Tongue In Check

Way back in 1972, I started off college as a history major. Yeah, I know, I’m a loser. Fact is, I was fascinated with the American revolution and all that it entailed. If I could have majored in The American Revolution, then I probably would have stayed a history major. As it turns out though, you can’t do that.

What killed my history major dreams though was nothing short of amazing. I mean I saw a lot of history majors killed by things like The Louisiana Purchase or the Magna Carta, and one or two of my fellow history majors were killed by that whole Paul Revere thing.

History Major Number 1: Was it one if by sea or two if by sea?

History Major Number 2: Fuck, I don’t know. Let’s major in chemistry.

History Major Number 1: Okay.

I completely understood that whole Paul Revere thing. That wasn’t a problem for me. What kicked my ass though was Canadian history. Honestly, up until I read the class description, I was not aware that Canada even had a history. I mean I thought that Canada had only been recently invented by hippies that didn’t want to go to Vietnam.

Anyway, in an effort to expand my horizons, I signed up for the class and was looking forward to learning more about our neighbors to the north. How difficult can Canadian history be, I asked myself. Hippies avoiding Vietnam went there and started a country. I figured that if nothing else, they would have some really good music and dope there.

Boy, how wrong can one person be. On the very first day of class, I realized I was in very deep shit because Canada was, in fact, a real country and had been around for a long time. Their history was very complicated and since they weren’t smart enough to go to war with Great Britain for their independence, they talked funny and had a penchant for zoo porn.¹

Canadian history can be summed up with one word. Beavers. The Canadian constitution actually uses the phrase “of the Beaver, by the Beaver, and for the Beaver.” Beavers played a very important part in the early days of Canadian history and at one point, their pelts were actually used as currency. Early Canadians actually made little beaver saddles and rode beavers around as they went from one beaver trading post to another. If they had to travel by water, they actually hollowed out beavers and made beaver canoes out of them. It was an amazing use of the beaver. ²

After the first few weeks of class, I developed what I thought was a fool proof plan for acing this class in Canadian history. I decided that odds were pretty good that if I answered every question on the tests with the word “beaver” (even if it wasn’t an option), odds were pretty damned good that I would pass the class with at least a C, and in the 70’s, C’s were all we were shooting for. Fuck the man and his God damn grades.

After the first test, I realized that I only had two choices: drop the class or fail it. Apparently, answering every question with the word “beaver” only guarantees you a 38% on a test. I ended up dropping the class and switching majors. If Canadian history was that hard, imagine what the history of Okinawa was going to be like. Hell, they don’t even have beavers in Okinawa do they?

¹ I totally made that whole zoo porn thing up. Pretty good, huh?
² We actually call the female nether regions beavers because early Canadian explorers didn’t have any women so they regularly had sex with beavers. ^3
3 Cool, my footnotes have footnotes. I made that part up too. Early Canadian explorers did not, to my knowledge, have sex with beavers. They actually had sex with rocks, giving rise to the expression “get your rocks off.”^4
4 Ooops. Made that up too.

I spent a lot of time today debating whether or not I should do this post. Well, I guess technically that’s not totally true since I never gave it a second thought, but I thought I should say that so that it sounds like I actually think about things. Because the sad truth is, I don’t give much thought to anything unless it involves nakedness or Gin and since I don’t drink Gin anymore, that only leaves nakedness.

The other day when Sara Sue nominated me for the Bloggers Choice Awards, I made a reference to Dooce that was not very nice. Unfortunately, it is too late now to take it back but I have learned a very valuable lesson. Apparently, Dooce is not one to trifle with if you value the sanctity of your email inbox because I received numerous “hate mails” from rabid Dooce fans (as well as a few others). Apparently, any kind of public recognition brings out the whack jobs.

First of all, the popularity of Dooce alone should make her completely immune to trifling comments from a “hack” like me. I mean honestly, the woman is a fantastic writer and there’s almost never even an apostrophe out of place on her blog. Truth is, when she’s not all wound up in self-promotion, she is hilarious and completely deserving of every blogging award available. She practically invented blogging.

Anyway, since they often say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I would like to share a few snippets from some of the nasty emails with you, Dooce-style. Naturally, I present them to you unedited and without their email addresses because publishing their email addresses would be completely wrong–wouldn’t it? Please tell me it would be wrong.

“I went to your blog from the Bloggers Choice Award page and have to tell you I don’t get it. Your kind of disgusting.” Kari

Kari–Only kind of disgusting? I was going for full-blown vile.

