Here lies...

I’ve seen death my friends.

Just yesterday, or if you’re not reading this on Wednesday, Tuesday, I saw it first hand.

I was walking around when I noticed it. First, a stench. Then, a look of nothing. No activity. No coming back. No life, obviously.

But it wasn’t a human I saw dead. Nor was it an animal. Not a robot either. Alien? Nope.

It was the Nanuet Mall.

I was asked to drive my brother to go get his haircut. It was a little after 6 p.m., so I guess our options were limited. I don’t know. We drove past the two barbers in town, neither of which he wanted to go to. I didn’t look to see if they were open, so off to Nanuet.

On the drive over I thought I’d drop him off in front and just find a spot, park and sit in the car waiting for him. Once we arrived, though, I changed my mind. Something about seeing roughly 20 cars in a mall parking lot made me want to go inside the mall.

So I did.

I walked in with my brother. He went to get his haircut. I explored.

What I saw was nothing short of a tragedy.

It was practically empty. That’s not really the tragedy. Malls empty are fun in a way. Whether it’s just early in the morning on a weekday, or a mall in waning moments of its existence, I enjoy walking in a mall with enough room to wear carry a horizontal stick with about 20 replica Adaham dolls attached to stick walking along side me.

I could have easily done that in this mall. Also, if anyone knows where to have something like that made, it’d be much appreciated if you’d let me know. That’s the type of purchase that someone would call you a moron for making, but quickly change his mind about it once they’ve been handed an asskicking by five me’s.

So I walked around the mall.

Once a beacon of suburban fun, now so decrepit only trashy white people and Hispanics shop there.

I mean, it had a fucking K.B. Toys! Sam Goody! Spencer Gifts! SunCoast Video! You know what now stands where those once stood?

An X-Zone at the toy store. There was an arcade where Spencer Gifts was, but only with a few shooting-looking games. There wasn’t anybody in there, so I didn’t go in for fear of being captured and never leaving.

The other spots were empty.

For about every five stores, one is still in business. The rest are the same. Just dark stores locked up. Empty. Hardly any sign that one time something might’ve actually happened in that space. Clothes were sold. Or stolen. We are in Nanuet. Zing!

But now nothing. Just darkness. Much like the people of Nanuet. Zing again! ok, I’ll stop.

But seriously, the stores were all dark and not filled with anything.

Maybe some ripped tape on the window, but that’s it. Tape that held up signs for Going-Out-Of-Business sales.

The Nanuet Mall. Once a functioning mall. A place to kill a few hours shopping, or even doing a scavenger hunt. Now it’s the mall equivalent to what I imagine Pearl Harbor is like. Or Ground Zero. Or that place where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address.

There are still boats in the Harbor. Buildings still stand around the area the World Trade Center was. I guess the last example doesn’t work. I doubt many Civil War veterans are still alive. Okay, none. But we have Civil War re-enactments, and that’s close.

It’s certainly not a place to kill a few hours. It’s transformed into an almost exclusively in-and-out service building.

There’s a place to get your hair cut. There’s a dentist’s office. An Eye doctor. A place for acupuncture. Massage chairs.

There’s also a few stores still open. Oddly, there were a few different stores dedicated to selling dresses. I would’ve expected more dollar stores. There was one.

A jewelry kiosk. A card store. A store with some paintings.

But all of these were spread out over the course of the entire mall.

This is our ghost town. An area that once had an abundance of activity and life, but now abandoned sans for a few crazy stragglers to haunt visitors or lock the Brady’s in a jail cell.

The western movie genre will resurface, with the prominent setting malls like the one in Nanuet. Shootouts at High Noon will take place in front of what was once Auntie Anne’s Pretzels. Our hero must catch the last bus out of town, or else face to smiling horrors of teens in a mall with nobody else and no stores to detract attention from running around and punching each other.

My grand tour of the mall concluded, and I found a bench to wait for my brother to be finished.

I sat on the bench, made of hard, white metal that was put together in odd bar shapes that made it quite possibly the most uncomfortable bench I’ve ever sat in.

I sat a few minutes and watched the passer-byer. A sheet of paper elegantly floated across my line of vision: our tumbleweed.

Then I noticed it. right there on the bench next to me. A tiny, white rectangle. It had blended in with the bench, leading me to not notice it for a few minutes. I picked it up, praying to the heavens for some type of sign regarding something I’m not entirely sure about, but that’s more interesting than saying I picked it up and read it with no intention on it meaning anything.

But it did.

The title, in red, read “What Is Hell?”

I looked around and the empty mall. I’m pretty sure I have an idea.

