Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Guide to Bachelorhood: Tip #8


Tip #8: Don’t Poofread Texts

Without knowing it, there’s a high chance that if you’re between 18-27, you probably send and receive between 60 and 100 texts a day on average. Did I make that statistic up? Yes. Yes, I did. Do I stand by it? Yes, I do. According to a 25 second Google search (don’t act like you have never based research off of one of those!) the average teen sends 80 texts a day. And I will be damned if we can’t beat those little punks in a text-off (Text-off = A made up competition involving comparisons of quantities of texts between two parties. I’ll work out the details of that incredibly boring competition at a later date)! And of those texts, 90% (also a made up stat) of them are to and from people you know very well and are familiar with and talk to regularly. But what about that other 10%?

Who do you text? Well, if you’re single: your close friends, your family, maybe some distant friends or classmates or coworkers, etc. But the rest of those? More than likely they’re mostly flirtatious texts. Everyone likes to flirt. It’s healthy, it’s fun, and according to a study by the McMadeup Institute, it extends your life by 17 years, makes you thinner and richer and generally makes you happier in life. Unfortunately, flirting can draw you in closer to the opposite sex and, in turn, draw them in to you jeopardizing your bachelorhood. As a counter attack, your main artillery is to text without thinking. Text without looking. Text without proofreading. Text recklessly.

Lammergeier: A bearded vulture that lives in
Europe, Africa, India and Tibet.
(www.damnyouautocorrect.com)
If you get a text from a girl, first and foremost, respond immediately. It screams desperation. Set response time records. As a matter of fact, after a bit of time, you can probably gauge her reactions to texts, or know what she will say or ask. So, set up a text in response to it and be ready to send it immediately so as not to waste any time. The only downside to that is that there is too much time available to think about that text and spell check. I say this because the best tip I can give you here is to just text the first thing that pops into your mind, no thinking and absolutely no spell checking. If you’re not smooth, you’re golden. It’s over before it starts. And in today’s age of the iPhone, and its autocorrecting self (I strongly recommend checking out www.damnyouautocorrect.com), typing words like “shoulda” automatically “correct” to “should.” There’s a gigantic difference here. Suggesting a girl “shoulda” done something with you instead of what she actually did (ie “Shoulda come eat with me”) is immensely different than suggesting what she “should” do (ie “Should come eat with me”). Especially at 11pm when she doesn’t know very well.

Now that you have alienated yourself sufficiently right out of the gate, don’t let that slow you down! She could be one of those girls who enjoys taking their time and gives second chances. If you happen to be actively avoiding a relationship, you also happen to be trying to avoid these kinds of women. Lovely as they may be, they might also be the death of your bachelorhood. All of a sudden she has you explaining your text mishap and BAM, you’re back in the clear. At this point, stay strong. You can still damage relations. Ask yourself “What would North Korea do?” We all know the answer is “Be a country-sized jackass.” Again, the absolute best way to make a complete ass of yourself is to not read your texts before sending. And I am not talking about simply proofreading; I am talking about ignoring the context of what you’re sending. For instance:

What you want to say: “We should hang out soon,” and, independent of that, “Is your night getting better?”
What you text: “Let’s hang out this week.” Followed by “Is your night better now?”
What is conveyed: “You get to hang out with me! Aren’t you the lucky girl?”

What you want to say: “I am a talented sketch artist. Can I draw you?”
What you text: “I like to doodle. You should let me do you.”
What is conveyed: “I spit game like Leo on Titanic.”

What you want to say: “I had a party last weekend and I have left over snack meat. I was wondering if you had interest in coming over to help me eat it and watch a movie?”
What you text: “I have an abundance of sausage. Want to come over?”
What is conveyed:  “I pick up women the same way a greasy 48 year old chubby man would in a college bar.”

What you want to say: “It’s getting dark so early now days,” and, independent of that, “Do you want to go for a walk?”
What you text: “Man, it’s dark out. Want to go on a walk?”
What is conveyed: “There’s an 84% chance that I have interest in raping and/or killing you.”

Ultimately what reckless texting conveys is that you are a creeper and are to be logged into her phone as “Do Not Respond.” If you need motivation beyond maintaining bachelorhood, look no further than those “average teens” and knowing that time wasted proofreading is just putting you further behind them in your side quest of text-off supremacy! Additionally, winning and/or creating contests like the aforementioned “text-off” is an absolute deterrent to women, but that will be covered much later…  

Monday, November 8, 2010

Guide to Bachelorhood: Tip #7


Tip #7: Invest in Couches a Plenty

When women are sizing up their potential mates, they always look at everything they may come with. Including, but not limited to: face, body, smell, clothes, car, jewelry, hair, and residence. For our purposes we will be focusing on the residence. Namely, the seating arrangements. A sure fire way to avoid women is to have an abundance of seating. Especially couches and man chairs.

