Tag Archives: humor

2022 Lance Family Holiday Card

Happy Holidays from Ger, Bowser, Yoshi, Koopa, and Jer!

Both Ger and I fondly recall playing the games on the backs of cereal boxes (or looking on with envy at the much cooler games on the backs of sugar cereals were were not allowed to consume, in some cases!!), so this year’s card theme is a cereal box replete with games and nutritional information!

The card can be found below, and below that, the answer key to the games, so be careful scrolling if you don’t want spoilers!

Continue reading 2022 Lance Family Holiday Card

Message Awards

Some thoughts about a new genre fiction award proposal in no particular order…

  1. If you are complaining about fiction that is overly politicized (especially so far as to call it “message fiction”) but fellate the weary corpse of Heinlein, I have to assume you’ve completely forgotten The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, Farnham’s Freehold, or pretty much his entire catalog! (And I say this as an enthusiast of Heinlein’s work; an enthusiast that owns nearly everything that he’s written—come on now!)
  2. If you complain about the burdensome message of horrible books that you’ve never read, I have less than no respect for your position. I managed to gut my way through some absolutely abhorrent tripe this Hugo season to be able to vote in an informed manner—it’s intellectually dishonest to make such claims from utter ignorance.
  3. At all costs, avoid following behind multiple years during which the Hugo awards were bombarded with claims of  nominations and votes governed by an empowered clique (without any evidence to support those fantastic claims) with an attempt to create a new award that will literally: have overlords in the form of a board of directors; have a rank of judges to disqualify works unilaterally based on perceived politics; and gate-keep nomination and voter membership by virtue of a trust web that can only be described as an algorithmic clique (unless you immediately acknowledge the almost-but-not-quite-funny irony of the proposal.)
  4. If you do the above and fail to call your award “The Cliquies,” you’re fucking dead to me.
  5. You cannot honestly and fairly make the claim that the only reason a convention would invite (for numerous years) a Hugo-winning, Nebula-winning, multiple other fucking award winning author is because of a shift to some kind of political correctness—especially in spite of NUMEROUS FUCKING EXAMPLES of honored guests of the opposite variety (and an equally ponderous amount to indicate that they’ve always invited “lefties”).1
  6. I will also accept, as a name for your award, “The Morissettes” (because it is, in fact, a little too ironic, dontcha think?)
  7. If you rail against “message fiction” because it replaces “good story” with “boring message,” then applaud the creation of a slate of replacements that includes “The Parliament of Beasts and Birds” and consider that to be completely reasonable behavior among adults, then not only do I hate you for clearly having failed to read Wright’s piece of shit, but I doubly hate you for forcing me to gut my way through that sack of message-laden drivel. Seriously, every fucking one of you that put that load of shit on the ballot should be ashamed of yourselves; that’s just fucking mean.2
  8. Another good name for your award is the “Message Awards” I’m not sure what the award would look like for this one, honestly, but I’m looking forward to seeing it.

On a more serious note; I am a huge fan of the idea of anybody who feels that their point of view (or their community’s point of view) is underrepresented by a given set of awards making their own awards. If nothing else, it stands a reasonable chance of encouraging more folks to read, and to read more widely. But don’t piss in my face and tell me it’s raining—if you want to make a symbolic middle-finger to the Hugos, own that shit. Pretending that you’re not creating a new clique to replace the clique from which you feel excluded while doing precisely that so transparently—well, it’s just insulting to all involved really.

 



1 I say this as Jer, a person who has been attending the convention in question for over a decade. My views are not those of Jer, member of the board of directors, nor do they in any way represent the views of Penguicon, the convention committee, or the board of directors.
2 I’m not kidding, I’ve read scriptures more compelling and Chick tracts with less blatant message.

Twilight “New Moon” in 73 Tweets

After having snarked my way through the entire first movie, “Twilight”, with just my wife to share my pain, I decided to share a bit more…expansively?…with the Intarwebs. Randy, Sheryl, Ger and I set up camp at the Castle and plodded our way through the flick while I live-tweeted my snark. The result is what is found below posted—in order—with time stamps based on movie-start (so that, if you happened to be a masochist, you could follow along).

Oh, my mini review? It sucked. It sucked only marginally less than did the first movie, which is like saying the Spanish Inquisition sucked less than the Crusades, because of the classy red hats (clearly, my knowledge of history is plucked straight from Monty Python, so please don’t confuse me by supplying corrections.) This movie sucked in a way that only another movie that closely adheres to a book that sucks could suck. It sucks in epic, painful, and entirely unfunny ways. Even if it were a sucky B-movie, I could stand watch again with friends to mock…I am unlikely to ever give this movie such treatment. It is more than it deserves. It is decidedly not good. I give it 13 thumbs down. Even if it were reshot with Kristen Stewart nude throughout, it would not be watchable.

Okay, the last bit is uncalled for…I would totally watch that. I love your Kristen Stewart, you and your emotionless face. I forgive you.

Anyway…without further ado, let’s get to the tweets: Continue reading Twilight “New Moon” in 73 Tweets

Top 15 Reasons I Will Be Passed Over for Father of the Year 2008

For a relatively intelligent guy, I make a lot of stupid mistakes. This also holds true when it comes to my parenting style (if, by “style”, we mean “series of not well thought out choices”). It is because of these that each year I jokingly suggest that I am not a likely candidate for Father of the Year. Here are the top 15 reasons why this year is not looking good…

15.If Found, Please Call…
While at the Renaissance Festival, it was pointed out to me that many of the other parents had written their phone numbers on a sticker on their child. Not to be outdone, I wrote my phone number and the phrases “Do Not Rape” and “No Kidnapping” in permanent black sharpie on both children on their arms and stomach. Sharpies are, as it turns out, more permanent that one would think.

14.Cody’s Giant Head
I’m sure that there is a special place in hell for people that purposely try to make someone else self conscious about a part of their body. I’m sure that the part of hell set aside for parents that do it to their children must be extra specially horrific. (But damn, look at the boy’s head!)