“Why are you so harsh on Dooce? She’s way better than you are. Funnier to.” Paul

I was sitting here yesterday morning, minding my own business and thinking about the very tenuous relationship between George Bush’s foreign policy and quadriplegic lesbian porn, and my phone rang.

It was my buddy Jack (the bar owner) and he was in trouble. The phone call went something like this:

Jack: Hey Bud, can you help me out? The waitress came in all coked up this morning and I had to send her home.

Me: Uh, sure. Can’t you find anyone else?

Jack: If I could, do you think I would be calling you?

Me: Okay, I’ll be there in a little bit.

Jack: Hurry up. I might actually have to work if you don’t get here soon.

I sat here for a few minutes wishing I had never answered the phone and then got up from my chair (which now has a perfect mirror image of my ass imprinted on it for all time) and brushed my teeth, combed my hair and headed out to the bar. I have a lot of experience “heading out to the bar,” although lately I haven’t done it much. I did find it to be much like riding a bicycle though.

When I got to the bar, I poured myself a cup of coffee and stepped behind the bar thinking that that was where he would want me to work.

Jack: What are you doing?

Me: I thought you wanted me to help?

Jack: I need you to wait tables Bud.

Me: Fuck.

He needed me to be a waitress?

Why didn’t he tell me that?

I don’t know how to be a waitress .

After a quick lesson in how to deal with customers (apparently, “here’s your fucking cheeseburger fuckstick,” is not the proper way to deal with customers…who knew?), I grabbed my pen and pad and headed off to wait tables.

It wasn’t all that difficult except that I could not remember who ordered what or what table it went to or any of those sort of mundane matters. Oh, and the cash register was really complicated so I just left the drawer open and didn’t hit any buttons, which apparently fucks everything up for those people who actually track things like who buys what and what not, but it sure made my life a lot easier.

Finally, around 3:00 o’clock, the evening waitress (Emily) came in a little early and relieved me. It was really nice of her to come in and help out.

Emily: Why didn’t you wash the dishes?

Me: I don’t know how. (I lied. I am just very lazy.)

Emily: You don’t know how to wash dishes?

Me: Nope. (I lied again).

Emily: Jesus. Nobody cleaned off the fucking tables. (I think she was really mad).

Me: Yeah, and those people are really messy.

Emily: You are supposed to clean up after they leave.

Me: Oh. That’s interesting. Shouldn’t they just bring their plates up when they are done?

When it was all over, Jack reluctantly told me to take my share of the tips. There wasn’t enough money in there to split really. I think people tip based on tit size and I just didn’t measure up. I told Jack just to buy me a beer someday and went home to take a nap, which I do know how to do.

Waitressing is really hard work.

If my phone rings today, I’m not answering it.

I never know what to get my mother for Christmas and rely heavily on my sister for suggestions¹. Naturally, this year will not be an exception. Earlier this month, my sister sent me an email suggesting that I get my mother a portable GPS system for her car. I was a bit surprised at this suggestion because my mother is a technological retard and would seem to be much more at home with a butter churn than a GPS, but my sister explained that one of my mom’s friends has one and mom thought it was great and wanted one for herself.

When my dad was alive, he did all the driving² and as I found out shortly after his death, there was a reason for that. My mother is a horrible driver. A little over a year ago, I had the misfortune of being in a position where I could not legally drive (drunk) and turned the keys over to my mom.

We had about an hour and a half drive to get from where we were to her house in northern Michigan, and it was easily the most harrowing experience of my life. The drive home included bouts of road rage, passing on a curve and a hill, crossing the center line multiple times, and tailgating every freaking car that she happened upon. At one point I had my feet up on the dashboard in anticipation of a crash. My mom just laughed and told me I needed to relax.

Her lack of driving abilities are exceeded only by her terrible sense of direction, and I am completely convinced that her piss poor sense of direction has kept her from destroying the world with that 2000 pound death machine she calls a car. If she can figure out how to work this GPS, she is going to be on the road more and I seriously don’t think that is going to be good for anyone. When I think of my mom jumping on the freeway and heading off to parts unknown, I shudder.

Fortunately for me, I got my mad driving skills from some other genetic line (most likely the mail man). I am proud to tell you that unless you count the fact that I have had 3 rear end collisions resulting in 3 totaled cars (one of them mine), hit two separate garages resulting in a bent garage door and bent bumper, killed one deer and numerous cats, rabbits, and other small vermin, and backed into a tree in a total drunken stupor, my driving record has been absolutely spotless.

