a red-hot poker, then you have at least a slight idea of the pain I was experiencing. I ran to the sink and tried to invert my head under the faucet and snort water up my nose. It didn’t really help at all to dull the burning sensation, but it did almost make me drown, thereby distracting me for at least a moment from the hideous pain in my nostrils.
Then the flames came back even worse than before. “Fire!” I yelled, running in circles and fanning my nose. “Fire! I need a hospital! Get me a doctor! Fire! Call an ambulance!”
Meanwhile, my wife had entered the room to see what the commotion was. It was a relief to me just knowing that she was there for me during my time of need and would call the paramedics just as soon as she was able to stop laughing and pick herself up off the floor.
“You burnt it? Your nose? The peppers?” my wife howled, barely able to speak. “Did you? Your nose? With peppers? You did?” It wasn’t the consolation I was looking for.
Fortunately, my little Jack Russel terrier, Henry, was there to comfort me, by which I mean pee on the floor. Then he jumped up on me and tried to chew the wedding band off my finger. The one with jalapeño peppers all over it.
All of the hair on my dog’s back stood straight up. He started running around the room, grinding his face into the floor and shrieking like a piglet.
The good news is that my dog was eventually able to stop the burning in his mouth. The bad news is that he did it by climbing into the cat’s litterbox and helping himself to a deliciously soothing piece of doody. I decided to try other methods.
Methods that did not work: cramming ice chips into my nostrils; putting Aloe Vera up my nose; shooting water up my nose with a turkey baster.
Methods that did work: none. The fire burned on, constantly perpetuating itself in the coal mines of my nostrils until eventually, two days later, by the mercy of God, it slowly petered out. Sure, maybe I still haven’t recovered all of the feeling in my nostrils, and maybe I lost my sense of smell for half a month, but I survived it like a man.
Now, the second time I burned my nose with jalapeño peppers ...
I can remember waking early in the morning, creeping down the stairs, and gathering round the Thanksgiving tree with my family to hear my father recite the Thanksgiving story.
This year, I thought it’d be a nice display of unity for all of us to hear the Thanksgiving story together. Feel free to recite the story along with me.
Now then, put on your pilgrim bonnet, and let’s begin.
Four score and seven years ago, an explorer named Christopher Columbus was commissioned by the queen of Spain to set sail on a great adventure in search of undiscovered lands. Under Columbus’ command were five great ships, including the Titanic, the Pinta, the Niña, the Piña Colada, and the Queen Amidala.
Columbus gathered up all of the animals two by two and loaded them into the boat, checking his list for who was naughty and nice. After dumping all of the tea overboard, the conquistadors strapped on their safety harnesses (“Safety first!” Columbus always said) and launched their voyage.
For 40 days and 40 nights, the explorers sailed the dangerous seas, suffering hardships like hunger, exhaustion, and terrible cell-phone reception.
Tragedy first struck the intrepid adventurers when, a week into the voyage, the captain of the Titanic mistook a bathing Anna Nicole Smith for an uncharted island and steered the vessel right into her. The ship, of course, sank.
“Forsooth!” cried Columbus. “There goes our precious cargo. The unicorns, the gryphons, the chimeras! The trolls, the cyclopses, the decent Creed album! The goblins, the minotaurs, the one guy in history who could actually justify driving a Hummer! Gone forever!”
Columbus was overcome with sorrow. His eyes welled up with tears, his eyebrows started twitching, and the corners of his mouth started to quiver in an unsettling manner.
“I think it’s time for another Botox treatment, sir,” said the first mate.
“Ah, yes, you’re right!” Columbus said, scurrying below deck for his appointment.
And it came to pass that, a few weeks later, Columbus spotted an island off to the east.
“Forsooth!” cried Columbus. “I spy an island to the east! Form a search party to explore it.”
“Aye, captain,” said the first mate. “I’ll send out the skipper and his little buddy, and maybe the millionaire and his wife.”
“What about the movie star?”
“Yes, let’s send her, too, as well as the professor and Mary Ann. How long of a journey should they prepare for?”
“Tell them to pack enough for a three-hour tour.”
“A three-hour tour?”
“A three-hour tour.”
The search party was launched on a tiny ship called the Minnow, but just minutes after the ship set sail, ominous clouds filled the sky.
“The weather is starting to get rough!” cried the first mate. “The tiny ship is being tossed!”
“If not for the courage of the fearless crew,” yelled Columbus, “the Minnow would be lost!”
“The Minnow would be lost!” echoed the first mate.
That was the last Columbus and crew saw of the search party. The seven stranded castaways were marooned on the island, not to be rescued until the 1978 reunion special, and then again in 1981, although to a smaller viewing audience.
And it came to pass that, a few weeks later, Columbus spotted land off to the west.
“Forsooth!” cried Columbus. “I spy new land to the west! Let it be called ‘France,’ and let the men be called ‘French,’ and let them develop their own style of bread, fries, and kissing!”
“Um, sir? There’s already a country called France,” said the first mate.
