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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
Well, let’s take inventory here, shall we?
It’s a quarter till twelve in the evening. I’m sitting in my boxers and a T-shirt on the couch, trying to stay cool in our non-air-conditioned house. I’ve got to be up at eight in the morning to give a presentation to the boss and assorted hangers-on. And I just microwaved something called a ‘Bowl Creation’ for dinner. It’s sort of a poor man’s excuse for macaroni and cheese. Which is particularly depressing, since macaroni and cheese is sort of a poor man’s excuse for dinner in the first place.
Folks, if this isn’t ‘rock bottom’, then I don’t want to be frigging conscious when I see it. Christ.
Actually, this sort of night isn’t that far from the norm for me recently. Honestly, I’ve sort of been letting myself go for the summer. I’m taking it easy, eating all wrong, slacking off — hell, I can’t remember the last time I got my hair cut. April, maybe? Nineteen ninety-seven? Who knows? I’m a mess.
Of course, the truly disturbing thing about it is… I’m not sure anyone has really noticed. And if there’s anything worse than mailing it in and skating through life for a couple of months, then it’s mailing and skating, and having people think that’s more or less normal for you. I’m learning a lot here, people. ‘Life lessons’ can be so cruel, dammit.
On the other hand, maybe this is an opportunity. When life hands you ‘slumming’, then… well, I’m not sure, really. I guess you’re supposed to make ‘slum ade’, or ‘ghetto soda’, or maybe ‘back alley juice’.
(Although really, folks — if I ever start making ‘back alley juice’ of any kind, just slap the Depends on me and put me in a home, would you? And keep me away from the jalapenos. I’ve got enough problems as it is.)
Disgusting euphemisms aside, let’s get back to the opportunity part. See, now I’m curious — if I can get away with wrinkled shorts and messy hair… just how far can I go, exactly? Untied shoes and a five o’clock shadow? Mismatched socks and a wifebeater? Rusty nipple clamps and a pair of ruffled lederhosen?
Okay, maybe that’s a bit far. There’s ‘spiralling downward into wretched slovenliness’, and then there’s… well, then there’s prancing around with your nipples clamped and your hosens ledered. Just a little bit different, I’m thinking.
(And yeah, I added the prancing after the fact. It was kind of an afterthought. But think about it — if you were decked out in booby pinchers and German leggings, wouldn’t you feel like prancing? I’m just saying.)
Anyway, I’ve got to run off to bed — only two or three hours earlier than my usual beddy-bye time. Gotta rest up for that talk tomorrow. And hey — now I’ve got a few ideas about what outfit to wear for the big meeting. It’s gonna be Oktoberfestive, baby!
Permalink | 2 CommentsSorry. Can’t write now. Busy.
As many of you know — no, no, I didn’t say you had to care, just know, is all — I’m a huge baseball fan. And yesterday, I broke down and finally bought the new EA Sports baseball game to replace the version of ‘High Heat’ I’ve been playing.
(Hey, the program was only three years old. And the ‘High Heat’ line has been dead for two. My copy even had this weird glitch — for some reason, the players would pat their own asses, and they’d scratch each others’ crotches. But aside from the oddly surreal homoerotic feel of it all, it was a pretty good game.)
Anyway, it’s gonna take me a few weeks — or months, or, if history can be trusted, approximately three years — to get my fill of the game, so I don’t have a lot of free time to write tonight. It’s like having a new puppy in the house. Or a new DVD. Or a Norwegian hooker — all you want to do is spend a couple of hours getting to know your new friend.
Before I trundle off to learn how to hit a curveball in my new toy, though, I’ll share with you the story of how I bought it. Come with me, dear readers, on a strange and mysterious journey, all the way back to yesterday evening, at the local Best Buy megalostore…
<– strange, mysterious wavy flashback lines –>
<– strange, mysterious wavy flashback lines –>
<– strange, mysterious wavy flashback lines –>
(Hey, shut up. I’m on a budget here. Use your imagination, dammit.)
Okay, so there I was at the BeBizzle.
(That’s ‘street’ talk for Best Buy, of course. The judges would also accept ‘B to da Bizzle’, ‘Bizzity Buy’, and ‘Best Biotch, Bitch’. In case you’re scoring at home.)
