Sitting, Standing, and Channel Surfing During the National Anthem

When I’m watching a sporting event at home I sit on a couch during the national anthem. Sometimes I stand to go use the bathroom. Most of the time I watch something else until the game starts. I know the song is playing, but it’s on a different channel. Does the mere knowledge that the national anthem is playing somewhere require some sort of action?

If you camped outside the house of a pro-stander (or anti-sitter) and played the song continuously would they never sit down?

If you did the same thing at the home of a pro-sitter (or anti-stander), would they never stand up?

If the song is performed acapella using sign language in a forest, does it make a sound?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The People of Trader Joe’s

Browse through People of Walmart for a bit. Pretty scary stuff.

The universe needs balance, though. Enter the yuppies of Trader Joe’s, a force countering the grizzled mass that comprises Walmart’s patronage, not in looks, but in sheer pomposity.

Last Friday, I witnessed a 40-something male, clad in snug, halfway-down-the-quad navy blue short pants and a tight pastel plaid shirt, shaming an elderly woman that may have been his mother, lover—or through some sort of strange sci-fi twist, daughter—for suggesting that they buy frozen corn.

Picture that: unfettered fury, arising from the mere mention of produce stored below thirty two degrees Fahrenheit.

The situation played out like this:

Mother, daughter, or lover: “They have some corn in the freezer.”

Man, through gritted teeth, with a vein protruding from his forehead, talking very slowly: “What did……..I tell you……..about frozen…………………… products.”

Then he stood, glaring at her in silence, as a look of genuine terror overtook the woman’s face.

I feel like I should have intervened, but I got the vibe that this would have earned me a room temperature organic daikon radish stuffed into one of my many unfrozen orifices, courtesy of short pants.

 

I Like Reuben Sandwiches Now

“Let’s change the way we eat.”

—Tupac Shakur, Changes

I recently ate a Rueben sandwich for the first time. It was pretty good. I like Reuben sandwiches now.

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).

Fun With Pharmaceuticals

There are perks to being a blogger. We have this unique platform that enables us to let our voices be heard, and sometimes a guy in suit from something called Big Medicine approaches you with a sack covered in dollar signs saying that he’d like you to talk about the greatest drug for high blood pressure ever created, and you tell him you’ll never sell out, and then he shows you that there’s actually money in the sack, so you say you’ll take the offer.

Even though that happened, it had no influence over my decision to talk to you today about Fluvalipitorbrate™, the best boner medicine to hit the market in years.

You see, sometimes in order to lower your cholesterol, or whatever this stuff does, you need to make sacrifices, like only having one functioning kidney. You have two for a reason, so it’s not much of a sacrifice anyways. And—this is according to Big Medicine—comas brought on by Fluvalipitorbrate™ are actually healthy, because it gives your body a chance to rest and recover from the ulcers and painful full-body burning sensations that led to the coma in the first place. Plus, you won’t be conscious for the bloody diarrhea. Sounds like Fluvalipitorbrate™ is doing you a solid there.

When you come out of the coma, which 65% of people do, you’re going to have some suicidal thoughts. But that’s only because you’re mad at yourself for not taking Fluvalipitorbrate™ years ago, when it was still causing men to grow massive breasts. You’ll cheer up when they give you a jar full of your teeth and then find that all the hair on your body has fallen off, which will help you swim very fast, once your muscles grow back.

Then you’re on the home stretch to a major testosterone boost, which is what this drug is all about. After you fight off the minor bouts with bi-polar disorder, diabetes, necrotizing fasciitis, and halitosis, you can tell all your friends (through sign language, if you still have lockjaw) about Fluvalipitorbrate™ and how it changed your life.

For more info, ads for Fluvalipitorbrate™ can be found in Men’s Health magazine, or on our infomercial that airs from 3-4 every Thursday morning (it’s the one with happy men golfing and a voiceover talking extremely fast about internal bleeding and bones turning to dust).

