Like many of you, I went through the fourth grade. That was when I had my traumatic childhood experience. Everyone has the traumatic childhood experience. If you don’t remember yours, it’s because it was REALLY traumatic and you should seek counseling. Mine wasn’t that traumatic, but it’s really my only one, so I have to pin the brown and black ribbon on it.
Ms. Rice was a fourth grade teacher at Tallmadge Elementary School. She was not my homeroom teacher, so I only saw her for one period a day. I think it was for science. Now I remember it was science, because she gave me a C for my report on the planets that was copied directly out of the encyclopedia. I hate to think that my parents paid thousands of dollars for a set of books that only got me a C.
One day in science class, Ms. Rice asked everyone to be quiet. Everyone got quite. Which made it a lot easier for Ms. Rice to hear me ask the kid next to me for their scissors. She had just about enough. Ms. Rice told me to come to the front of the room. She instructed the other students, “Get out a piece of paper and write something you hate about Doug.”
They did.
“Now stand up and form a line in front of Doug and read what you wrote.”
Doug stinks.
Doug is ugly.
Doug is stupid.
Doug talks in class. (You got me there.)
Doug is smelly.
Doug…
I don’t remember a lot of what they wrote. I definitely remember the Doug stinks. At first I tried to laugh it off. And then I cried. Come on, I was in the 4th grade.
The last person read their paper. I was sent back to my seat and we finished what ever we were doing. Everyone was told to throw their papers away. I went home and didn’t say a word.
Andy Friesner was a friend of mine at the time and he felt bad about it. Bad enough that he took several notes out of the trash and took them home to his parents. His parents called mine. Mine questioned me and then called the school. There was a too do.
I would have to call my mom to remind me of what happened after that. I’m sure she’d love to talk about it and get all fired up again. I seem to recall that the next day all the kids wrote nice things about me and I was to take the nice pieces of paper home and show them to my parents. Jamie Barnes (upon a proofread, I’m realizing that this might be a good point to preface that Jamie is a girl) asked me to be her square dance partner in Gym class. That might have all been worth it.
I’m not scarred. Thinking about it makes me sad. But mainly because I’m now remembering these people from my past. I haven’t talked to Andy in years. He is a great guy. And that my long lost love Jamie Barnes hasn’t thought about me in years.
Ms. Rice? My understanding is that she is now an educational administrator somewhere. I searched the internet for “Ms. Rice is a stinking filthy whore” but did not get any search results. I’m not scarred.
Saints vs Atlanta
I'm not a cartoonist, but I pretend to be one on teh intraweb. I thought of this one my drive into work this morning. (Click to enlarge.)
I started to redraw it, but I like the spontaneity of this one. (And I was too lazy.)
I'm thinking though that if I did re-draw it, I'd combine the 2nd and 3rd frame and then in the new forth frame have everyone come running back into the dome looking for shelter and blaming the Bush administration.
(Man, the #12 guy looks like a terrorist.) What kind of f'd up helmet is that?
I started to redraw it, but I like the spontaneity of this one. (And I was too lazy.)
I'm thinking though that if I did re-draw it, I'd combine the 2nd and 3rd frame and then in the new forth frame have everyone come running back into the dome looking for shelter and blaming the Bush administration.
(Man, the #12 guy looks like a terrorist.) What kind of f'd up helmet is that?
God made fish. The devil made the deep fryer.
God made fish. The devil made the deep fryer. Let’s go eat in Purgatory!
There is a restaurant in Columbus called Old Bag o’ Nails. They have really, really great fish and chips. The slaw stinks. The tartar sauce is usually warm. But the fish and chips are perfect. The almost better part is that they give you a huge portion. Some have described the portions as big as a baby’s arm or like a big fish, but bigger!
I have never heard anyone say that the fish portion was as large as a #1 foam finger.
Please compare and contrast the following:
The first photo is that of an Ohio State University #1 foam finger.
The second is a camera phone photo of some fish and chips I ordered last week.
I rest my case. The Old Bag o’ Nail fish and chips portion is as big as a #1 foam finger.
There is a restaurant in Columbus called Old Bag o’ Nails. They have really, really great fish and chips. The slaw stinks. The tartar sauce is usually warm. But the fish and chips are perfect. The almost better part is that they give you a huge portion. Some have described the portions as big as a baby’s arm or like a big fish, but bigger!