13.Tricking Children into Swearing
I am absurdly amused by the sound of swearing coming from my children, so much so that I get crazy enjoyment out of trying to trick them into swearing. They are too old for my favorite (having them sound out the spelled out version of a naughty word), but there is always value in the attempt. Most recently, that attempt has been in the form of foreign words and phrases.

12.Birthday Slaps
In 2006, an episode of “How I Met Your Mother” changed the lives of my children and I in a very specific (and ultimately painful) way. It started the birthday slap bet. Now, a good parent certainly wouldn’t allow his children to beat him about the face and neck in excess of thirty times, nor return the favor; but it is so funny. To be honest, this is probably the last year of the event; frankly, the kids are too damned big, and this shit is beginning to HURT.

11.Adam Sandler is Rarely Appropriate
Sitting around the table laughing at funny songs, everyone remembers the “Chanukah Song” (all three versions) and the “Thanksgiving Song” is safe enough; but what happens when you forget and queue up “At a Medium Pace” for the kids? What happens is they get the lyrics:

“Spit on your hand and stroke my cock at a medium pace,
play with my balls and tell me how big they are…

before you get a chance to hit stop. That was a great moment for us all.

10.Turkish Coffee
This is a gag that I have fallen for many times: the kids want to try something that I am consuming, I am sure that the flavor will dissuade them, and it utterly fails to. This iteration involved Turkish coffee at Al Sultan, which is particularly strong. I hand the little cups to each child assuming they’ll sip it, hate it, and move on. Instead, they sip it, catch the minty leave-behind , and proceed to down a full shot each. Any drink dispensed in shot form is definitely not a child’s drink. Most adults probably already knew this.

9.Extra Strong Salsa
Many of my moments of ineptitude stem from playing practical jokes on children that probably are best not done to such small people. In this case it was placing some insanely hot salsa in the center of Amber’s burrito. To give you an idea, I tried a dab the size of a pea, and it was PAIN personified. In Amber’s burrito, I placed about two teaspoons. She was feeling rough afterwards. Perhaps I should have tasted it first.

8.Enjoy the Nightmares
I had already seen the movie “Hot Fuzz” once, and couldn’t recall any bad parts so when the kids wanted to watch it with me, I saw no problems with it. As it turns out, there is a rather fantastic amount of blood in that movie; cartoonish amounts, actually. Whoops. To add insult to injury, each scene kept getting more and more grotesque than the one before until, when a certain building piece aligned (with great momentum) with a certain character’s head, even Amber said “I can’t believe we are allowed to watch this.” Nor can I, baby, nor can I.

7.Should Milk be Chunky?
At dinner, I pull out a nearly empty milk jug, noting that it is a full week past the expiration date. The sniff test is ambiguous, it doesn’t smell BAD, but it doesn’t smell good either. Amber picks up the jug and, with no fanfare, takes several huge swallows. She then confirmed that it doesn’t taste “quite right” then, seeing my discomfort, proceeded to put chocolate syrup in the jug, and finished off every last drop, punctuating her completion with a loud burp. You have to admire that commitment to fucking with me, even as your stomach turns.

6.Cold Showers
A simple formula: a pitcher of ice cold water, quiet feet, and an unsuspecting child in the shower minding his or her own business.

5.Children are not Cows
While visiting my fiance’s family farm, it occurred to me that the kids had never before seen an electric fence, so after a bit of time spent assuaging their fears, they were convinced to touch it. What I wasn’t aware was that modern, thyristor driven fences differ in many ways from the old style fences I was used to; the most notable of those ways was in intensity and duration of intensity. Testing the fence after the kids each complained of its strength showed me that this fucker HURT. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…oops.

4.Just Like Their Father
While driving somewhere, on a whim, I dug a booger from my nose and wiped it on my son’s arm expecting the obvious reaction. Instead, he calmly looked at me, scooped it up with his finger, and popped it into his mouth. “Delicious,” he uttered. There is a great deal of me in this child. (No pun intended)

3.Hunger Strike
Many of these items seem to relate to what my children eat; this relates to what they occasionally do NOT eat. More than once they have allowed me to sleep in, and when lunch time nears, the following conversation takes place:

Me: Alright, who’s hungry?

Them: We are starving, we haven’t eaten yet!

Me: You didn’t have breakfast?

Them: No, we were out of cereal.

The time to mention this would probably have been before lunch, eh?

2.The Beatings Will Continue…
I walk into the living room, preparing to don my belt when Amber takes off down the hall ahead of me. Overtaken by my inner hunter, I instinctively lash out with my belt, scoring an accidental direct hit on the back of Amber’s arm with my metal-studded belt.

Oh, it gets worse.

Cody observes that it couldn’t have hurt THAT much, and I take over 15 attempts to snap him in the ass with it before accidentally contacting his lower back. Best…father…evar.

And the grand winner, the reason of all reasons that I will not be getting the coveted “Father of the Year” prize this year is…

1.Birds and Bees
My ex and I decide to have “the talk” with the kids. As such things go, “us” talking to the kids tends to mean “me” talking while she nods along helpfully. This was no exception, and I did what I do best—extemporaneously recite off the cuff facts and manufacture a lecture from thin air. Most of the time this works out quite well; most of the time I’m not speaking to children. I cannot profess to recall everything that I touched on, but I can say with absolute certainty that the concepts of beastiality, masturbation, birth control, and multiple-partner-sex came up. Yes, the first item on the list was beastiality. No, I don’t know how that came about.

As I have said, it’s not looking good for this year. Maybe next? What is, I suppose, most troubling with this list is that it is not yet Thanksgiving as I write it, and these 15 came fairly quickly and easily. I still have the entire month of December during which I can make even more stupid mistakes. It is rather scary when you think about it.


 

[Edit] I can add another to this list, as I allowed the kids to read this list while I was getting ready this morning. It was only when they both giggled maniacally and I glanced over their shoulder that I realized there was, perhaps, something worse than playing the Adam Sandler song for them; that being, of course, typing out the lyrics for them to read. Well played!

