About ThisAbout Me
Email Me
Bookmark
Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
My web site has never gotten me into trouble at work.
(You see this? This is me, knocking on wood. Vigorously.
No, not that kind of wood, slappy. And my eyes are up here, got it? Perv.)
My web site has never gotten me into trouble at work because, so far as I know, no one at work knows that I have this web site. Otherwise, I imagine we’d have some very uncomfortable conversations regarding content, attitude, and various teensy details that I may have neglected to mention to my coworkers, for fear of atomic wedgies.
But this isn’t about why the ‘petty cash’ drawer is always empty, except for an empty condom wrapper. Nor is it about who pees in whose coffee mugs every night, after everyone else is gone. Or even where and in which rest rooms the hidden cameras are installed.
No, this is about how I may have gotten into even deeper trouble today — worse than anything that law enforcement officers, civil lawsuits, and a handful of restraining orders could inflict. I’m talking about getting into the trouble of relentless and merciless ridicule by my coworkers, all because of this web site. And because of one post in particular. This post, in fact, which isn’t even written yet. Allow me to explain.
A few days ago, I started collecting spam.
Actually, that’s not true. I started ‘collecting’ spam the nanosecond I first discovered the internet, nearly *cough* *cough* shutupIknowI’mold *kack* years ago. Because spam is the interweb, and the interweb is spam. I’m fairly certain that when brainy pioneering geeks — and Al Gore, of course — first linked two computers together with an inch-thick cable and called it a ‘network’, the first trailblazing messages sent back and forth had to do with finding lower mortgage rates and shooting the monkey to win a free iPod. ‘Hello, world! … Wouldn’t you like a bigger penis?‘
So I didn’t start collecting spam a few days ago. A few days ago, I simply stopped deleting spam. At least, a certain type of spam. I’ve scanned through my ‘bulk mail’ folder before, and seen some pretty strange subject lines, as most people have. And I thought it might be fun to imagine a conversation between me and my spam, using just those subjects. It might look something like this, even:
Me and My Spam
Spam: Ahem. ‘Wish you could be better?‘
Me: Well, I’ve never really thought about it. Better how, exactly?
Spam: ‘Your wife doesn’t find you as good in bed as you used to be!‘
Me: Now hold on. I mean, she would have said something, surely. What’s she after?
Spam: ‘Produce stronger and rock hard erections!‘
Me: ‘Rock hard’? Isn’t that just a little extreme? I don’t–
Spam: ‘Increase your penis girth by 20%!‘
Me: Well, which is it? Harder, or wider? I think you’ve got the wrong–
Spam: ‘You always wanted to use your penis as a billiards cue!‘
Me: Um… no. Not me. I’m allergic to chalk, for one thing. Plus, I’m ticklish, and–
Spam: ‘Gals in your city!‘
Me: Wait. Now I’m supposed to unleash my new tree-branch weenie on random women in town? Aren’t there laws against that kind of thing? And what are they, ninety? Who calls themselves ‘gals‘ any more?
Spam: ‘Babes inside your neighborhood!‘
Me: Well, that’s better, I guess. But no.
Spam: ‘Hookup for warranteed sex!‘
Me: No, really, thanks. I’m not even sure how you’d put sex under warranty, and I’d probably lose the receipt, anyway. I’m really not–
Spam: ‘Anna squirting her nasty juice!‘
Me: Look, no. I’m sure Anna and her… um, what appears to be apple juice, are just lovely, but no. Not interested.
Spam: ‘Rejuvenate your liveliness!‘
Me: Well, now, okay — that doesn’t sound so bad. What sort of liveliness, exactly?
Spam: ‘Improve sperm motility!‘
Me: Ah. I might have known.
Spam: ‘Improve overall sperm production!‘
Me: I’m… not all that comfortable talking about–
Spam: ‘Your mother has always dreamed of having sweet grandkids.‘
Me: Hey, don’t drag my mom into this! Especially when you were just talking about–
Spam: ‘One towel won’t be enough to wipe off your sperm!‘
Me: All right, then. That’s about enough of that. Don’t drag my linens into this, either!