I have never heard anyone say that the fish portion was as large as a #1 foam finger.
Please compare and contrast the following:
The first photo is that of an Ohio State University #1 foam finger.
The second is a camera phone photo of some fish and chips I ordered last week.
I rest my case. The Old Bag o’ Nail fish and chips portion is as big as a #1 foam finger.
Male and Female Numbers and Letters
Without getting into it, here is my list of boy and girl numbers and letters:
Girl Numbers
2
3
5
6
8
9
Boy Numbers
0
1
4
7
10
Girl Letters
B
K
P
Q
R
S
U
X
Boy Letters
A
C
E
F
G
I
J
L
M
N
O
T
V
W
Y
Z
Both D and H are tomboy letters. Girl letters, but with a Peppermint Patty kind of boyishness. OK, they are dyke letters.
Girl Numbers
2
3
5
6
8
9
Boy Numbers
0
1
4
7
10
Girl Letters
B
K
P
Q
R
S
U
X
Boy Letters
A
C
E
F
G
I
J
L
M
N
O
T
V
W
Y
Z
Both D and H are tomboy letters. Girl letters, but with a Peppermint Patty kind of boyishness. OK, they are dyke letters.
How to pay your mortgage in coins
We have a large jar of coins at home. I’m sure you do too. If you are like me, you call it the emergency fund. I’m not sure what kind of emergency you would need to have to carry that thing into Kroger’s the day after Shorty’s bachelor party and pour $250 worth of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters into a CoinStar machine and then deposit the cash into the bank and hope to God the money goes through before the mortgage check. I’m really not sure at all.
Anyways, it was the day after Shorty’s bachelor party and I was at Kroger’s empting out the emergency coin jar into the change machine. The CoinStar machine takes all you coins, keeps 8% and spits out the rest as a receipt that you cash in at customer service. Through a slot in the front, the machine will kick out any wooden nickels, tokens, washers, NECCO® Wafers, Canadian coins, or anything else that is round but not a coin or is a coin, but not round anymore.
That’s where I found this token:
I’m not sure where it came from, but if it is a coin from some Asian country, I want to live there. It also reminds me of how I felt the night of Shorty’s bachelor party. The next morning when I woke up and looked in my wallet I felt more like “Unhappy No Wood.”
I’m saving coins up for when John gets married and we throw him a bachelor party. I’ll have about $12,450 saved up by the time that happens.
Anyways, it was the day after Shorty’s bachelor party and I was at Kroger’s empting out the emergency coin jar into the change machine. The CoinStar machine takes all you coins, keeps 8% and spits out the rest as a receipt that you cash in at customer service. Through a slot in the front, the machine will kick out any wooden nickels, tokens, washers, NECCO® Wafers, Canadian coins, or anything else that is round but not a coin or is a coin, but not round anymore.
That’s where I found this token:
I’m not sure where it came from, but if it is a coin from some Asian country, I want to live there. It also reminds me of how I felt the night of Shorty’s bachelor party. The next morning when I woke up and looked in my wallet I felt more like “Unhappy No Wood.”
I’m saving coins up for when John gets married and we throw him a bachelor party. I’ll have about $12,450 saved up by the time that happens.
Finding My Inner Coil
We bought a mattress recently. We also had a baby. Purchasing the mattress was far more traumatic. Really.
With the birth of a baby, you have no control over the proceedings. The water breaks and you drive really fast to the hospital. Three or four different people wearing colorful scrubs stick ¾ of their arms in the mother to be. If you are the au natural type with a thing for extreme pain, the baby comes out with a whole bunch of screaming and yelling. If you believe in modern medical science, some dude sticks a needle in the mother's back and you can balance the checkbook as the baby comes out. They then give you a $45 Advil, several portions of dry chicken and kick you to the curb 47 hours and 59 minutes later. Pretty easy.
The purchase of a mattress requires so much more planning and effort. First off, you never know when a mattress is ready to be replaced (unless it’s a waterbed.) You’ll get a good idea once the springs start poking through or if you’ve worn it down so that you are sleeping on dust and the box spring.