The Saga of the Haircut

I got my hair cut yesterday, and the ordeal that is my hair has reached a new level…but first, some explanation.

It began with the first visit. My new barber is an elderly gentleman, he couldn’t weigh more than 110 pounds soaking wet, and had just gotten done with an admirable job scissor-cutting my shaggy mop of far-too-long hair. There was, however, something of a language barrier—I am terrible with accents —so there was some confusion when he offered me some service that I cannot entirely understand. He was offering to “clean up” the area around my temples and the hairs on my ears. Finally, after much gesticulating on his part and confusion on mine, I figured, “Why not?!” and agreed to whatever this service might be.

Oops.

He then moved over to the counter and picked up a tongue depressor covered in thick, hot wax, which he immediately applied to my temples in two swift motions. He then returned to the pot of wax and dipped in two halves of a broken Q-Tip, each of which goes into one of my ears. While I was in shock from this turn of events, two additional Q-Tips were placed in my nose.

Into… my… ears… and… nose… What is it with me and wax in odd places?

But as everyone knows, the bad part of wax isn’t the putting-ON, but the getting-OFF. With malicious, evil glee this demonic little elf from hell ripped each wax strip from my head slowly and methodically, eliciting yelps and tears from my normally stoic visage. In the common parlance, that shit hurt! And he LOVED doing it.

“But Jer,” I can hear you saying, “it’s not personal, the man is just doing job.” Wrong! Allow me to prove it to you…

The next time I went, I was prepared. I had used scissors to trim my nose hairs and those in my ears and I used a razor to shave the hair around my temples. I was giving the barber no reason to even consider the wax. So he did his thing on my hair and, when done, examined my cleanly shaved temples and asked if I wanted to get everything waxed. I demurred in an uncharacteristically non-confrontational fashion, and was taken aback when he insisted, then quickly applied the wax to my ear again.

Damnit, he got me again, and the game was on.

On my next visit, I was going to be firm. I was taking no shit. I was NOT going to have my follicles violated by the fiery fingers of waxy perdition. This time, when he offered, I clearly said no. He offered again, expressing a strong desire to attack my face with wax, and again I firmly stated, “No, that will not be necessary.” He acknowledged my wishes. He stuck the waxy Q-Tip in my ear. I did not see that coming.

Barber: 3, Jer: 0

People at this point were asking me why I would go back. “Why,” they would inquire, “would you go through this time and again?” Well, for one thing, the haircut is phenomenal, and I have a really hard time finding someone to do my hair that I really like that is also affordable. More importantly, though, the game is fascinating. I live for this shit. If nothing else, my hair-care has now turned into a fun story; and how can I end it voluntarily?

I absolutely won the next confrontation. When the barber turned to grab the wax, I immediately lept from my seat and started digging in my pocket for cash, telling him that I was all set. I could see the look of disappointment in his eyes, but also a glint of something—challenge perhaps? Indeed, this round went to me…

Barber: 3, Jer: 1

Yesterday, I dove back into the fray once again, determined to win back another “point” in our little game of cat and mouse. I failed. As the service came to a close, not a word about waxing had been spoken. The barber removed my “bib” and began cleaning the hair off from me. “Perhaps,” thought I, “the events from last time have ended the game?” So convinced, was I, of my win that I barely even registered the conversation he was having in some foreign language with the gentleman sweeping the floor nearby. Imagine my surprise, then, when—after wiping the hair from my face with a towel—the towel was removed to reveal what had been taking place while my view was obstructed.

As the towel left my face, I was granted the briefest of glimpse of the floor sweeper in the process of placing a wax-covered Q-Tip into my left ear. Before I could react, the damage was done. Defeated, I accepted my punishment and allowed wax to be applied to my other ear and temples, drawing the line at the removal of nose hair.

Barber: 4, Jer: 1

Well played, sir…well played, but you have tipped your hand. This deft a maneuver could not have been executed by a man merely performing his work. These are not the machinations of a craftsman accomplishing his trade. These are the actions of a genius practicing his works of evil on an unsuspecting innocent.1 Yes, this is personal.

I will not be defeated. I have formulated a master plan that involves placing a healthy dollop of baby oil in each ear and nostril before the next haircut.2 The next round will be mine!

 


1 For some definitions of the word innocent
2 Co-worker Joe points out that, in the grand scheme of things, if I spend the day with baby oil in my nose and ears, that really might constitute a win for the other side. He might be right. That thought is distressing.

Lancemas Traditions

My kids cannot completely comprehend how much different the people they call “Grandma” and “Grandpa” are than the people I call “Mom” and “Dad”; but before I can adequately describe how different the Christmas experience is for my children as compared to that of mine, it is important for me to describe to you the psychological torture that is a Lance Christmas (heretofore known as Lancemastm).

Obtaining the Tree

There was no such thing as a parking-lot tree for the Lance’s. Instead, we would bundle up and go looking for a tree in the woods. As a child it never really occurred to me, but I’m reasonably confident now that such forays almost had to be illegal…at least I don’t recall cash changing hands for the privilege of trudging through knee-deep-on-a-child snow in the Central New York winter to find the perfect tree…and I do mean perfect. No tree was precisely right. This is too short, that is too tall, long-needled pines were preferred over those with short, well balanced was a necessity, full branches dense with needles obviously, and of course an arrow-straight trunk. Mind you, this wasn’t something we dreaded; as testimony to how short our memories were, each year we were giddy to go our tree and started anew the transition from excitement to exhaustion to misery.

Decorating the Tree

Of course, once we’ve dragged home the perfect tree, trimmed it up properly, and stood it PERFECTLY LEVEL in the living room (a process that is not without it’s own nightmarish stories) it is, of course, time to decorate the tree. There is a process involved in hanging ornaments from the tree that is so intricate—so complex—so beyond mortal comprehension—that even 25 years of devoted instruction couldn’t yield unto us its secrets.