Women are active beings. They are always doing something, or at least making it seem like they’re doing something with their witchcraft trickery. They never want to appear to have nothing to do. For guys, that’s never an issue. Our first inclination when we are alone and without task is to turn on football, catch up on the DVR or play video games. And when that fails, we are always down for a more, uhh… private alone task. We cherish all of that time (some of it significantly more than others). These are all things that require sitting. Women are greatly adverse to this. So much so that they will go out of their ways to ensure you cannot sit, forcing you out of all of these activities. They come up with to do lists, or come up with awful ideas for activities, all so you have no sitting time. Their goal is to make sure your posterior is firm and shapely. Too much sitting makes it grow flat and blur the line between lower back and upper hamstring. My ass is absolutely undefined.

You're going to need more than that to foil my sitting 
plans! Nice try, though.
When all else fails, women will run out and purchase throw pillows. These are a plague. They show up on chairs, couches and even beds. I have never seen one in use. They are always removed before sitting. It might be moved to another chair, another couch cushion, on the floor, wherever, but it always needs to be moved because throw pillows are boomerang-esque in that they never fail to return to their original place. You can’t just move them once. Your best defense against these highly expendable accessories is to have so much seating that she runs, because she knows she will never be able to afford enough throw pillows to thwart your sitting pleasure.

Men caught onto this trick early on, and for legal reasons they couldn’t outlaw throw pillows but applied a great tax to them. This is why all throw pillows, despite being half the size of your regular bed pillow, are about five times the price. All because of the great Throw Pillow Tax of 1976. This is all true. Really, it’s disgusting. I won’t name names, but I know a woman who bought a $130 throw pillow. I am sure this was justified within her head, thinking that this would force her husband to perform over $130 worth of work with the time he wasted not sitting because the more the throw pillow costs, the more likely it is you will be yelled at for throwing it on the ground while you sit in its place. It’s like women never grew out of the invisible friend phase as a kid.

“You can’t sit there! Where’s Charles going to sit?!”

“… Who is Charles?”

“The pillow you just threw onto the floor!”

Bet you wish you had some more spots to sit right about now, don’t you?


Thursday, October 14, 2010

Guide to Bachelorhood: Tip #6

Tip #6: Talk Too Much

So you’re sitting there at a party, doing your thing, drinking a little bit and talking to all kinds of different people: tall, short, skinny, fat, white, black, Asian, Johns, Sheilas, Bobs, Tracys, accountants, engineers, the unemployed, the mentally handicapped, and most regrettably, cute girls. We’ve all done this. But then you get a moment of clarity and you realize you’ve been talking to the same girl for like 30 minutes. She is fully interested. If you leave now, she is going to follow you, Facebook friend you and give you her number. Women are like the smoke coming from a bon fire; You want to be close to the fire, but as soon as you’re within range, the smoke just attaches to you and no matter where you move, you continuously receive billowing hits to the face. You’re trapped, son. This is unfortunate and often comes with a particular smell (smoke smell: bad, women smell: great). You have given this woman false hope, thinking she met an interesting counter part, and might have a potential boyfriend. 

Uh oh... I'd better stick around a little longer.
Stand strong my friend; we both know you are actually not that interesting. When you meet someone at a party, you always want to impress. Maybe not to pick anyone up, but just to not come off as dull. Everyone does it, at least on some level. So while you are talking to someone and hearing all of their amazing stories thinking they have some endless supply of interesting stories… take a step back, realize that they are 25 and all four of the stories you just heard are absolutely as awesome and interesting as this person is to this point in their lives. It’s probably 80% of anything interesting that this person has to say. This is their curriculum vitae for their lives. It starts with your greatest accomplishments, but if you go any deeper, the bottom is full of loose ends that are reworded to sound more impressive than they really are. So while you are thinking you have barely scratched the surface of this person, you’re really already to the point where you have to start scraping the sides of the carton with the spoon to go any further.

So I submit to you this: Keep talking. If she’s interested on any level, she will listen for five minutes and smile big from minutes 10 to 20. From 20-30 she will gaze upon your face and lips with a look of deep intrigue. But you and I both know you’re not 45 minutes interesting. If you’re 45 minutes interesting, then you’re embellishing in an effort to get some action or a girlfriend. But if you’re not trying, then extend that conversation to 45 minutes, maybe an hour. Bam. By then, she will reach her moment of clarity. You will see it. Her face will convey that her false impression of you has been destroyed. Like the face of a toddler whose favorite doll was just tossed in the trash after irreparable damage occurred to it. In a toddler’s case, it’s usually some sort of heavy physical damage paired with a large amount of fecal matter. In the life of this girl, you are now the physical trauma and fecal matter on her favorite doll. She won’t want to “scratch the surface” anymore because she knows if she does, fables of fantasy football heroics and enthralling stories of shopping for ninja star coasters online emerge from your inebriated mouth.