I read the pamphlet, which described what the Biblical definition of Hell is, and where the term came from. It described why Hell was invented and used quotes from the Bible. It also mentioned the only way to avoid Hell was faith in Jesus.

So I said, “Jesus, oh bearded one, what hath thy sent me here? What is my purpose being here?”

Just then, the ceiling opened up and down came a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like Morgan Freeman, which was disappointing, said, “To serve your Lord, my son. You are to the chosen one. Climb to the highest mountain in Rockland and I shall give you further instruction from there.”

No, I’m just fucking around. But really, after I read the pamphlet I stood up the throw it out when something caught my eye.

In the distance it stood. Tall, bright and the answer to my question. I knew what I had to do.

I walked over to the machine, looked inside and saw a bunch green, blue and purple round balls with short, hair-like appendages covering them all.

I was sent here to transform this mall from Hell to a Mall again. All I had to do was spend some money. It was so clear to me now. The entire reason for my existence was bring the Nanuet Mall back to its once glorious state.

I reached in my pocket, fished out a dollar and inserted it in the machine. I fondled the joystick (yeah, jealous you didn’t [pun!] come up with that line?) until the claw was high above my desired target. I clicked the red button and down dropped the claw, extended and completely engulfed the green ball-thingy.

Then it slowly started to rise and recoil until it was finally all the way at the top of the machine, empty-handed.

Alright, alright, I’ve still got one more chance here.

I decided to go for one close to the edge, in hopes of just kind of knocking it over instead of hoping the claw can hold on it. I angle the claw, drop it and… and… same result.

Fuck this game, this mall and everyone still working in these shitty stores. The whole fucking thing should be knocked over and turned into something more useful, like an empty lot.

So I did what anyone else would in this situation. I found and empty spot (not hard, at all) and took a piss. On the Nanuet Mall’s grave.

I'm Going to be Rich

I thought of a couple inventions earlier today.  Patents pending! DON'T STEAL MY IDEAS!

Suicide Belt

I was reading John Swartzwelder's Dead Men Scare Me Stupid earlier today, and the following passage gave me a bit of inspiration.  The main character, Frank Burly, has just been committed to an insane asylum, and is looking over his inmate's uniform.

"Aren't you going to take away my belt so I won't hang myself?" I asked.

"Usually we do," said a member of the staff, "but we're a little overcrowded right now.  So it's either build another wing or let the inmates keep their belts.  If you lose yours, you can get another one from the Belt Lady."

"You might want a second belt anyway," chimed in another staffer.  "One to hang yourself with, the other to keep your pants up while you hang."

That seemed like a good idea.  I picked out a couple of good strong looking belts.  I wasn't planning on hanging myself, but if I did, I wanted to make sure I hung there with dignity.

This is absurd!  People actually have to do this, this walking around with two belts shit.  My invention, the Suicide Belt, is incredibly simple.  It's just a really really long belt.  When life's gotten you down, and you can't take any more, simply use the extra length of belt to hang yourself on any nearby light fixture or overhanging sturdy object, like some pipes or a vent, or a plant or something, I don't know.  And when you're not killing yourself, you can just run the extra length of belt through your belt loops a few more times.  Simple!  And it sends a really interesting fashion statement: don't fuck with me, because I'm prepared to kill myself at the drop of a hat.

Black Track

This is something my sister and I came up with, and I'm really excited about it.  Have you ever bought a DVD, and then, when you got home and started watching it, the movie didn't seem as good as when you saw it in theaters?  Some movies just play better in a theater.  Some people think it's because of the big screen, or the amazing sound system, but they're full of shit.  It's the black people.

Movies are always more enjoyable with someone yelling shit at the screen.  Remember when you were watching that scary movie, and the girl was about to get killed, and then the black person yelled out "BITCH, LOOK THE FUCK OUT!"  It was awesome, right?  Well, Black Track is how you're going to get that experience in your own home.  It's like those audio commentary tracks that nobody listens to, but, instead of the director or some other asshole just telling you shit about the movie, it's like six or seven black people just yelling shit at the movie.  Some tracks might have celebrity commentators, like Soulja Boy, or Samuel L. Jackson, and I'm working on getting James Earl Jones to do one (the main stumbling block in the contract is that he refuses to use the n-word).

But it's not just horror movies.  We've got ideas for thriller movies too.  Basically, every time a character comes on screen, someone will yell out "who dat?"  That's as far as I've thought about this one.