It begins with the tree topper; of which we always had two. An angel from my father’s youth and a star. Never once, in 31 Christmases, has that star made it to the top of the tree. Not once. It’s not that we didn’t LIKE the angel, but my brother and I desperately wanted nothing more than to see the fucking star atop the fucking tree just ONE DAMNED TIME!1

Next up is the ornamentation, which would seem to be a fairly simple, straight-forward process. Of course, if you thought that, you would be a complete idiot. There is a method, and it goes a little something like this:

Store-bought ornaments go on last, aside from those given as gifts…or those that have meaning…or those that aren’t generic…or those that are otherwise special. All ornaments are to be hung in a balanced manner around the tree. That means no ornaments too near one another, and certainly no similar ornaments near one another. What constitutes similarity between ornaments? It can’t be described to you, but I will assure you that when you get it wrong, you’ll be made aware. Obviously transparent or translucent ornaments should be hung in front of a light (save for where it would violate the “ornaments too near one another” rule), ornaments should be hung ALL THE WAY around the tree (but the “good” ones will be hung up front [unless it violates the aforementioned “ornaments too near one another” rule]). Oh, and don’t break one. Just don’t.

After the tears have been dried and the fights have been ended from the ornaments, it’s time for the tinsel. The tinsel is my special form of hell, because it must be hung one strand at a time.

One…frigging…strand…at…a…time…

I don’t think you can completely grasp the amount of tinsel that comes in one dollar-store card until you’ve had to cover a tree (tastefully) with three cards worth one strand at a time. Suffice to say, it’s a LOT.

The Interminable Wait

Lucky for my brother and I, my parents are notoriously early risers. On the other hand, my father is a notoriously sadistic human being who, I am reasonably confident, produced offspring solely to have two new people on which to experiment with his mind-games of evil. There is a routine that was followed, without deviation, every Christmas morning that was sure to drive my brother and I mad, and it went a little something like this (all times relative to wake time):

    :00 My parents exit their room. They mill about for a bit. My brother and I start to get really, really excited.
+ :10 The smoking of the morning cigarette. Impatient, we ask mom how long it will be. The answer is a derisive laugh.
+ :25 The making of (and consumption of) the first cup of coffee. During the actual brewing process one parent would head outside to retrieve the morning paper. We…are…slowly…losing…our…minds…
+ :35 The first trip to the bathroom. At this point, the coffee and cigarette has clearly shaken something loose, so my father grabs a healthy section of the paper and heads for the bathroom for what can only be described as an endless period of colonic cleansing. My brother shrieks in frustration…we fairly well BEG our mother to find a way to hustle dad along. Mom shrugs helplessly.
+ :55 Morning deuce-drop a success, dad comes out and starts up the fire in the woodstove because overnight, it has gotten cold in the house. We could NOT GIVE LESS OF A FUCK how cold it is. If we were sitting in a SHACK IN SIBERIA, we wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about the fire, we just want to open presents.
+ 1:05 While the fire is being tended to, Dad ponders aloud if we should, perhaps, have a big breakfast before we open presents. Perhaps bacon and eggs? Oh, and should we get dressed? And perhaps a shower? Oh sweet mother of god, what the hell are you doing? Now that we’ve rounded the one hour mark, it’s fair to say that we are both fairly well ready to vibrate across the floor, and still, no presents.
+ 1:20 The fire done, it’s time for another cigarette and another cup of coffee. WHAT THE FUCK!
+ 1:25 Dad drags a footrest over in front of the pile of presents and prepares to start handing out gifts. We are in significant danger of pissing ourselves. At long, long last, we are ready!
+ 1:26 Nope, false alarm. We can’t possibly start, there’s no Christmas music playing. Dad slowly rises to his feet and picks through his rather tremendous CD library in search of the PERFECT Christmas CDs for the occasion to load into the changer. Are you kidding me? For 10 frigging years you’ve put the same 5 CDs in the changer. TEN YEARS!Just put Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, A Very Special Christmas 1, Chet Atkins, and Alabama in the damned CD player and move on! (As a side note, those CDs have absolutely become the soundtrack of Christmas to me)
+ 1:35 Well, all that moving around and coffee must have knocked some more loose, because it’s time for another trip to the bathroom, huge handful of the newspaper in tow. SWEET MERCIFUL JESUS CHRIST, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? There cannot be more in there. It’s not physically possible. You might need a trip to the emergency room if you have to do that kind of bathroom wreckage again…but we can tend to that AFTER THE DAMNED PRESENTS!

And at nearly two hours after their wakeup (typically some four hours after our wakeup) it is finally time to open gifts.1

Handing out the Gifts

Obviously, we can’t just dive into the presents. That wouldn’t be organized and torturous enough. We have a long standing tradition in which dad hands out the presents one at a time; slowly. Occasionally you would find him stopping in puzzlement because we appeared to be out of presents when, clearly, we were not. So…very…slowly. We were not allowed to get into the presents on our own, though. It was just flat-out not allowed. My brother and I both recall getting into them once…just one time…but neither of us recall what the results were. How horrifying must it have been if we can’t even recall what happened, but we knew enough never to touch the presents again.

Carrying on the Traditions

So what, of this, do my kids have to go through? They show up to a tree that is already up with lights on it and an angel on the top of the tree.2 They put the decorations on any way they want, and if I correct their decoration placement, I’m too controlling. They literally HURL tinsel at the tree in gigantic fist-fulls with no thought to making the strands appear to be delicate little icicles forming.

In the morning, they wake up and open their stockings. They move presents around. They eat chocolate. They suffer only a scant few minutes of torture before my father gives out the gifts. They even touch the presents.

If it sounds like I’m tattling, it’s because I am. Someone must be told! I tried to tell my parents, but they just look at me like I’m crazy.

I’m not crazy, right?

 


1 In later years, the addition of a home video camera setup was added to this…given many of our sarcastic and dry senses of humor, the camera plan did not last long, as plans go.

2This year, dad retired the old angel from the tree. What did he put up in its place? A NEW ANGEL. Not the star, A NEW ANGEL. That star will never see the top of our tree. Never!