And for the record, it’s not that I have a bad sense of direction. It’s the fact that God is continually moving things around just to fuck with me.

¹She has to be good for something, right?

² Naturally now that my dad is dead, he doesn’t drive anymore. It just wouldn’t be right.

I’ve never been one for shameless self-promotion or blowing my own horn. Besides, I have always preferred it when someone else blows my horn. It’s simply not my style. I’m the type that would much rather sit alone in the corner of a darkened room and stare at naked pictures of your mom.

Sara Sue was kind enough to nominate me for a Bloggers Choice Award in two categories; Best Humor Blog and Best Blogging Host. Obviously, I consider her nomination alone an honor and in a lot of ways, it couldn’t have come at a better time for me since I have been struggling a lot with this whole blogging thing lately.

For those of you so inclined, please go there and vote for me. You may also wish to offer the judges cash or sexual favors. It’s entirely up to you. When you consider that I am up against a truly and wonderfully talented writer like Ree over at Confessions of a Pioneer Woman, (she’s not at all pretentious like Douche’ and leaves her comments open because she thinks what you have to say might also be important and entertaining) you guys are going to have to offer up some pretty good sexual favors.

You know what?

To hell with that.

Just send me your cash and sexual favors (or naked pictures of your mom) and we’ll just call it even. Okay?

Sara Sue tagged me for this meme and because I had nothing else to do (and because she practically demanded that I do it), I am going to play along.

The idea is that you type you go to Google Images and type your birthdate in (either mmddyy or ddmmyy) and then you post 5 pictures from the first page of Google Images. Or something like that. I am sure there is much more to it than that, but I have a very short attention span and usually only see what I want to see when it comes to reading things. Really, if you want to find out how it is done, go to Sara’s place and read her directions. I am sure they make sense.

As luck would have it, the pictures that showed up on my image page almost tell a story.

Here I am in my ninja outfit. The little guy next to me is Carmen in her ninja outfit. In reality, that military style assault rifle should be replaced with a roll of duct tape, which for those of you that don’t know me in real life, is my primary means of foreplay.

In the next picture, we see the object of my affection. I am in the woods just behind her stalking her with my trusty sidekick and roll of duct tape, or as I like to call it, foreplay on a roll.

Once I capture my prey, I whisk her away to my rented storage shed in my trusty Toyota propane powered fork-lift.

Once there, I whip out my trusted magnetic cock ring. Okay, hold on just one dog-gone minute here. A magnetic cock ring? Are dicks made out of iron now? Is this something new? Once again, it seems I have missed out on something by being old. Apparently evolution has now provided young males with iron dicks. They certainly didn’t have those when I was a kid.

Okay, I admit this last picture is kind of gay and completely meaningless to the story, but all of the other pictures were even more meaningless and gay, so this is what you are stuck with. Deal with it.

I am supposed to nominate 5 others to do this meme. Okay, here are my nominees:

George “the Dick” Bush.
Anne “it’s not a dick, it’s just a big clit” Coulter.
Kathy Lee “check out my nipples” Gifford.
Bill “Mangina” O’Reilly.
Mimi Roger’s breasts. I know this technically makes it 6 nominees, but it’s just a meme, it’s not the key to world peace. Again, deal with it.

I think I miss my dad most around the holidays. As far as I am concerned, he was Thanksgiving and Christmas and things just haven’t felt the same for me since he left the planet.

When I was a kid, my parents were both world class partiers and our house was always full of drunken neighbors, especially around the holidays. When it came to simple things like Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner, we were damned lucky if we got to eat before 9:00 at night because there was usually a party going on.

My parents were quite the combination. In his younger days, my dad could drink a phenomenal amount and you couldn’t even tell it. My mom, on the other hand, was slurring her words and staggering after a couple of sips. God, her eyes used to get so red after a few drinks it was almost scary. I used to say that she was Godzilla-eyed when she was drunk because that is exactly who she looked like.

I have to admit that even though I make it sound bad, things were always fun. No one got mean or mad and everyone seemed to have a good time. Other than the fact that dinner was always late, I don’t have much to complain about.

Even though it is only Thanksgiving, Christmas is just around the corner. When it comes to the Holiday spirit in general, I think Robert Earl Keen may have said it best. Sometimes I wonder if he was ever at our house……

For a lot of reasons that I consider to be very sound, I have held off judgment on global warming. Mostly, I don’t trust the data that has presented to us and I certainly don’t trust the way it has been presented. Unfortunately for all of us, the information has become very politicized.

