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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
I think I know what it is, folks. It’s simply too damned hot to write. That must be it.
Summer in New England has all the subtlety of a ‘desperate housewife’ at a poolboys’ convention. There’s rarely a springtime to speak of in this part of the world, and this year is no different. A week ago, we were wearing parkas and mukluks, freezing our nads off and feeling like someone had been jamming a popsicle up our collective ass for the past six months. Now, it’s eighty degrees by sunrise, and I sweat when I breathe. ‘April showers’, we hardly knew ye.
(Oh, and speaking of popsicles up the ass, just a quick public service FYI to the married gents out there: If, at any time in your marriage, your wife turns to you in bed and growls,
‘Yeah, we’ll I’m not an Eskimo, got it?‘
…then you’ve made a tactical error somewhere along the way. It’s gonna cost you. Don’t argue; just buy the flowers. It’s much easier. Trust me.)
Now generally, I don’t do a lot of complaining about the weather. The way I see it, that’s what we’re keeping all those millions of old farts around for. If we wanted to sit around and watch the Weather Channel for six hours a day, and debate the meteorological implications of the latest low front moving in, then we could just euthenize the hell out of the geezers, and save ourselves the stewed prune money.
But, of course, we don’t want that. We’re not monsters — mainly — and we certainly have better things to do with our lives than read barometers and feed grandpa into the wood chipper. Plus, somebody has to eat those fucking prunes, and it’s not gonna be me. There’s ‘regular’, and then there’s ‘Vesuvial’. No, thanks.
(Kids, it’s a volcano. Vesuvius? You with me? Pompeii? Buried in ash, all that jazz? Eh, never mind. Pretend I said, ‘Mout Saint Helensian’, if that helps. Or ‘Krakatoal’, maybe — but if you didn’t get ‘Vesuvial’, then that’s probably doing you no good, either.)
Anyway, where the hell was I? Oh, right — the weather.
So, I’m not a big weather hound. But I can’t stand being hot. And, this being New England, there’s damned little air conditioning available. Oh, sure, they install it in the offices and restaurants and such. And it’s a damned good thing — right now, the only thing getting me up on a weekday to schlep into the office is the thought of a nicely chilled cubicle, where I can slouch and nap at a cozy sixty-eight degrees. It’s heavenly.
At the house, though… not so much. We’ve got a window unit in the bedroom, sure, but it’s little help. I’m pretty sure it’s older than I am, for one. I’m surprised it doesn’t have a hand-crank to start the damned thing. And the — oh, I don’t know… seven BTUs or so that it puts out are usually sucked into the hundred-year-old walls before they reach our sweaty, clammy selves. You’ve pretty much got to sit on the unit to get any relief from it.
(But then, that’s pretty much the way most ‘units’ work, eh, kids? Hiyooh!
Yeah. Never let it be said that I won’t take an easy one-liner, once in a while. All this story-telling bullshit is hard, dammit.)
Now, we’ve thought about having a system installed — but there are three problems with that. First, it’s expensive as hell. And there’s always that little voice in the back of your head, reminding you of your responsibilities and priorities, keeping you on the right track. And it’s true, I suppose — why dump a bunch of cash into air conditioning, when there’s still beer and strippers and porn to pay for? Thank you, little voice. You’ve shown me the way, once again.
Then, there’s the issue of needing someone else to install such a system. Contractors in New England generally seem to exist to tease people like us:
‘Oh, sure — we’ll come look at the job… never!‘
‘Yes sir, absolutely we’ll send along our estimate… psych!‘
‘No problem, we can stay under your budget… for about an hour!‘
Creamy onion Christ dip on a cucumber, just give me a damned wedgie and get it over with, ya bastards. Stop hazing me, and do the frigging work!
But no. It’s a game of some sort, and you’ve got to play it, or it’s no soup for you! Or, in this case, no non-sweaty ass crack for you! Which is worse than no soup, believe me. Maybe still better than soup down the ass crack, but it’s not good.