Documentaries were a bit tricky, but I think I've got them figured out.  You know those stupid ass videos on YouTube where it's like some kids show, but with "black" people doing all the dialogue?  You know, like this one?  Black Track for documentaries will be done by some fourteen year old black kid from the suburbs, who will record the whole thing in the family room at like ten at night, whispering into the microphone so his mom won't wake up and come down and yell at him for being a jackass.  So, An Inconvenient Truth will now be about Al Gore trying to get with some girl or something.  I don't know, it's stupid.

This will make a million dollars.

Mommy Chong and Cheech Litmarin in: Mother-Son Bon(g)ding

I’m pretty sure my mom is cooler than me.

No, I’m positive.

I guess it was bound to happen. It had probably been coming a while now. I just hadn’t really noticed, or cared to notice all this time.

I never thought that I was all that cool, but cooler than my mom? Of course. I’m me. I was once nicknamed the Fonze. Sure, it was a self-appointed nickname, but still, the Fonze? The Fonze? Come on now, you don’t just go around calling yourself the Fonze if you aren’t bringing the cool to the table at least a little bit.

I realized this the other day, a day in which I spent most of my time hanging out with my mom.

That should’ve been the first sign right there. I’m pretty sure I’m in that age range where spending an entire day with your mom isn’t socially acceptable. I’m 20. For her, hanging out with a 20-year-old dude is cool (it’s like Desperate Housewives! except I’ve never watched that show but I’d imagine when those ladies hang out with 20-year-olds they do gross things that I’d rather not think about doing with my mom). For me to be hanging out with a lady over twice my age while I’m 20 and for it to be cool, she must be either Salma Hayek or Diane Lane.

Unfortunately for me, my mom is neither Salma Hayek or Diane Lane (didn’t stop me from breast-feeding, what-what! Just kidding… maybe).

Anyway, I had just made a few purchases in the form of both seasons of How I Met Your Mother on DVD because I like sit-coms. I also saw them both on sale for over half off. I blacked out, awoke in a few hours and had an e-mail confirming my order sent to me. I'm still not too sure what happened in between, but I can take a guess at it. Sometimes my Judaism just takes over. It only happens around sales, bagels and foreskins though.

So my mom asked if she could watch some episodes with me. I agree. We’re sitting in the living room watching the funny when the phone rings. She asks me to pause the video, so I do. She proceeds to talk to her friend, Rachel, for a good 15 minutes.

My mom was talking to Rachel about their mutual friend, Susan, who is in the midst of a nasty divorce. I guess it’s nasty. I don’t know. That’s just the cliché adjective to throw in front of divorce, so I’m doing it.

Anyway, Susan wants the husband to move out but he hasn’t come back to their place to pack up all his stuff. Rachel called my mom to see if she wanted to go over and help pack up the stuff with her and Susan. My mom says sure.

Rachel also tells my mom she isn’t sure if she’s going to go over yet because Susan is all depressed and blah blah blah, men suck. My mom calls the divorcee to see what’s up, and if she wants her to come help pack stuff up. My mom has woken her up, so she tells my mom she’ll call her back later.

My mom then tells me to start up the tape again. I do. We watch the rest of this episode and part of another when the phone rings. FUCK! All I want is some Neil Patrick Harris hilarity, but no. I get divorce court, or something or other.

All I hear is my mom’s side of the conversation, but it goes:

“Hi babydoll, how are we?”

“What? Where’s your brother. I thought he was the one you called for these things.”

“I’ll call and see what I can do, but really I doubt she’ll be home.”

“Yeah, I’ll call, but I don’t know.”

Hangs up with a look of shock on her face. “Can you believe what she just asked me do?” Now realizing I’ve been tagged into the game, “Well no, I can’t hear what she asked, so I guess I can’t believe it.”

“She called me and asked if I can call my friend [Vivian] to see if she has any pot that I could pick up and then bring to her.”

“Well, no. I can’t believe that. Firstly, she lives in the condos. She could much more easily walk outside and score weed. Secondly, I had no idea you were a drug dealer. Now I know why you carry around that beeper.”

“Shut up. This is the first time she’s asked me to do something like this. She’s really depressed.”

“I bet. So, are you gonna make the call Mommy Chong?”

She calls, figuring Vivian wouldn’t be home. She is. She’s also a “known” pot-enthusiast, I guess. I don’t know. My mom had mentioned this lady smoked in the past. Her son was kicked out of college for drugs and drinking within his first semester. Her husband is a recovering alcoholic. She’s also a (pun alert!!!!) high-up in the county as far as drug counseling goes. In fact, the day my mom called her, she had just organized a big lecture about the horrors of drugs for over 150 people. She's also my mom's good friend.

