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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
If you’re a sports fan like me — and in North America, I suppose — this is a magical time of year. At least, it’s one of the magical times of year, when three of the four major U.S. sports are happening at once.
The four major U.S. sports being baseball, football, basketball, and — if we’re feeling charitable — hockey. Hockey’s had a rough decade or so of things, though, and hasn’t really kept up with the other kids in the class. They didn’t even play the games last season — some sort of strike, or boycott, or visa issue or something, I expect. I wasn’t really paying attention, honestly. If ‘major U.S. sports’ was a foot, hockey would be the pinky toe. Or maybe just the toenail. Or possibly a bunion. There’s a little bit of catching up to do there.
And yes, I’m aware that there are other sports out there. The (rest of the) civilized world is all about cricket, for instance, and “football which we call soccer, apparently just to reinforce all of those ‘arrogant difficult American bastard’ steroetypes” is popular, too. Past that, and the sports I mentioned above, I’m not sure what the world is into. Maybe the Patagonians watch nothing but jai alai. Or the Estonians love nothing more than a skeet shooting tournament. And for all I know, the Djibouti National Tiddlywinks Champion is a hero to millions. Anything’s possible.
I’m also well aware that other ‘sport crazes’ are sweeping the States these days. People tune in to watch auto racing, and figure skating, and dog grooming, and cow tipping, and nipple piercing, and — frankly, people will watch just about anything that smells and walks and quacks like a competition. Especially if there’s betting involved. But gambling doesn’t make somethig like ‘candlepin bowling’ a real sport, any more than me watching my wife undress makes her a stripper. But Lord knows I’ve tried.
Anyway, it’s nice — for some of us — to be able to turn on the TV at any hour of the day or night and be treated to a sporting match of some kind. There are some months when that’s just not the case. For instance, June. Baseball’s keeping the faith in June, but what else is going on, sporting-wise? Golf? Meh. Tennis? Yawn. Beach volleyball is nice — but that’s not a sport. Technically, that’s soft-core porn, so it doesn’t count.
November, though, is positively teeming with sports action. NFL football. NBA hoops. NHL hockey. And college versions of all three, too, as an extra bonus. Not that November is the ideal month for, say, college basketball. March is much better for that. November is the time when teams from big universities like Duke, Michigan, and Stanford play powerhouse schools like South Carolina A&T, St. Xavier Mary Catherine State U, and the Northeastern Idaho Barber College Extension School for Prematurely Balding Frenchmen. Ah, who can forget those Stanford-NIBCESPBF games? Instant classics, they are.
Still, hoops is being played. Lopsidedly and sadly at times, but there’s roundball on the hardwood, and that’s what counts. And the other sports are in full swing, too. It’s entirely possible to spend an entire waking November weekend on the couch, switching from college football to college hoops, from pro ball to the NHL, and then to NFL football — delicious football — to wrap things up. And I should know; that’s basically how I just spent my November weekend. Jealous much?
Of course, the problem now is tomorrow. After pressing my assprint into the cushions of the couch for the past thirty-six hours or so, now I’m expected to go be productive. Without TV, or sports, or beer, or even cheese doodles — all of the things that make the weekend warm, wild, and wonderful. Frankly, I’m not sure I’m up to the critical reasoning that work requires.
(This post so far should be ample proof of that. I haven’t seen this much incoherent babbling since we visited grandma in the Alzheimers ward. And at least she didn’t mention her bunions. I’m so sorry.)
Maybe a few hours of sleep will do the trick. Right now, all I can think about are yard-per-carry averages, power play percentages, and rebound-per-game stats. The work-capable bits of my brain shut off somewhere around halftime of the third game today. No telling when they’ll power back up — or whether I’ll find them some day, cold and limp and dead on my pillow.
(It wouldn’t be the first time; last March Madness, I watched twelve hours straight of NCAA basketball games. When I woke up the next morning, my pillow was soggy, and I couldn’t taste ‘salty’ any more. I think the neurons committed hari kiri somehow. Losers.)
