I’m leaving 10 minutes early.
Archive for December, 2005
This year ACWF and I gave Christmas cookies to our coworkers instead of other types of gifts. You may have read about it on this blog that grows exceptionally poorer in quality as we approach the end of the year.
I gave my boss (the shrimp-sandwich orgasm one) a bag of cookies and she said, “Oooh! Cookies, I remember how good the ones were last year! Thanks!”
I wished her Happy Holidays (because I’m an America-hating foot-soldier in the War on Christmas) and wandered bemusedly into the hallway, recalling distinctly that the cookies I made last year were TERRIBLE.
I remember making only one dozen cookies that were not burned in one way or another, and having to ration out those unburned cookies to each bag. In fact, I spent the better part of two hours last year with about 150 cookies flipped over on their tops with me organizing them by level of burnination. It went from “Sweet Mother of All That is Good, These Avoided an Immolation” to “Uh, maybe they’ll just think that these were baked in soot” to “Old charcoal briquettes have fewer burn spots”. The bulk of the cookies went in the third pile, and I can say with certainty that none of the bags of cookies made it out with less that 50% of them being charred hockey pucks.
This means one of a few things:
1) My boss is remembering someone else’s cookies
2) My boss has a dead tongue, thus explaining her orgasmic reaction to a sub-par shrimp salad sandwich (from the previous post)
3) My cookie making is so artful, that even the destructive nature of fire cannot stop me.
I’m going to go with 3.
I am a cookie God.
One time we had a meeting off site, and the meeting was supposed to end with a lunch at a nearby restaurant. All day long my boss is talking up the shrimp-salad sandwich at this restaurant.
First, it was, “Oh, the shrimp-salad is so good there!”
Then it was, “Oh, I’d pay anything for their shrimp-salad!”
Finally it was, “Oh, I have a violent and raging orgasm any time I get within 10 feet of one of their shrimp-salad sandwiches, and then I have to go home and change my pants because the smell of the sandwich combined with the power of my orgasm also gives me a little diarrhea.”
So I thought I would try the sandwich. It sounded like it would be something I could blog about, even though I wasn’t blogging then, and was pretty sure that a “blog” was something that a doctor collected from your colon when you’d put too many pickles up there. Also, I like shrimp salad.
So when we got there we were met by two of our other coworkers, and they both ordered hamburgers. Boring-ass, grass-fed, stuck-in-a-pen-all-day, slaughtered-with-no-regard-for-worker-safety-or-factory-cleanliness, mad-cow-having, disease-laden hamburgers, probably-also-violated-by-hillbillies beef hamburgers. Do YOU go to Kansas and ask what the catch of the day is? No. So why would I order a hamburger in a seafood restaurant in a port town. It’s retarded.
But all the women ordered shrimp salad as well, so that suddenly made me less manly. I guess I had forgotten about the penis-inverting qualities in shrimp.
I guess I just don’t understand how some people can be so stupid. It’s not like THEY killed the cow. It’s not like they even cooked the damn thing. I can understand certain things being “male” or “female”. Like cooking, and cleaning, and raising kids are all the things women should be allowed to do. Men get to do everything else. And shrimp salad sandwiches are included in part of everything else.
(note from ACW: In light of one of Common Wombat’s posts, I’m posting this story from my brother)
Have you ever vomited from your nose? I would have to say it is the single worst vomiting experience I have ever had. Don’t get me wrong, I mean, I’ve never really had a good vomit. But when vomit comes out of your nostrils - yowza - it is simultaneously fascinating and horrifying.
Recently I had a night of carousing with Imported Wife, ACW, ACWF, and one of Imported Wife’s friends. As I recollect, I was drinking quite a bit and not exactly paying attention to how much nor what types I was imbibing. In the course of the evening, I consumed
- A single one-and-one-half-ounce serving of tasty, tasty scotch
- One humongous horseradish/garlic/onion/cheddar burger
- Lots of curly fries
- Five Miller Lites
- One twelve-ounce blended rum/mango beverage
- Four twelve-ounce blended rum/strawberry beverages
Remarkably, I went to bed feeling fairly content. At around 5am, I woke up to horrible intestinal discomfort and the urge to pee. As I got up to go to the bathroom, I realized I’d probably have to fire off a missle, too, and hoped that would take care of how nasty my insides felt.
Here’s what then transpired: I sat on the toilet, and my belly would violently gurgle or bloop. Immediately following that, poo would shoot out of me like canned dog food out of a fire hose. Gross. I was not as happy as a puppy with two peters - Li’l Brudder would be a much more apt description.
