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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
Well, it’s started again. Another twelve months has gone by, and it’s time again for the annual holiday shopping nightmare. Somebody spike the egg nog, people — we’re gonna need booze to get through this one.
Now, before I go any further, I should probably admit that it’s really not all that bad. I should say that my wife handles buying most of the gifticles for our families, so I’ve really only got a handful of presents to come up with. And I should really allow that it’s not as aggravating as I think it’s going to be every year. Yes. Yes, I should.
I should do all of those things, but dammit, I’m not going to. It’s my party, and I’ll poop it if I want to. Should, schmould. Just because there isn’t much shopping to do doesn’t mean I’m gonna like it.
See, you’ve got to understand — I hate shopping. Hate it, loathe it, despise it with a white-hot passion. I can’t tell you why, exactly — maybe I was dropped on my head in a mall as a child, or maybe some now-forgotten loved one went out ‘shopping’ and never came back. Or maybe it’s because I have a penis. Could be any of those reasons.
But the fact remains — in my book, shopping blows big, hairy upchuck chunks.
(If I may mix nasty-ass metaphors. And I may. May, and just did. Woo.)
I think it’s the whole ‘sea of humanity’ thing. The only time I go to a shopping mall is when I absolutely have to go to a shopping mall. And that’s almost always when everyone else has to go to a mall, because for some godforsaken reason, we humans decided a long time ago to cram all of our gifty sorts of holidays into a span of a month or so. So no matter what you celebrate, or where you come from, or which bearded old man or dog-headed deity or little green men you decide to worship, when the weather gets cold, you’ve got to schlep out and buy shit for other people.
And there’s nothing wrong with that — hell, I’m as altruistic as the next cynical snarky smartass out there. Okay, poor choice of words. Let’s just say that I like giving out presents. I do. I’m a giver. Honest. Don’t give me that look, dammit — I give. I give!
But what genius came up with the idea of everybody giving each other trinkets all at the same time? Come on, spread that shit out a little — let’s move Christmas out of there, for starters. Who wants to lug six bags of shit through a foot and a half of snow to get ’em home, anyway? Let’s plop that thing down into June, or maybe July. And throw Chanukah — or Hanukkah, or however the hell I’m supposed to spell it this year — into the fall, or the spring. Spread the wealth, that’s all I’m saying.
Because now, the way things stand, the stores are fricking packed every shopping minute of every shopping day in the whole mother-shopping month of December. Hitting a mall after Thanksgiving is like trying to do the breaststroke through a fricking mosh pit. I’m all squinchy just thinking about it.
Which is why I’m trying — again, this year — to do all of my shopping online, and avoid the whole holiday train wreck altogether. I’ve been saying that since the turn of the millennium, and it never fricking works — I always end up making at least one ’emergency trip’ for last-second cards, or wrapping paper, or that thing I completely forgot that my wife wanted, but if I don’t get it, I can’t have sex for the next six months.
And so, this year it begins. I made my first online purchase today, and I have a couple more lined up to take care of. Will that be enough? Have I forgotten anything? Is it physically possible to avoid a shopping mall for the entire month of December? I don’t know, folks. All I can do is plan, and hope, and pray to bearded old guys and little green men and flowy-robed goddesses alike that I won’t have to go there. Again.
Have I mentioned how I hate shopping? Ugh. Now I’m all in a mood. Bah. Bah, and humbug, too. Now where’s that boozed-up egg nog? Somebody pass me a cup.
Permalink | 2 Comments(Hey, I know many of you don’t give a flying flounder fanny about baseball, or anything about it… but I do, so I’m devoting a post to something baseball-related.
Besides, it’s Friday night, and I’ve got nothing else. Chances are nobody’s gonna see this, anyway, if I get another post in front of it tomorrow. But if you’re reading this and don’t care or know anything at all about baseball, then feel free to skip off to another part of the site for a while. I won’t be offended, and you’re only gonna miss one or two lame jokes. Nothing to worry about.
Otherwise, though — read on, soldier. Maybe you’ll find something of interest, or at least kill a few minutes of weekend time. And that’s something, eh?)
So, I’m not the biggest Barry Bonds detractor there is.
Frankly, I probably like the guy more than most baseball fans do. He played in Pittsburgh for a couple of years when I was there and rooting for the Pirates. He’s got an amazing batting eye, and one of the quickest bats in the game. And frankly, his ‘loathe-hate’ relationship with the media bothers me not at all — most of those bastards are fricking ‘sportsparazzi’, aggressive and pushy and asking endless questions, each dumber than the last.