Leaving the conversation with her interested is the worst thing you can do. You do that and she will, without fail, track you down and get that first date. Women are masters at this. At that point, you’re screwed. The first date comes with an abundant supply of topics in and of itself to distract from the fact that you’re not actually interesting (“Isn’t this food delicious?” “Is that your car?” “How was your week?”). Then date two, date three and soon enough, you’re hanging pictures of the two of you in your collective apartment as she has now moved in and you now get hit constantly with billowing hits of beautiful girl smell. If you had just invested an extra 15 to 30 minutes to unveil your true self, this scent of a woman could have been avoided… Hooah!

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Guide to Bachelorhood: Tip #5


Tip #5: Eat Good Food

“Good food.” There’s no “correct” definition for it, but somehow, in America, it has become synonymous with “healthy food.” If that fact was someone’s Facebook status, and Facebook allowed “disliking,” I would create several accounts, just so I could dislike the status several times. Much like men, who wanted prettier women, created magazine campaigns with beautiful women in them to get women to want to be more like what they wanted, women created “health food” campaigns which make men think we need to eat healthier. Why? Because it lead to guys thinking “Man, this whole cooking and eating right stuff is a pain in the ass… I should find a girl and trick her into doing it for me.” It was brilliant.

Soon, single women across the nation were getting booty calls, demand for tasteless health food was through the roof for inexplicable reasons, and organic food prices were on the rise. The typical man was now cornered. He went shopping, saw health food, didn’t want to cook it, got a girlfriend, prices went up, and now she needs money for “groceries.” I am hip to your ways women! If you cook it and it tastes good, it didn’t cost much and you’re using the rest of that money for shoes!

Sure, that seems like a
reasonable lunch.
Yep, bachelors were going extinct quickly. And if you want to remain a bachelor, you have to shop like a bachelor. Women won’t admit to it, and they act like it’s a chore, but they want to cook for you. It’s all a charade, so you feel like you owe them. Damn it, they’re geniuses! The best way out of this pickle is to shop for yourself using my Six S’s of “good food” as a guideline:

Soups – Campbell’s Chunky Soup comes in bowls. You don’t even need a can opener, the lid doesn’t require one. Just a spoon and a microwave (and the soup, unless your microwave is magical). Besides, according to commercials, Donovan McNabb eats it and his mom makes it for him. If you live with your mom, you’re set for life on the bachelorhood front. Read no further.

Sandwiches – This gets tricky. It requires an initial investment in mayonnaise and mustard, which last for years. If they do happen to turn green, keep them. Garlic is to vampires what moldy condiments are to women.

Once you have said condiments, you can get pickles (which are not considered produce for these purposes), cheese, bread, and meat. The meat is tricky too. When you approach the deli guy, he’s got all kinds of questions, like “Can I get something for you?” or “What kind of salami? Genoa or hard?” Don’t let his voodoo trickery fool you. You want Genoa… Or hard. It doesn’t really matter. Pick one and stick to it. It’s a test; no one really knows what the difference is. I am convinced that there is no difference. He just wants to make you look like an idiot later when you choose one and he goes to get it and asks, “Which one did you want again?” and you can’t remember after you answered it so assuredly before. Asshole.

Sfrozen Foods – “It doesn’t start with an ‘S’,” my ass! It was supposed to. Put your tongue on something frozen and try to say a word that starts with ‘S’. When you fail, get back to shopping, because that definitely starts with ‘S’. Start digging deep and you will soon find the good stuff. They have ice cream, frozen pizza, hot pockets, Eggo waffles, all kinds of frozen dead animals and their delicious meat, and frozen dinners. It begs the question “Why aren’t fridges the other way around, where the freezer is 2/3 of the storage space?” (Answer: Women designed… Their plan is elaborate.)

That shit is a trap. I can tell.
Snacks – If you open the cupboard and don’t have chips, cookies AND (not or) cereal, be weary; there is trouble abound. Your go to staple foods are running out, soon you will look to the TV to tell you what to eat. Boom. All of a sudden you want healthy food and it’s all down hill from there. I’ve seen it a hundred times.

Chips provide the crunch for your sandwich (since lettuce has been removed in the P section, below). And if Safeway says a product is cheaper if you buy 12 of them, it’s more than just a suggestion. You need not just 20 E.L. Fudge elf shaped cookies, but 240! A small army of Keebler Elves has never hurt anyone. It’s protected them. From girlfriends.

