Impulse Drive.

We've all seen the commercials and billboards for them.  And, sure enough, they are sprouting up everywhere you turn.  Otherwise desolate strip malls are now decorated with bright yellow signs promising you cash for all of your unwanted gold.  The ads all sort of start out the same, implying that most of us have extra sacks of pirate booty hiding in our attics and under our beds just waiting to be melted down and cashed in on.  Are you sick of carrying around dead stinky grandma’s stinky old dead jewelry?  She’s dead and you’re poor, so get rich!  Get rich now.

At an open mic’ once, a very funny guy was on before me, and did an entire bit about leprechauns and ‘cash for gold’ advertisements.  I don’t remember exactly what he said, or what his name was, but I figured that I should give him a cosmic nod of some kind, and telepathically thank him for warming up the audience for me that night.  There’s no way that my bit about inflatable mattresses was that funny.

So, anyways, we can all agree that the ads are already ridiculous enough.  But a few weeks back, I saw a closed down gas station that had recently been converted in to a ‘cash for gold’ temple, with a rather large sign obnoxiously advertising what they are all about.  In case you were wondering, they give cash for gold. Right underneath this sign, a poor sap standing in one hundred plus degree heat was holding a big arrow that read ‘CASH 4 GOLD’ and was pointing it to the store directly next to him.  To top it off, he was wearing a Mr. T sized gold medallion.  

Makes me think of the dudes standing outside of the strip club asking me if I like boobs and/or pussy, as if I am going to suddenly stop in my tracks, unaware of what lay beyond yonder walls.

“Wait, wait… you have the beaver to cure my fever?  Finally! Thank God you were out here to let me know what was available in your fine establishment.  It wasn’t clear from that naked woman on the neon sign.  Now, just so I’m clear, your establishment features both breasts and vaginae?  Honey, you go ahead, I’ll catch up with you later.”

Now, aside from the ridiculousness of holding the arrow (and playing air guitar on it) directly below a Buick sized billboard, one must wonder how many extra customers are coming in thanks to this roadside arrow.  Ordinarily this type of sidewalk luring is meant for drive-by impulse buys.  

“How will I ever make it up to Cindy for that pesky 'whoops wrong hole' incident? Oh, hey now, FLOWERS!”, thought Gerald, as he whizzed past the lonely clown holding a sign indicating where one might buy roses. 

And then there is always the classic ‘sexy girl car wash’, or something involving free hot dogs.  I mean, who wouldn’t pull over for that?  But how many people are actually driving around with treasure chests of doubloons in their trunk, just in case they have an impulse to sell?

“Cash for gold eh?  Why not!?!  Get the good gold out of the glove compartment, we’re going in.”

Is it often enough to warrant having him out there?  

“We were on our way to the grocery store and thought, well, since we have all this unwanted gold hidden in our seat cushions, we may as well pull over.  We just couldn’t resist the sweaty fat guy with the arrow.  Say, how much for my wedding ring?”

And why do these signs sometimes try for some cheap play on words?  It’s insulting to my intelligence.  Granted, we are a nation of people that need to be told to ‘click it or ticket’.  Yeah.

“I saw the sign, and didn’t want to miss my ‘golden opportunity’.  Now, do you guys have pliers?  I have some teeth to rip out.”

You think any alcoholics have ever brought in their peepee and poopoo after a night of binging on Gold Schlager? ... Too far?  I’m just thinking that that would certainly be unwanted gold.

Perhaps the sidewalk charmer is aimed at criminals fleeing the scene of a crime.  Although, unless their crime was a gold heist, I don’t see what good it would be.  Maybe if they robbed another ‘cash for gold’ place. 

“This way! Hurry! Follow the arrow!”

I think about these things when I should be more focused on the road.  Even as all of this raced through my head, I was still tempted to pull over, because I thought it would be a solid joke to go up to the guy holding the sign wearing that enormous medallion and say, “Hey man, that’s an awfully big medallion.  Is that gold?  I’m pretty sure there’s a place around here that would pay you good cash for that...  Not sure where though... Any ideas?”

Moving right along.

My realization in seeing Goldenboy McNecklace-Chest is that if the place needs to dress a guy up in a bunny suit or tutu or whatever to try and lure you into the store, it’s probably a store and product that you can do without.  This realization, in turn, got me thinking about what the worst impulse buy situations would be (other than cash for gold), and whether they could even employ a sidewalk goon or not.  

In general, you shouldn’t impulse buy at all.  The most tempting, and often easiest, impulse buy to give into is food, because after all, you definitely need to have that brand new sandwich.  But, if you see any of the following examples, or anything like them being advertised on the side of the road, or being dangled at you so seamlessly in front of the checkout, you really need to just move on.

Colonoscopy

Granted, if they had a sidewalk guy and his sign said 'ENTER IN REAR' or something of the like, I would still have to pull over just to give him a high five, you know, in the name of comedy.  As long as he’s not the one administering the procedures, because then maybe just a fist-bump, followed by a lot of hand sanitizer, might be better.  For the record, most medical procedures are not recommended to be purchased purely on impulse (unless the purchase is Emergency Medicine that you suddenly need due to bleeding from the head or something).

Foreign Babies

I know it seems like celebrities pick these up on a whim, but if a place is advertising with a guy on the street, you might be better off just calling the police.  I know you want to be like Brangie, but the babies here won’t be the quality foreign babies you’ve come to appreciate in such magazine photo shoots as ‘US Weekly’ or ‘In Touch’.  Not sure what that magazine is in touch with.  Definitely not reality, or ethics.

Cult Membership

Never pay money to join a cult, and certainly not on a whim.  I guess don’t join one for free either, even if they promise cookies.  Especially if they promise cookies.  The expression ‘Drink the Kool-Aid’ exists for a reason.  How do you think they got so many people?  Arrow signs.  I’m telling you, look it up.  No don’t.  Lifestyle changes should be discussed with your wife / husband / family / brain before you just proceed on an impulse.  Same for those Timeshare deals, which are rather cult-ish.   Just give me my free gift and take me back to the strip, and no, Steve, I don’t care how often you went skiing last year.

Christmas Tree

Especially if you already have one, or it’s not Christmas, or you don’t celebrate Christmas.  Seriously, it’s a tiny apartment, where the hell would we put it?  This goes for all holiday-related gear.  No, Halloween is not a holiday.  Nonetheless, avoid those Halloween superstores.  Forever.  

“But the bags of fake cob web are on special, buy eighteen get one free!!!” 

Yeah, exactly.  If you collected everyone’s unused Christmas and Halloween decorations, you could probably build a tower to the moon, or at the very least, you could probably bury a lot of really annoying people.

Drug Trial

This is a special one, since it’s not so much an impulse buy as an impulse sell (much like the 'cash for gold').  What you are selling, of course, is dignity and potentially your overall well-being.  A respected clinical trial place might not be so bad, and you might only end up with the more traditional diarrhea side-effect, but do you really want to even risk having a story that ends with “and that’s the story of my exploding left testicle”?  And you really don’t want to know what non-traditional diarrhea looks like.  

Anything at a Mall kiosk

Face it, if you really needed it, they would have an actual store.  They are hoping that you hate yourself enough that you just can’t resist their redundantly shitty product.  Excuse me sir, do you like [ face cream / toy helicopter / funny slippers / cheap sunglasses ]? No.  But not nearly as much as I dislike you.  I realize that this is getting away from the idea of sidewalk people, but then the mall will go and have a sidewalk sale, so they can pretend to have a sidewalk with which to lure you in, as well as sidewalk people who are all “50% off everything! Except what you might want to buy!”.   Seriously, that's not on sale?  Fuck you, mall.

Haircut

The cheaper the place, the more likely they are to have a guy on the street, and the worse off your hair will be.  Well, unless you want to look five years old again.  Even a good haircut is the worst, because you have to go to work, and everyone is like, “hey, new haircut?”.  So imagine a bad one.

