Let me tell you about how awesome I am.
Last December, I ran a stop sign and almost struck a police car. He wasn't aware of my awesomeness and the privilege of me being so awesome is that I always have the right of way. ALWAYS. I thought about cluing him in on my awesome traffic rule, but I'm way too awesome for that and accepted my citation.
I had to go to traffic court, which was decidedly not very awesome. The funny thing about Evansville is that you're aware of how dumb and intolerable a lot of it's inhabitants are, but then sometimes it still makes you gasp in awe. Traffic court was like a gathering of the degenerates, a parade of stupid if you will. Except for me, because I am awesome. And the judge was awesome too, almost as awesome as me. He started the hearing out by telling people not to be stupid and argue with him over bullcrap. And what do you know, at least half of the idiots there tried telling him their sob stories and were trying to plead with him. These people were booed. One woman (who reeked of self entitlement; princess complex galore) tried to get her charge of driving without insurance dropped by telling the judge that it was just super inconvenient for her, and she thought it was just totally ridiculous. I wanted to tell her that she was making my brains leak out of my ear, but I'm too awesome to be in contempt of court. She ended up deciding to go to court over it instead of taking the judges gracious offer of just faxing proof of insurance in to the prosecutor and only having to pay court fees. I wanted to beat her over her head with her own weave.
Finally my turn came and everything went super smooth. The judge told me to go take a driving course called "Alive at 25" and my ticket would be voided. I said thank you and went about my awesome way. The judge was probably so gracious because he could tell I was super awesome and I had an awesome purple shirt on that day.
The day came for me to take my class, which was held at the community college I dropped out of because I'm way too awesome for that school. So I showed up and found out that they told me the wrong time for the class to start, and I was an hour early. I said to myself "This is the anti-awesome" and did what anyone as awesome as me should do; I drove to a Hacienda and had chips and a tall Dos Equis. If you don't like Dos Equis, we aren't friends, and you are NOT awesome. Some people might tell me that drinking before your defensive driving class is a bad idea, but these people don't understand the burdens of being as awesome as me; I HAD to do it.
So I drove back to the college I'm too awesome for and found the classroom. It was full of stereotypical high school kids, me, this awesome guy who sat in front of me, and the instructor guy who looked like Steve Martin if Steve Martin was about 147 years old and not funny. I blurted out "How cool was it when the wheel was invented?" but the instructor's ears were too old to hear it. Awesome guy in front of me laughed though, and thus cemented his awesomeness. When people understand my jokes and realize how awesome I am, it makes them awesome. Plus he was funny too, and had decent tattoos. We had a great time making fun of people.
Now comes the awesome part. AARP member Steve Martin has us go around and tell people why we are in there, and what our tickets were for. Nobody was in there for anything awesome. Not even awesome guy. There were a lot of speeding, running stop lights, blah blah blah. So my turn came and I wanted to spice things up a bit. I answered "My name is Samuel, and I'm here because this hooker tried to short change me so I threw her out of my car and a cop saw it. Reckless endangerment." The girls in the room gasped in horror, and the guys cracked up. I kept a straight face as Steve Martin Sr. looked at me like I just pooped out a Hitler. A girl in the room piped up and said "Nuh-uh, there's no way you're here for that. You're full of shit." I wanted to tell her she owed me a rib, but even I sometimes have my limits. So I leveled with the class; "Yeah, you caught me... I was bullshitting you. I NEVER actually pay hookers."
Man, I'm so awesome.
(disclaimer... driving drunk is NOT awesome. I only had one beer and was well under the legal limit.)
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The Splinter
In the course of my life I've had some grisly injuries. I've had part of a finger mauled by a jigsaw. I've had a blowgun dart shot through my hand. I've severed an ACL and watched as 3-4 feet of surgical tubing was pulled from around and through my knee joint. I've had shrapnel dug out of my skin from a homemade explosive. But that all pales in comparison to what you're about to read. Consider that your warning.
I got a splinter. In my ballsack.
Take a while to let that sink in.
Guys, this story is going to make you cringe.