“Oh, right. ... How about ‘America’? Is that taken?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then ‘America’ it is!”
And there was much laughter and rejoicing.
And it came to pass that Columbus and his entourage were visited by a tribe of natives bearing gifts of turkey, yams, canned cranberry sauce, freedom fries, gold, frankincense, and 500 free weekend minutes coast to coast. Touched by the kind gesture, the explorers decided to kill all of the natives and take the free loot.
“I declare,” bellowed Columbus, “that this day shall henceforth be referred to as Thanksgiving. Let families for generations to come gather together and celebrate our victory by eating three times their body weight in mashed potatoes and making awkward small-talk with distant cousins. Afterwards, let the men fall asleep while watching football and drinking beer while the women stand around in the kitchen and discuss the men’s sexual shortcomings and laugh a lot.”
So it was that the Thanksgiving holiday was invented.
It was during his journey home when Columbus would meet his tragic end, as is so vividly depicted in the famous song, “Columbus Eats Too Many Freedom Fries and Suffers a Heart Attack at Sea and Falls Overboard.” And that, of course, is where we get the famous mnemonic device: “Back in 1844, Columbus sank to the ocean floor.”
And there you have it – the beautiful Thanksgiving story. I think it’s a tale we all need to hear from time to time. And I hate to get on my soapbox here, but I really believe that if Americans today spent a little less time watching reality television and a little more time reflecting on the Thanksgiving holiday, it wouldn’t take long for them to realize that the letters can be rearranged to spell both “this holy vain kid gang” and “Hah! Not livid gay kings!”
Happy Thanksgiving!
In our first year of marriage, my wife and I lived in a small apartment in a part of the city we affectionately refer to as “The Worst Place on Earth.”
We’d drift off to sleep each night to a sweet lullaby of gunshots, car alarms, and what I can only assume was the most excitable pack of cats in history congregating outside our bedroom window to satiate their perverse feline fantasies.
(For those who haven’t ever witnessed the hellish shrieking of mating cats, imagine the sound your cat makes when you step on its tail; then, imagine what it would sound like if, instead of stepping on your cat’s tail, you accidentally set it on fire with a blowtorch at the exact moment your cat stuck its whiskers into an electrical socket.)
Break-ins, car bombs, assaults – our neighborhood was a perpetual crime scene. Whereas other neighborhoods had strands of twinkling Christmas lights strewn across the porch railings, we had delightful strips of police tape strung gaily from tree to tree. Whereas other neighborhoods had streets full of children pedaling merrily around on their bicycles, we had sidewalks full of friendly cops coasting by on their friendly police bikes to give me a friendly parking ticket while a crack deal went down across the friendly street.
Whereas other neighborhoods had little to no car bombs, we had one detonate directly outside our kitchen window. Our cats were constipated for two weeks after that.
By the time our first Halloween came around, we felt conflicted between the excitement of seeing the cute neighborhood kids dressed up like ghosts and goblins and the justifiable fear that they might stab us.
We strongly considered the possibility of turning off the lights and hiding in the dark until the trick-or-treat terror passed. What changed our minds was the fact that, while getting mugged by a 10-year-old girl in a Pokemon suit would certainly be humiliating, it would be much less awful than, say, having our house set on fire because we didn’t give out any candy.
We ran down to the quickie mart and purchased enough candy to feed an entire herd of Anna Nicole Smiths. As the dinner hour ended, we took up our positions by the front door and waited for the children to arrive.
Finally, the doorbell rang. We opened the door, and there stood approximately every child born since 1990 dressed up as either a princess or Elmo. Their pupils were already dilated from consuming enough sugar to kill a moose. Their mouths were smeared with chocolate, their heads wobbling on their little necks like robots about to short-circuit. They needed more candy to maintain their sugar-high, and they were going to get it from us by any means necessary.
I tossed candy out into the crowd as fast as I could, swatting the most aggressive children away with a broom when they got too close.
“Oh, look,” I said, “A pretty little princess!”
“Two pieces of candy per person! Don’t be greedy!”
“Put my cat down.”
“No, you can’t have extra candy for your ‘cousin.’ He can come get it himself.”
“Oh, look! A pretty little princess!”
“Put my cat down.”
“No, you can’t have my wallet. Is that a real knife?”
“Did you just bite me?”
“Oh, look! A pretty little princess!”
“That’s funny. I had a watch just like that stolen from my car last week ...”
“Put my cat down.”
“Oh, look! A pretty little princess ...”
As the night wore on, the children ringing my doorbell became older and older. Eventually, I’d open the door to some smirking 15-year-old in jeans and a T-shirt, a bad teen mustache, and a greasy paper bag full of candy.
“And who are you dressed as?” I asked indignantly.
“Your momma,” he replied.
“That kind of attitude won’t get you anywhere, mister,” I said sternly. “Don’t you think you could have at least pretended to have a costume?”