Of course, the biggest barrier to getting yummy A/C for the house is my wife. Not that she’s an unreasonable gal, or anything like that. Christ, she’s still married to me, if that tells you anything about her superhuman tolerance for bullshit. But she gets cold rather easily. So she hates the winters here. She’s constantly chilly, wrapped up in a blanket while it snows and howls and frosts outside — it’s very cute, in a sad, pitiful way.
(Yeah, I told her that once. I woke up that night with her perched over me, aiming to do god-knows-what with the business end of a popsicle. Turns out I’m not an Eskimo, either. Yowie.)
So as far as I can tell, she actually likes the miserable heat that we suffer here for… well, okay, only about six weeks a year, actually. But dammit, those are intolerable weeks! Unless your preferred temperature is eighty fricking degrees — hers is; just ask her — then it’s a humid little slice of hell.
But I’m not quite sure what she’d do to me, right on the heels of winter, if I had it my way. If it were up to me, we’d have a central A/C unit pumping sweet chilly goodness into every room in the house, twenty-four seven. We’d walk in from work, and see our breath in the foyer. We could build snowmen in the living room, break icicles off in the kitchen — maybe we’d even go sledding down the basement stairs. But she’d never go for it. Six months of winter is enough, apparently. And that’s fine — but do we have to have six months of Hades the rest of the year? Does ‘sixty degrees’ have a twenty-degree restraining order around it, or what?
Eh, fuck it. I’m too hot to bitch about this any more. I’m gonna go take a cold shower to cool off. Not that kind of a ‘cold shower’, mind you. I’m mostly too hot to think about that sort of thing, either. On the other hand, that time I mentioned, when she had the popsicle? I’ll never look at a fudge creamsicle quite the same way again. Brrrrrrrr!
Permalink | 3 CommentsYou know, I like TV. Really. But I’m so happy that we have TiVo, because it allows us to whiz past the ads. And maybe it’s just the crotchey old age talking, but I just don’t fricking understand commercials any more. A few examples:
I just saw an ad for Hooters. Fine. I like wings. Boobs are good. No problem. But right at the end, they tagged the commercial with: ‘Hooters Magazine — on newsstands today!‘ Wait… Hooters Magazine — what the hell? Is that for guys who want porn, but don’t want to go to all the trouble of actually looking at fully naked women? Or were people getting pissed at having to put up with those pesky wings and beers while ogling the honeys? Was there a problem with being able to pretend you were there for the food? Who needs to see it in print? What the hell am I missing here?
Car commercials are worse, though. Watch any commercial, for any car or truck — you’ll see two figures at the end of the spot. First, there’s the ‘nicely equipped‘ price tag. That’s high enough, assuming you don’t have a loose bag of cash or a first-born son to sell lying around handy. Then, though, there’s the ‘as shown‘ number, which is at least fifty percent more. So if it’s thirty grand ‘nicely equipped‘, then why show a ninety grand, pimped-out ‘as shown‘ car? And just what is ‘nicely equipped‘, anyway? Three tires, two cylinders, and an eight-track radio? A rusty door, mismatched hubcaps, and the grille off an ’88 Skylark? Who’s shilling these damned things? Used car salesmen? Oh. Right. Of course.
Then there’s Old Navy. Crispy-fried Christ on a cracker, don’t get me started on Old Navy. Buncha funky retro hippie freaks. And not in a good way, dammit! Stop thinking it’s a good way!
I’d also like to know what market-weenie genius decided that showing us big plastic creepy versions of corporate symbols would make us buy their food. First, it was Burger King, with that big, weird, smiling mannequin guy. That doesn’t make me hungry for a Whopper, dammit; it makes me scared of pedophiles. That’s just wrong. And tonight, I saw that Quaker Oats is following suit, using a statue of a Quaker holding treats for the kiddies in their latest ads. As if Ronald McDonald weren’t fricking creepy enough, in a ‘hey kids, there’s candy in my pants!‘ kind of way. Yow.
Yeah. That seems like a nice image to end on. A trio of creepy plastic clowns, offering goodies to children and adults alike. That ought to keep us all awake tonight. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and catch an ad for sleeping pills. Now there’s a commercial we can use, for once.