My senior year of high school I was an avid distance runner. The cross country season was in full blast and we were putting in anywhere from 6-14 miles every day. The runs can be monotonous, and being the industrious little shitheads we were, we'd come up with games to play on the run to keep our mind off how bad running that far sucked. One game we played was called "rocket-stick" where one guy would grab a fallen limb out in the forest on a run, swinging it at a nearby stick. When the stick made contact, pieces would break off and shoot out like little wooden rockets. I know guys to this day who still have scars from rocket-stick.
But the main game we played on these runs was called tree-tipping. The basic idea is to shimmy up a young tree as high as you could, then swing out and bend it all the way to the ground (picture a reverse pole vault.) The goal is to tip the biggest tree, all you win is bragging rights. The game had been around a while at that time, and there was one tree out in the woods called the "Untippable." Many young men had tried to tip it, and many had failed. I was determined to conquer this tree though, and when we approached the tree I proclaimed my intentions to my teammates.
"Today is the day, gentleman, that I tip the untippable."
"Sam, there is no way you can tip that tree. And we don't feel like taking you to the hospital today. Quit being gay."
"Hey, fuck you. I'm going to do it."
"I'm going to do your mom."
"...Die in a fire, asshole."
I started shimmying up the tree, quickly. All I was wearing at the time were my tiny little running shorts and running shoes, so I probably resembled Gollum a bit as I clambered on. Twenty-five feet... Thirty feet... Forty feet up the tree. The higher I got, the more my teammates cheered. Finally, I got to a height where I felt the tree would tip to the ground under my weight. I swung out and slowly the tree started bending towards the earth. My teammates were going wild, they thought such a feat was impossible. The closer it bent towards the ground, the more feverish their cheers became.
And then the tree stopped, caught in mid-air by the branches of another tree. Terror shook at my very foundation. The woods became silent as we all realized how high I still was in the air. As I contemplated ways to get back to that sweet, sweet ground... I could hear my teammates discussing how to dispose of my lifeless body after I fell from that height. I fiercely swung my legs up, finally hooking them back around the now horizontal tree trunk. Inch by inch I started shimmying my way back down the trunk. It looked like I might escape this disaster after all.
Physics lesson: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. When you climb a tree and try to tip it, you have to achieve a certain height before your weight can take it all the way to the ground. Climbing back down that bent tree, when you reach that point where your weight stops being enough to bend the tree guess what happens. The tree sprung back to upright like a pole vault pole unbending. My teammates screamed out in horror. I went from being 20 feet off the ground to being back up to around 35 in a timeframe of about half a second. The force of the tree unbending caused my grip to falter. As I slipped, I wrapped my arms and legs around the tree in a desperate attempt to keep myself from falling. I then proceeded to slide down a tree trunk like a firepole from 30+ feet.
I hit the ground with a thud and rolled off to the side. My teammates rushed in to help me up, but I brushed them off; I knew something went terribly wrong. As they formed a circle around me I yanked my shorts down faster than an alter boy in the priest chamber. There was a moment of confusion as they tried to figure out why I had stripped myself naked in the middle of a group of guys. Then we all seemed to see it at the same time.
Protruding from the right side of my scrotum was a 2-inch splinter. A little bit of blood trickled down the side of my leg.
The entire group screamed in unison and turned away from the horrid sight. Jeremy gagged. Matt dry heaved off in a bush. I screamed in terror. The pain was exactly how you think it would be guys; that dull, sickening, stomach-turning pain that you would associate with a bad kick to the balls. I dropped to my knees, afraid to touch it. "What do I do?" I desperately asked my friends, but no one could even stand to look at it. The splinter had pierced the skin, but hadn't actually impaled a testicle. I tugged at it but it seemed to be attached by a barb and wouldn't budge. I pulled harder and was met by more gagging from onlookers. The splinter would not budge. The only option now was to break the excess off and try to get myself somewhere I could perform minor surgery.
I'm kind of proud of this next part. After breaking the splinter off and putting my shorts back on, I ran the three miles back to my high school unaided. Each step felt like someone was flicking me on the right side of my ballsack. If Prefontaine can set an american record in the 5k with 10 busted stitches in his foot, I'll be damned if I'm going to let a scrotal splinter stop me.