Anyway, it’s pretty clearly time for bed, so I’m wrapping this train wreck up. Here’s hoping we have dreams tonight of third-down completions and five-hole slapshots, of pick-and-roll layups and tight nickel defenses. Cherish these times, sports fans — and remember them in June, when you’re stuck watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island at three in the afternoon because the baseball games haven’t started yet. Perish the thought.
Permalink | 3 CommentsSo, I was checking my ‘bulk’ folder this evening — making sure none of your treasured comments happened to get routed to the slush pile — when a message header caught my eye:
You dream of rivers of sperm, of penis enormous and firm.
Now, first of all, let me assure you that I don’t. Dream of ‘rivers of sperm’, that is. Not to the best of my knowledge, anyway. I might dream of falling, or running away from monsters, or — once, rather unfortunately — eating a giant marshmallow. But swiftly-flowing streams of semen? No. It’s possible I’ll have nightmares about it going forward, now that I’m aware someone else has dreamed it up, but up to this point, it’s not been an issue.
And to be honest, the ‘penis enormous and firm’? Haven’t been spending time in the basement, working out blueprints for that one, either. If anything, I might devote effort to finagling my penis into situations I think it might enjoy. I try to be a good penis parent that way. But any other penis — particularly one that’s ‘enormous and firm’ — is on it’s own. Matter of fact, get that thing away from me. And don’t stand behind me; I don’t trust that thing. Perv.
At the same time, though, I’m a sucker for a good poem, so I opened the email. Here’s what I found inside:
You look for a perfect erection, for safety and pure protection.
Okay, look. First of all, kudos on the rhyme; that’s what I came in for, and you didn’t disappoint. Check plus-plus for that. But this is just a blatant lie. An erection may be many things — stimulating, arousing, frightening, amusing, purple, illegal — but it is never ‘safe’. Nor can it ‘protect’ you. From anything… except maybe a smaller erection, somewhere in the vicinity, trying to horn in on the first penis’ territory. I suppose that’s where ‘enormous and firm’ would come in quite handy. So to speak.
Reading further:
You want just to win, not to lose – so viagra is what you choose.
Ah, we’re finally selling product now. Nice. I like that — start with the rhyming, hook in those starry-eyed, semen-rivered dreamers, then hit ’em with the sales pitch. Subtle. And the message is clear — if you want to win in the ‘Mr. Perfect Erection’ competition, this would be the way to go. Just watch out for the Russian judge; you’ll never get a ’10’ out of him. Unless he gets one out of you first, anyway.
So how does our delightful poem wrap up?:
Your dick resembles ugly sponge? Our viagra will make it large.
Oh, now, bother. You were doing so well, too — I was even hoping for a killer snippet of verse to wrap it all together. But no. Now, your true spammer colors finally bleed through. Forget that I never, ever want to think of anything in my nether regions as a sponge — ‘ugly’, ‘fetching’, ‘photogenic’, or otherwise — I’m more disappointed that you tried to rhyme it with ‘large’.
Particularly when there’s so much you could have done with ‘plunge’. Or ‘lunge’. Or even ‘grunge’, if you’d put a little effort into it. Tsk, silly spammer. Tsk, I say.
Still, I take this as a positive sign. I’m still going to delete the reeking nonsense these spammers shovel into my inbox. But if I can occasionally be entertained before sending their crap to email hell? Sure. I’ll have a look. I’m not buying any of their shit — or downloading any ‘viagra attachments’ or ‘river of sperm’ links. But if the spammers are getting more clever with their ad copy, then that’s an extra chuckle or two in my day. And really, isn’t that why we’re here?
Permalink | 3 CommentsUgh. I seem to be getting sick.
Right now, I’m in that hazy, lightheaded no-man’s land, walking the path from Healthytown to Illsville. Or, more accurately, from ‘Tired, Old, and Out of Shapesburg’ to ‘Tired, Old, Out of Shape, and Hacking Up Things That Look Like Cauliflower Florets But Don’t Taste Quite So Bad’. Um, -burg. ‘Don’t Taste So Bad-burg‘. You knew what I meant.