Permalink | No CommentsI’ve learned that sometimes, it’s what you don’t say that’s important.
Specifically, it’s been my experience that any sentence ending with, ‘if that’s what you’re trying to say‘ is trouble. With a capital ‘T’. And an italic ‘r’. And the rest of ‘ouble’ in a nice Arial font. With serifs, and all that shit.
Anyway, I used to be in the habit of ending sentences with ‘if that’s what you’re trying to say‘. It seemed like a good idea — at the time — to strike a precautionary blow against whatever nasty things people might be thinking about me. Which seemed to happen quite a lot, really. So I’d have conversations like:
Boss: Say, did you finish that report that I asked you about yesterday?
Me: Well, I didn’t blow it off and spend the afternoon surfing for panda porn at my desk, if that’s what you’re trying to say.
Boss: Oooo-kay, then. I see.
Or how about:
Friend: Dude, I just scored Sox tickets for Saturday. You wanna go?
Me: Well, I don’t not want to go, and instead sit at home building a voodoo doll out of Play-Doh and hair from your shower drain, so I can stab at you for asking Joe first… if that’s what you’re trying to say.
Friend: Uh… is that a ‘yes’?
Me: Sure, pick me up at noon. Go Sox!
Or maybe:
Wife: Honey, are you going to finish that ice cream?
Me: Well, I’m not going to slide the bowl down my pants, and then go outside to see if the dog will lick it off, if that’s what you’re saying.
Wife: Erm… it wasn’t, really.
Me: Oh. Well, then, yeah, I’ll finish it. Strawberry swirl is tasty!
All that does is get me into trouble, people. I realized that I wasn’t so much nipping those ridiculous thoughts in the bud, as I was planting them in peoples’ heads. Silly me, for figuring that everyone else is just naturally as twisted as I am.
So now I’ve resorted to another plan. I don’t want to bring up any specifics in these situations, but I still want to put folks on the defensive — just in case they’ve come up with some other (and probably sicker) idea of the type of thing I’d be doing when I’m not working, watching baseball, or eating yummy ice cream. So now, I answer every question I get with an angry:
‘What the hell do you mean by that?‘
Sure, it makes ordering at a restaurant a bit tricky:
Waiter: May I take your order, sir?
Me: Just what the hell do you mean by that?
Waiter: Nothing. Nothing, sir. I was just wondering whether you were ready to order. No problem. Perhaps I should come back in a few moments?
Me: And what the hell do you mean by that?
Waiter: Um… well, just that maybe you need another minute to decide. But I can take it now, if you’re ready. Do you know what you’d like?
Me: Hey, buddy — what the hell do you mean by that?
Waiter: Look, this is getting tiresome, sir. Either give me an order now, or I’ll come back in a few moments. Otherwise, I’ll have to get the manager. You don’t want that, do you?
Me: Yo, cupcake, just exactly what the hell do you mean by that?
Waiter: That’s it! I’m getting the manager. We waitstaff don’t need this kind of abuse, sir!
Me: (to wife) Man, what a douchebiscuit. And I heard the service here was good, too. Tsk.
Wife: You’re an idiot. And get that ice cream out of your pants.
No, it’s not a perfect system. But it’s better. Maybe someday I’ll graduate to ‘Are you talking to me?‘, or the simple-yet-effective menacing, ‘Whaaaat?!‘
Meanwhile, I’m doing the best I can. And it seems to be working — people ask me way less questions than they used to. Which is all I ever really wanted. Isn’t it everybody’s goal to just be left the hell alone sometimes?
(‘Now just what the hell did I mean by that?!?‘)
Permalink | 4 CommentsSo, I’m a big baseball fan. And we all know that baseball, along with setting records for tobacco spitting, gumwad chewing, and crotch digging, is the undisputed king sport of the ass pat.
And honestly, I’m thinking we should incorporate the ass pat into other aspects of society, too. Sure, you see a little bit of it out on the basketball court. And occasionally, a big football lineman will set the buns a-jiggling on one of his teammates, as a reward for a nice play. But outside of sports, there’s some sort of unspoken taboo on the rump rub — and I’m not sure why.