She calls and they talk for 15 minutes more minutes. MOM! Doogie awaits! Well, turns out my mom had called this woman the previous week to wish her happy birthday, although I’m now starting to doubt that. Vivian didn’t get back to her because her husband was in the hospital and they weren’t sure what was wrong. They ran some tests for, get this, lung cancer! He-yo!!!!!

True story, actually. So I watch my mom intently to see if she’s going to ask this woman for the sticky-icky after a 15 minute talk about her husbands potential lung cancer. If you can believe this, it’s somehow better than How I Met Your Mother, but not by much.

She pussies out and doesn’t ask. “How can I ask her that after what she was telling me?” “I don’t know. You wanted to be a good friend to her, but in the process let down another friend in need. Tisk tisk, Frank Lucas.”

My mom must now call back her client and tell her the bad news. Then my mom tells me worse news, she wants to go out to eat, and I’m the only person home. I tell her to go smoke a fatty with her buddy and stop at a 7-11 for a microwaveable burrito, but she didn’t listen. So I went. It is, after all, food.

She tells me the woman smokes pot quite a bit. “Anytime there’s been any type of ‘event,’ she’s been high. Your brother’s Bar Mitzvah, [Mutual friend] Mike’s 50^th birthday, etc.” Well that’s nice.

“Her kids must know she smokes. She used to do it in the bathroom while they were home. They had to smell it.” No, I’m sure she hid it really well by placing a towel in the crack of the door.

My mom then told me a story about how Susan and another friend of my mother’s went to a beach house years ago and smoked quite a bit of pot. They brought their kids with them. One of them was about a year old and the other was a few months old.

My mom told me she yelled at them for being horrible parents. My mom is quite the buzz kill. “You’d be surprised at how many people my age smoke pot.” No, I doubt it. They have to release the stress of life in this town somehow. Personally, I like to dig through mailboxes on the street, open people's letters and then send them back to the return address with either love letters, or if i have a magazine handy, letters telling them I've kidnapped their child(ren).

Anyway, what really sucks about this whole thing is this woman always laughed at my jokes. She thought I was hilarious. I now know she must've thought I was highlarious (sorry), which puts a damper on my ego. No offense, but I don't want to be the Dazed and Confused of funny children of older people's friends. Sucks for me and my perceived hilarity.

My mom doesn’t smoke, or so she says. But now that I know the type of hooligan’s she runs around with, I might have to give her a curfew. But even if I don’t know which of my mom’s friends are just like, totally doing their own thing man, I do know one thing; my mom is apparently around more drugs than I am.

If not only for that, I’m pretty sure she gets laid more than I do. I mean, I’m here, and my brother is here too, and I’m sure her and my dad went on a honeymoon and you factor in 26 years of marriage. Yeah, I’m doing the math on this. Yeah, I hate me too.

Anyway, no matter how you add it up, my mom is cooler than me.

One positive, though, is that I’ve only referred to my mom as Mommy Chong or Frank Lucas these past few days.

In case you're wondering what that might look like, my mom:

I Wish I'd Filled Out My Course Evaluation

I've got a final tomorrow at eight in the morning, so rather than try to think up something to write about for three hours, and then fail, and then feel like shit tomorrow morning when I wake up without enough sleep, in order to fail another test, I thought I would give you all a sample of what happens when I don't give a shit about a class.  For a Sociology 222: "The Family," I was required to write weekly response papers, so here are some excerpts from these one page wastes of my time.  Keep in mind that I go to a real state university, which grants Ph.D.'s in sociology.  I handed these papers in to a real professor, for a real class.  Hey, Naomi Gerstel!  Fuck you!

The first couple weeks, I hadn't yet made up my mind about the professor being a retard, and had not yet decided never to go to the class or do the readings.  By week three, I knew I had no desire to ever spend any more time than was absolutely necessary on this bullshit. I started things off simple, to test the waters.  If you were wondering what the assignments for these papers were, by the way, it was simple to "reflect" upon the assigned readings.

Reading “Humane Matters: A History of Sexuality in America” made me realize that I actually wasn’t actually sure what sodomy and buggery were. According to Wikipedia, sodomy is everything but vaginal intercourse, and buggery can mean anal sex with a human or vaginal sex with an animal.

I got pretty much no response on this, other than a check mark, and a "sounds good." I pressed on.  Here's an excerpt from my response paper entitled, "Guys & Dolls: My Sister Likes Musicals."

What I found interesting, and actually kind of comical about the second reading, “Capitalism and Gay Identity,” was that, apparently, homosexual people actually lived their lives like they seem to in television sitcoms, Hollywood movies, and Village People songs; dressing in drag to keep a job, or meeting people at the YMCA. I always thought those were just stereotypes, or urban myths, but apparently I was wrong.