(Sure, there are exceptions. Just like I’m sure there are one or two people working for the National Enquirer who really are looking for ‘the truth’. But the cluetards greatly outweigh the pros in these professions. It’s fricking ridiculous. ‘Enquiring minds’ know they’re mainly a bunch of douchebags. That’s all I’m saying.)
Anyway, I’m no Barry-basher, normally. I’m willing to forgive and forget an awful lot of snarkiness, and unsubstantiated rumors floating around regarding who used what performance-enhancing thing when are just that — rumors.
(Though you’ve got to admit, if you step back and look at it, that an employer worrying about performance-enhancing drugs could only happen in the world of sports.
Really, if I was shooting something into my eyeballs that made me type ten percent faster, or write database queries like a pro, do you think my boss would be trying to make me stop? Nah. He’d help me wrap the tourniquet around my forehead and hold the needle plunger for me. And nobody would care if it shrunk my penis, either. I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t come into play at all.
On the other hand, the more common drugs you see around the workplace — cocaine, booze, weed, and the like — aren’t really performance-enhancing, so much. Well, maybe pot, if it clears your head… but I’m pretty sure that whatever advantage you’d get from the clarity, you’d give it right back by taking a snack break every twelve minutes. That’s all I’m saying.)
Okay, none of this is really the point. The point is, while I’m willing to forgive the Bondster many of his trespasses, this banned substance scandal is finally getting too ri-goddamned-diculous to ignore. Here’s the latest, leaked from Barry’s grand jury BALCO testimony:
Bonds testified that he ‘unknowingly’ used steroids
Oh, Barry. Barry, Barry, Barry. Dude, when the jig is up, the jig is up, man. ‘Fess up, and all will eventually be forgiven. Or maybe it won’t. But there’s no need for… for this. What are we supposed to believe here, Barry, that you’re a drooling fricking moron?
‘Hmmm… I wonder what’s in this tube labeled ‘Steroid Cream‘? Eh, you never know with the way they label these things. I’ll just assume it’s something else.‘
‘Hey, and this syringe lying here next to the steroid solution — I bet that’s just a flu shot. I’d better shoot myself some of that before I get the sniffles.‘
‘What’s that, dude? Do I want to buy some steroids? Well, how about this — just give me some Flintstones vitamins… but could you put them in a jar labeled ‘steroids’? If it’ll save you some trouble, that is.‘
I dunno. Maybe he is that dense. But I doubt it, people. Forrest Gump wasn’t that dense. Rain Man had more common sense. Hell, Anna Nicole Smith would’ve… oh. No. Never mind. She wouldn’t. She’s a fuckin’ doorknob. Never mind that last thing.
Anyway, it looks like the shitski is about to hit the fan with this whole ‘drugs in baseball’ thing. Jason Giambi has admitted to taking human growth hormone, ‘roids and coke and booze recently killed Ken Caminiti, and now Bonds either took them on purpose, or he has the brains of a lobotomized guinea pig and took them ‘accidentally’. This can’t possibly be the last we’re gonna hear about this, and that’s a pretty shitty thing for a baseball fan like me.
And all of this happening in the offseason, when there’s no other baseball news to distract us from this train wreck. Damn. What we need is a nice diversion of some kind, to take the heat off the topic until something can be done about it.
Which begs the question: where’s that John Rocker asshole when you finally need him for once, eh? How about opening your bigassed ignorant mouth again and taking one for the proverbial team, John? A couple weeks’ worth of flogging your redneck ass in the press might be just what we need right now. How ’bout it, Johnny boy?
Permalink | 1 CommentOh, holy fuck. It’s five thirty in the evening now; here was my day so far:
11am: Five minutes late for my first meeting — mostly because I was finishing the entry above. (If it smells like burning karma in here, folks, that’s probably because it is.)
First meeting ran twenty minutes late, making me…
11:50am: …twenty minutes late for my second meeting. With my boss. To go over my employee review. Dang. I’ll have a bite of that karma toast now, thanks.
Second meeting ran thirty minutes late (or only ten, if you factor in the tardy start), making me…
12:30pm: …thirty minutes late for my third meeting. (Do you see a pattern here?)