In conclusion, I’m sure there are some important impulse transactions that I am missing, but if you go directly after the more obviously bad impulse buys like PROSTITUTES, ANOTHER BOOK from THE BOOKSTORE, SKINNY JEANS, GAMBLING, NEW CAR, HOME OWNERSHIP or the Godfather of all impulse buys, PETS, you probably deserve whatever grief you are currently feeling.

In conclusion part two, never listen to people on streets holding signs, unless they are the police or one of those old lady crossing guards with the big lollipop stop sign.  In those cases, I will leave it up to you to decide if you want to buy what they are selling.

That’s it.  I’m going to go drive around and see where my impulses take me.

Weenie Roast.

As hard as you can try, eventually you will find yourself in a position where you look like a weenie, or feel like a weenie, or are just acting like a total weenie.  It can creep up on you and come at you unexpectedly, or, at times, you can see it coming from a mile away.  Some people are just total weenies all the time, and to those people, I apologize.  There is little that I can do for you.  For the rest of us occasional weenies, I will try and help you navigate the road of life avoiding the obstacles that can obstruct your overall coolness and make you feel like a weenie.  Some of these obstacles can’t be avoided, and in those cases, I’ll try and help you cope.

According to the dictionary, a weenie either means a frankfurter, a penis, or a nerd.  According to me, however, a weenie is not so much being a nerd, which can have certain positive connotations, so much as just being totally lame.  

I guess that for me, it can still mean frankfurter or penis as well.

When it comes to looking like a weenie, obvious examples would be faux-pas’ like ‘socks and sandals’, the ‘bowlcut’, wearing snowpants or those awful hats with the big ear flaps.  I won’t go off on a hat tangent at any point, as I have already done that once before (see: Accessory Before and After the Fact).  Obvious examples of feeling like a weenie could include losing at dodgeball, having your credit card denied or failing a driving test.  Obvious examples of acting like a total weenie should include mispronouncing easy words, confidently shouting the wrong answer in a game of Trivial Pursuit or singing in your car with the windows down (see: Turn it Up, Man).  

Are you starting to understand?  

In short, sometimes you can avoid being a weenie, but sometimes you just can’t.  The best that we can do is deal with the risk factors that we can control.  I can’t cover everything, but these basic examples should help (one for each kind of weenie moment).

On looking like a weenie...

One of the easiest ways to look like a total weenie is to wear a backpack.  Now, before you get all in a tizzy and tie up your panties into infinity knots, yes, I do recognize the usefulness of backpacks.  And it’s not everyone that needs to avoid them altogether.  But it’s kind of like how some guys put on a suit and look like they’re wearing their dad’s pyjamas, and other guys put on a suit and look quite dapper and shit.  In turn, some people rock the backpack just fine.  They look like a casual businessperson on the go.  But you know the type of backpackin’ weenie I mean.  You know how some people put one on and instantly look five years old and just begging to have their lunch money stolen?

If you absolutely must employ a backpack, then there are some things that you should know.  This can help reduce your wienieness.

Don’t tighten the straps all the way to the max.  It’s like when you see a guitarist with the strap all tight and the guitar is up at his chest.  He doesn’t look like a rock God anymore.  He looks like a member of the wiener patrol.  Another example is someone with their shoelaces tied real tight.

“Look how tight my laces are, these babies will never come off.”

What a weenie.  If the backpack straps are that tight, you may as well just bite the bullet and sport the fanny pack, taking you into ultimate weenie territory.

Don’t fill the backpack to capacity either.  There’s no way that you need to be carrying around enough stuff to fill a whole backpack.  What’s in there, a basketball?  Honestly, now you look like a lil’ kid on their way to the basketball court to shoot some hoops with his pals.  Except you don’t actually have any pals.  All you have is a backpack full of shit and a weenie aura that alienates all of those around you.  You don’t make friends with backpacks.

A full backpack just makes you look small and weird, like when people wear exceedingly large sunglasses.  Seriously, don’t wear gigantic sunglasses unless you are:

a) Elton John

b) A pilot in the movie Top Gun

c) Dead with both eyeballs missing

d) A clown

e) All of the above

Moving right along… The worst thing you can do is have a full backpack with the straps tightened all the way.  Even if you’re hiking, you should try and avoid this, because you’ll just look like a granola weenie.  And isn’t that just the worst kind of weenie?

Also, put both shoulder straps on.  The backpack slung over one shoulder doesn’t look casual after the age of twelve.  It looks ultra lame, and thus, quite weenieful.

I have a backpack that I bring to work, and every day, when I go out to the car, I feel slightly less cool then I did before.  Still, it seems better than paying money for a more adult looking bag.  At least my backpack is black, and truth be told, that’s another thing that can help.  Don’t have a bright ass backpack that looks like it has all sorts of nifty pockets made to hold your pencil case, calculator and retainer / headgear.

On feeling like a weenie...

Bringing the car in for maintenance at a garage is a surefire way to make yourself feel like a weenie.  Most of the time, I don’t even understand what I am asking them to do to my car.  I just read what needs to be done off of my vehicle’s maintenance schedule thingy they gave me when I drove it off the lot.  When I am reading it off to the guy at the garage I just try and mumble it, or cough while saying it, in the hopes that he will correct me, and guess what I am talking about.

It’s like ordering off of an Italian restaurant’s menu, when they obnoxiously put the stupid fucking menu items in Italian.

“Yeah I’ll have the … ummm… panooni… giupallda… pancechia.. bruschegnochi?”

“The ravioli?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

The mechanics tend to worsen the situation, by asking you questions that you don’t really know the answer to.

“Yes, I need my breaks serviced.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“Umm... nothing I think, just according to my maintenance schedule, they require servicing.”

“You been having problems or… what is it exactly you need done?”

“Would you like to see the maintenance schedule?”

“No, that’s ok.”

“You know, I’m not normally such a weenie.”

This is much like how an overall lack of sports knowledge can get you into similar weenie waters with sports superfans, but I believe I tackled that already (see: Color Commentator).  There are two ways to not feel wienerific in front of the mechanic.  Either educate yourself about the inner workings of your automobile (not happening), or just fake that you know what they are talking about (that’s the one).

“There’s a problem with your Flarnder Rodenspiel.”

“Oh yeah, I totally noticed that last week, just you know, give it the usual.”

“What?”

“Proceed with the tune-up.”

The mechanic will still know that you’re a weenie, but you’ll walk away with your head held high, a proud weenie.

On acting like a weenie...

 “I bike to work every day on my banana seat bicycle.  Kneel before me, the king of all weenies.”

They take up an entire lane as if they are a car, but then go through red lights.  They have pants tucked into socks, or are wearing one of those elastics to stop their good work khakis from clogging up the gears.  They ride the elevator up to their floor while still wearing their helmet, as well as the previously mentioned pants elastic.  They have super aerodynamic sunglasses.  They are the weeniecycles.

“Of course I’m turning, did you not see my hand signal?”

Riding a bike in the city does not automatically make you a weenie, but it doesn’t help.  If you have a bell, horn, basket or tassels on your bike, please close your computer and go set fire to your bicycle immediately.

With these three examples you have the blueprint for what makes a true weenie.  Try your best to extrapolate from this guide other situations during which you may look, feel or act like a weenie, and avoid them forever.

That’s it.  These snowpants are really making my balls itch and chafing my groin.

Bad Language.

While I do feel that some expressions die out before their time, there are definitely some expressions that hang on far too long, well past the point of being totally played out. Usually the way an expression fizzles is that someone exceedingly lame gets a hold of it, and completely ruins it for everyone else. Picture people still spouting the “whazaap” catch phrase from those fucking beer commercials and you’ll know the type of people that I mean. They may even be the same people that would wish you a "Happy Tuesday" (see: Celebrate Good Times? Come On.). Sometimes the expressions that they use were never even that cool to begin with (once again, “whazaaap” comes to mind), and yet somehow they infect the language and become widely used in everyday conversation.