For as long as I can remember, it has snowed on or around the 15th of November here in my little corner of Michigan. I know this because I always laugh to myself that the hunters are going to love the fresh snow. It’s perfect for tracking their wounded deer.

This is the first year in my memory that it hasn’t snowed by now. Oh sure, there’s been some sleet and maybe even a little freezing rain, but as of today, there hasn’t been any snow. As a matter of fact, it is almost 50 degrees out today. The phrase unseasonably warm comes to mind.

Despite the fact that I have said for years that I am waiting for more data from independent scientists before I jump on the Global Warming wagon train, I am now convinced that global warming is real and we are all going to die. You can read reams and reams of complicated data and try your best to sort the facts from the bullshit, but when you walk out of your house and you can physically see and feel the changes in the climate, you simply can’t deny the reality of it.

I find this ever so slightly ironic. There have been numerous mass extinctions¹ on this planet before and there is absolutely no reason to assume that we humans are somehow going to escape this fate. I am pretty sure evolution, if it is seeking perfection, is not done with us yet. Some of those extinctions were brought about by volcanoes and some were brought about by space rocks, but I do find it very ironic that the “smartest animals” that have ever walked on this planet in its 4.5 billion years of existence are going to wipe themselves out.

Somewhere out in the cosmos, God must be rolling around on his heavenly floor and laughing his ass off.

Jesus: “What’s so funny God?”

God: “Oh those silly fucking humans.”

Jesus: “What have they done now?”

God: “I gave them paradise and they just can’t get their shit together long enough to save it from certain destruction.”

Jesus: “Want me to wipe them out God?”

God: “No, no need to lift a finger son. They are doing it themselves. Let’s just go invent something new.”

Jesus: “Okay, but no more fucking crosses for me this time. That hurt.”

God: “Yeah, but you have to admit that whole cross thing was a hell of a way to make an exit.”

¹ I had originally typed this as mass distinctions which I find very funny. I kept looking at it thinking something was wrong, but it just never quite dawned on me what was wrong with it.

Last night I accidentally depressed myself beyond belief.

When I was a kid, I lived in a town in southern West Virginia that was pretty much owned and operated by a coal company named Eastern Gas & Fuel. Everything in the town was run by the coal company, and this included all recreation and leisure activities. All of the organized sports and most other activities were organized, administered, and paid for by Eastern Gas & Fuel.

This was all well and good unless you happened to be one of the few kids in town whose dad didn’t work for Eastern Gas & Fuel, because then you were pretty much fucked, and not in a good way either. I happened to be one of the few kids whose dad didn’t work for “the company.” My dad worked for US Steel and US Steel didn’t do much of anything as far as recreational activities go.

Every summer, all of the kids were whisked away to a camp that was run by the coal company and with the exception of a few other kids, I was left on my own for a few weeks. My parents did what they could to keep me entertained, but it didn’t help much. It was bad enough when all the kids went away, but it was even worse when they all came back sharing stories of their time at camp and their new found camaraderie. It really messed things up for me.

Last night I got the bright idea to Google this camp to see if there was any information about it. I didn’t think there would be anything because the place shut down in 1984. Imagine my surprise when I found a “reunion” website dedicated to Camp Thomas E. Lightfoot that was full of “then and now” pictures of the kids and counselors who went there.

I left that place back in 1969 and with the exception of a couple of drive-throughs, I haven’t been back since, and I have never seen or heard from any of the kids I grew up with. As a result, all of the “kids” from my childhood are fixed in my mind looking just like they did back in 1969. They never aged. They never grew up.

Looking at some of the current pictures, I was shocked by what I saw. Many of the “kids” looked just like their parents did back in 1969 and that was depressing enough, but then I looked at myself in the mirror and all I could see was my my mother’s face staring back at me.

Man, getting old sucks. Still, as they say, it beats the hell out of the alternatives.

Back before Al Gore invented the internet and global warming, I was a little kid spending most of my free time following my grandfather around everywhere he went. Looking back on it, I was probably a big pain in his ass, but he never told me to go away or dumped me by the side of the road, so I assume it must have been okay with him that I followed him everywhere he went.