Soda – Women are all about water with lemon. And coffee and tea. Avoid these beverages by having wonderful, cold, sugary, addictive beverages. Or beer. Women need hydration. It’s one of their weaknesses. Utilize it, they don’t have many. They are like human Death Stars. If you absolutely need to have something that hydrates, go with Gatorade. Not the watered down version either, as a matter of fact, mix some similarly colored Kool-Aid in for good measure.

That’s five… And… umm…

Stuff That Comes in a Container You Can Eat Out of – Frozen pot pies that come in the bowl, the Chunky Soup Previously mentioned, Ben & Jerry-sized ice cream, anything that makes it clear there’s a high probability that if someone asks for food, they are going to be eating it from a paper container or with their hands.

Conversely, don’t purchase any of the P’s

Produce
Pots
Pans

It is essential to not have any sort of cook wear or produce. If you buy that, the next thing you know you’re eating a home cooked meal with your new girlfriend thinking about how you have to do dishes now.

Why can't you be more like
"Sfrozen" and start with 'S'?!
I know, many of us don’t want to go grocery shopping, but I love it. It keeps the junk food supply abundant and the women sparse. It might seem intimidating, but it’s cake (coincidentally, cake would have been on the list had it started with an “S”).

Lastly, when you get to the store, you’ll need a cart. Don’t grab a basket; women are the only people who go to stores for few enough items to warrant basket usage. Once you wrestle with the row of carts and start wondering if your cart is broken, rest assured that it’s not. Carts are just not functional. Personally, I can’t blame them for not maintaining the carts, if you look at the wheels, they always have a Barbie dolls head worth of hair on the axel. Women’s hair. And women are everywhere, be on the look out. (Fun Fact: Margaret Katz designed the grocery cart in 1937 and made sure the wheels collected the hair off the floor. Since no one listened to women in 1937, her husband Sylvan Goldman has always been credited with the invention so it had merit.)

You’ll be fine if you stick with my Six S’s. Women don’t shop for those things and are never in those sections. It’s as easy as that. Plus, you get to ride the cart like an oversized skateboard and then chest pass it from 20 yards out and see if you can get it to go into the cart return without slamming someone’s vehicle. And if it does, you’re already 20 yards away anyway. Run. Especially if it’s a cute, produce-wielding, good smelling, chef of a woman.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Nothing Without You...


Everyone relies on someone, somehow, some way, at some point. Either that, or you wouldn’t be reading this, because you died shortly after birth from malnourishment. It’s a fact that acts as one of life’s many foundations. We don’t change it, we simply build around it. Kind of like when I was 11 and threw a large rock into the largest anthill ever constructed. The ants couldn’t remove it, so they just went with it.

Some people, however, learn to depend on someone or something early on and, in some cases, would never exist without whatever it is they may be clinging to. In many cases, they don’t even enhance what they mooch off of in order to survive. There are even inanimate objects are guilty of this. They never even give out so much as a thank you note to their life support. So, I contacted several of these nouns (people, places and things) in order to see if I could get them to write a brief thank you note to the one thing they should worship more than anything on the planet: their better half.

Below, I have compiled the responses I did happen to receive from these nouns (I will publish the responses as they roll in). Finally, they show a little bit of respect…

Dear Sports,
"Really? You stood in line for threehours to 
have me sign your Big Book of Basketball?"
  Thank you for being an integral part of our every day lives. You equate to over 90% of everything we have stored in our brains. Because of you we have reason to wake up in the morning; we have a reason to dress like we are 13 again; and we can maintain conversations with other men, which allows us to compete with one another through our vast knowledge of you without even being moderately athletic or having any sort of coordination at all.

Without you it would be unacceptable to run around shirtless in the cold; people may find it weird if we touch our best friends’ asses and yell “good hustle!” when they get off the phone with the pizza guy; we would just be millions of smelly men in parking lots, eating bratwursts in a parking lot as if it were some kind of homeless people convention; the beer industry would collapse; we would only use the Internet for video games and porn; we might feel the need to be **gulp** productive at work instead of getting freaky with all of your junk online. Sorry, we meant “looking at stats online.” Truth be told… We love you. Hold us.
     Eternally Grateful,
          Tailgaters and Fantasy Geeks

Dear Old People,
  We’re not really moochers, right? You love us. We work so well together. As a matter of fact, one might even venture to say that you need us more than we need you. You would have nothing to live for if it weren’t for us. What are you gonna do? Play with your grand children?! Yeah, right. You need exercise to survive past 60 and are easily persuaded by infomercials showing silver foxes play with me on the beach. If anything, you owe us a letter of respect and adoration. We don’t beep to let you know something of value is nearby; we beep to let you know that we are your life support. When you stop hearing that beep, it’s because you are heading for that light at the end of the tunnel. And no, that’s not an ancient golden artifact, that’s a Corona bottle cap on the beach. Man, if the actual bottle is close by, you might be able to take it to Michigan to collect your nickel. Then maybe you could get a tank of gas, go see a movie and buy a candy bar with the change… You know, like when you were kids…
     Waiting for Your Apology,
          Metal Detectors