The Office Dating Game

Somewhere in the early 2000s, I ran the IT Department for a modestly sized marketing firm in southeast MI. When I say that I ran the IT Department, a more honest assessment would be that I was the most senior IT person in a modestly sized department. As such, I was responsible for all of the technical issues that would come up on a daily basis, in addition to all of the behind the scenes work that goes into making the servers run and the email arrive.

Being a small company, everyone knew everyone else; and everyone had an opinion of everyone else. It was easy to pick out which employees got along, and which did not. For nearly every employee, you could find a nemesis; a polar opposite. Almost everyone had their arch-rival; mine was Don1.

Don was everything that was wrong with white collar society. He was a smarmy, over-educated but under-intelligent, sycophantic bastard, and I detested him. When he quit to follow his wife to another state for her job, I (somewhat) silently cheered. When I heard months later that he divorced his wife because she was cheating on him, I did a small Irish jig in the main conference room. When he came back to work for us again, it was all I could do not to leap from my ninth-story window. He would take every available opportunity to make my life miserable, and I would do the same to him. Then, one day the ultimate revenge fell into my lap…

On a fine, sunny day in late September, a few months after his return to the company, the anti-Jer wandered into my office carrying his computer in his hands. Already, I was enraged. What is he doing with this computer in his hands? He’s not allowed to disconnect his computer. He’s not allowed to carry it around the building. As he dumps it unceremoniously onto the corner of my desk, he says brusquely, “It’s running slowly, I need it back by tomorrow”, and walks quickly from my office.

This is exactly why I keep my office door locked.

Knowing that he won this round, I opted not to fight the inevitable, and I booted up his system. Just as I thought, tons of installed software and extra crap is being loaded on startup, slowing everything down. In a gesture of defiance, I decide to baseload his system and load user rights management on it. In preparation, I started copying his user directory to the server. While waiting for the copy to complete, I called a friend and spoke to him briefly about plans that evening. It was during this conversation that sweet, sweet revenge came a-knocking.

“You have to come down here right now and look at this!” I exclaimed.

“What is it?” Gary asked.

“Just come look…”, I said, before disconnecting the conversation.

Moments later, I was showing Gary what has passed before my eyes just a few minutes before. A directory named “Personals” with subdirectories for “Adult Friend Finder”, “Yahoo Personals”, “eHarmony”, and several other dating sites. Inside of each directory was a series of pictures of Don, a Word document containing his advertisement blurb, and, most importantly, his log of conversations with people from each site. It was a veritable goldmine of usable information…but what to do with it?

We called our friend Ron, the only other smoker, and invited him out for a cigarette, where we related to him what we had found. It was Ron who put to bed our ideas of turning Don in or blackmailing him in favor of something much more fun. Starting a relationship with him. We agreed to go out for drinks that night to formulate a plan of attack.

The next day, I returned Don’s computer to him, and I couldn’t even find it in myself to respond to his barbs because I was too excited about what the day had in store. I hustled back to my office and got right to work.

First, I searched the web for images of a woman. Specifically, I needed to find a very pretty brunette (Don’s preference) with photos that did not look professional, and more importantly, I had to be able to get several clothed pictures of her and at least one revealing photo. I found what I was looking for on some young woman’s vanity site.

I then created an account on one of his less popular free dating sites. I created a profile that matched his “ideals” nearly precisely, gave an address that was in a neighborhood near-but-not-too-near to his, uploaded one of my pictures, and entered “Elizabeth’s” ad.

Gary, Ron, and I had spent most of the evening trying to figure out what to say, and had ultimately come up with a masterpiece that extolled the virtues of shorter men, the love of movies, the lack of desire to travel, and an adoration of hockey. The adoration of hockey nearly ruined us several times, as there was not a hockey fan among our number. Later, once things got going, we recruited Allen as our hockey expert.

Our plan was to wait a few days, then message Don as if we had just run across his ad, but things were hastened when he replied to our ad that same day. During work hours no less! I quickly printed off his message, grabbed Gary and Ron, and we left to go smoke. Over our smoke break, we read his message several times and formulated a response. When I got back to my office, I sent it off, and thus began our beautiful relationship.

It was apparent, right off, that Don was as full of himself as we had always believed. It was hard to ignore or, worse, applaud some of his ridiculously self-aggrandizing statements. When he talked about how much he wasn’t “hard on the eyes” or how important it was that he keep his body “rock hard”, it would stump us. How would an actual woman respond to such stupidity? More to the point, how stupid must we make “Elizabeth” sound that she wouldn’t laugh at such idiocy? Nevertheless, we plugged on; it would be worth it.

We began to run into an issue when he wanted to meet with Liz. We had made her an ER nurse at a hospital that was local enough to seem reasonable while being far enough to dissuade him from trying to surprise her at work. The ER concept was a godsend, allowing us to schedule dates with Don then cancel the day before or the day of due to work several times. Between the crazy ER nurse hours and her long drive to work, it was easy to paint a picture of her as someone that was just very busy at the moment and unable to make schedules work out. Fortunately, she had a promotion coming soon that would reduce her hours dramatically. Until then, Don had to make due with an increasingly sexual text-based relationship.

Why text based? On three or four separate occasions, we communicated with him by phone using my friend’s girlfriend, Lisa, as our proxy. This proved to be unnerving to all of us, because Lisa laughed when she was nervous, and she was not good at extemporaneous speaking. She would just freeze while we fed her something to say. Fortunately, Don was not the sharpest pencil in the box, and chalked up her lack of ability to communicate to general nervousness. The upside to Lisa, however, was that she had a sexy phone voice. When he started talking a little dirty to her, she took off on her own and, in no time, was getting phone-sex-operator nasty with the dwarven geek. We had to keep voice conversation minimal, because even a chud like Don would notice her inability to do anything but phone sex with any degree of normalcy sooner or later.

By the end of October, Don was getting restless. We had put him off as long as we could, but his interest seemed to be waning due to the lack of physical or even vocal contact. Things had gone as far as they could go; or so we thought.