The following is a list of expressions and sayings and things that I would like to do away with immediately, as they have either outlived their relevance and usefulness, were never relevant or useful to begin with, or just should have never become as widespread and popular as they have. They also tend to piss me off every time that I hear them, and I would usually like to kick the perpetrator in the nuts and/or boobies.

1) “Old School”

The popularity of the movie of the same name only worsened the needless propagation of this expression that I personally feel no one really understood in the first place. For something to be of the old school, it needs to be something that used to be the standard practice and has since been replaced by some new standard practice, a.k.a., the new school. This is not how most people use it.

“Oh man, what you eatin’? Fuckin’ fishsticks? Man that shit is old school.”

“There’s like this old school dude standing on the corner peeing.”

“I like the old school episodes of the Cosby Show.”

I really did like this expression for a while. But now it is overused, warped, and thus, quite lame. Dare I say, it is old school to use old school properly. People overuse “hardcore” in a similar fashion, but I’m willing to keep it in circulation. Just promise to stop using it so much, I want it to remain at least somewhat special.

2) “Man-Cave”

This has not become lame through overuse. This was simply lame to begin with. If I have to hear another dickhead talk about his man-cave I think I might shove my boot directly up his man-cave.

“Aw fuck yeah, this is perfect for my man-cave, yeah, fuckin’ flatscreen right there get my beer on, fuckin’ pool table, fuckin’ burgendyblooblooblearghenshpieldoods!!!!!!!! I’M A FUCKIN’ MAN!”

The expression is lame enough, but behind it is a whole adulescent mentality of dudes and whatnot trying to hang on to their college heydays in some sort of bizarre nostalgia for an age that never existed, and that’s what’s even worse. If only the energy spent fantasizing over a perfect cavern-like saloon-style dungeon room full of “manly” paraphernalia could be put to better use by these types, like by jumping off a bridge, we’d all be better off. Maybe I should just stop watching so much damn HGTV and I wouldn’t hear it quite so frequently.  Seriously all the dudes on those house shows say it.

Along with this term, let’s get rid of Bromance, Frosh, Metrosexual, Flatscreen and Grillin’.

3) Any word ending in ‘z’, or, you know, pluralizing shit for no reason

Sure, I am guilty of it sometimes too, but I’m sick of it. Sick of it for realz.

4) Saying obnoxious sounding abbreviations out loud

As early as high school I remember cringing when someone would refer to Geography as “geo”. In college “Polly Sci” made me want to puke everywhere every time that I heard it. Now we have a whole generation of jackasses saying, out loud, stuff that was only meant to be used to shorten the amount of keystrokes in a digital message. Do they not realize that saying OH EMM GEE takes the same amount of time as saying OH MY GOD? Count your fucking syllables people! These are all the same bunch of lunatics that invent words like "Texting", and then, in turn, "Sexting". Rom-com? Tomkat? Double-You Tee Eff (Its longer than saying WHAT THE FUCK)?

To top it all off, now at work I have to hear people talk about VAYKAY time (meaning vacation… yes, really). And just when we thought we were done with the valley-girl-ish “whatever”, we were bombarded with “whatevs”.

You will notice that the people that use these abbreviated kinds of expressions are the same people that never fucking shut up. I wish that they would just abbreviate themselves.

5) “Indie”

Using this word to describe music, film, comedy, art, people or whatever is about as played out and vague as describing food as “organic”. Please note that it is perfectly acceptable to use this word when referencing Indiana Jones.

There are a whole slew of other words like “Emo”, “Goth”, “Fusion”, “Nerd”, “Punk” or whatever that have become distorted over time, and are now meaningless. You will know these expressions when you come across them, because they will make you feel dead inside. I couldn’t possibly list them all here.

6) “Recession”

Whether it’s your hairline, your gums or the economy, seriously, fuck recession.

If we all work real hard at boycotting these expressions, sayings, manoeuvres and shit, then maybe, just maybe, there will be some hope for us as a society. In the meantime, I’ll just continue complaining.

That’s it. I needz to get back to my old school man-cave now.

Express Yourself.

Often times popular slang terms come along and replace the previously popular slang terms meant to describe given actions, nouns, persons, or whatever. While I think that this is a necessity for the advancement of our species as a whole, and for the progression of popular culture in a society, I don’t always agree with the replacement slang terms. Sometimes the old one has not yet worn out its welcome, or simply, should not be replaced by such tacky new slang. I have carefully selected some examples to present here in an attempt to show you what I mean, and perhaps even assist in the bringing back to life of some expressions that I prefer over their modern day replacements.

1) Shaft.

Although it did not last long and was soon replaced by “dissed” or even “busted”, shafting somebody was what we said in my schoolyard days growing up when someone gave someone else the business. In today’s terms, you would no doubt know this as “burning” someone. You might even say “Oh, burrrrrrrn” or “burned!!!” or even concoct all sorts of insane hybrids like “burnination”, or “superburn”, or something involving burns ‘n shit.

Formulating a good burn and then telling someone that they got burned may indeed be satisfying, but it lacks the all out crassness and vulgarity of telling someone that they just got SHAFTED. A burn is something that might sting a little like, “Ouchy that burns!”, and then makes you shed a single tear. A shaft on the other hand…

“OH GOD, MAKE IT STOP!”

Followed by vomiting, crying in the foetal position, years of therapy and an overwhelming sense of failure throughout the rest of life’s challenges. It’s a hell of a lot more degrading and demoralizing than a wimpy, sissy little burn. I’d take a third degree burn any day over a huge shaft. But hey, maybe that’s just me.

2) Wet fart.

Look, I can appreciate the humour and intelligence behind the construction of the word “shart”. But let’s be honest, it doesn’t hold a candle to the term “wet fart”. Wet fart is much more descriptive, raw and emotional. Incidentally, don’t ever actually hold a candle up to a wet fart, because it can cause explosions. People probably still say wet fart, here and there, but shart has clearly become the more popular term, and I really do feel that that is a shame. Wet fart is much more elegant and graceful (the expression, not the actual fart).

“Lord Backingfield wept at the sight of his eldest daughter shamefully retreating from her wedding ceremony at the tail end of a true wet fart. The crowd stood motionless, silent, horrifed. The white dress was a white dress no longer.”

3) Dickhead.

You’re probably thinking, “hey no, hold on just a second there ya ol' poo, people still say dickhead”. But think about it. Think real hard. Do they? Do they really? Not as much as they used to. I’m not sure what the direct replacement was, maybe it was douchebag. That seems to still be a popular one. The sad thing is, most people don’t know what a douchebag is actually referring to. Do douches even exist anymore? I guarantee that if they do, they definitely don’t have bags anymore. A dickhead, on the other hand, well that’s easy to figure out. It’s what you call someone, when they are being a dickhead. Say it a few times. You’ll see how satisfying it can be.

“What a dickhead.”

“Man, that Jeremy is a total fucking dickhead.”

“Let’s bail. This place is for dickheads.”

Feels good don’t it?

I think that if we all try real hard, we can start bringing back some of the best expressions of yesteryear. I know at first you may feel like you are going against nature, but I assure you, if the expression is awesome to the max, it will catch on once again, and return to the mainstream. Like fashion, I feel that slang can be cyclical. And then you will be known in your inner circle as one of the wonderful few that helped start the comeback and restoration of a once decayed piece of slang history. You will have been ahead of the curve, for once in your fucking life. Oh burn.

That’s it. I’m going to go shaft some more people.

Pack Man or Mispack Man?

Packing a bag for a vacation is the worst part of the vacation. It almost ruins the whole vacation. You put it off as long as you can. You’ll eat, you’ll exercise, you’ll call relatives, or you’ll do whatever. You may even find yourself cleaning your entire apartment the night before you leave, before you have even packed, because, apparently you would just hate to come back to a mess. You haven’t even left yet, and already you’re thinking about what will happen when you come back. Can’t you even relax for a second? Fuck! Why is it that the current present ‘you’ can live in this pig sty, but the future post vacation ‘you’ can’t put up with it for a second? What a condescending prick, all relaxed and vacationed and shit. Future Kevin thinks he is so much better than me. Why should I clean? He’s the one that just took a vacation.