 

 

 

 

 

Black Friday Comes But Once A Year

Too much focus has been put on the consumerism surrounding Thanksgiving week in recent years. The holiday is a time for family. For food. For fellowship. For football. No one should have to leave their gathering and go to work at eight in the evening on Thanksgiving just to get ready for a midnight Black Friday sale, unless, of course, that person works at the store selling the sick 72 inch TV I need in my garage.

Doctors work at hospitals on holidays. Pushing logically forward, this means that those in retail should always be available so that we can buy Stuff whenever we want, for without Stuff, we are nothing more than wild animals. Would you like to be a wild animal, living outdoors, biting and scratching and fighting for the scraps of a shredded rabbit carcass, or a human being, shopping inside, biting and scratching and fighting for the scraps at the bottom of a DVD bargain bin? In nature, when that carcass is gone, it’s gone, but on Black Friday, we have people who were forced to abandon their families that will replenish that dumpster full of NCIS DVDs while you push your thumb deep into a fellow Mark Harmon fan’s eye.

Police and paramedics are available every day of the year, too, so why do you think you shouldn’t have to clock in for a twelve-hour overnight shift, Mr. I-don’t-want-to-work-holidays-retail-guy-who-is-being-paid-almost-ten-dollars-an-hour? Just imagine if the police didn’t feel like working on Black Friday. Who would quell the riots that Black Friday causes?

Anyways, the first Thanksgiving was nothing more than a prelude to massive land theft and genocide. Is that what we want to celebrate? Methinks not! Erase the pain and terrible memories of Manifest Destiny by giving your money to a large corporation in the middle of the night! Exercise civility and engage in hand-to-hand combat with your fellow man (preferably of the same race) on the way into Walmart and then pay for the ensuing spoils. Time was, you would’ve given that same man a blanket dosed with smallpox and then turned his ancestral homeland into a tobacco farm. Being a part of Black Friday is being a part of the evolution of mankind.

It’s also one of those neat times where you can go plum wild, and no one can get mad at you.

For instance, on what other day of the year can I drink coffee all night and have seven hours of shopping in before the sun rises? When else is it perfectly acceptable to ram your shopping cart into the nuts of yuppies and vagrants alike, whether they’re stumbling around with a 75 lb. case of upscale dog food, or simply trying to get out of the cold? In June, why is it not OK for me to trample a seven year-old child that is standing where I want to be, but the day after Thanksgiving, people form a circle and cheer me on? On Black Friday, even people in wheelchairs aren’t off-limits, because who’s to say it’s not just a wily disguise to get preferential treatment? How can I be so thankful for what I have on Thanksgiving, but when midnight strikes, my face becomes disfigured, I let out an otherworldly howl, and I become a ravenous beast that needs to buy things that have been available every other day of the year during normal waking hours?

Hell, I don’t know. Probably some instinctual hangover from our Neanderthal days. If only those ancestors could see me now, belittling retail workers, breathing in the sweaty farts of strangers, and replacing the great sadness I feel inside with Stuff.

I Changed My Facebook Profile Pic To The French Flag, And Things Are Getting Better Already

As you’ve probably noticed, my Facebook profile picture now has a vague blue, white and red shade over it. Why? Well, it’s just one of the many things I’m doing that is helping heal the world. Like back in June, when I saw that everyone was changing their profile pics to rainbows. I thought it was because summer was starting, and I also like rainbows, so I did it too. Turns out it was for gay marriage. Whoops. It was a happy accident, though. It made me look ultra progressive and accepting.

This time around, I was prepared. I knew the purpose behind this massively popular act, and I noticed that everyone else who did it got like, a shitload of ‘likes.’ No brainer.

What’s that? You’re attending a candle light vigil and you want me to come along? Hmmm. Where is it? St. John’s Lutheran Church? Is that the one by the McDonald’s? It’s not. Hmmm. The thing is, that’s kind of out of my way, and I really wanted to go to McDonald’s. Besides, I already changed my profile pic for France. They know I got their back.