About ten minutes later I was done excreting, but felt no better. I realized then I was going to vomit, like it or not, so I sat down next to the toilet I had befouled (but flushed, thank you very much) and began to wait. I understand that some people can just force themselves to vomit one way or another, but not me - I just have to sit and wait for it to happen.
I was also thirsty. I got myself a glass of water but didn’t want to drink it because I felt so nasty, so I just swished some water in my mouth and spat it out. That didn’t do it for me, though, because the back of my throat was still dry, so I decided to do some gargling. I accidentally relaxed my throat a little too much, though, and gagged a little on the water… and it was vomiting time. Unfortunately for me, I discovered that I had somehow managed to open my nasal passage or something, because as vomit shot out of my mouth I noted with alarm that it was exiting my nostrils with equal force.
It was awful. Granted, it was only during the first heave that it shot out of my nasal cavity, but it left me entirely confused and unprepared when the next heave came. The worst part, I realized, was that the nasty vomit smell would be impossible to shake no matter how much mouthwash I was willing to use or toothbrushing I was willing to do.
Your send-off: when I was showering the next morning I blew my nose and little nuglets of vomit came out. Guhhhh.
10) The rules are stupid and they want everyone to open the gift before the end of the game. How is that exciting? Everyone knows what they’re fighting over!
9) Someone gave away junk from their house, i.e. a glass hurricane candle cover thing
8) An exercise ball- What. The. Fuck?
7) A gift certificate to Starbucks with a mug
6) Another gift certificate to Starbucks with a mug
5) A gift certificate to Blockbuster with some popcorn
4) Another gift certificate to Blockbuster with some popcorn
3) A third gift certificate to Blockbuster with some popcorn
2) A fourth gift certificate to Blockbuster with some popcorn
1) Someone gave away a “personal massager” from Conair. Who gives away a dildo at a Christmas party? I’m all in favor of dildos, but there’s something kind of skeevy about expecting to open a box with a bottle of wine in it and getting a “personal massager”.
I hate people so much.
Apparently at some point I became a grown up, and the Christmas parties I go to are now less candy and cupcakes stacked to look like snowmen, and more beer and wine and liquor. However, this past weekend we spent some time hearkening back to the days of old where games were played to keep the rowdy children entertained, and their fingers out of their noses.
ACWF is a second-grade teacher, and on Friday we went to a party with other teachers in her school. When I arrived I was given a clothespin. I was told that if I touched my nose and someone else saw me, they could take my clothespin. If I saw someone else, I could take theirs. If they, or I, had more than one, all would be taken.
I was under the impression that school had ended for the day, but apparently I was mistaken. And rather than having to sit in the corner and do busy work, I opted to play the clothespin game. And by “play,” I mean, “Not give two shits about the clothespin game.”
At first it was fine. I was rubbing my nose with abandon, and nobody seemed to care about it one way or the other. But then I found myself quickly scanning the room. My eyes were darting from face to face, never stopping for more than a moment unless I saw someone moving their hand.
Then I started thinking about all the ways I could trick someone into rubbing their nose. I could be bold about it and tell them they had something on their nose, or I could be subtle and simply crinkle my nose while talking to them until they absentmindedly reach for their own nose in a psychological trip-up. Or I could continue to nurse my beer and scan the room.
Then I realised that I had been tricked! How had it come to this? How was I suddenly actively participating in this stupid game? This was a grown-up party, damnit. People shouldn’t be spending the evening trying to get stupid little colored clothespins off of other adult guests. It’s ridiculous, and I won’t be taken in by such childish games.
Did you know that the full bladder of a largish human male can hold well over one liter of urine?
Wait, wait, wait - I’m getting ahead of myself.
Might-as-well-be-a-mail-order-bride’s father was staying with us recently, before we had moved out of our apartment. He is currently living and working in Australia, so it’s always a treat to have him in town.
Anyway, he’s very particular about his schedule, and we’re all typically early risers, so I tend to give him a little more room in the morning because he’s my guest and I like to keep him happy.
One morning, I woke up after having downed a glass of water before going to bed and another over the course of the night. I had to pee. I had to pee real bad. Unfortunately, my father-in-law was in the shower, which of course occupied the singular bathroom in our tiny, single-bedroom apartment. Crap. Well, not actually crap. Whatever. Shut up.
