Interview With The Guy That Collected My Urine

Sometimes you find yourself in an establishment, wondering about the strange trail people took to end up working there. That’s why I asked the guy that recently collected a sample of my urine how he wound up analyzing pee for a living.

Me: You sit in this room all day and wait for people to urinate.

Urine Collector: Yes, I do.

Me: So how does a guy get started in the urinalysis biz? Were you interested in urine as a child?

UC: Obsessed. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t  thinking about urine—drawing pictures of it, bringing it to show-and-tell, collecting samples from my siblings and our pets. I couldn’t get enough of the stuff.

Me: Describe your ‘Eureka!’ moment, the time when you said to yourself, ‘This is what I want to do with my life. I want to collect piss in small plastic containers.’

UC: I was in fifth grade. By that time, I was always lurking in the restroom, because I enjoyed urinary environs—human friends didn’t interest me—and I would take in the smells, the sounds. I have a poem I wrote that day. Allow me to read it. (the room goes black, except for a single spotlight that shines down on The Urine Collector, who is resting on a stool, smoking a cigarette, and snapping a slow beat)

Behold now, these ancient echoes that reverberate as splashes of flaxen liquid strike the alabaster surface of a urinal!

Envelop me, O ethereal, pissy mist that floats over toilet bowls both old and new!

Bladders From Above, bless us with thy holy golden rain, and smite those that conspire to stop thine rivulets!

Me: That didn’t rhyme.

UC: Expressions of passion rarely do.

Me: So are you passionate about poetry too? Did you ever think about writing as a career?

UC: No. Writers don’t get to analyze urine.

Me: Of course they don’t. Be honest with this next question. Can you tell from a person’s looks if they are going to test positive for drugs? Like if some guy with dreadlocks wearing a Phish T-shirt walks in, do you just say to him ‘Nope. No way. Don’t waste my time. Get the hell out of here,’ or is that frowned upon?

UC: The brotherhood of People Interested in Scrutinizing Sewage (P.I.S.S.) requires us to take an oath of equality. Every person that comes through our door receives a cup, regardless of weight, ugliness, hairiness, whatever. Having said that, words like ‘stoked’ are a tip off, and spotting even the smallest traces of tie-dye on a garment raise red flags as well. Whiffs of patchouli will also garner special attention. In those cases, I personally get in real close and watch the urine come out of the urethra.

Me: That seems like a good place to end this. Thank you.

UC: No, thank you (he wraps both his hands around the container, like he’s holding a cup of hot cocoa, closes his eyes and sniffs deeply, taking in the aromatics and other unseen nuances that only a seasoned expert can detect).

Tony Fly: “Every Morning, I Unwrap My Lips From Around The Barrel Of A Shotgun So That One Day I Can Again Act As The Proverbial Shepherd To The Metaphorical Sheep That Comprise The Aimlessly Wandering Populace Of The Twin Cities Metropolitan Area”

“Wow, that headline looks really bad on paper. Allow me to ameliorate that quote,” said recently displaced radio personality Tony Fly from a recliner in his den.

“I am not, I repeat, NOT going to kill myself. It’s like this — I…well, the past few months have been rough. I had to pawn off all my silverware, so when I eat breakfast in the morning, I have to jam pappy’s old shotgun directly into my bucket of ice cream. It gets caked up in the barrel, so then I kind of unhinge my jaw — like a boa constrictor — and suck the cream out. Crude? Yes. Delicious? Even more yes. Once I’m done with that though, I absolutely crush it on Monster.com, because the Twin Cities need me back in action.”

Let’s backtrack for a moment. Unless you’ve been living in a wi-fi deficient shanty town since August, you undoubtedly know that Tony Fly, the legendary radiotronic demigod that once blessed the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area with his divine insight and wit on various programs, was relieved of his morning show duties on the area’s adult contemporary station 96.3 K-Twin. Fly has also appeared in Taco Bell commercials endorsing Doritos Locos Tacos during syndicated episodes of The Simpsons on local channel 45.

“I make sure the gun isn’t loaded when I’m using it to eat. Safety first, kids,” Fly said into a microphone, the wire of which could be seen coiling out from under Fly’s Transformers blanket onto the floor and eventually ending, not plugged into anything, near an empty box of Cocoa Puffs.

“No one does it better. He’s a consummate professional. Would I hire him? Absolutely not, unless he finds a way to regenerate himself into a hot 23 year-old girl every few years,” said Dave Ryan, a noted supporter of hot 23 year-old girls, and longtime host of KDWB’s morning show. “We just wouldn’t have a place for him on the show,” Ryan went on, “Unless he was, you know, a hot 23 year-old girl.”

Fly, on how he was let go: “Well, when we switched formats from 96 Now to K-Twin a few months back, a guy came into the studio and told me to start saying “K-Twin” instead of “96 Now” while I was on the air. I asked him if, due to the changes, I would still be receiving a bi-weekly paycheck. He said yes, so I quickly said to myself ‘K-Twin K-Twin K-Twin,’ while slapping myself on the forehead so I would remember. Flash forward a few months, and I’m out on my ass. A lot of good all that studying did.”

On if he’s open to new opportunities: “I’ve been in radio for so long, I don’t really know any other way. The people of the Twin Cities need me. Imagine a world where I’m not there to break down the rich, multi-tiered symbolism Adam Levine injects into Maroon 5 songs. Imagine a world where people don’t know what I thought of last night’s American Idol episode. Well let me tell you something — you don’t have to imagine that world. It’s here. These people are nothing but lost and wandering sheep. And one day, I hope not too long from now, I will rise from the ashes, like a phoenix, and a shepherd, too — like a shepherd phoenix — to guide them back to the celestial waters of radio perfection.”