There will be cookies and punch at the vigil, you say? I really wanted more of a meal. How about this: while I’m at McDonald’s, I’ll order extra French fries. I’ll say the ‘French’ part really loud, and see if I can get a chant going. No I won’t, I’m shy. Anyways, remember how silly it was when we were mad at France, and people were trying to call those things Freedom Fries? I think all those French flags on Facebook have buried that hatchet once and for all.

I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. You’re assembling care packages for the injured victims? When? Ooooo, that’s not going to work for me. My favorite um…..show is on at that time. What are the chances. Tell you what, write out the address for my Facebook profile on a piece of paper, make copies, and drop one into every package. Then they can go to my page and see that I have changed my picture to the French Flag. Well, I’m still the main focus of the picture, but the colors kind of distort the image and make me look really cool. I know seeing a stranger overlaid with the American flag would make me happy, sort of, I guess.

Did I hear that correctly? You’re accepting monetary donations? Um, I would, but I don’t uh, have any cash on me. Yeah, no cash. Sorry. What’s that? I can go online and donate with a debit or credit card? Shit. I mean yeah, I’ll totally do that later.

Look, before you toss out any more invites requiring me to go places or do things for France, let me point out again that I changed my Facebook profile picture to the French Flag. No further action needed. See? Holy crap! Ten ‘likes’ already! I never crack double digits. YES!!! Peace on Earth, here we come.

Did you just call me a sheep? Why? Because I blindly follow trends? Do sheep support France? Didn’t think so. BAAA. Excuse me, I coughed. BAAAAAA. BAAAAAAAAAA. Sorry, there’s something tickling my throat.

BAAAAAAAA. BAAAAAAAAA. BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Local Blogger Presses “Publish,” Sits Back To Await Praise And Accolades

THE INTERNET—A local blogger recently published its latest article, sat back, and vibrated in excited delight.

“Yes. This will be the one,” it says, grinning at its own genius. “People magazine, here I come.”

The post is currently wafting aimlessly through the internet, where it is completely available for the top editors at every major periodical in the world to stumble across and hire the blogger once they recognize the raw talent and “outside of the box” recklessness that comes from the “writer’s” complete absence of any formal journalistic training.

Whether it was being one of the first few thousand pundits to make the astute observation that the only people who like Justin Bieber are generally preteen girls, to coining the phrase I’m more confused than Bruce or Caitlyn Jenner’s genitals!, or just having an all-around knack for “sticking it” to pop culture figures who “have it coming,” this blogger has got the stuff.

After pressing the “Publish” button, the blogger spent half an hour sorting through old Facebook photos, trying to decide which one would look good as a profile pic for the weekly column it will soon be writing for the local newspaper, which will then lead to a nationally syndicated gig.

Things Only Nine-Fingered Gluten-Free People Will Understand

—->you once stuck your finger in a carny’s mouth because you didn’t think he had any teeth

—->you once dug around in a carny’s mouth searching for a finger

—->you once punched a carny in the face until his teeth fell out

—->you once used a broken beer bottle to slice open the stomach of a toothless carny

—->you once brought your own nibbled-up, chewing tobacco and stomach juice-soaked finger to the hospital, where you were told it could not be reattached

—->you once were in a hospital examination room, looking at the stump that used to be your left pointer finger, while a doctor told you that you were morbidly obese

—->now you’re gluten free, because that will help, just like Atkins, essential oils, watching Dr. Phil, owning one eight pound dumbbell, and taking the top part of the bun off your Arby’s roast beef sandwich did.

Is There A Name For Black Briefs?

Internet—I need your assistance. The other day there was this guy wearing whitey-tighties, except that they were black, so they weren’t whitey-tighties at all.

Is there an established name similar to whitey-tighties for black briefs? Like ‘lack-of-slack-black undergarment?’

Please help.