Think about it — what other simple, harmless gesture so plainly says, ‘Well done, buddy‘? A hearty handshake is… well, it’s pretty lukewarm, isn’t it? You can get your hand shaken just for showing up, or running into someone you know. It hardly seems worth it to use it to show appreciation, too. I suppose you could do that weird, two-handed claspy thing to make it ‘special’. But I always wonder whether someone’s trying to steal my watch when they do that. Maybe I’m jaded that way.
Anyway, the handshake is out. So what, then? A clap on the back? How droll. A round of applause? Awfully noisy. What if you’re congratulaing someone on getting the baby to sleep, or a particularly good performance in the sack? All that clapping racket is no good. How about a nice tongue down the throat? Yeah — too much. Maybe to say ‘thanks’ for curing cancer, or solving that pesky Middle East dealio.
But why bother with these inferior options when there’s a perfectly good ass pat waiting in the wings, ready to go? Your buddy finally works a Sunday Times crossword? Give him an ‘attaboy‘ on the rear end. That girl in the cube next to you puts together a nice presentation for the boss? Give ‘er a quick slap on the rump. You go, girl! Or maybe a stripper just gave you a really nice lap dance? Ass pat, ass pat, ass pat!
That’s how it ought to work. But no. Somewhere, somehow, the ass pat has fallen out of favor. Maybe it’s the eleventh commandment: ‘Thou shalt rubbeth no rump, excepteth your own.‘ You go out in the real world and try some of the stuff above, and you’ll find yourself in a world of trouble. Your brainy friend will beat you with the Sunday Times, the girl at work will likely end up with half your stuff, and the strip club bouncer just might end up with half your teeth. So, I can’t recommend you try any of that, despite the temptation.
On the other hand, maybe we can fight through this prejudice together. We can’t possibly turn the tide of sentiment in one day; the ass pat will take time to catch on. But we can start small — go out there, this weekend, and pat one of your good friends. Right there, on the ass. It’s okay. If he or she gives you a strange look — or a knee to the groin, or a restraining order — just explain that this is a grassroots effort we’re starting here. First, we’ll pat two friends — and then, they’ll pat two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on. Soon enough, we’ll have cheek-slapping privileges just about anywhere we like. Except the strip clubs, probably — to be so fricking decadent, those places are way too damned uptight. Or so I hear. Ahem.
Anyway, that’s the idea du jour. All I want is a quick, easy way to show my appreciation — and one that doesn’t involve jail time, if at all possible. I’m serious here. You can tell — this is my serious writing voice. Ooh, plus, I resisted the enormous urge to call this an ‘assroots effort‘ up there in that last paragraph. You have no idea how hard that was for me. I think I hurt myself, even.
So, that’s it for tonight. I’m off to enjoy the weekend. And if that involves getting my grubby paws on someone else’s rearcheeks? Well, all the better. I always did love congratulating people. Happy weekend, folks.
Permalink | 1 CommentUm, yeah. I still got nothing.
But don’t think that means that you have to miss out on a few hundred words’ worth of drivel, fair reader. For today is the first of a new month, and that means that my good friend Zoiks! is here to bail my ass out. Again. Thank you, Zoiks!. Where the hell were you, when I was writing college admission essays?
Anyway, in case you’re new around here, here’s the bi-monthly drill:
On the first and fifteenth of each month, a new issue of the e-zine Zoiks! comes out, including a goofball piece of fluff from yours truly. Plus several other humor pieces, which may be more or less goofy and/or flufferpated. Depends on your sense of humor, I suppose. Or humour, even, for you friends across the pond, or in Canadaland.
At any rate, that’s the current issue, and the current piece. Meanwhile, the previous entry is gone from Zoiks!, but you can have it right fricking here, if that’s the kind of thing you’re into. And hell — even if it’s not, because heaven knows I’m not writing anything else today, dammit. So there you go — two entries on two sites, neither of which I had to write today. Everybody polka!