Spam: ‘Stop premature ejaculation!‘
Me: I don’t! I mean, I do. Stop it. I mean, I never started! What’s the right answer?!
Spam: ‘Pod eighteen girls tinsmithy hardcore!‘
Me: Oh. Well, I wouldn’t have guessed that, that’s for sure.
Spam: ‘It’s Valentine’s Day and your seat is ready!‘
Me: Oooooh, that had better not be a buttsex joke. I told you I’m married, and–
Spam: ‘Give her a Double Dose of love!‘
Me: With what, two penises? You’ve got a pill for that now?
Spam: ‘Screw her in the elevator!‘
Me: Now that is a buttsex joke, isn’t it? I’ve had just about enough of you.
Spam: ‘Enhance your anatomy!‘
Me: *sigh* You’re not talking about a nose job, are you?
Spam: ‘Our penis pills will make your penis sooooo long!‘
Me: Right. Look, I–
Spam: ‘Add considerable flavoring to your living!‘
Me: What does–
Spam: ‘Supply significant spiciness to your liveliness!‘
Me: I don’t even know what–
Spam: ‘Inject important flavoring into your existence!‘
Me: Hey, are we having sex or basting a turkey here? I’m confused.
Spam: ‘The amount of your sperm will make her stammer!‘
Me: Ah. Well, I hope it’s not the turkey, then. That would sort of ruin Thanksgiving.
Spam: ‘Give it to her all night long!!‘
Me: But–
Spam: ‘Ever wanted to blast like a firehose?!?‘
Me: Not–
Spam: ‘Russian bitches typist in action supramastoid!!!‘
Me: What the–
Spam: ‘SUPER BLOW-OUT INK SALE!!!!!‘
Me: That’s it! Out! Out!! Yer over the line — that is way over the… oh. ‘Ink’. And ‘blow-out‘. Not, ah, the other thing. I see. I’ll… I’ll take three cartridges, then. Two color, one black and white. And, you know, could you throw in a bottle of those ‘herbal’ pills, while you’re at it? Thanks.
So, that’s how that went. ‘Me and My Spam’, I call it. Yes, well, you can’t win ’em all, now, can you?
Anyway, the trouble I mentioned at the office. It turns out that this evening, I was at work filtering through my spam folder to find catchy titles I might use for the post. I had the folder up, and was in the process of deleting the vast majority of emails.
Just then, the girl in the office next door walked in to ask a question. I turned to face her, leaving my mailbox up on the browser. Sometimes, if I’m doing something not strictly work-related, I’ll minimize the window, or cover the screen. In extreme cases, I might spray mace into the eyes of the person walking in, just to be safe. This time, though, it never occured to me. It was just an email list. Where’s the harm in that, right?
Well, when she left, I turned around and found what I’d left. Which was an entire screen of greyed-out to-be-deleted emails, except for one glaring exception, glowing black and white in the middle of the list:
‘Safe male enhancement never tasted so good!‘
Did she see it? I don’t know. Could she read it? Can’t say. If she could read it, did she misinterpret it? Who the hell knows, because I don’t even know what it means myself. And I was not about to click the link to find out. That way lies madness. Madness and a rock-hard firehosing billiard cue wang that I want no part of. I wouldn’t even know what to feed the damned thing.
I do know this, though: if she did read that ad over my shoulder, I’m cooked. Just cooked. If the office gets wind of that — and she’ll tell two people, you know; oh yes, she’ll tell two people, and then they’ll tell two people, and so on, and so on — then I’m done for. The taunting, it will be swift. And it will be merciless. And it will be relentless. I’ll almost certainly have to quit my job, on the spot. The very first time someone leaves a ‘SUPER MAGNUM‘ condom on my desk chair, I should just turn in my ID card and walk away. Done.