In retrospect, a few less beers consumed by each of us would have probably made our thought process a bit more clear. Had Allen not bought several rounds of shots (he was a regular in our group now), we would have probably rethought our brilliant finale. As it turned out, we got just drunk enough that our brilliance knew no bounds. We decided to meet him for lunch on Halloween. It began as a simple enough plan; plan to meet him at the Mongolian barbecue, show up before he does, take a picture of him getting stood up, and drop off a printout of all of the emails and the picture on his desk later on. It was fantastic.

Then it got better.

I made a joke about showing up and saying “Hi” to him. That turned into me showing up in a wig, which ultimately transformed into me showing up in full drag and introducing myself to him as Liz. That, ultimately, was the downfall of the experiment.

On that fateful day, I called in sick to work so that Don wouldn’t see me in my pretty blue dress. We had set lunch for noon, so Gary, Ron, and Allen had all arrived at 11:30 so they could get seats overlooking the fun. At 12:15 I entered the restaurant.

To say that Don had a puzzled look on his face when he saw me walk through the door would have been an understatement. I must have looked quite a sight, and I relished in his demeanor change as his glance moved down from my long black hair haphazardly stuffed under a platinum Marilyn Monroe wig (the only we had available), past my goatee covered face, along my tattooed and hairy arms, below my wide hips, and across my hairy legs, coming to a rest upon my work boots. His confusion slowly dissolved into amusement, then was quickly replaced by shock as I approached his table. Horror overtook his features as I stopped across from him and said “Don? I’m Liz!” in my rather masculine voice.

There were many ways to react to this. Really level people would realize what had happened, see the humor, and laugh it off. Most people would get very angry and storm off, plotting revenge. There is a third option; extreme aggression. This is not an option that we had taken into account. When Don leapt to his feet, my assumption was that it was to rush from the building. When he cocked his fist and swung at me, I was taken completely off guard. I ducked and punched him. He lost his balance and fell to the ground.

It was madness. Rather than get arrested in full drag, I chose to sprint for the door before Don could regain his feet. I would live to fight another day.

The epilogue to this epic battle is that, for the next two months, work was a very uncomfortable place. At no point was our little joke ever brought up…and his dating foibles became similarly off limits. In December, I quit to pursue a better option, but I would like to think that Don still thinks twice before he dates on the Internet from work. And the moral that you can take with you from this story? Maybe, just maybe, you should be nice to your IT people.

 


1 All names changed, because some of these people might want to work in this town again.

Manscaping

First, if a member of my family is reading this; or for that matter, anyone who is squeamish, not amused by the pain of others, or easily offended…just do all of us a favor and skip this entry.

Seriously, move along.

You’ll be sorry…

As 2006 started, my then-girlfriend, Terra, The offending wax kithad all but moved into my house, and as such all manner of feminine products had taken up residence in my bathroom. This is a phenomena that I will be investigating further at some point in the future, but for now, suffice to say there was no end to the strange devices and products with which I have little experience that have invaded my life. Among these things…a waxing kit.

Now, I have been staring at this thing since I came back from my Christmas trip to NY, and every time I enter my bathroom it calls to me…try me…try me…

As a guy, there are limitations as to what I can wax…if I was to wax my legs, arms, or chest…that would just be inappropriate (since I am not a body builder, a swimmer, or trying to pick up men). My head was a option, but I’m tired of the bald look, and it is winter. That pretty much left my “equipment”.

Yeah…that equipment.

So, I hook up the warming apparatus, and proceeded to read the instructions. It is important to note that, as a guy, I suffer from vanity. As such, when the directions indicated to try this on a small patch of hair first as a test, I literally could not do so. I was constitutionally incapable. Even though I would be the only one to know that I was such a weakling that I actually tested a small area, I just couldn’t. So, I covered my taint and sack with hot wax.

After the waxy coating, I added those nifty cloth strips (three to the sack, one to the taint), waited a moment for the wax to do its hardening thing, then gave a test tug to one of the sack-attached strips.

Instant tears.

“Okay,” I thought, “this is going to be pretty painful, but, hey, I’m a man, I can take it, right?” With that pep talk, I psyched myself up and decide that strip one is coming off like a band-aid, right now.

One scream and a lot of tears later, I’m laying in a ball on the floor. Wow!

The only upside to this is that there’s only three more to go, right? Wrong! Upon closer inspection, all four strips are still in place. Apparently, I failed to take into account the elastic nature of my bag of jewels. Yanking the strip merely stretched my balls to about my knees, but did not remove the strip or any hair. Panic sets in. I need to get these strips off, and pulling again just ain’t happening. I finally realize that perhaps a hair dryer would soften the wax sufficiently to remove it semi-painlessly. Wrong. You lie, random person from the Internet! The amount of heat that would be required to melt the wax is far in excess of what my nuts can take applied directly to them… and an iron? You are sick and cruel! This left only one thing to do… grab my sack (literally) and yank the hell out of the strips.

At any rate, I then proceeded to expediently yank the strips from my genital region with much screaming, howling, pain and, yes, bleeding.

Bleeding? The instructions said nothing of blood coming from the very holes in which my hairs used to reside. What manner of false advertising is this?

After bathing away the folicular blood and soaking for a while to help rinse away the Not my balls, but not too dissimilar eitherpain and horror that this stunt has caused, I found a new problem… actually, two of them. First, not all the hair went away. Second, not all the wax went away either. Unfortunately, the first problem left me looking like I had the genital mange, so I was forced to shave after my botched wax job. Hey, do you know what hurts almost as much as waxing your nuts? Shaving your freshly mangled nuts, that’s what, especially with wax still present. The second problem left me painfully, carefully un-sticking my badly butchered sack from the floor of the bathtub. Insult, meet injury.

With the benefit of a few days between me and my waxy pain, I finally could comfortably do a search to find out what I did wrong… and I found this article with an important part I’ll quote for you here:

Yes, Mr. Whittall, it does, it certainly does.