At any rate, I feel it coming. The congestion is there — but it’s not enough to keep me from the office. I’m coughing just enough to annoy everyone around me… but not enough to be sent home for violating some obscure ‘Typhoid Mary’ law held over from the turn of the last century. I may be catching the flu — but unless it’s the bird flu, nobody wants to hear about it.
We’ve all been in this situation before, of course. We all have these ‘phlegm before the storm’ moments, when we don’t quite feel ‘right’, but we’re not yet full-on fevered and expelling pea soup from various orifices. I feel like I should be writing a will, or something.
(Instead? ‘Phlegm before the storm’. That’s going to be my legacy, if whatever kind of little buggers inside me this time finally win out. Nice. Put it on my gravestone, will you? Just in case.)
I’ve decided in recent years that I must have the immune system of a snarling, fierce Amazon warrior. Minus the estrogen, of course — or the bikini top made from leopard’s teeth — but that’s not the point. The point is, my little antibodies and white blood cells must be like frigging pit bulls in there, fending off the vast majority of slimy parasites that invade the temple.
And trust me, there are a lot of parasites crossing the threshold to my temple. I’ve got a dog. And an officemate with kids. Also? I eat hot dog wieners, past their expiration date, right from the package. Don’t even refrigerate the things. Sometimes, I’ll even roll ’em around on the floor first, and then eat ’em.
Hey, it builds character. Look, if my body can fight off whatever the hell’s festering inside those things, then I’ve got a fighting chance against any disease. Head cold? I laugh. Influenza? Virus, please. Scurvy? Riiiight. Back of the line’s over there, scabby.
See, the only things that wiggle through my apparently impressive defenses are the really nasty diseases. The kind of bugs that look disdainfully — almost sadly, even — upon the over-the-counter cough drops and cold medicine that I throw at them. I can almost hear them, as they pound at my temples and drip snot into my post-nasal places, saying:
‘Robitussin? NyQuil? Is that all you’ve got? Oh, strap in, boys — we are just getting started. Red Team, crank up that fever. Blue Team, work on those aches. Green Team — we need you down south. Make it soupy, and make it spectacular!‘
On the bright side, I coughed onto enough people at the office today that I should soon have plenty of company in my sickitude. Sure, they’ll all blame me for it. But I’ll get well first, so if anyone gives me any lip, I’ll Saran Wrap over their toilet seat while they’re still recovering. It’ll be like a Jackson Pollock painting, only in monochrome. If they’re lucky.
Eh, who am I kidding? I’m probably not even contagious. That would be way too cool and useful. Whatever I’m incubating is most likely content to pitch a tent, start a campfire, and chew away at my lungs for a few days. So all the coughing I did on my boss’ keyboard today, and when I sneezed and then wiped my hands on the annoying girl down the hall — even when I rubbed my nose all over the office manager’s doorknob — it was all for naught. Just a bunch of wasted germs. Man, it makes me sick, just thinking about it. Ah- ah- ah-CHOO!
Permalink | 2 CommentsSee, this is why I don’t get involved in politics.
On Sunday afternoon, the doorbell rang. It was a man — a local politico wannabe, running for town selectman, or county comptroller, or city council footstool, or one of those other made-up offices. He was canvassing the neighborhood, handing out flyers and touching base with the locals. Answering questions. Fielding concerns. Accepting any spare change that might be offered, too, no doubt.
(I don’t know — I didn’t offer any. For one thing, if the guy’s got the money to xerox his ugly mug onto five hundred pamphlets down at Kinko’s, then he doesn’t need whatever pittance I’d be willing to give him.
And for another — the dude showed up on Sunday afternoon, for chrissakes. How can you trust a man who’s not at home on the couch, watching football, guzzling beer and stuffing Doritos at that hour? Is that who we want our councilmens’ and councilwomens’ feet resting on next spring? No. No, it is not.)