At this point, Fly took a potty break. In the den, a prolonged, guttural, world-weary sigh could be heard emanating from the restroom. Upon his return, he picked his nose a little, and said “Well, we can head down to Taco Bell if you want. Sometimes they recognize me in there, and I get a small discount.”

The interview ended shortly after that.

Chick-fil-A Will Now Only Serve Meat From Gay Chickens

Dan Cathy, in what may prove to be either a brilliant PR move or an incredibly misguided attempt to appease millions of seething poultry lovers who probably hadn’t even heard of Chick-fil-A just weeks ago, has announced that his company will from now on serve meat exclusively from chickens who were homosexual during their lifetimes.

The company president’s decision was met with anger from PETA, who will never be happy about anything, lukewarm support from poultry farmers, whose businesses will be bolstered or hurt depending on the sexual orientation of their chicken herds, and general confusion from the LGBT community.

“No animal should ever be used for human consumption,” a PETA official stated, not realizing the irony that humans most likely would not have evolved to the level of consciousness necessary to come to the conclusion that it is wrong to eat animals had it not been for the inclusion of meat into their diets millions of years ago.

A redneck farmer, who contracts his birds out to Chick-fil-A, was speechless, and looked more confused than a cow in a henhouse, a pig in a shower, and a horse at a hootenanny.

“Uh…..what? I don’t get it, are we supposed to be happy that they’re including homosexual chickens on their menu, or offended that they are now only slaughtering the gay ones for their restaurants?” a befuddled representative of the LGBT community responded.

Whatever the motive, you can bet your bottom dollar that this exclusive gay-chicken move will only make Chick-fil-A better than ever. That’s according to Dan Cathy, who asks you to ponder this: “Imagine, two roosters just going at it. They are both masculine, powerful, and dominant. The strenuous sexual battle betwixt them will result in more of a struggle, therefore a harder workout for each bird, resulting in a leaner, healthier cut of meat. I’m getting sweaty and hungry just thinking about it.”

This reporter, not satisfied with one-sided answers, took it one step further — what about the meat rendered from lesbian chickens? Cathy looked thoughtful for a moment, then replied, “Well, Michael, that’s a damn good question. A damn good question. While less physical than the male of the species, a lesbian cut of meat can be counted on to provide what is lacking in their penised counterparts — tenderness, juiciness, and an all-around aura of love. And that’s what we want people to experience when they eat at a Chick-fil-A restaurant — love. But not weird, ishy, homosexual love.”

When asked what the homosexual chicken community thought of this development, a local gay chicken was very tight-beaked, yet its body language betrayed the fact that it was thinking deeply about something, but what? Is it that chickens, regardless of sexual orientation, have no marriage rights whatsoever? Was she planning an escape? Was she thinking of what was going to happen in the henhouse later? Or perhaps there was no cerebral activity there at all, her brain a veritable ball of goop due to years of the inbreeding and harsh conditions that make up today’s corporate chicken farms.

Whatever the outcome, I’m still not sure what Chick-fil-A is or how to pronounce it.

 

 

 

Interview

The following interview took place in a room a few days ago during a thundery March day, on a spread of rare, expensive animal pelts. Succulent incense burned in the background, stimulating the olfactory sensations of all present, while soft, sitar-based music only added to the mood. The interviewer – the writer of this Blog – me. The interviewee – the writer of this Blog – me. Let’s take a look and see what happened.

Michael: I like to start off all my interviews with this question, what-

Michael: Michael, may I interject? All of your interviews? You’ve never interviewed anyone before.

Michael: That’s not true, I interviewed Louis Byrd for that journalism class last spring.

Michael: Was that the one where you were supposed to come up with insightful, character-revealing questions and you ended up asking him what flavor of Skittle he would be, and what his favorite super power was, and then, when you turned it in, the teacher told you it was terrible and that you had to do it over?

Michael: That would be the one.

Michael: That’s what I thought. And, by the way, did you know that the red Skittle is actually strawberry, and not cherry? I didn’t even know that until I had been an avid Skittle eater for about five years.

Michael: Yeah that’s crazy. It totally changed the way I thought about strawberries. It’s like I have more respect for them now or something.

Michael: I remember being a little kid, getting a fresh bag of Skittles, then dividing all the flavors into seperate piles, and creating different concoctions by combining them. But I always saved a few from the red pile so I could eat them last.

Michael: Yeah, I know.

Michael: Oh yeah, of course you do! But still, wasn’t it great?

Michael: I feel like we’re getting off topic here. What is your worst fear?

Michael: I think you know the answer to that question.

Michael: I do.

Michael: Then what’s the point of asking it?

Michael: There is a very redundant haze around this whole interview, isn’t there? Tell me about your childhood.

Michael: Well, I already told you that Skittle story. Not much else happened. I ate a lot of Skittles.

Michael: Yeah, you did. Describe yourself in three words.

Michael: Hmmm, that’s a tough one. How about this – Dominant force, wrecking ball, fire-breathing cyclone of all-encompassing, earth-shattering pestilence.

Michael: I guess I’ll accept that.

Michael: You can, and you will.

Michael: I shall, and I have. Where did you get that shirt?

Michael: Uh, I’m not wearing one. You told me not to.

Michael: That is correct. Moving along, what is your favorite word?

Michael: Yahtzee!

Michael: No it isn’t.

Michael: Yeah, you’re right. How about this – I’m going to turn the table and start asking you questions. Just who the hell do you think you are?

Michael: To be quite frank, I think you and I are a lot alike. Some might even say we are the same person.

Michael: Touché. Well, this whole thing turned out to be pretty pointless then. You wanna make out a little?

Michael: I thought you’d never ask.

Michael: I’m gonna watch you pee later too.

Michael: Splendid.

And that’s where I’m gonna have to cut this off. What happens after that doesn’t need to be seen by anyone, anywhere.