Anyways, all of this procrastination stems partly from the fact that packing makes you feel stupid. You wind up losing the ability to perform even the simplest mathematical equations and arithmetic. Even worse, you start talking to yourself. You could be a mathmetologist for NASA and still need an old school abacus to pack for a three day retreat to some fucking log cabin. Out loud you say unto yourself:

“Ok, let’s see, I’m leaving tomorrow and coming back the following Tuesday. SooOOOooo, tomorrow is Friday and that means I need… eight pairs of underwear? Wait do I need to count tomorrow? Hmmm… I’ll already be wearing some tomorrow. Gee this is tough…”

Using the Harry Potter calendar on your wall and a solar powered calculator from high school, you come up with a number that seems right, but, regardless of your day count, the packing experience ends up becoming a frantic free for all, where you’re pretty much just trying to fit as much stuff into your bag as possible. Bringing a tube-top to a wedding in the Yukon? Why not?! Then the zipper on the bag won’t close, and you wind up having to cut some articles from the vacation team. The first few articles are always easy to cut.

“Yellow turtle neck? You’re cut, sorry, try again next vacation.”

“I guess I don’t need every pair of jeans that I own.”

“I suppose one bathrobe is enough.”

“I’m not exactly sure when I would even make use of this DICKEY.”

After that it’s more difficult and you wind up trying to figure out which sweat-stained half-ripped band t-shirt you absolutely need, or don’t need. You may like to tell yourself that you would do well in a desert island situation, but I think that inability to make decisions would probably do you in.

“Oh gosh, which plantain skins would make for a more durable beach hat? … hmmmm…”, thought the castaway, and then, out of nowhere, a monkey tried to eat his two eyeballs.

Imagine building a raft to try and sail back to the mainland and having to pack a desert island bag for that trip? You’d wind up cleaning up your base camp five times before choosing which coconut halves would make for better goggles, or earmuffs, or miniature helmets for your monkey. No, not the eyeball eater, it’s a different monkey. It’s a helper monkey.

“You never know, I just might wash up onto shore again, and I’d hate to come back to a mess.”

Moving right along.

So after carefully discriminating against the swimming trunks (you know you won’t end up in that god damn hotel pool anyways) and the extra pair of running shoes (you know you won’t end up at that god damn hotel gym anyways) the zipper still won’t close, and you take out more and more, almost at random now. You stand on top of the bag to zip it up, unknowingly causing your deodorant/lube/sunscreen/lotion/shampoo bottle to explode. Don’t worry. It will be a nice surprise when you arrive. Unfortunately, as you started discriminating, you completely lost track of the amount of each type of clothing that you actually will need, and you’ll end up with a dizzying array of assorted and mismatched items. Not enough underwears, too many socks. Not enough t-shirts, overload of pants. You get the idea.

I once went on a three day trip and managed to pack six pairs of underwear, three shirts, a single pair of socks and no pants, except for the pair of jogging pants that I travelled there in. By the third day, my pants stank like sweaty farty plane cushions and lightly fermented guacamole. I had a pair of underwear on each foot, due to the sock shortage and the only clean shirt that I had left was soaked in shampoo because the exploded two-in-one shampoo stored in the side pocket leaked into the main compartment. On the bright side, the fruity smell covered up the eerie stench of the jogging pants. Also, my shirt was so healthy looking it shined, and my chest hair never felt so soft! Anyways, needless to say, I did not get the job. Apparently, they went with a more experienced candidate. Personally, I think they smelled the Pert Plus and were looking for more of a Head and Shoulders or Dove kind of a guy. I guess what they say is true. Two-in-one shampoos just don’t work. Anyways, all of this got me thinking.

My solution is disposable one-piece jumpsuits. Not for all of the time, just for when you are travelling. It would make packing real easy. Five days, five jump suits. Even better, all hotels could start selling them, so you wouldn’t even need to pack. Just show up in a pair of boots and then buy as many as you need. Now, they should be loose enough to not show too much of one’s bits and pieces, but not so loose that they would blow up like a big ol’ balloon every time there is a big gust of wind. After all, we’d hate for people to take off like kites. Anyways, they’d kind of look like those HASMAT suits that the people wore in E.T. when they came to operate on him, except without the helmets and melodrama. Kids, never follow a trail of Reese’s Pieces into a stranger’s house. It will only lead to trouble.

But I digress.

Sure, jumpsuits would make tourists would stick out like sore thumbs, but at least it would make shit simple. And you can still make yourself stand-out by wearing snazzy dress shoes. So, no, not everyone would look the same. They’d have different shoes, and perhaps different hats. Different faces too, I guess. Until the jump suits become widely available (I’m working on a prototype), I would suggest that, after you’ve finished packing, throw in some extra underwears just in case. Even if you don’t end up using them like they are intended to be used, they can come in handy and fill a variety of other uses like handkerchief, bowtie, hat, sock, bathing suit, kite or flag (you know, in case you need to surrender to someone, you can just place white underwear at end of a branch and wave it around).

Even with my eventual jumpsuit solution, you’d still have to pack all of that other stuff that you take on vacation, like bathroom crap. But that’s the stuff you always throw in at the end, and usually forget anyways. Have you ever forgotten your toothbrush and had to ask at the front desk of a hotel for one of those disposable ones? Why the hell are they made so thin, and yet so fucking long? It’s like the toothbrush that a really delicate miniature pony might use to brush his teeth. Some of the toy toothbrushes come with powdered soap already on them. The assumption of course is that if you forgot your toothbrush, you obviously forgot your toothpaste. I’ve always found they look and taste a little suspicious. It’s like they sprinkled some Comet on the end of it. Maybe they are actually meant to be used by the cleaning staff for scrubbing stains off of the sheets and/or toilet seats.  Either way, try and remember your toothbrush.

“I’m sorry, I forgot my toothbrush, do have one of those little ones?”

“Sure, here. Careful, don’t hold it too hard, it might break in half. Also, here is some toilet cleaner, your breath really smells.”

“Thank you. Wow, what a quality toothbrush, I can actually count on my hands the number of bristles. There are four bristles, oh shit, it broke.”

“Here take a few more, we got buckets of them.”

“Do you have any glue? Maybe if I glue seven of them together, it will be a better brush.”

Is the toothbrush the only item that they have little toy store replacements for behind the desk? I bet they probably have some of those little combs too. I wonder if anyone has ever gone up to them and said that they forgot their enema. Surely it happens. Lord knows that we all tend to get backed up when we travel. To me, the need for a replacement enema would come up more often that the need for the shoe shine glove thing, or the sewing kit. Who fixes buttons on vacation?

“Honey, are you coming for dinner?”

“Hold on, I’ve got two more shirts to mend and then I need to shine my shoes.”

Anyways, I’d like to see what kind of MacGyver enema that they would come up with (e.g.: Funnel with a Gatorade filled water balloon). Actually, now that I think about it, most rooms already come with a laxative in the form of shitty hotel coffee and powdered dairy creamer. If that fails, hopefully you’re staying somewhere with the free continental breakfast, where anything is guaranteed to make you make the poop (like when you’re climbing up a ladder, and you feel something splatter).

Good thing you packed all of that extra underwear.

And is it just me, or are the shower gel, shampoo, conditioner, facial soap, moisturizer, etc. all just the same goopy mucus shit with a different label and bottle? In the end, sometimes it’s best to just stay home. Packing for that is easy. You’ve probably already done it. You can’t forget anything, because you’re already there. Not to mention, if you don’t leave, you won’t worry about coming home to a messy apartment and can continue to live in your current filthy nasty household. These are the kinds of things that I think about when I should be packing.