“What’s your costume, dude?” he yelled, stepping towards me. “Oh, wait. I know: It’s a balding fat guy who’s about to get his ass kicked.”
“Good point,” I said, dropping a fistful of candy into his paper bag and running back inside.
And then it happened: we ran out of candy. We darted about the kitchen in a frenzy looking for items to hand out. Pickles? Packets of soy sauce? Sticks of butter? I broke out in a cold sweat as I realized that we had no option but to turn off the lights, hide behind the couch, and pray for daylight.
It only took about five minutes for the assault to begin. “Splat!” went the egg on our window. “Splat, splat!” went the eggs on our front door. “Splat, reeearrrr!” went the egg on our cat, who I had accidentally locked outside.
Eventually, the attack died down. I went outside to survey the damage. Our entire building was oozing like an enormous brick-and-mortar omelette. I turned to the street, shaking my fist in the air and calling out into the dark night.
“I’ll get you kids,” I yelled, “if it’s the last thing I ...”
“Splat!”
I cant prove it, but Im pretty certain that when they sent my body through the Heavenly Assembly Factory in the sky, the angel who pieced me together accidentally gave me girl hips.
Maybe my angel was suffering from a distracting migraine, or worrying about a suspicious mole on his shoulder. For all I know, it wasnt my angels fault at all that I ended up with the curves of Delta Burke.
But the damage is done. No matter how fit or fat I may be, it will always look like I just shoplifted a hula hoop. And no matter what my mom says, having bigger hips than your date is not OK with women.
But my freaky hips are just one of many factors contributing to my larger problem. Namely, I am shaped like Winnie the Pooh, to the extent that it was an actual nickname of mine in middle school.
That's why I've started this fantastic "nutritional approach" called the Atkins diet. It's both simple and effective. Here's how it works:
Walk into your kitchen and open the refrigerator. Look around inside. See all that food? You can't eat it.
Im exaggerating, of course. Its only the food you like that you cant eat.
No pasta, no pizza, no fruit, no desserts, no sugars, no beer, no rice, no bread. So now Im that jackass standing at the fast food counter trying to order a hamburger without a bun. The girl behind the counter is looking at me with an open mouth like I just tried to order a fried poodle on a stick.
Its been a very difficult diet so far, although a very successful one, provided that the goal is to make me so grumpy and miserable that all I can do is lie on the couch, write spiteful editorial columns, and feed pieces of my $4 Atkins-approved protein bars to my dog.
I think that life would be considerably easier if God would just give us a phone call every now and then, just a quick chat to clear up some of those nagging questions we all have in life, like, Why am I here? and What should I do with my life? and Will I always be shaped like a Disney character?
After particularly demanding days at the office, I fantasize about coming home to find my answering machine blinking with some Heavenly voicemail.
Hi Jeff,
Its me, God. Sorry I missed you. Hows it going?
I heard that youve been a little confused about the meaning of life, so I thought Id give you a call. I did a little research on your life. Its kind of a funny story, actually. Um, see, it seems that there was a little switcheroo up here in Heaven, and it looks like we accidentally gave your life to some guy named Ben Affleck. Whoops!
Plus, your real body ended up on Brad Pitt. Sorry about that.
I thought it would only be fair if we compensated you in some way. That explains why youre so incredibly well-endowed. Oh, wait Im sorry, I was looking in the wrong file. It looks like you ended up with the ability to never, ever grow a full beard.
Anyway, about your future I was going to turn you into a rich, famous playboy, but unfortunately it looks like the last celebrity slot was just nabbed by some guy who won 30 Seconds to Fame by lifting a cinder block with his penis.
But the one thing youve got on your side is time. As I take a peek in your file to check your expiration date, let me just reassure you that the average American male lives to see 73, so Im sure youve got plenty of years to go. OK, lets see. It says right here that oh, my.
You know, its really the quality of life that counts, not the quantity. Ahem. Im sure that you have plenty of great moments still to come in your life.
Babies, awards, blah, blah, blah. Lets look in your file here at some of the highlights ... Oh. Oh, boy. Er ...
You know what a good motto is? Carpe diem! Youve really got to live each day to the fullest, like it could be your ... cough, cough ... last. But never you mind.
The good news is that you have a pretty wife and a cute albeit retarded Jack Russel puppy. The two of you shall go forth and multiply (you and the wife, I mean) and raise little athletically challenged children like yourselves. Provided that you survive that long. Lets just say that your love handles dont really fall into the fittest category. Hey, you should try that Atkins diet!
As for a career, I was thinking that you could make a living out of writing funny little editorial columns. We just have to find some sucker who will give up space in his magazine to publish it.
Well, that about covers the basics.
Oh, heres a tip: if you go to your 10-year high school reunion, whatever you do, dont try the crab dip. And at next years Fourth of July party, keep as much distance between you and the grill as possible.
And by the way, the third installment of Lord of the Rings coming out in December: freaking awesome!
Alright, good talk, bud. Ill catch you on the flip side. Literally!
Oh, and sorry about the girl hips.