Anyway, he seemed to want to chat — and it was halftime in the football game, so I decided to humor him. It’s not every day that I talk to a politician — or think about them, or wonder what they’re up to, or acknowledge their existence in any form whatsoever. My take on politics has always been the same attitude I’ve had about prostate exams:
I don’t want to know what goes on. I don’t want to think about what goes on. One day, perhaps, I’ll be forced to participate — and that’s when I’ll read a pamphlet, drop trou, bend over, and get involved in the ‘process’. Until then, don’t talk to me about it, don’t tell me how much better I’ll feel afterwards, and don’t try to explain the inner workings of the machine. And no, I’m not shaking your hand, getthatthingawayfromme.
But hey, here was one of them, right there on my porch. Scientists call that a ‘learning opportunity’. How could I not enrich my knowledge by positing a few politically pertinent puzzlers? So, I did:
Candidate Man: Hi, my name is <name withheld, mostly because I didn’t bother to remember it>!
Me: Um, hi. Can I help you?
Candidate Man: Well, I’m running for <school board minion, maybe? I forget>, and I wanted to meet my neighbors. How are you today?
Me: Fine. Look, the Eagles are on, and —
Candidate Man: So, I was just wondering if you had any questions for me? Anything to help you make this important decision in a few days?
Me: Ah. Okay… how about abortion, then? That’s a hot topic, right? Where you at with abortion?
Candidate Man: Well, um… I’m not sure that’ll come up in the school board meetings, frankly.
Me: Really? So, there’s no ‘Abortion 101’ class?
Candidate Man: Not that I’m aware of, no.
Me: Oh. Well, what about gay marriage, then?
Candidate Man: Look, I’d only be involved with the middle school in town; I really don’t —
Me: Wait, wait, wait. What if it’s only lesbian weddings? Does that make it any better? Nude lesbian weddings. In Jell-O! Can you pass a law for that?
Candidate Man: That’s not really in my… um, area. Maybe we should talk about —
Me: Ooh, then there’s the death penalty. Whaddaya think about that, eh? You like that? Zapping people in the electric chair? You a fryer? I bet you’re a fryer.
Candidate Man: It’s never really come up. We only have detention halls. Look, none of this is relevant to the office; this is about educating our kids.
Me: I see, I see. You one of those intelligent design people, then? Gonna teach that to the kids, are you?
Candidate Man: Well, now that the board has discussed. But it’s too early to —
Me: Me, I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster theory. When’re we gonna get FSM into the schools, eh? You gonna do that for me?
Candidate Man: I… honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.
Me: Eh, it’s just a theory. Still, can’t beat evolution, right? I mean, you go into that school, and see those young kids. Every day, you must say to yourself, ‘These kids are so much… less hairy than I am.’ That’s evolution at work, right there.
Candidate Man: You know… I’ve got a lot of houses to get to. Maybe I should just —
Me: What about Bible thumping? You gonna have the kids pray in school? Ooh! Can they pray to the spaghetti monster? That would be so cool. Do that, man, do that.
Candidate Man: Look, it’s getting late. I hear your football game coming back on; I should be going.
Me: Hey, hey, wait. ‘Tuesdays Are Topless Days’ at the office; that can be, like, a campaign thing. You would absolutely get the vote out with that. Well, half the vote, anyway — plus all those lesbians you’re gonna marry up.
Candidate Man: You… that’s not even… I can’t… I mean, how would you enforce such a thing?
Me: Only for the hot chicks, though. Gotta be at least a ‘6’ to go topless. Otherwise — electric chair. Hey, speaking of which, where do you stand on making ‘not using your frigging turn signal’ a capital offense?
Candidate Man: …
Me: ‘Cause I’ve been writing my Congressman on that one for years, and nothing’s happened. You could be a big help there.
Candidate Man: I’m going now. Please — don’t vote for me. Or put up a sign, or tell your friends. Or try and follow me. Frankly, if you could just move out of my district, I would sleep a lot better at night. For the kids, you understand.
Me: Jeez, fine. Be that way; I’m just trying to be involved in local politics. Sheesh.
Candidate Man: Can I have the pamphlet back? I really don’t think I want you having a copy of my picture, either.
Me: Okay, sure. Good luck in whichever race thing or other it is. Spaghetti Monster blessings be upon you!