That’s it. I have a jump suit to try out.

Love and Pepperoni.

In this, the age of information, we seem to be bombarded with a million options every time we have to make a choice. The grass isn’t necessarily always greener on the other side, but nonetheless our commitment phobic society tends to assume that, obviously, it must be greener somewhere. Not just any green, but a magical green that will solve all of life’s problems and make more people like you even more, if you just wait and wait and never choose, and never commit. It will all be handed to you.

“Sure, this seems like the right pair of boxer-briefs, but what if there’s another pair out there that massages my balls while I walk and makes my peen bigger?”

Honestly, if you set the bar high enough, you’ll never be happy with anything ever. In fact, you may never end up with anything period. Awesome. The one exception for most people, I guess, tends to be with food. People know what they like and where to get it from. They have all their brands and snacks and cheesies and pretznels and wundernips and frooble-dee-froo. Don’t get me wrong, people are still picky as shit when it comes to food decisions, but eventually when they make a choice, they actually stick to it, usually forever. This is especially true with pizza joints.

“Let’s get pizza. I know the best place. It’s the best. Oh man, I’m the man.”

Don’t get me started on the overuse of the word ‘best’ again (see: Best of the Best). The point is people have no problem committing to and trusting a food delivery place. I can’t imagine why that, when people can’t seem to commit to anything, this is what they are able to commit to. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just stuff like electronics and lederhosen that people were afraid of sticking to.

e.g.: “wait what there’s a new PiePhone? omg!!11 well shit, I NEED it, I can’t stick with this old shitty one, it doesn’t even automatically cook my turkey while I’m off skiing, if there’s a better one, then I need to have it ASAP, my want it, my wants, mommy mommy, my wants my new MyPhone, gimme gimme gimme” he texted to his mother from down the hall.

But it’s with relationships too! Sadly, nobody trusts anybody, and this is the real problem. I could deal with the attention deficit society if they didn’t apply the same spoiled brat adulescent childish ‘me-first’ generational behavior to love, lust and everything in between. I find it, well, strange that some people can call up pizza delivery restaurants and be giving a stranger their name, number, address and even credit card information, without batting an eyelash, but on another night have casual sex with a stranger, without wanting to divulge any one of those four. Unless of course they’ve managed to find a prostitute that accepts VISA, and then maybe one of those four could get satisfied. They could even have those portable little debit machines like they have in them fancy restaurants these days and bring it right to your bed.

“You can enter dollar amount or percentage for the tip, hun.”

“But, I already gave you more than the tip. Heyooooo!”

“Very funny, I already gave you the clap.”

“Can I get a receipt for that?”

But otherwise, in a non-professional scenario, the conversation after a typical adult themed casual encounter might go a little a something like a this.

“Yes, my name is uh… Dean. No, no last name, it’s just Dean, it’s like Cher or Eminem… and yes, I live here, at the Super 8, just call and ask for Dean, they know me here” he said politely to the woman who could have sworn last night he said his name was Dwayne, as he called a cab, and casually threw her underwear and khaki Capri pants out the window. “Wait, before you go, do you know the number for Domino’s?”

Brandon Toode (a.k.a. Dean or Dwayne) will give his real info to Domino's for handling his pepperoni, but can’t give it the woman who just handled his salami. What the hell kind of expression is casual sex anyways? In general, I have difficulty in seeing anything casual about penetration, of any kind. Try sticking your dick in some mashed potatoes and acting casual. Better yet, try sticking a cucumber up your ass and acting casual.

“Hey Pete, you catch Letterman’s Top Ten last night? Man, it was so-”

“Bill, umm, sorry to interrupt, but I believe that you’ve got a cucumber up your ass.”

“Oh, yeah, no big deal. I actually forgot it was there… Anyways, are you gonna finish those mashed potatoes?”

Honestly, anything that you can’t do in public without fear of arrest can’t be considered casual. Even simpler, if it involves your privates, it can’t be considered casual. Casual sex is just a way to disguise the term meaningless sex so that the people getting all random-sexied don’t feel meaningless afterwards. I guess they don’t really have privates, they have publics.

“It wasn’t meaningless! It was… casual.”

I guess paying a prostitute would be business casual.

It makes me wonder how these types could ever hold a steady job. I would have to assume most don’t make it past the first casual Friday, given their definition.

“I don’t know Trey, I mean, I got to work, grabbed my coffee, went to the morning meeting, dropped my pants, and then the next thing you know, I’m being escorted out. I mean, I thought it was casual Friday! I didn’t even have time to ask who wanted to get them some of this!”

“So, let me get this straight, they call it casual Friday, but you didn’t even get laid?”

No, he got laid off. Say, I wonder if that’s how that term came to be.

So, regardless of how often the pizza came late, the toppings were wrong, the pizza was terrible, the delivery guy was rude or even the pizza never came at all, we all still go back for more. Now, I know, you’re thinking, that’s because pizza is awesome. And you’re right, pizza is awesome. It’s the king of the culinary kingdom, housing all seven food groups in one delicious package: Dough, Sauce, Pepperoni, Fire, Crispy, Cheesy and Grease. Who wouldn’t want to hit the hut? If you get a hungry enough person, I bet you could lay a log of dump on top of a slice a pizza and sprinkle some extra cheese on it, and still, blindfolded, they’d eat the shit outta that shit.

“This is some good shit! What’s this pan crust?”

“You don’t know the half of it. Let’s call it bedpan crust. Those are homemade toppings too.”

But, where is that commitment and tenacity when it comes to love? Why did you break up with him/her?

“I don’t know, I mean he called my cell at 10:13 AM, like, that’s weird. I don’t know if I could be with someone that makes phone calls on odd numbered minutes.”

“She texted ‘haha’ and I’m more of an ‘lol’ kind of guy.”

“I mean, sure, her boobs were big, but they weren’t super giganto-big.”

“He only had like 37 friends on Farcebook. Oh Em Gee. I can’t be with a complete loser.”

“She didn’t wanna take shit on my chest. What a prude?”

“His name is Jeremy, and I’ve always seen myself with more of a Dean, or a Brandon.”

“It just wasn’t a love connection.”

Maybe you’re line is down. Maybe reception is just bad because you’ve built some hefty walls around you. Dating really seems to have gotten to the point where people treat it like shopping, or worse, real estate.

“Now’s not the time to buy, now’s the time to rent” claimed Brandon Toode.

The problem with ol’ Tooder’s attitude is that years of renting and moving around both repeatedly and frequently has damaged all of his furniture and left him completely bankrupt. Lost in the metaphor? Broken furniture and bankruptcy equals a busted wiener and the herpes. Shopping online for dates is kind of like browsing with a real estate agent. Paying for dating opportunities, much like the commission you might pay a real estate agent. Hookers and/or gigolos are more like a motel though, and the pimp is the guy at the front desk. Be careful! A really cheap motel could have crabs on the toilet seat and man juice on the sheets. Lost in the metaphor again? Crabs are, well, crabs. Toilet seat is... whatever you want it to be. You know what? Forget it.

People tend to lose sight of the fact that, much like a new apartment, no relationship will feel like home right from the start. Some things will be surprising, unexpected, different and maybe even scary (or simply not what you are used to). It takes time before you realize what you have could be something special, and that you have found where you belong. You’re home. Then again, some places do have rats and bugs. But maybe you’re into that.

Now I’m not suggesting that, whether we are talking real estate or relationships, you settle down prematurely. That just creates bad relationships, bad breakups and bad marriage statistics (I would say bad mortgage, bad credit, but I’m done with the analogy, starting... now). By all means, play the field for as long as you want or feel you need to. Just be sure to never lead anyone on into thinking that you are being exclusive if you have no intention on halting the sale of your particular brand of magical delights and treats at other retail locations.

“Exclusive? Nah, let’s be inclusive, baby, I will include you in the list of people I am seeing.”

“No thanks, please exclude me from your life forever.”