And all for a post experiment — now a post-within-a-post experiment, on a site I can’t possibly let them know about — that really didn’t turn all that well to begin with. Certainly, it’s not a post worth choosing between a lifetime of teasing or a Monster search for a new job. This might possibly be the worst thing the blog’s ever done to me.
Why couldn’t I have just gotten Dooced instead? Bitches!
Permalink | 3 CommentsFolks, here I am, writing this in what I consider the ‘wee’ hours of hte morning. The actual wee hours are when I get most of my shit done, so trust me when I tell you that eight fricking thirty o’clock is not my friend. This must be what boot camp is like. The horror.
But as a writer, you never know when the muse will strike, and mine belted me a solid one across the chops, apparently, as I lay sleeping a few minutes ago. She wasn’t thoughtful enough to leave me a topic in the welt or anything, but that’s not unusual. Muses are like that. Lousy shiftless mythological bitches.
Of course, the main drawback to writing so early in the morning is the same issue with doing anything before a reasonable hour like noon — I’m likely to hurt myself. Of all the bumps, bruises, scrapes, nicks, owies, and tongues stuck in dangerous places with live electrical currents that I can remember, the vast majority have happened before I’ve had a chance to shake off the sleepyheads and get my wits about me.
(No, that doesn’t explain the black eyes, the headaches, the swelling, the nausea, the exhaustion, or the tongues stuck in dangerous places without live electrical current.
But that’s only because nighttime has the decency to include booze, chicks, and parties, to keep you entertained. Morning could learn a whole lot cbout ‘customer service’ from nighttime.)
(And who am I kidding? The last time I had my tongue stuck in anything interesting, it was when I bet the dog I could get the last Vlassic slice out of the jar without using my hands. I accidentally snorted pickle juice and a hamburger chip into my lung. She won a Milkbone. Welcome to my life, folks. Glamorous, no?)
The fact is, nothing much good ever happened between six am and noon, as far as I can tell. That’s when you get out of bed, not into it. That’s when you go to work, not leave it. You eat bran muffins, instead of nachos. And you wake up with that three, after you went to bed with a nine.*
(* Previous statement could be taken in a number of ways. I suggest you choose one, and stick with it. This is not a sentence to be wishy-washy with.)
For most of my adult life, I’ve tried to avoid mornings altogether. I treat them like a bad illness, or a conversation about ‘feelings’, or an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond‘ — I’ll just sleep blissfully through it, and somebody wake me when the fever lifts and the credits roll.
Of course, the ‘day job’ overlords tend to frown on that sort of thing. And — seeing as how I need money to feed my booze and tongue salve and dill pickle habits — I’m obligated to spend time in their dungeons at their whim. Which usually involves ‘the morning’. Overlords can be very cruel, when they put their minds to it.
So here I am, up and awake and groggy like a raccoon in Ted Kennedy’s trash can.
(See, that’s political humor, apparently. That can’t possibly be mine. I don’t know how it got there; I shouldn’t even be awake yet, dammit.
Mostly, it’s drinking humor, really, but Ted Kennedy fell into it somehow. I’m guessing he has a lot of that sort of trouble in the mornings, too. I feel ya, Teddy.)
But I’m ‘fighting the power’ with this post, you see. If I have to be awake, then I might as well do something fun before slaving away at the office, right? And writing is fun, dammit. Never mind that so far, I’ve bumped my head on the monitor, rolled the chair over my foot, and gotten a nasty paper cut from the ‘k’ key — this is still worth getting out of bed for. Barely.
Now, if I can just manage to negotiate the shower without impaling myself on the shampoo bottle, maybe I’ll see you again at a decent hour. Happy morning, folks.
Permalink | 4 CommentsTwo quick things before tonight’s post:
1) The ‘Dana Wireless Fund’ (see Tuesday’s post for details) is up over eight dollars now.
Huzzah! Eight dollars, in less than a week!