As you can see, I'm still keeping a bit to the academic nature of what I thought a college course was supposed to be, while just letting a bit of absurdity and subtle sarcasm seep in.  I took a break next week from being a bit of an asshole, aside from titling the paper for that week, "Catchy Title: Interesting Subtitle."

The week after, all the readings were about college kids boning.  It made me really depressed.  I ended it with the line, "I must not be doing this college thing right."

The following week's readings were all on poor people getting married or something; I don't know.  I was too pissed off about the grades on the last test to pay much attention.  That's why I titled that paper, "I Can't Believe Joe Got an 88."  It did also include the line "I have no money, and now, to top it all off, a bunch of women suddenly think I’m a scumbag, because I don’t make a lot of money. Thanks!"

The next paper was all about domestic abuse.  It was a sobering paper, and I really couldn't bring myself to joke about it, because it was just too depressing.  I called the paper, "For Halloween, I was El Recto, the President of Mexico."

Now, here's when things really started to piss me off.  I had not been going to the class for about a month, maybe two, at this point, and the only thing I was able to bring myself to do to get by in this class was skim the readings each week.  It was kind of required for these response papers.  But the readings were completely inaccessible.  So, my next paper, "A Shot in the Dark," was written in a kind of unhappy tone.

When I tried to access the articles assigned as reading for this week, I was unable to get the pages to load. So, rather than hand in nothing because I couldn’t read the articles, I decided to write something about what I imagine the articles to be about. The first reading, entitled, "Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Familes," probably talked about how children are raised differently by families in different social classes, and how race probably didn’t actually have as much to do with it as one might think. But that’s just a guess.

The second article, "For Siblings: Inequality Starts at Home," probably talked about how siblings of different genders are treated differently by their parents, and how it affects their images of self, and of the society in which they live. Or perhaps it talked about how siblings of different age are treated differently by their parents. Who knows? Probably you.

And that's when I told the class to fuck off.

Aliens! Aliens! Aliens!

It’s day 325 on my journey to Earth. Unfortunately for me, and my prospects of returning home, still no physical contact with other species. I’ve taken to touching myself, though.

It’s fun for a little while, but then I just feel alone and empty. That, of course, could be because I just released a few unborn, would-be Erbadurnese into the world only to be flushed down a toilet. Strangely, this sensation would be considered what humans call “murder” back on my home planet of Erbadurn.

I don’t think it’s that, though.

It’s a very odd feeling, being the only living male on an entire planet. And Earth no less. Not a crappy planet, like Jupiter. I still have horrid memories from my family’s trips to Jupiter back when I was just a young male.

Anyway, the reason I write this journal is because I’m bored at work.

Yes, I still work. I have to make money, and make more of it than any other living person, just to get by. These venomous creatures that control everything are relentless. They treat me horribly. Like the Great Neutering was completely my fault.

I guess it was in a way, but until that day I hadn’t ever heard of sarcasm, and that’s just not something you pick up on right away. Eventually they’re going to have to ease up for the sake of mankind, er, for the sake of living creatures on Earth would be more appropriate I suppose.

So here I sit, in an everlastingly empty coffee house, just now starting a report 325 days after I was given the assignment, and roughly 315 days later than my assignment was supposed to be over.

I guess since I’m almost an Earth year into my journey, I’ll do some catching up on my situation before I just end up writing about my daily activities, which should be extremely boring
The people here do it. They call them “blogs.” They’re usually pretty gay.

Oh Lord Zed, I’ve even started talking like them now.

“Dzernther, we need to see you in Conference Room A,” the deep, raspy voice said over the loud speaker in my bedroom.
“Oooooooooo,” said Krung. “Someone’s in tru-ble.”
“Very funny. I’m sure it’s nothing. They probably need me to do something small, like change a light bulb in that huge spaceship that’s about to take off.”
“Then why wouldn’t they just have Dranamirez do it? He’s the guy they have do all that grunt work type stuff, well at least he’s the guy ever since he came over from Yuxico.”
“I’ve been filling in for him to earn some extra space dollars.”
“I hate that. ‘Space dollars.’ You’d think we’d have a much cooler name for our currency than space dollars. I refuse to call them that. What’s a dollar anyway? American currency. American. I don’t care about America or their currency. What about space pesos?”
“Well maybe if we were in Yuxico we’d have space pesos.”
“I guess. The name sucks anyway you look at it. And why do they have to have pictures of American aliens on each piece of currency? We’ve had some great people on Erbadurn. No offense, but I don’t need to look at Marvin, E.T. or Kang every time I buy something.”
“Yeah, I have no idea why they thought all aliens had to look so odd.”
“So anyway, why have you been filing in for Dranamirez?”
“You didn’t hear? He died a few days ago.”
“Died? What happened?”
“Nobody knows. One morning they went to his house in hopes of getting him to fix something in the space ship, and they found him helplessly lying on the floor, dead. His head cut off and cut into eight, thin slices, both arms cut off and re-sewn onto the improper side of his body, his legs both cut off at the knee and left standing next to him and all 10 fingers cut off and shoved into various openings on his entire body.”
“Um, wow. Who do they think happened?”
“Suicide.”
“What? Are you joking, cause if you are, that’s messed up.”
“No, the report said suicide.”
“Dzernther,” the voice said again over the loud speaker, “we’re waiting. Get here in a minute or we will not hesitate to brutally murder you.”
“Shit, I’ve gotta go.”
“Hurry, or else they will not hesitate to brutally murder you.”
“Yeah.”“What is it sir?”