Douche. He’ll never win, whichever toadying position it is. Guy’s got no vision. I’m telling you: ‘Topless Tuesdays’, plus lesbians marrying in Jell-O, killing off asshole drivers, and worshipping the spaghetti god? That’s got landslide written all over it. There’s something for everyone there; you could name PeeWee Herman as your VP, and ride that ticket to the White House, for chrissakes. It’s can’t-miss.
See? See? This is why I don’t get involved in politics.
Permalink | 1 CommentIt seems my posting may be a bit more sporadic for a while.
My laptop — or rather, the laptop ‘loaned’ to me by my office so I can ‘work’ at ‘home’, and which has been a part of the living room furniture for the past two years — is dead. And frankly, if I can’t post while watching The Simpsons or South Park, or a Fawlty Towers marathon, then what good am I? It’s all about the inspiration, and what’s inspiring about this clunky desktop computer? The ancient clackety keyboard? The six-year-old tinny speakers? The secret ‘Naughty Babushka Models’ porn stash? No. None of these things can help me now.
(Well, okay — the porn couldn’t hurt, I suppose.
I keep it on my ‘O:’ drive. So I can make the ‘Oh!’ face while I watch. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!)
(Okay, none of that is true. I’m just a sucker for Office Space. So very sorry.)
Anyway, that’s one less option for posting. Technically, the machine’s not really dead — it’s just sleeping, more or less permanently. I finally lost the battle with the wonky power cord, after months of fighting with it. Sometime back in the spring, it stopped actually juicing up the computer, by default. It would only deliver electricity to the laptop if you asked nicely. And jiggled it. And draped it over the top, just so. And then jiggled it some more. And — you know, this is starting to sound awfully sexual. I think I’m going to stop describing my power cord, lest you get the wrong idea.
(It’s an extension model, though. And ooh, you should see the prongs! And — okay, I said I’d stop. Again with the ‘sorry’.)
Of course, as time went on, the cord got more and more demanding. ‘Wiggle me this way,‘ it said. ‘Jiggle me over there.‘ ‘Don’t let me fall in the floor. Or touch your leg. Or bend to the left.‘ Wah, wah, wah.
Eventually, I bent the damned thing a new sparkhole. Literally, unfortunately. Earlier this week, I adjusted it — rather vigorously, after several failed jiggles — and it sparked, then sizzled, and I smelled burnt plastic. I decided it was probably time to unplug the cord, lest my laptop turn into an impromptu weenie roaster. There are few things more important than blogging, people, but keeping the core temperature of my crotch below ‘broil’ is high on the list. Call me selfish, if you must.
Meanwhile, I’m coping with my lack of entertainment options. I’m used to multitasking in the living room — watching TV, tormenting the dog, eating, maybe working a crossword puzzle. But it’s the interweb that pulls it all together — the always-on, ever-distracting call of blogs and boobs and baseball scores.
(Yes, I know — baseball’s over with. But basketball hasn’t started, and football didn’t offer the alliterative ecstacy I was shooting for. Poetic license, bitches.
And I know there’s more to the interweb than sports, blogs, and boobs, too. I just… don’t know what it is, exactly. I’m just sure it’s out there, somewhere. Waiting for me to get tired of these other things and discover it. I think it has something to do with dancing babies. Or frogs in blenders, or something like that. And money from Microsoft for forwarding emails. I’m really not sure, but I’m a little bit frightened. Hold me.)
So now, I’m not sure what to do to entertain myself on the couch. Paint my toenails, perhaps. Learn Swahili from a phrasebook. Or rediscover my navel. Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be simply fascinating. And rewarding, too. Why, I’m sure I won’t even miss that poopy old laptop, anyway.
…
Yeah, right. Big fat throbbing chance.
I wonder if I could drag my wife’s old G4 downstairs and stash it behind the couch. It’d be tough balancing the keyboard on my lap — and the mouse, and the monitor — but I bet I could pull it off. Anything’s better than sitting in a room without a ‘net connection. Gotta have my fix, man.
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