I learned a lot from my grandfather, but the one thing that stands out above all else is that he taught me how to safely handle and shoot guns. We started off with .22 caliber rifles and worked our way up to shotguns. Shotguns, for those of you not familiar with them, kick like the devil and if you don’t hold them right, they will bruise the hell out of your shoulder. I learned the correct way to hold one after shooting one for the first time. I really wish I would have learned how to hold it correctly before I shot it, but my grandfather figured it would be a lesson I would never forget if he just let me shoot and then he told me the correct way to hold it. He was absolutely right because I definitely know the difference between the right way and the wrong way to hold a shotgun.

My grandfather used to go to these turkey shoots that they held every year just before Thanksgiving. The idea of a turkey shoot was that the person who was the best shot in any one of the events, would win a turkey. My grandfather always won a frozen turkey and we had it for Thanksgiving every year.

When I was 10 years old, I got to participate in my first turkey shoot. It was in my hometown, which was about 30 miles from where my grandfather lived. The morning of the shoot, I got up early and grabbed my dad’s shotgun and headed down the road to the place where the event was being held. It was only a few blocks from where I lived so I didn’t bother to wake my dad up or anything. It was a different time back then and no one gave much thought to a 10 year old boy walking down the street with a 12 gauge shotgun over his shoulder.

Most of the participants in the turkey shoot were much older than me, but there were a few kids my age. The organizers of the event just decided to let us all shoot in the same category since there weren’t enough kids to form a separate group. When it was my turn, I stepped up to the line and took careful aim at the little card on the other side of the field. After I shot, I had to go down and retrieve my own card and bring it back to the judges who held on to them until everyone was done shooting.

For those of you not familiar with a shotgun shell, it contains a whole bunch of little BB’s and instead of putting one big hole in a target, it will usually put a whole bunch of little holes in the target. Well, when I retrieved my target, it was full of little BB holes and one of them was almost dead center in the target. It was much more a matter of luck than skill, but still, I was happy with it.

At the end of the round, they announced the winners and I won the turkey for that round. They told me to go over by this big truck to get my turkey. Now this is where the story gets a little weird. See, when I went to those events with my grandfather and he won, he always got this big frozen turkey. Well, my turkey wasn’t frozen. It was very much alive. I was immediately worried about how I was going to get my turkey home because it was going to be heavy and I already had my hands full carrying my dad’s shotgun.

That turkey was big and mean and didn’t smell anything at all like Thanksgiving day. I told the guy that was handing them out that I didn’t know how I was going to get it home. He just laughed and threw me a piece of twine and told me to tie it around his legs and throw him over my shoulder, using the remainder of the twine as some kind of carrying strap.

Well I just couldn’t do that. It just didn’t seem right to me somehow. So I slipped the twine around the turkey’s neck and was using it like a leash to lead him home. For those of you not familiar with the complicated workings of a turkey, they don’t even remotely operate like a dog. I mean they aren’t one bit willing to walk on a leash and no matter how hard you try, you just can’t be stylish trying to walk a turkey on a leash. For every 3 steps the turkey took, it had to be dragged another 5. That stupid bird just couldn’t or wouldn’t keep up.

When I finally got home, I took my turkey into the basement and yelled up the steps for my dad. After a few minutes, my dad came walking down the basement steps and when he saw me standing there with a shotgun in one hand and a live turkey on the end of string in my other hand, “What the hell?” was about all he could say.

Me: “I won a turkey dad.”

Dad: “Well no shit. Didn’t they have any frozen ones?”

Me: “I don’t think so dad.”

Turkey: “Gobble Gobble Gobble.”

Dad: “Well what in the hell are we supposed to do with that?”

Me: “Kill it and skin it dad.”

Turkey: “Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble.”

Dad: “Are you doing to kill it and skin it son?”

Me: “I don’t know how dad.”

Dad: “Jesus H. Christ on a fucking flat car.”

After my parents yelled at me discussed it for a few hours, they finally decided to call my grandfather who was an expert in such matters and he would know exactly what to do. A few hours later my grandfather showed up with all of his turkey killing and skinning equipment and went to work on my new friend Tom.

That was the first Thanksgiving ever that I didn’t eat any turkey. I just couldn’t bring myself to eat it because in those few short hours, me and that turkey had somehow formed a bond. My stomach churned as I watched my family members rip away at my old friend Tom and reduce him to a pile of bones, some gristle, and a little dark meat in a very short amount of time. Oh, the horror.

Funny thing is, I still don’t eat much turkey.

Gobble Gobble.