Either way I had to pee and I wasn’t going to be able to hold it for the scant remaining minutes that the bathroom was going to be unavailable, so I did what anybody with a near-to-exploding bladder would do: I grabbed an empty two-liter soda bottle, walked out on our balcony (which faced I-83), whipped out my twig and berries, and peed right into the bottle. And peed, and peed, and peed. And continued to pee. I cannot express in the written word the degree of relief I felt. I was as happy as a puppy with two peters.
Then I was left with a slightly-more-than-half-full bottle of urine, with no toilet to dump it into. I wasn’t going to dump it off the balcony for the same reason I didn’t simply pee off of the balcony: ew! Kids live down there! Sicko! So I took the most natural course of action. I stuck it in our balcony storage closet and forgot about it. Hooray!
Four days later, when my father-in-law was thankfully not in, I happened to go out to the outdoor closet to get some more paper towels and there, staring me down, was a great big bottle of freshly chilled urine. Whoops.
So I chugged it.
Eck! No, just kidding. I dumped that sucker in the toilet, silently noting how it had gone from a mild amber to a ruddy yellow-brown. Gross.
Listening to Bad Religion makes Christmas shopping infinitely more bearable.
He awoke from his slumber, and he could tell already that it was going to be a hard day. Yearly the wild creatures around him converged in small clusters. The creatures spent their days gnashing their teeth at one another, fighting each other over food and seemingly worthless items they had found.
It was truly the oddest thing. These creatures would march, as if drawn, simply and stupidly in the direction of large groups of other creatures. Once upon these large groups, the singular creatures would immediately adopt the savage mindset of the group and begin with the clawing, scraping, biting, and pinching.
He was not looking forward to what he had to do today. He needed to become like one of the creatures. He needed to forget everything he ever learned about decency, respect, cheer, friendliness, rational thought, intelligence, or what it meant to be human. He steeled himself for the irrational and ignorant behavior he knew he was about to see.
***
This year, like many years, the trip to where the creatures were clustered was fraught with peril. The creatures, all seemed to have their heads on some other interest other than watching where they were going. Some creatures travelled absurdly quickly, running as if there would be no more worthless trinkets to snatch up once they arrived at the cluster. Other creatures travelled so slowly as to hamper the pace of the others who were marching to the cluster. These slow travellers paid no mind to the travellers around them. They merely lifted one foot after another, barely high enough and barely far enough to create any forward movement whatsoever. It was not uncommon to see other creatures, either driven off the course by the quick ones, or driven insane by the slow ones, to be lying on the side of the road. And even though these creatures appeared at the side of the road no less than every few minutes, every time the column passed one by, the column would all slow down to look. This created huge bunches of slow moving creatures, sometimes packed so tightly together that they didn’t really move at all.
***
Upon arriving at the largest cluster in the area, he moved quickly to try to find the shiny objects and trinkets that had not been scooped up by the other creatures. He found that it was much easier than he remembered. He wasn’t sure how he’d forgotten, but the creatures at the cluster were all moving so slowly, as if they had no purpose whatsoever. He was able to dart in and out of the creatures to easily find what he needed. There was no biting, or scratching to be seen. He was overjoyed at the prospect of being able to leap into a homeward column mere moments after he had arrived. As he moved towards the guardians of the cluster he became crestfallen. There were lines of creatures for miles waiting to be seen by the guardians. He could barely make out creatures in the front of the lines, all of them fumbling with their trinkets as if they weren’t aware they had to meet with the guardians before they could leave.
Unable to stand it any longer, he loosed a curse from his lips, “You dumb piece of shit! Have you never been to the mall before? Put your shit up on the counter, get your wallet out, and get the fuck out of my way! I fucking hate Christmas shopping because of you mindless cockbags.”
The creatures all stopped and stared. There was no noise to be heard except in the far off reaches at the edges of the cluster. The creatures shuffled their trinkets and turned back to face the guardians. As if nothing had happened at all, the noise in the cluster came back as strong as before. He thought he heard a creature say to a guardian, “Can I pay half with debit, and the other half with nickels and pennies?”
***
What happened that day is still recounted by families of creatures, sometimes with mirth, and sometimes with gloom, but no one ever forgot the creature that had 40 pounds of pennies shoved up its ass.
So, if any markup nerds out there can figure what’s wrong with the markup in the “Further Adventures in Nog” post, I hereby declare that I will promise to maybe think about giving you a cookie.
Because that post somehow has markup fucking up the site up in IE. (But seriously, you 60% mindless majority: do the world a favor and get a better browser)
I know for a fact that there’s no markup in ACW’s post. Just image tags and text. So what gives?
For reals, a cookie.
Update: Investigation by camogirl revealed the real culprit: babies. Those psychotic, murdering bastards.