Dear Mildly Attractive Stripper,
  I really, REALLY would have no clue what to do without you. I have absolutely no marketable skills, no education, no self-esteem and no boyfriend. I couldn’t land a job picking up the Corona bottles buried in the sand that the Metal Detectors were talking about. I will absolutely drive us to our shows, and do as you say. I will even give you a majority of the tips and pretend it doesn’t bother me. You are my everything… until you hit 30…
     Your Plush Imaginary Coattails Passenger,
          Ugly Stripper

Dear Mexican Food,
  You’ve boosted my sales immensely. No one puts me on anything but you. You’re my landing pad. A little dollop here, a little dollop there and my job security is cushioned. I love rubbing myself all over you (just don’t tell the salsa. She hates when I do that)… What’s that? You’re down with a little me, you, Salsa three-way? I’d be lying if I said I weren’t at least a little intrigued… How do we approach her with this suggestion?
     Impatiently Waiting,
          Sour Cream

Dear Sour Cream,
  Are you kidding me?! It’s YOU that complete ME. People love you. Without you, there would be no me. For thousands of years, you have been around but people were embarrassed to eat you directly from the tub with a spoon. It was just taboo, like sex. Everyone wanted some, but doing it in the open was socially unacceptable. So then I came about. I am like your bedroom in this twisted culinary/sexual analogy… A place to do it that no one questions. I mean sure it’s nice to sneak a bite in the park or at work, but you know that if you want to be safe, just throw some on me. I am there for you baby.
     Yours Always,
          Mexican Food

Dear Mexican Food,
  This analogy has me all worked up… What did Salsa say???
     In the Mood for Some You,
          Sour Cream

Dear Sour Cream/Mexican Food,
  You had me at “twisted culinary/sexual analogy.”
     So In,
          Salsa

Dear Facebook,
    Before you, no one cared when I was brushing my teeth or just ate three granola bars and a packet of fruit snacks. Now, 457 people care. I can tell because they haven’t defriended me. Who would have thought my life would be this interesting? You’re a dream come true!
     Intimately Yours,
          Boring Egotistical Asshole

Dear Internet,
   Man, where would I be without you? A columnist at a newspaper? No one reads these posts… A newspaper would never hire me. I write things about magical lands where boys are pure evil. I write about food condiment ménage trios. I write about Terry the Bounty Hunter. There is absolutely no medium or market for what I write. Without you, my thoughts would stay in my head where they belong and never surface for the world to see. The world would be a slightly smarter place, as everyone is now dumber for having read to the end of this post. Thanks for not limiting or censoring me.
     Futilely Leaching Since December,
          Roy

Monday, May 31, 2010

To Whom It May Concern

Dear Rice Krispies,
  When you stopped selling Rice Krispies Treat Cereal in stores, you lost me as a customer. I don’t want to have to buy my cereal online. How am I supposed to get whatever 10 essential vitamins and minerals your incredible product replenished my body with now?

Dear Drivers,
  I am both amazed and terrified at your inept abilities in navigating a roundabout. It embarrasses me to be a part of the human race when you associate yourself with me and can’t maneuver a very simple traffic obstacle.

Dear Left Shoulder,
  Why are you slightly hairy, when my right shoulder is not at all?

Dear Right Shoulder,
  Get Left Shoulder back in line. He is acting completely out of control.

Dear Hair on my Head,
  It’s mind boggling that even though I lose upwards of 100 strands of you a day, you manage to replenish yourself. It’s like each hair follicle is a Kleenex dispenser for hair. Well played.

Dear BP,
  I am pretty sure it’s not a good idea to televise an attempt to fix your oil spill disaster, especially when you appear to be soliciting solutions from the Internet. If you’re listening, here are my top five solutions:
-          Giant tampon
-          Magic
-          Pay everyone to pretend nothing happened
-          Create a large vacuum to suck the water out, add vinegar and sell product to chip companies for a “BP Sea Salt and Oil and Vinegar” chip
-          Force Sarah Palin to speak on the subject in a Nationally televised event that will most definitely somehow end up having her say something that makes it look like it was her fault

Dear Lady Gaga,
  You’re embarrassing to listen to, so stop making music that I want to listen to in my car.

Dear Bed,
  Why do you seem so much more appealing to me at 7AM than 9PM?

Dear Animals,
  Thanks for racing each other and letting me gamble on it. I can’t imagine a group of trained animals I wouldn’t have interest in betting on/watching race. This applies to all animals; Not like animal fights. Sure dogs and cocks fight just fine, but I am not too sure you can get a gambling ring at your house that involves two horses fighting. Wrong animal activity Ron Mexico; you should have raced the dogs.