The pretend committers are often the same people that eventually become the actual cheaters. The delusion that you could cheat and never have your spouse or partner find out is almost as stupid as cheating in the first place. If you cheat on your diet, your spouse will find out. Go to the grocery store, buy a pepperoni stick, eat it on the way home, who’s gonna know? They will, every time. They’ll spot the sausage casing stuck in your teeth, smell it on your breath, in your car, on your clothes. Oh, you’ll try chewing gum, washing your hands, driving with the windows down, but still, they’ll know. Now, if they can pick up on the light guilt and fragrance that comes with speed-eating a Slim Jim and ruining your appetite, imagine if you’ve been eating or frequenting COCK OR PUSSY. I’m pretty sure those smell at least as strong as beef jerky or a good Colby cheese.

All this to say, if you feel like you’re ready to settle down, then stop being afraid and start giving things a real chance. You might get hurt, you might get happy, but get out there, and find the right pepperoni pizza for you. Find one so good, that pepperoni sticks don’t even tempt you anymore. Seriously, what am I even talking about at this point?

That’s it. I have to finish this kielbasa before my wife gets home.

Stupid is as Stupid Drives.

Seriously, cars create stupidity. I’m not talking about the obvious kind of stupid, like when a person sees a nice car and wants to check under the hood, groan and gnarl with a Timallenesque woof and beat off all over the V8 Carbonomator Spark Ploogues. No, I’m talking about the subtle kind of stupidity that cars manufacture, the kind that cars bring out of people. It takes real smarts to design cars and put them together and be all hella-fast. Wild scienticians are finding new ways to do more with less that costs less and kills less trees and shit. But once it’s finished and one of them geniuses steps into the car… potential moron. While I won’t bother to list obviously stupid driving mistakes made by regular people behind the wheel, I will list through a few of the more convincing and seemingly random arguments to prove that cars bring out the stupidest side of stupid, whether with their operation, their decoration or just their existence in general.

1) Vanity Plates.

Who first thought that this was a fun investment? Have you ever heard of a situation where having your license plate be easy to remember would be a good thing? Every time in life or in the movies you hear “Did anyone get the plate number?”, it’s generally preceded by something like hitting an old person, running through a restaurant terrace, exploding a fruit truck, drive-by shootings or running over a small family. In these cases, if your plate number is snappy and easy to remember, then shouldn’t we assume it makes you easier to catch? Wouldn’t it be embarrassing for a hooligan to get caught because of their vanity plate?

“Surely I’m not the only one in a silver Saab, I mean, what does that prove?”

“Is your plate 'MADD DOGGZ'?”

“Umm…”

“Seriously, otherwise I wouldn't have known where to find you.”

It’s not as if the coppers are tracking down anyone to reward them for good driving.

“Wow, did you see that guy parallel park in one move? Did anyone get his plate?”

“Hi, I heard that you witnessed the lady that came to a full stop at the stop sign… did you happen to get her plate number?”

“That’s the seventh car he has let in ahead of him, I’m going to take down his license plate and give it to the authorities, you know, for reward.”

So why bother having a nifty catchy plate? Is it so that the other drivers can know just a little bit more about you and what you’re all about? Sad.

“Say, that guy’s plate says ‘4 REALZ’. Geez Patricia, do you think he likes reality TV, or reality in general, or maybe he is a very genuine person? Oh! Maybe he is in a boy band called 4 realz… hmmm… well, I guess the only way to find out is to run him off the road and ask him.”

“I don’t know Stan, that one there says 'RKR CHK', she sounds like fun. I would assume that she is a chick, and also that she potentially rocks. We like to rock don’t we? I mean, in general, we rock. Let’s crash into her.”

“You never like any of my ideas!”

Divorce.

Some don’t even make any sense, because people take letters out of the words, usually vowels, and leave it up to you the reader to decide, like ‘BJNSHT’ you know for ‘Blowjobs and Shit’. They’re not always easy to figure out, which, begs the question “what’s the fucking point”. Sometimes the word is pronounceable, but meaningless to anyone but the driver, like 'SARTO' or 'FANAPY'.  Is ‘HPY’ hippy or happy? Is that a ‘5’ or an ‘S’? Who really cares? I saw one that said 'AXNDRA'… which maybe means Alexandra, or maybe has something to do with an axe. Why are people being so cryptic? If you are that lonely and desperate to have tailgaters know just a little more about you, why not just have a regular plate and then put a banner on your bumper that says “my name is alexandra”? Just state facts like “hey man, check me out, I like cats”, instead of ‘CNTLUVR’.

I guess that’s all bumper stickers are. I once saw a car that had a ‘Jesus Loves’ type of caca bumper sticker taped to the inside of the back windshield. Were they worried about changing their mind down the road and not being able to take it off the bumper? They don’t want to fully commit to the idea, but still want to display it. Apparently they just kind of love Jesus, for now, but not enough to make it a permanent fixture on the bumper. I find that kind of insulting, you know, for Jesus. I guess when someone better comes along they can just swap it out for Buddha, Tom Cruise or evolution. Bumper stickers are stupid.

Sometimes I come across a plate and I’m not sure if it’s a vanity plate or not. If vanity plates didn’t exist, this wouldn’t happen.

“'583 MAN'… hmmm… well I wonder what the significance of that is” he pondered as he drove the car into the snow bank. ‘Dreamer’ by Supertramp softly played in the background.

The only real use I could see for a vanity plate is if you actually plan on committing vehicular crimes and want to make it impossible for anyone to remember. Get a plate with 27 numbers, letters and symbols placed at random.

“Did anyone get the plate number?”

“I think there was a ‘J’ and a happy face in there somewhere…”

“No, it was one of those winking happy faces… I think… or the one with the tongue sticking out.”

“I think that was a ‘e’ with umlauts.”

2) Rubber Band Traffic.

Nothing says stupid like traffic caused by nothing. People slow down enough, to look at an accident, that it then has a ripple effect and causes traffic, or another accident. All because they need to slow down, check shit out and think or say out loud something extra dumb.

“Oh gee, I hope no one got hurt.”

Who, out there, is hoping people are hurt? Is anyone driving by thinking the opposite?

“Hmmm… ’94 Tercel, I hope they’re all dead.”

“New York plates? Well it’s about time.”

“If only they’d just FUCKING EXPLODE ALREADY!”

I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if people actually had thoughts of that nature. At least then they would likely speed up, and I would make it home in time to watch ‘Kardashians Take a Dump’, or whatever. Sometimes it’s not even an accident, sometimes it’s just some car parked on the side of the road because the driver probably shit their pants or needed to pee. Sometimes it’s because there’s a state trooper on the side of the road, who’s already pulled someone else over, flashing lights and everything. Well, shit, shouldn’t you speed up then? Now’s your chance! Floor that sucker, and give the trooper the finger on your way by.

3) Global Positronic Swerndieferndenspiel (that sounds right).

Didn’t someone follow their GPS into a river? I don’t really think any more needs to be said about that. Granted, it’s not as if before GPS people were smarter with directions, driving all around town with a few notes jotted down on a post-it (like “left at the second lights after the second MacDonald’s” or “you gotta go three stops past the Burger King”) that would cause people to get lost, not pull over to ask for directions, and subsequently have the night end either in divorce or dying in the woods somewhere thinking “we must have missed the turn somewhere back before we hit the Canadian border” or “seriously, I didn’t see any sign that said Fluffandstuff Beach, did you? There was no sign!”

4) Nose Picking.

There’s nothing quite like cleaning house after a long day’s work breathing in conditioned air and office dust. Next time you’re in traffic heading home from work, look around. Two out of three cars house a driver that is up to their wrist digging for gold. These people would never stand in line at the bank or super market and do this, but in the car, in traffic, they somehow feel safe, and are also too stupid to realize that windows are see-through and are too busy flicking boogers towards their passenger seat to notice that they’re being watched.

5) Ritualistic Car Washing.