This meeting also ran thirty minutes late, which would have put me just on time for the fourth meeting of the day. But dammit, by that point I needed some lunch — or technically, ‘breakfast’ — so I slipped off for a sandwich, making me…
1:50pm: …twenty minutes late for my fourth meeting. Which was almost as exciting as the third meeting. Which in turn was almost as exciting as a cardboard enema. And nearly as painful. On the way out, I had this conversation:
Him: Man, you look dead. Sorry the meeting was so bad.
Me: Dude, that’s not even the worst meeting I’ve had today.
Him: Holy christ — somebody get that man some booze!
The good news is that the fourth meeting didn’t run late. Officially. Of course, the bad news is that half that meeting spilled over into my office, to suck what little precious time I would have had until…
3pm: …the fifth meeting, which lasted well over two hours, and just spat me out, quivering and twitching, back here at my desk.
Six and a half hours of solid meetings, people. That’s fucking harsh. The Inquisitors didn’t go that far, man — they’d put you through, like, five hours and then go:
‘Damn. Let him go, poor bastard. Heretic or not, mother fucker’s suffered enough.‘
But the bullshit’s almost over. I’ve just got to send two emails, pick up a printout, look up a few numbers in a database, have a quick conversation (and I’ll be bent over and broomhandled before I call it another ‘meeting’ today!), and I’m home, sweet home. I just try not to think of the four five things that went onto my ‘to-do list’ because of all this tomfoolery, and the zero no, that was right: zero things I managed to cross off today. Calgon, take me away!
No, scratch that — my buddy was right. This is a job for sweet, beautiful booze. And in just a few minutes, I’m all over it. Raise a glass for me, folks — it’s goddamned Miller time. Only with good beer. You know what I’m sayin’. Word.
Permalink | 7 CommentsYou ever have one of those days where, as soon as you wake up, you know you’re not gonna accomplish a damned thing all day?
(Yeah, yeah, I know — I spend the better part of my life not accomplishing anything, so why should today be any different?
But still… I like to go until at least lunchtime with the delusion that I might be productive — that just maybe, today is the day I turn it all around and make the world a better place somehow.
Well, you know what? Today is not that day. World, take a number. Again. Bitches.)
So how do I know, as sure as the nose on my face or the penis in my pantaloons, that I’m going to get nothing accomplished today?
Because I have five — count ’em, five; one, two, three, four, five — meetings at work today. Five!
Count ’em backwards, if you want — five, four, three, two, one. En espanol — uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco. Backwards, in Roman — V, IV, III, II, I.
It doesn’t matter how you slice ’em — there are still damned five. That’s a whole handful of fingers! Or an entire basketball team! Hell, it’s just one smarmy douchebag short of the Brady kids! And that’s at least five Bradys too many. Or maybe just four, after Jan got her boobs — but that’s not important right now. For once in my life, boobs I’ve seen on TV aren’t my highest priority.
(So wait — what was the other thing, again? I got myself all twitterpated with the breasticle talk, there.
Oh, right. I remember.)
Five, dammit, five!
(You know, you don’t seem nearly as upset over this as I am. Either I’m overreacting, or you just don’t give a swooping shit. And I think I know which.
Poopyhead.)
So, anyway — five meetings. Apparently, I’ve moved into the ‘acceptance phase’, because I can’t even muster a good lather over it any more. But even at a half-hour each, that’s two and a half hours of my life I’ll never have back.
(And believe me, folks — most of these meetings have zero chance of ending after thirty minutes. Horny Bulgarian hookers could walk into the room, and they’d be tabled until after the report on last week’s ‘action items’.
(And see — see how this is affecting me? I don’t even have the strength to make the obvious joke about hookers being ‘action items’ themselves.
Or how it’s not the good kind of ‘tabled’.
Or to wonder why the hell I made them Bulgarian. I’m a little delirious at the moment, apparently. Hold me.)
Ah, well — guess there’s nothing to do now but get in there and take my lumps. On the other hand, though… there’s really nothing that says I have to be at these meetings. Only that somebody has to be there, and then I have to know what went on.
Anybody out there want to do me a favor? You can take my TiVo to my office and tape everything that happens, and then I can fast-forward through the boring bits. That way, there’ll only be two and a half minutes of my life I’ll never have back. And that’s way better. Hell, I spend that much time every day in the shower, wondering whether I’ve already washed my hair. That, I can handle.
So, how about it? Anyone want to trade lives for the day?