When I finally made it back to the high school, I had to find a pair of tweezers. I feared the rest of the splinter would just dig in further and further. Luckily, Jeremy's mom was there. Jeremy's mom was kind of a cross country groupie, she was at every practice and every meet and always had food and drinks for the runners. It almost made up for the fact that she was annoying and fat, because that was pretty cool. We talked her into driving to the dollar general to buy us a pair of tweezers. When she returned, she tried insisting on helping me get the splinter out. Lucky for Jeremy, he talked her out of fondling my testicles.
I performed the minor surgery with my teammates watching intently and barely holding back their lunches. Cheers finally erupted as I pulled the remainder of the splinter from my bruised and bloody scrotum. I'm happy to say that everything today is in fine working order. There is still a small scar to always remind me of that horrific day.
That was hard to share, I think I need a hug.
I got a splinter. In my ballsack.
Take a while to let that sink in.
Guys, this story is going to make you cringe.
My senior year of high school I was an avid distance runner. The cross country season was in full blast and we were putting in anywhere from 6-14 miles every day. The runs can be monotonous, and being the industrious little shitheads we were, we'd come up with games to play on the run to keep our mind off how bad running that far sucked. One game we played was called "rocket-stick" where one guy would grab a fallen limb out in the forest on a run, swinging it at a nearby stick. When the stick made contact, pieces would break off and shoot out like little wooden rockets. I know guys to this day who still have scars from rocket-stick.
But the main game we played on these runs was called tree-tipping. The basic idea is to shimmy up a young tree as high as you could, then swing out and bend it all the way to the ground (picture a reverse pole vault.) The goal is to tip the biggest tree, all you win is bragging rights. The game had been around a while at that time, and there was one tree out in the woods called the "Untippable." Many young men had tried to tip it, and many had failed. I was determined to conquer this tree though, and when we approached the tree I proclaimed my intentions to my teammates.
"Today is the day, gentleman, that I tip the untippable."
"Sam, there is no way you can tip that tree. And we don't feel like taking you to the hospital today. Quit being gay."
"Hey, fuck you. I'm going to do it."
"I'm going to do your mom."
"...Die in a fire, asshole."
I started shimmying up the tree, quickly. All I was wearing at the time were my tiny little running shorts and running shoes, so I probably resembled Gollum a bit as I clambered on. Twenty-five feet... Thirty feet... Forty feet up the tree. The higher I got, the more my teammates cheered. Finally, I got to a height where I felt the tree would tip to the ground under my weight. I swung out and slowly the tree started bending towards the earth. My teammates were going wild, they thought such a feat was impossible. The closer it bent towards the ground, the more feverish their cheers became.
And then the tree stopped, caught in mid-air by the branches of another tree. Terror shook at my very foundation. The woods became silent as we all realized how high I still was in the air. As I contemplated ways to get back to that sweet, sweet ground... I could hear my teammates discussing how to dispose of my lifeless body after I fell from that height. I fiercely swung my legs up, finally hooking them back around the now horizontal tree trunk. Inch by inch I started shimmying my way back down the trunk. It looked like I might escape this disaster after all.
Physics lesson: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. When you climb a tree and try to tip it, you have to achieve a certain height before your weight can take it all the way to the ground. Climbing back down that bent tree, when you reach that point where your weight stops being enough to bend the tree guess what happens. The tree sprung back to upright like a pole vault pole unbending. My teammates screamed out in horror. I went from being 20 feet off the ground to being back up to around 35 in a timeframe of about half a second. The force of the tree unbending caused my grip to falter. As I slipped, I wrapped my arms and legs around the tree in a desperate attempt to keep myself from falling. I then proceeded to slide down a tree trunk like a firepole from 30+ feet.
I hit the ground with a thud and rolled off to the side. My teammates rushed in to help me up, but I brushed them off; I knew something went terribly wrong. As they formed a circle around me I yanked my shorts down faster than an alter boy in the priest chamber. There was a moment of confusion as they tried to figure out why I had stripped myself naked in the middle of a group of guys. Then we all seemed to see it at the same time.
Protruding from the right side of my scrotum was a 2-inch splinter. A little bit of blood trickled down the side of my leg.