At that rate, my ‘Blog-A-Day for a Year’ period can start at about… let’s see, carry the one… adjust for inflation… pile on the sales tax… well, at about this time next year. So please to not be holding the breath for that, just yet. I’d hate to lose anyone to asphyxiation; you readers are precious to me. All three of you.
B) Call me crazy, but I got the urge to be a part of one of those ‘million things on one page’ dealies that are making the rounds on the ‘net lately. I chose to pay $1 to snuggle an icon into the OneMillionBlogs.net project.
It’s new. It sounds impressive, if it takes off. On the other hand, I was #63. Out of one million. And as I type, they’re up to #67, which — in case you slept through your statistics lectures back in school — is what scientists call ‘pretty damned far away from’ one million. It’s a technical term. Don’t strain yourself.
So thanks to Dave for my sweet commemorative button, proudly displayed on the left sidebar here. And here’s hoping I’m ‘in on the ground floor’ of something big, instead of… well, the alternative. Go check it out, if such things interest you.
Now, down to bidness.
For NFL fans like me, today is ‘Black Sunday‘. It’s the first Sunday in months during which there’s no pro football whatsoever. And that’s a hard pig to skin, folks.
You see, many of us develop a routine during the football season. It’s a complicated dance, involving fresh beer, stale chips, and ridiculous team paraphenalia. Jerseys, face paint, team logos shaved into back hair — you name it. Most weeks, we start prepping at noon, or even before. And that’s for us East Coast folks; I don’t know how you Cali-side people do it, getting up early enough to be ass-deep in cold lager and Chee-tos before the first game starts at ten am your time. Ten! The whole lot of you must be saints on Saturday nights during the season, just to avoid the possible hangovers. Now that’s dedication, football fans.
It’s true, of course, that the entire playoff run disrupts the routine. There are less games, and by this time of year, even rabid fans — hell, especially rabid fans — are down to one or two teams they’re rooting for. It’s simply not as much fun when you’re, say, a Cleveland Browns fan, to vilify the ref and fling nachos at the TV like so much monkey poo when a call goes against the Rams. Or the Patriots. Or Indy. Sure, the spleen is in it, and there’s still foam around the mouth and that wild, raised-by-maneating-badgers look in the eyes… but you can tell the heart’s been broken by yet another case of the ‘maybe-next-year’s.
But still, we watch. Living in New England, I was horrified a couple of weeks ago when the Denver Broncos — Denver, for chrissakes! — nipped the Pats’ Super Bowl hopes in the bud. We were all pretty shaken up. There were a lot of long faces and sackcloth suits evident on the Monday afterward. But did we stock up on beer and pretzels and park ourselves in front of the tube when Sunday rolled around again?
You bet your wild woolly widening winter’s ass we did. That’s football, man. The primo excuse, for six months at a time, to put those ‘Sunday chores’ off until after the season. “If it didn’t get done on Saturday, then it’ll just have to wait until next week, dear. The beer is chilled and the Giants are driving; don’t talk to me until midnight tonight!”
But alas, that outlet is not available to us this week. Oh, what a cruel mistress, irony! In this, the week just before the big game — the party of the year, the match for all the marbles, Super Bowl fever itself — there’s no football to be had whatsoever. It’s the first taste of our sad, lonely march back to the land of the dreaded Sunday ‘Job Jar’. Of grass mowings and attic cleanings. Of gutter cleanings and errand runnings. Grocery store jaunts and — dare I mention it? — afternoon trips to the mall. For shopping. Oh, the horror.
Thankfully, there’s still one more Sunday of football bliss to go. The home team’s not involved this year, but that’s not so important now. The cheering is merely a formality at this point; this barren empty Sunday today has reminded us all how things will be after the Big Game, so our only job is to live it up like there’s no tomorrow.
Or, more accurately, ‘no next Sunday’. Because after next week, no matter for whom you cheer, there really isn’t. Not until August or so, anyway. Just pray you’ve emptied out those ‘Job Jars’ before then.