Anyway, there I was, doing what all guys do when they’re really walking in to buy a video game. I stopped by the CDs, and pretended to browse. I nodded sagely toward a couple of refrigerators, and idly fumbled with a digital camera — making sure, of course, to avoid any contact with the bozos at the counter. The last thing I needed was to have to feign interest about aperture speeds and megapixel mumbo jumbo, when I was actually just killing time before hitting the kiddie aisle.
So, my clever ruse complete, I made a beeline for the video games. I scurried past a bunch of popular titles — yeah, yeah, Grand Theft this, EverQuestin’ that, whatever — until I found my quarry, tucked away in the sports section. There was only one copy left — probably because the thing’s been out for three months or more, already. Nobody ever said I was the quickest beaver in the dam, people.
(I don’t even know what that means. Or where this shit comes from. But I suppose I’ve got big teeth and a flat tail, so maybe it fits. Meh.)
At any rate, I picked up the box, and took it to the counter. And that’s where I learned a valuable lesson about large retail corporations and the perks they offer their customers. The lesson being: yeah, good luck getting those. Right.
You see, I’ve got this thing called… actually, I forget what the hell it’s called right now. Some sort of Best Buy ‘advantage card’, or ‘rewards ticket’, or some nonsense like that. I got it when the wife and I bought a washer and dryer a few weeks ago, and somewhere in that little piece of plastic is fifty bucks in cash that we earned with our purchase. Or so I was led to believe.
So, when I made it to the checkout counter, and the girl — bored, snarky, apparently horrified that her life had come to this — asked me if I had a… whatever-the-hell-the-card-is-called Card, I handed mine to her and said:
‘Oh, yes. Yes, I do.‘
Yeah, a little smug. I agree. But I was about to get a free baseball game. I almost have to take back all the mean things I ever said about household appliances, if that’s what happens when we buy them. Hell, throw in a couple of dishwashers — maybe I’ll buy a PlayStation, too. Hey, macarena.
But that’s not how it went down. She took the card. She swiped the card. I was hoping she’d then say, ‘Thanks for shopping Best Buy.‘ Or, ‘Do you want a receipt?‘ Or even, ‘Get the hell out of my store with your swag, cheapass!‘ But no. Instead, she turned a huffy eye to me, pushed the ‘rewards’ card back at me, and said:
‘That’ll be thirty-one ninety-nine.‘
So… I paid her. I didn’t ask questions. I’m a married man, people. You don’t screw around with a woman in that sort of mood, and you don’t ask for clarification. About anything. Not unless you’ve always secretly pined for the glamorous, magical life of a royal court eunuch, anyway. And I haven’t, personally. Not so much on the ‘royalty’ thing. Even less excited about the ‘testicle removal’ procedure. Ow.
So, I kept my mouth shut, handed over a credit card, and limped out of there with my game in hand, and my tail between my legs. Some other time, I’ll figure out how to actually use the rewards on the card, instead of — presumably — putting more store credit on the thing. Come to think of it, that’s a pretty damned good scam — hand out the cards, and run ’em up with huge dollar amounts… that you can never, ever get to. Hey, look — you’ve got three hundred dollars on that card! Ooh, and you’ve got seventeen thousand! Good for you! Too bad we don’t have a plan where you actually buy shit with that money. Looks good on paper, though. Or plastic.
Anyway, that’s the story — proving once again that I’m an idiot. At this point, you really don’t need me to tell you that, though. And now, I really have to go play a couple of games. Can’t let a new piece of entertainment software sit around idle, now, can I? ‘Specially when I mutha-paid for that shit. Even if I probably didn’t have to. Play ball, baby!
Permalink | 1 CommentWell. This is sort of a kick in the hoohah.
(Assuming I actually have a ‘hoohah’, of course. Different people use the term to refer to different anatomical features. In some systems, I don’t have a hoohah. In others, I might have a pair. And in some, I’m pretty sure I am a hoohah. Feel free to substitute your favorite male genital euphemism, if ‘hoohah’ doesn’t apply for you.)
Anyway, this is a big fist crammed up the wazoo. Um, so to speak, euphemistically. You know what I’m saying.
Look, the point is that this post officially begins the third year of this demented little weblog of mine… and I’ve got no topic. Nothing. No plan, no outline, no color-coded diagrams written on note cards and organized in one of those little metal boxes. Nothing at all. So, let’s see where this goes.