Dear Washington State University,
  Donations? It’s so nice of you that you remember me now that I have a degree and a job. I’m sure we will never forget the good times we once had. You know? Like when you waited until people purchased their meal plans and then jacked up the prices of food campus wide? Or when you used to send me the notices of delinquency that threatened to have the police evict me from my dorm during finals week every semester like clockwork for seven straight semesters? Yeah. Those were the days. I will be sure to support your programs now because you treated me so kindly. Keep those “How Coug Are You?” mailings coming my way. I haven’t forgotten to donate; I have just been really, really busy lately. I don’t tear them up and throw them away every time though. I swear.

Dear Wal-Mart,
  I know everyone hates you, but I am okay with you for two reasons. One, the type of people you attract to your store are website-worthy and, without your store, there wouldn’t be a dense population of these people to photograph in any one small location other than in parts West Virginia and Kentucky. And two, because I just went to the Kellogg’s cereal finder home page and found that you carry Rice Krispie Treats cereal!

Dear Target,
  I would like to thank you for being the only local carrier of Berry Berry Kix, which I also had to use an online cereal finder to locate.

Dear People Reading,
  Why are you reading something written by someone who has used online cereal finders before? “Finders.” Plural. Really?

Dear PlayStation 3,
  They say time is money. I am filing a class action law suit against you. You owe me a lot of money.

Dear Confidence,
  People tell me to have you. Sometimes I pretend to and it always ends badly. Women can smell fake confidence. It smells like urine running down one’s pant leg.

Dear Pedestrian,
  When I am driving and you are crossing the street, we don’t need to have the “go ahead, wait, you want me to go? No please go. No, you go. Alright, fine. Oh, wait, you went at the same time, let’s both stop. Go ahead,” charades, which stem from confusion about who should go first. How about you go when I tell you to because I am operating a lethal weapon. This isn’t a threat, I am just saying. If I had a gun and told you to go, I bet you would do it. Do you know why? Because the person with the upper hand has the final say. Deal with it and cross the damn street. *Honk*

Dear iPhone,
  No I didn’t mean “he’ll,” I meant “hell,” damn it. Stop correcting me. I can’t remember the last time I used the word “he’ll” in my writing.

Dear Teeth,
  I am 24 years old now. Under no circumstance should you be biting my lips. I have been chewing long enough that it shouldn’t happen. You make everything you’re attached to look uncoordinated and foolish. It’s embarrassing.

Dear Barney Stinson’s Doppelganger,
  I hate you.

Sincerely,
   Roy Vincent

Friday, May 7, 2010

My Religion


Any chance my Magic Sherpa came
early and dressed me like this so I
could one day form my own religious
faction and have this be the symbol?

Those of you who know me may know I have never been a religious man (Those of you who don’t, thanks for reading anyway!). That’s not to say that I am not a very moral and ethical person; I’m just not religious. I have always thought that maybe, just maybe, religion was created to explain the inexplicable. It would make sense. But this piece isn’t about being preachy or starting debates or resurrection, or mountain Gods or goat’s blood. I love religion. I think it helps everyone involved become who they are and, at the very least, it spreads (mostly) great morals. But through the years, I have become who I am by coming up with my own answers. My own theories. My own religion.

When picking a motto to live by, it is a horrible and bitter realization when you come across another cliché that acts as a contradictory statement.

Nice guys finish last.
“Hmm… Maybe I should be a dick, I don’t want to finish last.”
The good die young.
“Yep, no time to be good and die young while finishing last. Being nice and good sounds like an absolutely awful idea…”

He who hesitates is lost.
“Excellent. Act on impulse. I like it.”
Patience is a virtue.
“Wait… So which route do I take here? Man, does this count as hesitating?”

So, which do you pick? They say that your late teens to late twenties are the years you find yourself and figure out who you really are. I am 24 and have no idea who I am. I wake up in the mornings sometimes and think to myself, “When I grow up, I want to be a---,” then I snap back to reality when I notice, “Shit. I am grown up.” Do I have to actively search for myself? Or should I just hang out and hope he finds me? Not only do I secretly hope a Magic Sherpa shows up one night and tells me what to do for a career, but also that this Magic Sherpa might tell me who I am going to be as a person when I grow up. I have come to believe in this Magic Sherpa.

This girl's Sherpa was asked to leave shortly after this
heart-chilling display.
I wonder if this Magic Sherpa doesn’t guide me, but actually dictates who I become. In that case I really hope I don’t get the child molestation Sherpa. I mean, if this is the age where one is to find himself, it must be a very bitter realization for all of the creepers who wake up and realize a Magic Sherpa commandeered their personality and they think “Damn… I am going to be a serial killer.” Or “Damn… I like to eat people.” Or “Damn… I really like to wear my hair with a bump in the front so that it looks like I may have a severely misshapen head.” (Ladies, you know who you are.) There has to be something else to blame it on. Nay, someone. The Magic Sherpa.