The moral of the story? Well, there are many morals you could take away from this story: Don’t wax your balls would be chief among them, but read the instructions is probably in there too. Perhaps, simply put, don’t be me?

Messy the Pooh

Sadly, I did not get a chance to post this when it happened on Tuesday.

There is some chemical property of McDonalds’ coffee that has a very negative effect on my gastro-intestinal system. Specifically, it runs straight through me. Now, understand that I’m not referring to the normal coffee-induced pooping that is a result of your average cup of Joe. No, gentle reader, the effect to which I refer can best be described by the phrase “pissing out my ass”. Keep all of this in mind when I say that Tuesday morning, on the way into school, I picked up a tall cup of this special brew on my way to an Econ test.

I’m a glutton for punishment, I guess.

So at 7:30 in the morning, I’m finishing my large coffee as I take what should be a pretty simple part 1 of an exam…when I feel a gurgling in my stomach. I have to shit…no, I have to shit NOW! I’m talking about a degree of urgency that doesn’t say “You should go to the bathroom” or even “You should run to the bathroom”, but “You should run to the bathroom, and bring your cup, in case you have to stop along the way and shit in THAT!” Things were urgent.

I’ve never used the bathrooms on the third floor of this building, so I race down the hall with a 50/50 chance of the direction I’ve chosen being the Men’s room…and a 50/50 chance of it being the ladies room.

Guess which I picked?

For a brief moment, I considered just using the women’s restroom, but the damage I was going to visit upon the toilet was something I couldn’t bring myself to do in anything but a men’s room. Chagrined, I pressed on, retracing my steps and heading to the men’s room.

Walking like a duck. POWERwalking like a duck.

By the time I got to the stall, the urgency had reached a fever pitch. Luckily my pants are oversized, because I didn’t unbuckle my belt or unbutton my pants, I just smoothly slid everything down below my ass and let fly as my ass approached the seat.

The extra few seconds I saved by not waiting until my ass was in actual contact with the seat was my downfall. You see, what came out of my orifice had the appropriate color and odor, but aside from that bore absolutely no resemblance to crap. To begin with, it was purely liquid. More importantly, it came out of my ass at an ALARMING velocity. Fortunately, I was able to stop myself from sitting all the way down, because the vile matter that was being expelled from my colon sprayed all over the seat, the floor, the back wall…even a little on the side-walls of the stall. It was horrifying.

When the initial volley ended, I popped the door open, peeked around the bathroom to ensure that I was alone, and scooted into the next stall so I could sit down and finish my business. A few moments later, I was finished and cleaned, and I started pulling some paper towels to mop up my mess…

…but I really should get back to my test, right?

So I ditched my mess and went back to my test. Mission accomplished, no harm, no foul…except the guy that sits at my desk with me then gets up to go to the bathroom. It did not occur to me that anything could go wrong when he returned and said, in a very loud voice, “Someone shit ALL OVER the bathroom. It’s all over the place, it’s in like, three stalls!”

To which I responded, “It was ONE STALL!”

Then I realized what I’d done…and just went back to doing my test.

Nobody has mentioned it to me yet.

The Shitting Bandit

A friend of mine was always fond of saying that the Army was like high school, only more so. Every time I think of that quote, I cannot help but be reminded of the story of the “Shitting Bandit”, and the high school-esque hijinks surrounding that summer in 1995 in Seoul, South Korea.

To set the scene, we were living in a barracks that amounted to a straight, three-story high monolith consisting of a straight hall with four-person cube rooms lined up on each side. The outside wall of each room had two huge, screen-less windows that slid open to reveal a gap a full grown man could walk through with barely a duck of his head.

Oh, and the locks only consistently worked on the second floor windows (the girls’ floor, go figure).

Adding to our security woes, due to ongoing construction of some sort throughout the summer there was scaffolding in place the length and height of one side of the building. Many an evening was spent drunk on the roof of the barracks due to our easy access.

In short, the security of our rooms could have used some improvement.

The legend of the Shitting Bandit began simply enough…with a pile of shit in the shared first floor shower.

Now, when I say “in the shower” what I mean, to be very specific, is dead center of the community shower, neatly coiled, right next to the drain.

A sum total of six or seven people saw it first hand, and it was quickly cleaned up. A stern announcement was made at formation. No one was caught.

Less than a week later, this one-time incident was repeated, except this time, the offending offal was left dead in the middle of the hall, immediately outside the bathroom door on the first floor.

Many more people saw it, and it was quickly cleaned up. A stern announcement was again made at formation. No one was caught.

Two weeks went by before the ante was again upped, and the offender officially became a serial shitter. This time, after several days of inexplicable, horrific smells from the first and third floor bathrooms, a huge helping of crap was found inside the grill of the wall heaters in both rooms.

Everyone smelled it; a few saw it. It was cleaned professionally. A series of announcements were made at formation. A memo was placed into circulation by our commander. No one was caught.

At this point, it was funny to nearly all (save for those on whom it fell to clean up the offending feces), but the next events really brought matters home…literally. Less than two weeks after the last event, a turd was found in the heater grill of three different sleeping quarters.

Several people saw it; everyone heard about it; twelve people were intimately and directly affected. It was professionally cleaned. Many more announcements were made at formation. Another memo was placed into circulation from our commander. The name “The Shitting Bandit” was coined.

Once the bandit started hitting rooms, a (forgive the obvious pun) shitstorm erupted. Nothing was safe. For weeks, crap was found everywhere imaginable. In room heaters, on a paper plate on someone’s bed, in the drinking fountain, in a baggie hung from the bulletin board…everywhere. At one point, a tupperware dish packed full of shit was found in the refrigerator in the CQ office, which is staffed 24/7. The shitting bandit was a magician; an evil magician that works exclusively with poop.

Things had gotten out of hand. Everyone saw dookie. Announcements were made daily at formation by the commander himself. Memos were sent out by our Colonel. Guards were posted. Window locks were repaired. A “town hall” meeting was called. Rumors started that the shit was being DNA tested. Still, no one was caught.