The wife and I are thinking about taking a long weekend in a couple of months. We thought we’d drive around, maybe take in a couple of baseball games, visit some friends — that sort of thing. And I’ve found, in trying to set up an itererary… that I just suck at geography.
Now, I sort of knew this already. I have a pretty good idea of where things are, once I’m familiar with a particular area — but places I’ve never seen before? No clue. Like Nicaragua, for instance. It sounds so exotic — Nicarrrrragua. They tell me it’s in Central America. Interesting. I always thought it was near… well, the clitoris, actually.
(Which would be just a short hop from Grundlevania, as most of you know. Of course, you can’t get directly from one to the other; you’d have to take a ‘puddle jumper’. But you knew that already. Or you just spewed coffee onto your monitor, one or the other.)
Anyhow, now I’m finding out how far Boston is from interesting places like Baltimore and Philadelphia. And those Rand-McNally bastards make it seem like not very far — just a couple of inches on the map — but it’ll still take hours to drive there. More hours than a baseball game, even. Now that’s far.
Should be a fun trip, though. And another chance to work on that ass indentation I’ve been cultivating in the driver’s seat in the car. A few hours behind the wheel ought to permanently cement that thing into a perfect heinie shape. Which is nice. Maybe now I can stop carrying the couch cushion out to the car when I want to take a trip. Hey, you can never be too comfortable.
At any rate, I think that’s all for tonight. I’ve got a presentation to give at work tomorrow — which should provide lots of self-deprecating material for you folks — so I’m going to get some shuteye. Can’t screw up my talk and get chewed out on anything less than a full nights’ sleep, now, can I? G’night, now.
Permalink | 6 CommentsFolks, I’m going to try being serious tonight — or at least as serious as I can manage… which, frankly, isn’t all that fricking serious. I might take off the clown shoes, but I’ll still have the red nose and the Groucho Marx glasses on. It’s never really gonna be serious around here. Not while I’m in the driver’s seat.
So, that’s the bad news. Or maybe it’s good news, if you’re looking for something more sobering. I can’t tell you people what to read.
Anyway, I’ll do my best to be brief with the serious shit. Let’s face it; that not what any of us are here for. If it’s not a dick joke or some sort of animal sex innuendo, then chances are, you’re reading it somewhere else.
(And boy, is that going to make the hits from Google more interesting, once ‘animal sex innuendo’ gets indexed. I simply can’t wait to see what sorts of searches come oozing in after that. Peachy.)
All right. Enough chit-chat. Just because I’ve got nothing entertaining to say after the serious thing doesn’t mean that I should spend all frigging night stalling before I get to it. So, here goes:
Today, the seventeenth of June, 2005, marks the second-year anniversary of this humble bloogy effort of mine. You’re reading — nay, slogging through, at this point — the seven hundred and sixty-fifth post, which averages out to a little over a post per day. I honestly never thought things would last this long, or that I’d ever, in a million and two years, sling so many words onto the screen.
So, all I want to say tonight is: thank you.
Whether you’ve read all the posts — really, please tell me that no one out there is that demented — or this is your first introduction to my brand of drivel: thank you.
For the encouragement you’ve provided, through emails and comments — even when you had no business encouraging the nasty nonsense I was spewing: thank you.
And for sitting through the standup clips, with the same jokes delivered over and over and over — witnessed by a couple of you live and in person; you tortured souls know who you are — to you, I say thank you.
In short, thank you for reading. I hope you’ve found some entertainment within these pages — or at least hope you will, someday. We can all dream, can’t we? But rest assured that you’ve given me much, much more than I could ever return.
(Just don’t expect cash, or sexual favors, or anything like that. I mean, I’m appreciative, and all that shit. But not that kind of ‘appreciative’. You might get a hug, but that’s about it. And only if you’re hot. I’m just saying.)
Anyway, I just wanted to say ‘thanks’, and to blow out the candles on the blog’s second birthday cake. I can’t tell you what the next two years will bring… but you can be certain it’ll be fairly ridiculous. And rambling. And probably a little bit nasty. The term ‘douchebiscuit’ is likely to come up, at some point. There’s only one way to find out, folks — soon, we’ll rip the bubble wrap off of year number three. Stick around; it should be a hoot.