If you have a good dozen or so bird poops blocking windshield visibility, or better yet, a homeless man used the back seat of your car as a brothel / toilet / bathtub, then go ahead and give your car a good once over. You have my blessing. Otherwise just wait until it rains. I could see cleaning your car religiously every week if you were going to drive it in your house. No sense in leaving pesky tire treads all over grandma’s new carpets. But since no one is really about to do that, let’s just take a deep breath and remember that we drive our cars outside, and outside is dirty. Nothing stays new forever, let your shit age gracefully, it’s embarrassing.

“Look at my car, it’s clean, it’s like new, I’m like new, I’m shiny, my life is empty.”

6) Motocyclette.

You know what? I won’t even get into this right now. They are half of a car and exponentially more stupid. Screw motorcycles. Motorcycles don’t make stupid, they just are stupid. You like motorcycles? You’re stupid.

7) Laws.

Why do we need so many road signs? Because we’re that dumb in cars. 'BRAKE FOR MOOSE'? As far as I’m concerned, if you can’t figure that one out, maybe it’s just your time. And what’s with those deaf child ones? Are people coming up to a kid in the middle of the road and not stopping? Are we not trusted to stop for a child unless we are told they are deaf?

“It doesn’t say deaf child anywhere, any non-deaf child should really know better.” BOOM.

Or honking once and hoping for the best?

“Well fuck him, I honked, he had his chance.” Kablammo-Smoosh.

I wonder if those signs are the result of some lawsuit where some scumbag got off scot-free.

“If I’d known he was deaf I would have flashed my brights at him, thrown my water bottle at his head and slowed down a little. But I really thought he heard the honks. I gave him a good half second to get out of the way. I’m the victim here. I thought this is what he wanted. You know there really should be a sign.”

How come you don’t see any signs regarding blind children? I would assume they’d be more likely to be out in the road accidentally. And why stop at blind or deaf children, or, hell, why stop at children at all? Why not just have a big sign that says ‘TAKE’ER EASY – people jump out into the road around here, totally at random’. That’ll get people’s attention. Sadly, while they are reading it they may have run over a child or two. Maybe we should stop building roads that go directly through play areas. Or were the playgrounds built near the roads? Chicken and the egg, I guess. Maybe they should point the signs towards the side of the road where all the kids are running out from and write ‘WATCH OUT FOR ROADS’ on it or something, or ‘CARS WON’T NECESSARILY STOP FOR YOU, KID’, or build a fence.

Even speed limits exist because people can’t be trusted. Without them people would just never stop speeding up.

“Slow down Gerald the exit is coming up!”

“Blow your exit out your ass, Vera! I’m going to keep going until the needle flies off.”

In any case, regardless of all the road signs and laws, people break them all anyways. You’d never shoplift, or kill your wife, or hamburglarize. But get behind the wheel and you’ll definitely do a U-Turn over a median going seventy-five in a school zone, drunk.

“Stick it to the man, God damnit! Laws were meant to be broken!” said Nigel, the LOCAL PRIEST.

They even have to make laws to tell people what not to do while driving. Like being drunk or making and eating a sweet hoagie. You have to tell people not to text while driving. And still you see people doing it all the time. Well, I assume that’s what they’re doing, as they only have one free hand on the wheel and are looking down towards their crotch and manipulating something. You got it – they may be whacking off. (Texting… masturbating, is there really a difference?) Probably shouldn’t do that either, though. I’d like to see Oprah challenging people to take that pledge. Celebrities would be lining up. Seriously, though,  imagine getting pulled over for that?

“License and registration please."
"Hold on, the license is in my pants, I threw them in the back seat somewhere..."
"No, sir, hand them to me with your other hand.”

“You got any Purell?”

In some colder areas of the universe they had to start forcing people to put snow tires on their cars… assumedly because people weren’t smart enough to feel it was necessary. As long as we’re heading in that direction, let’s ticket the moron that clears a fist sized hole out of the snow on their windshield, for visibility, and thinks they’re fit to drive on the highway.

“Hey, I can see my own hood, and that’s sure good enough to know if I hit anything.”

Helmet laws, SUVs in the suburbs, that robot that gets help for you when you’re in a jam, locking keys in the car, double parking, drive-thru anything, people listening to iPods while driving… ET CETERA ET CETERA.  Look, I know public transportation isn’t the answer either. I saw an ad campaign, for a while, that was trying to be all green and ecosexual, insisting that public transportation was the ‘car of the future’. Have these marketing assholes ever even been on the bus or subway? What a bleak future that would be – unreliable, old, smelly, and being driven by the absolute cream of the crop (people still rocking the mullet and wearing the same outfit since the mid nineteen seventies). Imagine picking up a date in the car of the future.

“Be on the corner of Stain and Shart at 8:02 pm.”

“Can’t you pick me up at my house?”

“Well, no I can't, Wendy, I have a very futuristic car of the future. Now, make sure you’re there at 8:02, because that’s when I will pick you up, in this future car, otherwise the date is cancelled, or I suppose you could just catch the next future car and meet me at our destination. Anyways, look for the car that is big and rectangular and makes lots of noise and says ‘Downtown’ on the front. Oh, and I won’t be driving, and there will be other people in it. See you then.”

“That sounds like the bus.”

“Bye.”

There are certainly some parents that could have some fun with it.

“Hey Dad, can I take the car out tonight?”

“Sure son, you can take the ‘car of the future’. Here are the keys” said the father as he threw some change out the window.

Thank heavens more and more people are working from home or just simply getting too fat to drive. Honestly, until we invent transporter beams or some kind of high speed travelling tube system like they have in movies set in the year 2000, I don’t think there’s much hope for intelligent daily commuting.  In the meantime, at least avoid the crap I just went over, and be safe, please.

That’s it. My exit’s coming up.

Forty Winks.

When you’re a baby, it’s pretty simple. You don’t have much control over it. You’re constantly being bundled up and then placed in warm and cozy spots much of the time, so it’s natural that you would sleep a lot. You can’t walk around, talk, do much at all really, except poop, laugh and scream. So why not sleep most of the day away? But as you become able to do more, you tend to want to sleep less and less. In your early childhood, however, you’re forced into napping, daily. It's called naptime, and most of the time, it's boring and it sucks. You don’t really want to sleep, because being awake is much more interesting. You’re learning new things every second. That’s why you see kids passed out in awkward and uncomfortable looking positions all the time, even sometimes with a toy still in their hand. They just had to keep going until they absolutely couldn’t go anymore.

“Must… continue… playing… errrgh…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”

ZONK!

Even though, for the most part, the daily forced naps come to an end in your mid-childhood, forcing you to go to bed eventually becomes a form of punishment. I remember being sent to bed once when it was still sunny outside. How can I sleep when it’s so bright out? I want to play! Man, that sucked, but I’m sure I did something awful to deserve it. One of the main goals in your life as a child is to not have to go to bed, ever. Ultimately, every night is a challenge to try and stay up late, past your bedtime. You’re really not sure what goes on after you’ve gone to bed, but you assume that it must be really great. Probably it involves candy and all sorts of unsupervised mayhem. After all, your parents make it sound so edgy and dangerous, like things might start exploding at any moment. You’ll even try distracting them some nights, thinking that, maybe if they don’t see a clock, they’ll never know. But somehow, they always do. And then they make it sound like what you’re doing is upsetting the very balance of nature.

“What are you doing up! It’s past your bedtime! GO TO BED!”

Your bedtime is really one of the most important cool factors that you’ve got as a child to set you apart from the pack. It’s one of the key ingredients that can make you cooler than the other kids, whether or not you get to stay up later than them. Even the kid with the absolute coolest toys is a loser next to the kid that can stay up well past the ‘Cosby Show’.

“And then the white haired man came out and addressed the court. His name was Matlock, and only the chosen children could remain awake to see him appear at night.”

And so you’re constantly haggling with your parents over your bedtime. You go to school and conduct surveys and polls and bring the results back home to use as leverage.