The entire group screamed in unison and turned away from the horrid sight. Jeremy gagged. Matt dry heaved off in a bush. I screamed in terror. The pain was exactly how you think it would be guys; that dull, sickening, stomach-turning pain that you would associate with a bad kick to the balls. I dropped to my knees, afraid to touch it. "What do I do?" I desperately asked my friends, but no one could even stand to look at it. The splinter had pierced the skin, but hadn't actually impaled a testicle. I tugged at it but it seemed to be attached by a barb and wouldn't budge. I pulled harder and was met by more gagging from onlookers. The splinter would not budge. The only option now was to break the excess off and try to get myself somewhere I could perform minor surgery.
I'm kind of proud of this next part. After breaking the splinter off and putting my shorts back on, I ran the three miles back to my high school unaided. Each step felt like someone was flicking me on the right side of my ballsack. If Prefontaine can set an american record in the 5k with 10 busted stitches in his foot, I'll be damned if I'm going to let a scrotal splinter stop me.
When I finally made it back to the high school, I had to find a pair of tweezers. I feared the rest of the splinter would just dig in further and further. Luckily, Jeremy's mom was there. Jeremy's mom was kind of a cross country groupie, she was at every practice and every meet and always had food and drinks for the runners. It almost made up for the fact that she was annoying and fat, because that was pretty cool. We talked her into driving to the dollar general to buy us a pair of tweezers. When she returned, she tried insisting on helping me get the splinter out. Lucky for Jeremy, he talked her out of fondling my testicles.
I performed the minor surgery with my teammates watching intently and barely holding back their lunches. Cheers finally erupted as I pulled the remainder of the splinter from my bruised and bloody scrotum. I'm happy to say that everything today is in fine working order. There is still a small scar to always remind me of that horrific day.
That was hard to share, I think I need a hug.
Engagement Rings = Sexist.
Did he really just say engagement rings are sexist?
Are guys even allowed to say something is sexist at all?
Yes and yes.
Now before you get all huffy and puffy hear me out on this one, and more importantly CALL ME OUT on this one if anything I say doesn't make sense or it's false. I want you to think about this whole engagement ring tradition for a second, and I'd like to address both genders on it.
Ladies~
Gender equality. Very important to you, correct? You've made huge strides in women's rights, like the 19th Amendment, equality in the workplace, etc. I think all that is great, truly I do. But this is a two way road. Equality means equality. So when a guy drops a few grand to proclaim his desire to love you all his life... what do you plan to do to make this worth his investment? I've heard a lot of things from girls about this. Some have said "Why should I have to do anything? Isn't getting me as his wife enough?" Well if that's the case, isn't him just asking you (without getting a ring) enough? We're going for equality here, and that is definitely not equal. If its good enough to get you as his wife, shouldn't it be good enough for you to get him as a husband? I think it should. But if you INSIST on getting an engagement ring... what are YOU going to do to make it worth the money? Do that special thing for him in bed that you won't ever do even though he begs for it daily?
And... that statement brings me to address the men.
Guys~
When the hell did all of your collective balls fall off? What are you idiots doing? WHY ARE YOU SETTLING FOR LESS THAN YOU DESERVE? How is it that not every man has had a moment where he sits and reflects on asking a woman to marry him... buying that expensive damn ring... and realizing that he is getting the short end of the stick on this? You buy the ring and ask the girl - she says yes - you both end up happy, you both have a big commitment from each other... but she ends up with a shiny gizmo on her finger and you end up a few grand in debt. HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE TO YOU?
I want you all to stop and think about this. If this girl won't marry you without a ridiculously expensive little doo-dad... why the hell are you going to marry someone so shallow? Why aren't you demanding more?