Permalink | 5 CommentsWell, dammit. The easiest entry every two weeks, and I spaced on it. You’d think I actually want to come up with new crap here every time. Sheesh.
Still, better to be lazy late than to be lazy never, so here goes:
Since it is — or rather, was — the fifteenth of the month, that means that a new issue of Zoiks! is out. Which also means that the previous issue of Zoiks! goes into the archives. Which also, also means… I get a free post. Yay, me.
So, please find below for your reading enjoyment my second-most-recent contribution to Zoiks!, which ran in the last online issue. And if that doesn’t satisfy your thirst for yuks, then head over to Zoiks!, and check out the current issue, chock full of giggles and grins.
And that’s it. I’m pasting the last piece in, and I’m off on a new adventure. Man, these Zoiks!-related posts are easy! How the hell could I almost forget?
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
As a writer and aspiring stand-up comedian, I’ve been blessed with recurring insomnia. Under ‘normal’ circumstances, the condition might seem like a curse, but in my lines of work, it’s actually very useful. I get more accomplished after three am than most people do after twelve-thirty. On the other hand, I often sleep past eleven in the morning, so there are tradeoffs. That’s how insomnia works.
And eventually, all good sleepless nights must come to an end. So I’ve tried out a few ways to bring on the snoozes, when counting sheep just won’t do. Feel free to use any or all of the techniques below — just make sure you’re really ready to hit the sack. This is powerful medicine, folks; proceed with caution.
Drink a glass of warm milk: Generally, this doesn’t work, of course. It seems to be some sort of old wives’ tale. What old wives have against the rest of us enjoying a night’s rest, I don’t know, but drinking a full glass of lukewarm moo juice will leave you bleary-eyed and milkstached, but not drowsy. Still, you’ve got to start somewhere. And you can always graduate to a nice, warm glass of milk and coconut rum — hold the milk. That’ll put you to sleep, but you’d better be sure to cancel those morning meetings the next day.
Try reading a book: This is great, if you happen to have ‘The Bridges of Madison County’ lying around, or you keep ‘Principles of Organic Chemistry’ on your nightstand. It’s somewhat less effective if the closest book handy is ‘Amityville Horror’, or an audiobook from the Steven King collection. Instead of sleeping, you might spend the night hiding under the covers, hoping that the creaking outside your window is just the wind. Of course, those of us who are truly proficient with insomnia don’t have to worry so much — we’re not going to bed until after dawn, anyway, so there’s no ‘dark’ for bogeymen to go ‘bump’ in. Still, it’s not such a good idea to seed your dreams with the most horrific images that today’s writers can dream up. There’s sleeping, and then there’s ‘unconscious night sweating’. Stick to the textbooks and tearjerkers, if you go this route.
Listen to soothing music: Again, this is a great idea in theory — but one person’s ‘soothing’ is another person’s… well, ‘Hootie and the Blowfish’, for instance. Sure, their music is soft and lilting, but ‘easy listening’, my ass. My ears would find steel wool Q-tips more ‘soothing’ than that audiodrivel. Luckily, any music can soothe the insomnial beast, so long as it’s played softly enough. Sometimes, Rage Against the Machine at six decibels — or Nine Inch Nails, at a level only dogs can hear — is just what the sleep doctor ordered.
Exercise: Honestly, I’ve only tried this method once. I get the idea — the physical activity, late at night, should sap whatever energy your body has remaining, and let you slip sweetly off to dreamland. Fine. But remember, your hand-eye coordination and reflexes aren’t going to be up to par, after staying awake for hours past your bedtime. And, as I found out, it can be rather embarrassing to explain to the ambulance crew how you backhanded yourself down a flight of stairs, trying to do jumping jacks at four in the morning. I wasn’t sure whether I really wanted them to believe me or not.
Watch LifeTime: No, really. Anything on LifeTime. The Oxygen network works, too. Or the Golf Channel. Or any shopping network — unless you’re one of those people with a shopping problem, of course. You’re not doing anyone any good, lying there on the couch for three hours ordering commemorative Jackson trial dinner plates. But short of that, this is clearly the way to go. There are hundreds of channels out there; surely, you can find one that’ll put you to sleep. You call them ‘DirecTV’, but I’m calling them ‘Sandman’. Don’t let the bed bugs bite!
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