Or just read. How about we just read, and leave the polkaing for another time? Nobody needs to see that. Read on, baby.
Good News for Goofballs
I’ve found that there’s a gap in the set of self-help and how-to books available. Sure, there are books to improve your outlook, and boost your self-esteem. If you want to learn to cook, or start a business, or patent your idea for self-buttering waffles, there are books to help you. And if you happen to be a dummy — well, there are entire shelves at the local Barnes and Nobles devoted to you. Dummies can learn about using computers, and performing home colonoscopies, and operating complicated voting machinery, among others. But there aren’t any books to help you cope with actually being a dummy. Until now. And that’s where I’ve stepped in to fill the void, with a book I’m calling ‘How to Survive as an Idiot’.
Now, you may wonder what qualifications I have for penning such a book. Fair enough. Let me put it to you this way — I go for the service plans when I buy appliances. I leave myself notes in one pants pocket to remind me that my keys are in the other pocket. And I play the lottery every chance I get. Clearly, I’m an idiot. Meanwhile, I’m almost thirty-five years old, which means that I’ve managed to survive an awfully long time without any discernable mental capacity. Statistically, I should have driven off a cliff or impaled my spleen with a nail gun a long time ago. But since I haven’t, I’ve decided to share my survival techniques with the rest of the world’s idiots. Here are a few excerpts:
Pay Attention to Signs
Now, I know this is difficult. As idiots, we have the attention span of a lobotomized cricket. But signs are generally very helpful, and can help us to avoid many sticky situations. Take the sign that’s often hanging near roller coasters: ‘Keep Hands and Feet Inside Car at All Times’. That’s a particularly useful one, and has personally saved me several fingers and toes over the years. Also, a word to the not-so-wise: it’s best to keep your head inside the car, too. I leaned too far one time, and couldn’t smell for a week. True story.
Paint Your Car Like a Taxi Cab
Let me be very clear on this point — I’m not suggesting that you actually pick up passengers and drive them through the city, looking for their destinations. If you’re reading this guide, then you’re likely an idiot. There’s a very good chance that you shouldn’t be operating heavy machinery like a car. Or for that matter, the cigarette lighter. And heaven forbid you should invite innocent civilians into your deathmobile; those people never did anything to you. However, if your car is painted like a cab, then you have free license to drive like an idiot. Running red lights, jumping curbs, cutting through the daycare playground — it’s all expected from your local cabbies. Take advantage, and get that paint job done. It comes with a free pine-scented air freshener, too. Those are nice to suck on.
Don’t Learn New Words
I understand that you want to better yourself. It’s not easy being an idiot; the temptation is always there to hoist yourself up by your own petard, out of the moronic muck. I know. I’ve been there myself. I even went so far as to learn the word ‘petard’ — and that’s three weeks of my life I’ll never have back. I still don’t know what it means, or how to pronounce it. Is it ‘PEE-tard’, or ‘PUH-tard’? ‘PUTT-hard’? I have no idea. I just know that we all have one, apparently, and that you’re only allowed to hoist your own. And if you hoist it more than twice, then you’re just playing with it. Pretty useless knowledge, really. Let this be a lesson to you all.
Never Invest Your Money
Clearly, wise investment is a good idea. The gradual accrual of interest and earnings over time is far preferable to blowing your cash on idiot staples like scratch tickets, box wine, and bad hairpieces. But the key word is ‘wise’; as idiots, we have about as much chance of picking a winning stock as winning a Nobel Prize. Why throw our money down the toilet on ‘investments’ like Alaskan ice cube makers or Michael Jackson-brand baby monitors, when we can enjoy ourselves spending ourselves sillier? Either way, the money’s gone. No need to bring a financial consultant into the equation; that’ll only cost you more.
Hopefully, these tips will come in handy for those among us who require such advice. The unfortunate thing, of course, is that many of the people who would benefit most can’t read in the first place. Or scrape together the cash to buy the book. But I’m moving forward with the book, anyway. And why not — I don’t know any better. After all, I’m an idiot.
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