“Well, Mother and Father, I have polled most of the students in my grade, and the results, I’m afraid, are quite shocking. Both Timothy Carcoozle and Finnegan Gentilly have stated that they have nine p.m. bedtimes, which puts my eight thirty p.m. well below the average. I mean, if you want to remain well below the average level of awesomeness amongst the parents in our general scholastic region, then, I guess we can just keep things the way that they are.”

Most likely you falsified some (or all) of your research and are nearly completely bluffing (in reality, ol’ Carcoozle goes to bed at eight p.m.). Your parents will call you on this bluff and threaten to call the Carcoozles to check Timothy’s bedtime. After some careful and long negotiations, your parents realize that it’s already 7:32 p.m., and thus past your bedtime, and yell at you to go to bed. So you go to bed that night, two minutes later than usual, victorious. Just wait until they hear about this tomorrow.

At some point, someone in the school yard becomes everyone’s hero, by claiming to have stayed up all night, one night so long ago. You’ve never heard of such a thing before. Staying up? All night? It sounds unbelievable! Suddenly you understand why you are alive. And that’s the ultimate achievement in childhood, really, to stay up so long that when the morning comes, you don’t have to get up, because you’re already up. You never went down. You’re still up. Constant up. And so you organize a sleepover with a friend, during which you plan to stay up all night. And truthfully, as that magical night progresses, it is likely you both slept through a whole chunk of it, but you both lie to yourselves and everyone else and say that you stayed up all night anyways. For weeks afterwards, you will tell stories about eating candy so late that it tasted even better and pretend to have understood what the hell was so funny about what Johnny Carson was saying. You’ve never felt so alive. You didn’t really do anything at all, but just staying up was good enough. Life was up, a natural high. Being up was better than being down. Being awake trumped being asleep every time.

So where did that magic go? Now everyone seems to have a different opinion about sleep. They want to sleep, or even worse, sometimes, they want to nap. People want to have not just one, but two bedtimes? You used to want zero bedtimes! Daytime sleep used to be a punishment. When did it become a reward? What a crock of poo. Much too often I hear people saying that they need a nap. Sometimes, they could really use a nap. How do you use a nap? One thing is certain, in order to use it and fulfill your need, first you have to take a nap. Doesn’t that just sound wrong? Taking a nap sounds like you’re breaking some kind of law, like you’re some kind of sleep thief. It’s as if somewhere there is a sleep guardian trying to protect his big reserve of naps that he normally would only keep for infants and cats. Because, you see, as children, naps are given to you.

“You’re a real grouchy wouchy boy, you need to have a nap. Here, have one. Now.”
“Where’s the baby?”
“He’s having a nap.”

But now, as a grown up, you have to sneak by and try and take one!

“Shhh! Keep it down will ya’? I’m trying to take a nap!”
“Oh, I didn’t realize, good luck. It’s usually easier to take one on the sofa.”
“That’s where I’m going, Bob Ross is on.”

For some people, a nap isn’t even good enough. Some people like to take it to the extreme. Some people require a POWERNAP. I guess this is a way for a lazy person to take a nap, without feeling like a lazy person. Sounds like you’re getting something done, doesn’t it? But, have you ever seen someone at their desk at work taking a powernap? They don’t look like they’re getting things done. They look like they just dropped dead on their desk. And how about how cruddy someone looks after a powernap? They certainly don’t look powerful. They look like they had the shit kicked out of them. Big crease on their face, hair messed up, breath smelling like ass, bags under the eyes which in turn are full of eye crusties, little bit of dried up drool on the cheek, and usually they look sort of confused… oh yeah, right, they’re just rarin’ to go, full power, blast off. What a bag of shit.

“You look tired, are you sure you’re ok?”
“Well, to be honest, I haven’t had a real night of sleep in a few days, but don’t worry, I just took a !!!!POWERNAP!!!!”

And then.

“Oh, in that case, doctor Pooterwhap, here’s your scalpel, let’s cut this bastard open.” or
“Oh, in that case, captain Zingfarb, let’s get this plane off the ground.” or
“Oh, in that case, Edward Scissorhands, go ahead and cut my hair.”

And then followed by.

“No problem. Let’s do this. But, wait, have you got any gum? I’ve got that nasty nap taste in my mouth.”

What makes sleep qualify as a nap anyways, and when should it just be considered as plain old sleep? Some think it’s the location of the sleep, like bed means sleep, sofa means nap. Others assume that it’s the length of the sleep, like short bursts of sleep are thus considered as naps. Some feel that it's the time of day, but what about those who work night shifts? I guess it could be a combination of all of those factors that turn sleep into a nap. Let’s just play it by ear. But what if one night you toss and turn a lot, and barely sleep at all? So you go to the sofa and try to doze off in front of the television? Could each of these short bursts be considered as naps?

“Geez Bill, you look like shit, did you sleep okay last night?”
“I didn’t sleep at all. I did take a series of naps though.”
“Oh, then get back to work, asshole.”

I guess sleep should be considered a nap if it occurs outside of your usual sleep schedule. But napping is for suckers. They never make you feel better, they make you feel like continuing your nap. Rather than confuse yourself and others around you, just go to sleep once per day, at your regular bedtime. If you are really tired from a long day of pretending to work and surfing the internet, and absolutely must go to sleep, then please commit to something, for once in your life, and just sleep all the way through to the following morning. Sometimes you may have stayed up way too late the night before, and your body is trying to act like strict parents, by telling your brain to punish you with daytime sleep.

“I can’t believe I stayed up so late past my bedtime when I told me not to. I barely made it to work on time. That’s it, go to my room! I’m going to bed without supper tonight!”

When you commit to an absurdly early bedtime at home, keep it safe, by putting up a reminder on the wall before you fall asleep stating that “YOU ARE JUST NAPPING”, because, in case you don’t sleep all the way through until morning, there really is nothing worse than waking up at eight at night and thinking that you’re going to be late for work, forgetting momentarily that you fell asleep mid-afternoon, and that it is still today, and not yet tomorrow morning. These dangers can also be easily avoided by simply not napping. I repeat that napping is for suckers.

Now, admittedly, sometimes naps are completely out of our control. Your body sentences you to random naps, no matter where you are currently located. These accidental naps don’t always happen in the home, or at opportune moments, unfortunately, and can become a great nuisance, or even great danger, if you don’t do your best to avoid them. Some examples of bad naps could be:

- Behind the wheel of a car
- Face down in a hot bowl of soup
- In the middle of a crosswalk
- Partway into a daredevil type of action stunt spectacular
- During intercourse
- Halfway into a cartwheel
- While skydiving (prior to pulling the ripcord)
- During a job interview
- While scuba diving or snorkelling
- In class or at work
- After eating a salami sandwich (now known as ‘Nightmare Sandwich’)
- While participating in the ‘Showcase Showdown’ (on ‘The Price is Right’)
- On a crowded bus (and then you fall over onto the asshole beside you)
- In an airplane bathroom (during a poop)
- During a competitive paintball tournament
- On an escalator
- While tandem kayaking through white water rapids
- Mid-sentence
- Atop a mechanical or living bull
- While bobbing for apples at a Halloween party (in costume)
- In a time machine
- After entering Thunderdome

Two men enter, one man leaves.

Bad smells, physical activity, bright lights, uncomfortable positions, self slaps in the face, fasting, loud music, caffeine, speed, big ol’ somersaults or lighting your hair on fire, are all decent ways of trying to stay awake when you feel yourself nodding off into an accidental nap. But, what I find works the best, is to focus on a time in your life when all you wanted to do was stay up late, and never go to sleep, before responsibility, before anything. Think of what being awake must have felt like then. Think about how every moment is a gift that you should cherish. Ninety-five percent of the time, this will cause you to gently drift off into a deep sleep even faster, but at least that way you fall asleep to happy thoughts. Did I mention that napping is for suckers?

That’s it. I could sure use a nap.