Permalink | 1 CommentAs I was leaving for work today — literally leaving, with shoes on, pants zipped, hand on the doorknob — I looked into the living room and saw it. A large, wet, nasty pile of puppy chunks.
At least, I assume they were puppy chunks — freshly blown puppy chunks, mind you — because of all the recognizable bits of dog food therein. So either the mutt had yakked all over the floor, or there are things my wife isn’t telling me about her dietary habits. Strange, kinky, horsemeaty things.
When I saw the mess, I froze. And pondered. I’d just gotten through ninety-nine percent of my morning routine without noticing the pile of spaniel spew before me. My wife, long since gone to the office, couldn’t possibly know whether I’d seen it or not. And she’d be home first. Dare I leave the barfy barrage, and claim innocence later on, after the mess was cleaned?
No. I daren’t.
I daren’t for several reasons. I daren’t because I love my wife, and it’s sometimes a man’s job to do the messy things that a proper lady shouldn’t have to muck about with. Taking out the trash, for instance. Changing light bulbs. Understanding the 3-4 defense. And glomming hound hork off the hardwood, apparently. I do not remember that in the wedding vows.
Also, leaving a mess like that just isn’t sanitary. Besides the vile and creepy critters that kind of thing probably attracts, there’s a fair chance the dog would come back and eat it again. And heave it back up. And down, and up, and down, and up, in a fit of nausea ad nauseum. For the mutt, it’s a few snacks and an aerobic workout. For us, it’s seventeen piles of ‘yuck!‘ where once was only one. I don’t like those odds.
Mostly, though, I figured that my wife would assume I’d seen the pile and left it, and then the proverbial poo would hit the propeller. Believe me when I tell you that hell hath no fury like a woman cleaning kacked-up kibble off the floor when someone else saw it first and walked away. You think she’d put your nuts in a vise over ogling other women, gents? Try that number on for size.
So, I did the right thing and sponged up the spaniel spew. And in doing so discovered another pile of the stuff, this time on my wife’s couch. The dog sleeps on the couches when we’re not around, which we don’t much like, but have come to accept as ‘just one of those things she’ll never learn, no matter which end of the tennis racket you beat her with’.
(I suggested we buy a taser to get the message across, but my wife said no. Something about ‘animal cruelty’ and ‘humane treatment’ and ‘ASPCA jumping on our asses’.
Pfffft. I think she just doesn’t want the house smelling like Korean food every time we zap her.)
Anyway, I finally got the chow chunks off the floor, cleaned up the ‘bonus pile’, duct-taped the dogs lips together to prevent another spew, and got the hell out of there. There’s only so much not-mine vomit a guy can stand before that first cup of coffee.
(And no, ya puppy-loving freaks out there, I didn’t really duct-tape the dog’s lips. I did almost mix SuperGlue into her food instead, but I didn’t, okay? I didn’t!
Note to self: We’re out of SuperGlue. Pick up a tube next time we’re at Staples. See if they make it in bacon flavor.)
So, that was my nasty morning. But at least I got to come home to a happy, loving wife this evening, who was cheerful and chipper and none the wiser that any mess had ever been made.
Which is unfortunate, seeing as how she was lying sprawled on the couch that I’d marginally cleaned up a few hours before. And I didn’t have the heart — or the nerve — to tell her. Eventually, she turned over, snuggled her face into the pillow, and drifted off to sleep. I don’t know what sorts of dreams she had, but I’m guessing they involved Alpo. That can’t be good, can it?
Permalink | 3 CommentsBefore we get to the goodies tonight, a couple of quick administrative bits:
1) Many thanks to those of you who’ve clicked on the new Google ads littered around the joint. I don’t know whether you’re just being nice, or whether this ‘targeted marketing’ mumbo-jumbo actually works.
And frankly, I don’t care, either. All I know is that in one single day (today), the money in my GooglePot — which is going towards buying my soon-to-be new bestest blogging buddy, as outlined in yesterday’s post — has more than tripled. Tripled! That’s spectacular, people!