(Wife not included, but you can stay in the house, if you like. And I’ll make you a sandwich. And we can watch real TiVo when I’ve gone through the meetings.
It’ll be fun. Like summer camp, without all those crappy arts and crafts, or the awkward shame of putting on your swimsuit in front of a bunch of strangers.
Although, if that would help return the favor, we can do that, too. Just don’t laugh — I’m telling you, dammit, there’s been shrinkage.)
Okay, that’s it. I can’t put it off any longer, so I’m going to work. And in only eight to ten hours, it’ll be over, and I can go back to pretending I’ll get something done ‘tomorrow’. It’s not much to hold onto, but it’s something, right?
You kids have a beautiful Thursday. I’m off to visit my own little slice of hell. Toodles.
Permalink | 1 CommentI’ve found myself in a few situations recently that have made me stop and wonder, ‘Who’s the damned weirdo here? Me? Or that guy?‘ And frankly, there’s no way I can make that call. So I’m putting it to you, the impartial observer: who’s the douchebag here?
(Hey, hey, hey — no answering until after you read the scenarios, there, sparky. Don’t get ahead of yourself, calling ‘douchebag!’ all over the place. Keep it in your pants, sailor.)
Okay, here we go:
I played volleyball this week on a team with a couple of people I’d never met before. When I got there, the team was refereeing another game, and I swore an old friend of mine was working the net. Until he took the whistle out of his mouth, and it became clearly obvious that it wasn’t him. Whistle in, spitting image. (No pun intended, smartass.) Whistle out, some strange guy.
So does that reflect poorly on my friend, that he looks like random guys, but only when they’re blowing on little plastic doodads? Or am I the douchebag, for thinking about it in those terms? And using the terms ‘random guys’ and ‘blowing’ in the same sentence. And dropping ‘doodads’ in the middle of that description.
Damn. Score one for me. I kinda gave it away at the end there, huh? Bitches.
Next situation, then:
I was in the bathroom at work today, minding my own business on the toilet.
(No, not ‘minding my business’, either, jackhole — just minding my own business. Not everything is a euphemism around here, you know. Most things. But not all, dammit.)
After a couple of minutes, a guy walked into the bathroom and sat down in the stall next to mine. It was all right for a bit, but then he tried striking up a conversation! The nerve! The pervy nerve!
So, I ask you — was he the douchebag there, for interrupting my privacy with his attempt at small talk? Or somehow was I at fault, for keeping quiet and pretending not to hear his repeated attempts to chit chat?
I mean, honestly, what else could I have done? I’m not equipped to deal with that situation. And who starts freaking conversations with, ‘Hey, buddy, can I borrow some toilet paper?‘, anyway? Whatever happened to ‘Hello‘?
What? Oh. Right. That’s me again, isn’t it. Well, poop.
(Okay, that time I meant the pun. Ain’t I a stinker?
Heh. I could keep this up for hours.
But I won’t. A little dribble of bathroom humor goes a long way. And I think I’ve shaken it more than twice already. Proverbially speaking. Moving on.)
How ’bout this one:
There’s this girl in my office that I always thought was really tall.
But recently, I realized that she’s not really all that tall. She just has enormous boobs. Which I noticed a long time ago, of course — you’ve got to get up pretty damned early in the morning to sneak a pair of towering tatas past me, folks. But I always thought she was tall, too. Apparently, I’d been blinded by her breasticle bling, and imagined her with height she doesn’t really have.
So, the question is… aw, screw it. This one’s me. All me. I can’t even make a case for myself. I’m a douchebag. And Laetitia Casta* must be, like, nine feet tall. Next!
Okay, last one:
I just spent the better part of an hour working this crap into an entry, editing it, and posting it. For no good reason, and possibly at the expense of sweet, beautiful, pillow-drooling sleep that I could be having right now.
But you — you, now, we’re talking about — just read the whole damned thing. And that’s three minutes or so of your life that you’ll never have back, see?
So it begs the question — who’s worse off in this situation — me, for writing this nonsense, or you, for allowing it into your head like this? See, I ask you — who’s the real douchebag here?
Wha? Me?! Dammit! Why am I always the douchebag? Poopstain!
Screw this, then — I’m goin’ to bed. What kind of douchebag thought of this stupid game, anyway? Oh. Shit. Never mind. Good night, then. *sigh*
* (Image linked from the Laetitia Casta picture pages at SuperiorPics.com. In case you were wondering. Or horny. Or both.)
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