One day, with no warning, it all stopped. Just like that, the Shitting Bandit had gone into retirement. Theories that had been bandied about that the Bandit was actually several people acting individually were suddenly discarded; if it were many people, how would one explain the abrupt stop? Fear and confusion replaced amusement and mirth. For weeks, soldiers were petrified whenever they opened wall lockers or turned down their beds…what would happen next!?

As it turns out, nothing did. The story ended as anticlimactically as an Austen novel. No one was ever found and nothing ever came of any investigation that might have happened. We all have theories, but I am confident that I know who did it. My close friend and drinking buddy, Mike, had all the earmarks: the past experience breaking into rooms as the “Ether Bunny” (a great story for another time), the disturbing habits, the lack of disgust with bodily waste, the ability, the time…but most of all, the normally outspoken Mike would sit back quietly and listen intently whenever the Bandit was discussed. Rather than join in the theory-filled conversations, he would kick back with an amused expression on his face and observe. It simply had to be him…and he is an evil genius.

I really need to look him up…

Porno for Pyros (and Entomologists)

In 1995, two friends, my girlfriend at the time, and I moved into a huge house in a nice neighborhood near Fort Lee, Virginia. Because we were young and dumb, the 5 bedroom, 2 and one half bath mini-mansion quickly fell into a state of disrepair, as most party houses do, but no party damage could rival that caused by an invasion of bees and my attempt to exterminate them.

One day in the late spring, I arrived at home and noticed, as I waited for the garage door to finish raising, that there were an awful lot of bees swarming around the entrance. As the days progressed, the swarm grew.

Now, I hate bees. In fact, I don’t like any stinging insects. These invaders needed to go.

The next day, I bought several cans of Raid spray and, upon my arrival at home, sprayed the walls, roof, porch, ground, and bushes in an attempt to dissuade the pests from hanging around my garage. The next day, it was apparent that it didn’t work. They were back in full force, completely unimpressed with my attempts to evict them.

I decided to perform some reconnaissance. I went out that evening, when bees sleep, and looked for a nest. That was when I saw the hole that they had been flying in and out of… and it was huge. It was roughly the diameter of a golf ball, and fairly deep looking. I sprayed the hole down with the last of the Raid, and went in to call my father, because if anyone would know how to deal with this problem, my father would.

Just a short while on the phone with dad gave me the hope I needed. According to him, all I needed was to pour gas into their nest at night, and my problem would be solved.

So I went to the local gas station and purchased a second five gallon gas can full of gas to go with my mostly full five gallon can at home. I figured, whatever was left over after I filled the hole could be used in my car or lawn mower. With my gas ready, I dressed for the occasion.

I know I mentioned that I hate bees, but I don’t think I conveyed the depths to which I abhor these stinging little beasties. I hate bees! Not wanting to get stung, I went a bit overboard. An outer layer that included a flannel shirt, oversized jeans, and a pair of combat boots concealed layer two: a hooded sweatshirt, sweatpants, and thick wool socks. I hid my hands in heavy winter gloves, and covered my head and face with a hood, a scarf, and a pair of motorcycle goggles. There wasn’t a bit of unprotected flesh exposed.

This, in all likelihood, saved my life.

At midnight, the hour when I felt the bees would be most asleep and least likely to stir, I proceeded with my plan. I went outside with my 8 or so gallons of gas and box of strike-anywhere matches and began the process of exterminating the bugs. I started to pour gas into the hole.

Do you know the sound that a drain makes when you pour water straight down the center of it? That is the noise the hole made as the gas disappeared into its maw. I kept pouring and pouring, waiting for the hole to fill so I could stop… and the hole just wouldn’t fill. I started on the second gas can when the first was empty, and unloaded the bulk of that into the hole before I gave up. My best estimate is that was about 6 or 7 gallons of gasoline in the hole when I finished.

Now it was time for the lighting ceremony. I took a strike anywhere match, lit it, and threw it at the hole, making sure to stand plenty far enough away to be out of harm’s way.

The match went out.

I lit another and, edging closer, threw it at the hole.

The match went out.

Edging closer still, I threw another lit match at the hole.

The match went out.

Being the problem solver that I am, I created a solution. I rolled up a newspaper, lit it on fire, and stuffed it into the hole.

Well, near the hole at least.

Several problems conspired to make this situation dangerous. First, the amount of time I spent dicking around with the matches allowed plenty of gas vapor to accumulate near the hole. Second, gas vapor—as it turns out—is VERY combustible. Third, my newspaper starter was sufficiently short so as to force my arm to be very near the entrance to the hole. Finally, there was a LOT of gas in that hole.

Well, in roughly the amount of time it took for me to think, “Oh shit, this was a bad idea!” my plan went horribly awry. The flaming paper, as it became proximate to the hole, ignited the vapor surrounding the hole. The process of sudden, rapid vapor ignition could best be described as a Big Fucking ExplosionTM. The explosion shook the ground, the concrete slab that was my front porch split, the foundation of the house cracked, and a plume of flame shot out of every place in my lawn where the system of tunnels I had filled with gas met the surface. Unfortunately one of those outlets was immediately beneath a bush in my yard; so my bush lit on fire. A river of fire, originating farther down my lawn, flowed its way into the road where it puddled.

Oh, and my shirt was set aflame. It was chaos.

So there I am, running around with my clothing on fire, a bush burning like something out of a Bible story, a river of fire blazing like a sign of the apocalypse, when my neighbors come out to watch the show. Did anyone help? Not a chance; they just came to watch the show. Even my roommates were just observing dispassionately out the window.

I ultimately managed to put myself out (Stop, Drop, and Roll people… Stop, Drop, and Roll), and after a fairly short time, the gas was all consumed and the various fires went out, leaving charred grass, a burnt husk of a bush, and a complete halt to the bee problem.

The next day, I called my father back to tell him how poorly his plan went. A few words into the story, he said the words that I keep with me to this day.

“I didn’t say to light the gas on fire,” he said.

And you know what? He didn’t.