So, yeah. I’m up to $3.41. I could probably collect aluminum cans faster to scrape up the cash, but where’s the fun in that, dammit?
B) For anyone out there who’s both fond of my nonsense and particularly willing to be helpful — and what’s the chance of that? — I’d also like to offer another way to push us toward that ‘post-a-day-for-a-year’ goal. Way down on the left sidebar are buttons via which you can sign up for your own Google Ads or download the nifty Firefox browser. By clicking through that way to get your goodies, you count me as a referrer, which gets me… well, I don’t know what it gets me, actually. Who has time to read fine print? But it’s something good, probably. Like money, or a tuna sammich, or a Radio Shack gift certificate or something. Who knows — I’m just pointing out the buttons.
(Which would be much more useful if everyone else on the planet didn’t already use Firefox and Google Ads. I never said I was an ‘early adopter’, folks. Slow ‘n’ steady wins the race.)
iii) Finally, I took a long-overdue look at the ‘Selected Drivel’ links there on the right sidebar, and updated a few of the links. If you haven’t been archive-diving lately, or are looking for an extra chuckle or two, you might want to start over there. I won’t make any promises, but those are a few of the finest examples of the juvenile nonsense being spewed around here. That’s why it’s “Selected Drivel”, you see. Very fancy.
Okay, enough administrivia. For tonight’s trick, I’m going to follow up a post from last month wherein I introduced the How I Feel About… series. Then, it was ‘pirates’. And tonight — borrowed from the site where I first posted it, and with apologies to those (one) of you who have to read it twice — it’s ‘pinatas’. Hope you like it, folks. Grab a stick and a blindfold, spin around three times, and enjoy!
How I Feel About Pinatas
Pinatas are GOOD because they often hold candy. Or sometimes chocolates, or small bags of illicit drugs.
Pinatas are BAD because they sometimes hold shards of glass, or swarms of bees, or gasoline. Fiestas in the barrio are a bitch, yo.
Pinatas are GOOD because they usually come in the shape of animals, like burros, or bulls, or hula dancers. Beating these pinatas with sticks teaches children that we are better than these filthy, backwards animals in every way.
Pinatas are BAD because they occasionally come in the shape of a crocodile, a pirate, or a clown. This sends the wrong message to children, because beating these things with a stick in real life will get your fool honky ass killed.
Pinatas are GOOD because the word comes from Spanish, and Spanish words are fun to say. If you go to Taco Bell and order a ‘pinata, por favor’, they’ll likely give you food, like a taco or enchilada or something. Because they don’t know any better, either.
Pinatas are BAD because the ‘n’ in pinata is properly spelled with a squiggle over it called a tilde. My keyboard doesn’t have an ‘n’ with a squiggle over it. The Spanish are trying to get us to spell with letters that don’t exist, according to my keyboard. Damned dirty Spaniards.
Pinatas are GOOD because breaking a pinata is the only activity you can engage in with a blindfold, a stick, and a gaggle of small children without going to jail.
Pinatas are BAD because the children get to hold the stick. Also, the blindfold is a good start, but ball gags and ankle chains would be a real improvement.
But pinatas are GOOD because if you make them out of concrete or reinforced steel, you can keep an entire neighborhood’s worth of kids busy in someone else’s yard for hours. And if the string breaks, you might actually take one or two of them out.
So, overall, pinatas are GOOD.
And that’s how I feel about pinatas.
* NOTE #1: If you’re looking for a real pinata, you could probably do worse than Party Delights, where all the pics above came from. I’ve never seen so many smackable candy-filled carcasses in one place in my life.
* NOTE #2: No hula dancers or ‘damned dirty Spaniards’ were actually harmed in the making of this post. Really, I dig Spanish folks, and they’re actually very clean, as a people. Plus, hula dancers are pretty hot. Rawr!
Permalink | 7 Comments
![[Subscribe]](/blog/images/subscribe.png)