“Dzernther,” began Mayor Ont, “Erbadurn desperately needs you.”
“Excuse me sir?”
“I’m sure you’ve noticed the big space ship that is scheduled to leave tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we need you to pilot it and complete a mission.”
“I thought Qwertin was piloting the mission sir.”
“Well he was, but this morning we found him in his room, dead.”
“Dead, like Dranamirez?”
“Actually, yes. Exactly the same thing happened to him. As well as to Crut, Zendon, Mantin and Vroom. They were the others we trained in case of emergency, but somehow, they all died over night as well.”
“Do we have any idea of what is going on? Honestly sir, I highly doubt all of these, much less one, were suicides.”
“I know I know. Here’s a secret, this has been going for months. Any time within the past year or so you’ve heard of the death or runaway, of a male this is what has happened to that person. We though we could figure it out in quiet, solve the problem and cut our loses. We still have no idea what’s going on.”
“Every single one? Even Withernd?”
“Well no. He was old as shit. Dude was like 61. He died of natural causes.”
“So what is this secret mission you need me to do?
“We’re afraid our males are becoming extinct, and in turn, Erbadurns as a whole. We need you to go to Earth, find females and make babies. We need males to keep Erbadurns going.”
“Really? That’s it? I mean, all this secretive stuff for a whole year because you need me, an ‘alien,’ to go to Earth and impregnate a woman? I thought we were above this kind of thing. It sounds like the plot to a Garry Shandling that I would watch on TV at 3 in the morning.”
“This is no movie! You want to die? Fine. But don’t take down your entire race with you.”
“Fine. I’ll do it.”
“There’s a few things you should know. We don’t have time for full training, so listen up. Humans, they spell differently than us. So your name, Dzernther, isn’t the same down there. They think of you as a Bryant.”
“What? That doesn’t even sound like a name.”
“No, it’s spelled B-R-Y-A-N-T, but pronounced Dzernther. They use the same letters, just different pronunciations. So as quick as you can, learn how they speak so you can read and write.”
“So that’s the big difference?”
“Well no. There’s one other huge difference…”
“Well?”
“Bodies."
“Bodies? What kind of differences can our bodies possibly have?
“Well…I mean, it’ll be very noticeable, so you have to be very careful.”
“I’m listening, just tell me what the differences are.”
“We have two ankles.”
“So do they.”
“No, they have two ankles total. We have two ankles on each leg.”
“What? One ankle per leg? That seems so illogical. I’ll just wear pants and high socks every day.”
“Good. Now go.”
“Thank you very much sir. I’ll do my best to plant my seeds.”

Well this shouldn’t be too hard. They are women everywhere. And look at how little clothes so many of them wear. I could probably impregnate one of them by accidentally walking into them on the sidewalk.
Where to start is the only question. My reading said coffee houses are a good place to meet people. I’ll start at this one. Or that one. Or that one. No, this one.
“Hello, welcome to Coffee Hut, how may I help you?” the pretty, young girl behind the counter asked.
She’ll do. I wish I could read so I could address her by name. I’m guessing that’s what she wants since she’s proudly wearing it on her uniform. But how to say N-O-R-A-H?
I don’t know what any of this stuff is. I can’t read a menu. I’ll just come out and ask it.
“Excuse me sir, if you don’t know what you want please step to the side of the line so the people behind you can order.”
“Oh, I know what I want. I want you to go out with me. tonight.”
“Sir, I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last man on Earth, no offense.”
“We shall see.”

On an Unrelated Note...