Sometimes, in life, you do stupid things. Embarrassing things. Things that you hope never come back to haunt you. Some of these things might include: growing a moustache and chronicling it on the internet, wearing JNCO jeans, having a bowl cut, listening to copious amounts of gangster rap, listening to very girly music (like, really girly), liking Gilmore Girls, blow-drying a cat, eating a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts right before you eat two foot-long meatball subs and then going swimming, rocking a fluorescent orange rat tail, wearing baggy sweat pants that looked like Lark Voorhies and Dustin Diamond were going to jump off of the pattern, etc. These are all things that Royligion can forgive and forget. The Magic Sherpa knows that was who you were, not who you are. He is here to guide you, hopefully down the right path.

Are you here to provide me with
creative writing advice? Or are 
you going to try to convince me I 
should be committing genocide
of some sort
I fathom my Sherpa is a bit of an ass, but has good intentions. He’s a bit loud, a bit self-deprecating, but all in all, he’s a pretty kick ass Sherpa.  Maybe my Sherpa has been around longer than most, but has failed to tell me who to become due to his nasty procrastination habit. Maybe he came to me when I was four and taught me to ride a bicycle. Maybe whenever I smell chicken noodle soup, he goes and checks to make sure it’s really soup and not someone with BO that smells like chicken noodle soup before I say “Mmm, that soup smells delicious.” Maybe in college, he brainwashed my entire University into thinking they should give me a degree in Mathematics. But, despite all of this, he knows his window of opportunity to enlighten me as to who I really am (and will remain) for the rest of my life is closing. And though he sounds ridiculous, and I imagine him to look a little like an ethnic Great Gazoo, he gives me something to believe in and something to look forward to; He gives me faith.

One day, when he decides it’s time, maybe then he will show me how to right my wrongs. He will teach me to play the guitar. He will show me how to write more better. He will show me what I really want to do when I grow up…

Monday, April 19, 2010

Mmm... Food.


On one of my typical evenings, as I waited behind a woman who was somewhere between elderly and middle-aged in the Taco Bell drive-thru, I thought, “Why in the hell is she not pulling up? Is there a Smart Car I can’t quite see between her and the next guy? Maybe a Mini Cooper? Maybe some sort of decommissioned military vehicle?” There was that much space. I could have parked a fire truck in between her and the next guy. True story. Well, the whole drive-thru thing is true, but I may be embellishing on the gap size she was leaving. Either way, the point is this: It requires a certain type of person to do this; someone new to the vehicle they’re driving, someone new to life and oblivious to their surroundings, and someone new to fast food.

It was evident that this woman was not a car-jacker. No one steals a nice mini-van. (Although if someone were to steal a mini-van, it would probably be a woman around her age… but that diminishes my argument and overall point). And you could tell at a glance that she was built for this car. It just had a “her” vibe. Sometimes you can look at someone and just know whether they’re in the city they are originally from, the clothes they normally wear or the car they usually drive… or not (it’s a skill I have… I wish I could trade it in for good looks or to be better at basketball), and this car was absolutely hers. I’d bet my life on it.

As this woman looked back at me in her driver’s side mirror, trying to gauge my level of dissatisfaction with her ability to pull forward, I ruled out her being oblivious. She wanted to help me pull forward to get me that much closer to enjoying the culinary delights provided by Taco Bell (and at reasonable prices, mind you), but she just didn’t quite know how. And, trust me, I can identify oblivious. I have mirrors; an oblivious man inside stares back at me 100% of the time. At times she seemed more concerned with me being content than she was about how far away from the next guy she was. However, despite still being a good 8 feet behind the next car and blocking my access to the speaker, she was not making any progress. It was seemingly her just rocking her car back and forth without actually letting off the break to give the appearance of someone who is trying to ensure they were killing the flea under their tire. Her break lights flickered like a strobe, yet she made absolutely no progress forward. You may attribute this behavior to lack of familiarity with the vehicle, or just bad spatial awareness, but something about it just didn’t seem right in this moment. She seemed to be confused and flustered by drive-thrus. This wasn’t something she did a whole lot of, and you could just tell.