(On a sidenote, to the fellas) If you're comprimising anything in your life in hopes of more or better sex, you deserve the emasculation that's coming to you. You probably haven't figured out that women in fact DO enjoy having sex and often crave sex more than us... I'm sorry to say that this means its not just an act of charity on her part. (Actually it might be, if you're this naive about it at this point you're probably bad at it anyway.) Also... I want you to try something. If your girl pulls that "I'm cutting you off" crap... just roll with it until she decides she wants to have sex again... then tell her that since she cut you off for 2 months, now you're cutting her off for two months. Yes, this will take willpower but I'm sure you can make do by yourself. But see if that doesn't change a couple things for you. Worst case scenario is you guys keep cutting each other off and eventually end the relationship- Be happy about that, because it sounds like she was a bitch anyway and you're now free. Sex is great, but it isn't this invaluable commodity you're making it out to be.
But, back to the point in hand... Ladies- if you're truly seeking gender equality you're going to have to sacrifice some things like this. You might have to give up luxuries like engagement rings and having doors opened and free drinks at bars because you're showing cleavage. You might have to figure out how to work on your own car. You may have to kill that big monstrous mouse or bug that scared the hell out of you. You may have to deal with men having less interest in you because a majority of us aren't looking for a mate who out earns us. I know not all of this applies to everyone, but it should really make you think. Sexism is a two-way street sweetheart.
Are guys even allowed to say something is sexist at all?
Yes and yes.
Now before you get all huffy and puffy hear me out on this one, and more importantly CALL ME OUT on this one if anything I say doesn't make sense or it's false. I want you to think about this whole engagement ring tradition for a second, and I'd like to address both genders on it.
Ladies~
Gender equality. Very important to you, correct? You've made huge strides in women's rights, like the 19th Amendment, equality in the workplace, etc. I think all that is great, truly I do. But this is a two way road. Equality means equality. So when a guy drops a few grand to proclaim his desire to love you all his life... what do you plan to do to make this worth his investment? I've heard a lot of things from girls about this. Some have said "Why should I have to do anything? Isn't getting me as his wife enough?" Well if that's the case, isn't him just asking you (without getting a ring) enough? We're going for equality here, and that is definitely not equal. If its good enough to get you as his wife, shouldn't it be good enough for you to get him as a husband? I think it should. But if you INSIST on getting an engagement ring... what are YOU going to do to make it worth the money? Do that special thing for him in bed that you won't ever do even though he begs for it daily?
And... that statement brings me to address the men.
Guys~
When the hell did all of your collective balls fall off? What are you idiots doing? WHY ARE YOU SETTLING FOR LESS THAN YOU DESERVE? How is it that not every man has had a moment where he sits and reflects on asking a woman to marry him... buying that expensive damn ring... and realizing that he is getting the short end of the stick on this? You buy the ring and ask the girl - she says yes - you both end up happy, you both have a big commitment from each other... but she ends up with a shiny gizmo on her finger and you end up a few grand in debt. HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE TO YOU?
I want you all to stop and think about this. If this girl won't marry you without a ridiculously expensive little doo-dad... why the hell are you going to marry someone so shallow? Why aren't you demanding more?
(On a sidenote, to the fellas) If you're comprimising anything in your life in hopes of more or better sex, you deserve the emasculation that's coming to you. You probably haven't figured out that women in fact DO enjoy having sex and often crave sex more than us... I'm sorry to say that this means its not just an act of charity on her part. (Actually it might be, if you're this naive about it at this point you're probably bad at it anyway.) Also... I want you to try something. If your girl pulls that "I'm cutting you off" crap... just roll with it until she decides she wants to have sex again... then tell her that since she cut you off for 2 months, now you're cutting her off for two months. Yes, this will take willpower but I'm sure you can make do by yourself. But see if that doesn't change a couple things for you. Worst case scenario is you guys keep cutting each other off and eventually end the relationship- Be happy about that, because it sounds like she was a bitch anyway and you're now free. Sex is great, but it isn't this invaluable commodity you're making it out to be.
But, back to the point in hand... Ladies- if you're truly seeking gender equality you're going to have to sacrifice some things like this. You might have to give up luxuries like engagement rings and having doors opened and free drinks at bars because you're showing cleavage. You might have to figure out how to work on your own car. You may have to kill that big monstrous mouse or bug that scared the hell out of you. You may have to deal with men having less interest in you because a majority of us aren't looking for a mate who out earns us. I know not all of this applies to everyone, but it should really make you think. Sexism is a two-way street sweetheart.
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