Earlier today, I was playing drums for the church service for which I normally play instruments.  This was the second service of the day, so I'd already sat through all that crap once; this time, it was about how we're all soldiers and I think Jews are the opposing army?  I didn't really catch most of it.  Anyway, about halway through, I started feeling sick.  My whole body started aching, and I was having trouble staying awake, much less sitting upright.  I went into "the fireside room," which is where they have people go when they need some time alone because of whatever emotional things they might be going through, or when they start speaking in tongues because the holy spirit is licking their butthole or something.  I don't really know how this sect has everything figured out.

I laid down on the couch for about half an hour (which was only roughly half of the goddamn sermon), and wondered where this came from, and whether or not I would be able to deal with such dehibilitation as this, with a final paper to be written, a documentary without an ending to be screened, employees to be trained, and several final exams to be taken. I suddenly became terribly depressed.

I finished out the service, the entire time on the verge of an emotional outburst in which I would tell each member of the church to eat a bag of shit and die, and then leave, never to return.  Not wanting to send anyone over the edge, with myself tottering so close, I headed to the editing lab, to work on the doc.

I started making little edits here and there, getting closer and closer to tears as I went along.  I'd been there for a few hours, when I headed to the bathroom.

As I sat upon the toilet, I felt the weight lift.

I Almost Crossed the Streams, There

I just had a phone interview for an internship, and it was going pretty well, I guess, until the woman asked me who my favorite artist was. It changes frequently, so I told her I had recently been listening to Rancid a lot. She then asked me what I would do if I saw Tim Armstrong, who plays guitar and sings for Rancid, and I said "I'd probably soil myself."

I've never felt a longer pause in my entire life.

My thoughts were racing; "Shit, was that the wrong thing to say?  Is that not cool?  Too vulgar?  Fuck, now what?  How do I salvage this?  Should I offer her money?  Sex?  Should I offer to pay her money for sex?  No, that's prostitution; the implications would not be flattering.  Well, I may as well kill myself now."

Just as I began to pull the trigger, she started to laugh.  The small chuckle turned into a loud, full-on-riot-laugh.

Crisis Averted!

And later this week, I'll be paying her money for sex!

Fighting the Powers That Be

Pardon me reader(s), and yes, I’m going to refer to you as “reader(s)” until I’m somewhat positive there’s actually more than one of you actually out there, but this post is just going to be me bitching a lot. It was originally intended to be a post about my experience at a wedding this past Sunday, and I kind of forgot all the mental notes I made of things I thought that could be funny.

It probably wouldn’t have been funny anyway. It was a wedding. And I’m not Vince Vaughn or Owen Wilson. It would’ve sucked. I then would’ve just made up a lot of the stuff to make it sound better, and it might have been at most mildly amusing. Mildly.

So instead, I bring you ticked off Adaham.

On the scale of Angry Adaham, ticked off is a 3 out of 5. Adaham in his normal state is usually about a -2. I could’ve avoided negative numbers altogether and made the scale out of 10, or just 7, but fuck that. And fuck you for insulting my anger scale.

I think I just reached 3.4. Watch out world.

[Insert transition here], I don’t think I’ve ever argued a grade. I just finished my second year of college. So that’s about 14 years of school (about 3 of which might actually count for something!), and I can’t recall so much as questioning a grade I received on anything.

There were times when I didn’t get grades I felt I deserved, for better and worse, but just said fuck it and went on with my day. And I don’t even remember a time when I actually bothered to count up my score on an individual test to see if the professor calculated it wrong, and they did. It was just wasted time.

I had a good friend who was in a few math classes of mine over the years, and I always remember him arguing for points after he got back a test. After class, he would always go up to the teacher and state his case why he felt deserved an extra point, or sometimes when his game was on, two points. Most of the time, he did get an extra point, but I think it was more of the teacher not giving a shit about one point and just giving it to him so he’d go away.

I think I saw him do that with at least two teachers, and pretty much every test given by them for two years. And there were plenty of other fine students I grew up with who would do the same for pretty much everything. And if it wasn’t them, I’ve heard numerous stories of parents complaining for them.

Hey, whatever. I pride myself on being indifferent to pretty much everything. I like teachers to know my name, but not my face. I just wasn’t going to argue or question a grade. That would require two things I despise: 1) talking and 2) talking to an actual person.

That changed yesterday morning.

I was looking at my grades from my most recent semester online. Pretty much every class was ass expected, and then I got to my Science Fiction class. Under the grade column, it read “F.”

I looked at it for probably 15 seconds, but it felt like 30, so I’m going to say I starred for a full minute for dramatic effect.

I’ve never failed a class. Never. I’ve failed tests. Plenty of them, actually. But an entire class? Never.