No matter who you are, you can’t be something you’re not. Rich and cultured people are out of place at Taco Bell, and if you frequent Taco Bell, you’re probably not exactly blending in at a “fancy place.” That’s how the world works. Classes divided by money. Now, this could go one of two ways from here: I could write a long paper about how classes came to be and how they reflect on our culture and why they have been necessary in America for our entire history and on a go-forward basis… Or, I could contrast the difference between these two types of patrons at the different restaurants (fast food and “fancy”) that I just outlined. And, like two opposite-sex best friends who got slightly drunk and had a curious mutual attraction to each other and got a little overly flirtatious, you know where I am going with this, and I know you well enough to know where you want this to go…

Fast Food

The Rookie:

The Rookie fast-fooder (yes, I just coined that… I think…) will often be overdressed and look severely out of place within the establishment. They regularly refer to Burger King as a “restaurant” and refer to Wendy’s as “Wendy’s Old-Fashioned Hamburgers.” You can’t class it up. Tone it down a bit. It’s a sketchy brick building circled by run down cars waiting in line, smells like fry grease and has two or three gigantic dumpsters 30 feet from the back door next to the fat man wearing an undersized polo-shirt with a Pippy Longstocking doppelganger logo on it, smoking a cigarette. That’s as classy of a description as one should be legally allowed to use to paint a picture of Wendy’s. That’s not to say it’s not delicious though.

This person will typically analyze the menu for 7-10 minutes while looking for the healthiest thing on the menu and are alarmed to notice that one doesn’t seem to exist. This person often asks what’s on four or five different items and are confused when offered a “meal deal.”

This transaction couldn't be
more awkward, could it?
“I thought I was ordering a meal… And Super-Size? Do they have some sort of high-tech ray gun back there? Man, I’d better just nod and smile…” they think.

They grow increasingly uncomfortable and don’t know what to do with themselves during the time between ordering and before they get their food. They also often ask employees washing nearby tables for ketchup, napkins and refills. 

They are the ones who leave giant gaps between their car and the next at the drive-thru and are vastly confused by the two-window concept.

The Veteran

“Welcome to Taco Bell, can I take your order?” the pimple faced high school boy asked.
“Yeah, I will have two chicken burritos and a five layer burrito,” the tall, pale, gangly redhead on the other side of the speaker replied like clockwork.

That is a veteran order. Why? Because it requires no thinking. The man ordering here knew what he wanted and didn’t waste any time ordering. He had probably placed his share of orders to Pizza Hut in his time to the point he had their phone number memorized (943-4781), and he was confident and cool when he was called up to order. No special orders and no questions. Add onto that his impeccable ability to know how close he was to the next car and see how much room the car behind him needed to access the order box and you have a veteran. Plus, he was clearly very physically attractive given the minimal details about him. Those are just bonus points. The $3.22 exact change is the icing on the cake. The transition was the exact opposite of Larry David purchasing pot from a Hurley on the street (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcf2CO65lf4). Smooth.


Fine Dining

The Rookie:

The Rookie considers “Fine Dining” to be Olive Garden and Applebee’s. They often ask if they should seat themselves and they wear their “fancy jeans,” “fancy shirts,” “fancy shoes,” and their cleanest baseball hat. These people actually refer to these articles of clothing as “fancy” and also use terms like “fancy place” (See the fourth paragraph). When asked to name “fancy restaurants” they incapable of coming up with anything other than “Olive Garden and Applebee’s.”

Yeah. Just chug it, that'll blend right in. 
The Rookie will think heavily, but refrain from asking, about the location for a drive-thru window of the establishment. They will not recognize 88.6% of the menu’s items, and butcher the pronunciation of the other 11.4%. They will ask for more water once they take a large bite out of, what they refer to as, “Horse-relish sauce” because they thought it was tartar. (Side note: Their excuse of “I thought it was tartar sauce” still doesn’t make it acceptable). They will ask for extra “croissants” on their salads when they really mean “croutons.” They will get uppity as if they have interest in starting a physical altercation with the waiter when corrected over the same croissant/crouton confusion. They will not have the slightest clue as to how to eat anything that is put in front of them and will pick at it until they recognize some of its composition before proceeding to eat.

They will have trouble identifying the prices because they are just a number with no cents next to them or dollar sign. This person will also make at least three comments on how many meals at Jack in the Box they could get for the price of one appetizer. They will order based solely off of the prices once they identify where they are located on the menu. They may even ask for a “value menu” or a “children’s menu.” There’s a decent chance that there is one attempt at sending an order back asking for it to be “Super-sized.” There is a significantly higher chance that they at least think hard about stealing the silverware, justifying it by claiming their meal was outrageously priced. This person will pay, tip low, and consider actually skipping out on the check before deciding to just work overtime all next week to make up for it. But a little less overtime if they make off with a knife…

The Veteran

The Veteran stares for the length of the dinner in awe at whatever family member of mine is sitting two booths down from him wearing a t-shirt and eating straight horseradish with a spoon. He tips his waiter a bit more than normal just because of the waiter’s unusually rough night that the Veteran has witnessed…