I didn’t know how to react other than anger, since I’m positive I didn’t fail the class. I’m not one for math, but I think if you haven’t failed a test all semester and gone to all classes but one, it’s very difficult for that to end up resulting in failure.

Apparently I was wrong.

I immediately e-mailed my teacher. This was a woman who told us not to e-mail her during the year because she gets a lot of e-mails and probably won’t respond. This is also a woman who I had for two classes that both met on Tuesday and Thursday this past semester, and I’m 100 percent positive she has no idea who I am. In fact, I’m willing to bet in the combined 150 students from both classes, only one person knew who I was, and that’s because he was my former editor on the school paper.

So I typed out the e-mail in what I felt was a voice of concern, but not too strongly worded to make me sound like an ass, but not too pussily worded to make me sound like, well, yeah. I wanted to handle this without bitching and whining.

Within 45 minutes I get three e-mails back from her. The first one said she e-mailed me a few days back about this, and she’ll forward the message again. I received no such letter. The second said that was a different Adam from class and she’ll look into my grades. The third read she looked at my grades and the TA had me down for 11 absences this semester, and anything over 6 is an automatic F.

“Pity, for you had an 80 average,” the last line of e-mail read.

Eleven absences is an absurd amount. I e-mailed her back, a bit pissed off because that was wildly wrong, the last line of the e-mail she definitely wrote while dressed up like Cruella de Vil complete with cigarette and long cigarette holder and also because I was listening to Public Enemy. I thanked her for responding so quickly and trying to help me clear this up. Then I said I’m sorry, but I have to disagree with those absences. “There is absolutely no way I missed 11 classes. No way.”

I haven’t heard back.

My next argument is that I had her for two classes on the same day, and I received my grade for the other, so why would I be so stupid to think that I could go to one of her classes and not the other? And I don’t know why I think this will help, but I also know the exact date of the only time I missed both of her classes. For some reason, I feel good knowing that date.

My mom feels if they go back and look at my class records they’ll see I’m not one to skip classes. I don’t know if they actually keep those records in college. But either way, this is the angriest I’ve been since, well I don’t actually remember when. I’m not usually angry unless I’m somewhat joking around.

Either way, reader(s), I know you’re there for me and I fully intend to keep you updated on this sure to be ongoing saga. Well no I won’t, I doubt you care much at all. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get an e-mail clearing this all up, but if not, ROOOAAAARRRR!

I’m fully prepared to fight the establishment here people. And it’s quite an establishment. Some would say they were the Big East Champions in this most recent college basketball season and are located in western Pennsylvania. I say, yeah, that’s pretty true.

Either way, I feel like I’m about to rage against the machine.

“You'll never silence the voice of the voiceless”

Well, yeah they could, very easily, but still.

Wart Removal

So, I've got a wart on my right hand, in between my index and middle knuckles.

The subject.

I'm used wart removal stuff before, and it's just come back, so I figured I'd have some fun with it this time. Rather than be a pussy and just get some more medical treatment, I'm going to remove it myself, manually.

You're in for it, pal.

I don't really have the tools for this; my options are either the scissors from my little pocket knife, or toenail clippers. Obviously, I've chosen the toenail clippers.

My weapon of choice.

I don't want to get an infection or anything, so I've washed my hands. I haven't washed the toenail clippers since I've gotten them; so, they've gone at least a couple of years without being washed, assuming they were sterilized before they left the factory. I don't know if that's a valid assumption, though. They're pretty dusty on the inside. Can you get STD's from dust getting in your blood?

I'm kind of worried that this is going to hurt. I've decided to soak it in water first. I don't have anything to soak it in, so I'm just holding a wet paper towel to it.

Okay, it's been about five minutes. That's probably enough, right? Well, in any case, here it goes.

Oh man.

Well, that was painful, but I've had much worse. Still, I'm beginning to think this was probably not a good idea.

So, it's obviously bleeding. I don't know if you were expecting that or not, but it almost always comes with the territory of performing amateur surgery on yourself.

This is just when it started bleeding.

Wow, this is more blood than I was anticipating... it might be a good idea to tell someone about this... so I guess it was good thinking to make a blog about it.

Yikes.

Alright, I've gotten tired of holding that wet paper towel to my wound, so I've put a band aid on.

Bloody paper towel.

The band aid was clearing not going to hold, so I put gorilla tape on it... and around my entire hand.

Gorilla taped hand.

Hell yeah.

So, I imagine I've stopped bleeding... I don't really think I've given myself much of a choice on that matter, with the tape and everything. I'm starting to get kind of sleepy, so I guess that's it. I'll keep you updated on whether or not (read: "when") I get gangrene.

Victory!