Once you’ve made the decision to buy, you have to pick where to buy. When you are about to deliver a baby, you have two choices: the hospital or the back of a cab. There are over 106 places where you can pick up a mattress in Columbus. (You can sometimes find mattresses along the road for free as long as you can fit Various Stains Brown into your bedroom color pallet.) You’ll pick the wrong store to buy no matter where you go. You will overpay or buy something of low quality or find out another store had a better deal. (Please note: Never ever buy from a store that says they will take your old mattress away when they bring the new. Notice how they show up with a mostly empty truck, put your old mattress inside, close the door and five minutes later pull out the “new” mattress.)
Your purchasing of a mattress really isn’t based on wrapped springs or space age foam or Amish construction. It’s all about how far the salesman rolls his eyes back in his head. When you ask about the floor models, you might get a quarter roll. If you lay down to test a mattress for more than four minutes, you’ll get the full eye roll with the crossed arms and toe tapping. If you walk into the store and wave off the salesman while walking back to the “USED” section, you can get his eyes to roll a full 360 degrees and a sigh big enough to suck the oxygen out of the strip mall. As you walk around the store, watch his eyes and pick the mattress that causes him the least distress.
Once you’ve got the salesman’s eyes back in place and he finishes tacking on the stain guard and undercoating to the bill, he’ll ask about delivery. I highly recommend taking the mattress home with you right there and then for two reasons. The first is so you actually get the mattress you think you want. At the factory in Guam, they make one kind of mattress and 24 kinds of labels to sew on to the mattress (not including the "Do not remove under penalty of law” tag.)
The second reason to drive you mattress home is the physics involved with a mattress tied to the top of your car. The tension of the twine. The power-to-weight ratio required to become airborne. Newton’s First law combined with the breaking power of the car behind you. The muscle mass required to hold the mattress on the top of the car with one hand stuck out the window. My buddy Russ passed his third quarter of Physics by showing up to the final with a king sized Sealy Posturepedic attached to his car with a coat hanger and sixteen feet of dental floss.
Your first night with the mattress is the most important. Mainly because the spider eggs hatch that first night after being distressed during transportation. Also be prepared with a good one liner to combat your buddies who ask if you have “broken in” the mattress yet. I suggest the following response:
“Broken in? You kidding? I got fucked at the store.”
(Actually, I am kidding. We just bought a mattress from The Mattress Firm on Morse Road. It was a very pleasant experience and the sales dude was a great guy. We had it delivered and I even tipped the two delivery guys. And no, we haven’t broken it in yet… assholes.)
With the birth of a baby, you have no control over the proceedings. The water breaks and you drive really fast to the hospital. Three or four different people wearing colorful scrubs stick ¾ of their arms in the mother to be. If you are the au natural type with a thing for extreme pain, the baby comes out with a whole bunch of screaming and yelling. If you believe in modern medical science, some dude sticks a needle in the mother's back and you can balance the checkbook as the baby comes out. They then give you a $45 Advil, several portions of dry chicken and kick you to the curb 47 hours and 59 minutes later. Pretty easy.
The purchase of a mattress requires so much more planning and effort. First off, you never know when a mattress is ready to be replaced (unless it’s a waterbed.) You’ll get a good idea once the springs start poking through or if you’ve worn it down so that you are sleeping on dust and the box spring.
Once you’ve made the decision to buy, you have to pick where to buy. When you are about to deliver a baby, you have two choices: the hospital or the back of a cab. There are over 106 places where you can pick up a mattress in Columbus. (You can sometimes find mattresses along the road for free as long as you can fit Various Stains Brown into your bedroom color pallet.) You’ll pick the wrong store to buy no matter where you go. You will overpay or buy something of low quality or find out another store had a better deal. (Please note: Never ever buy from a store that says they will take your old mattress away when they bring the new. Notice how they show up with a mostly empty truck, put your old mattress inside, close the door and five minutes later pull out the “new” mattress.)
Your purchasing of a mattress really isn’t based on wrapped springs or space age foam or Amish construction. It’s all about how far the salesman rolls his eyes back in his head. When you ask about the floor models, you might get a quarter roll. If you lay down to test a mattress for more than four minutes, you’ll get the full eye roll with the crossed arms and toe tapping. If you walk into the store and wave off the salesman while walking back to the “USED” section, you can get his eyes to roll a full 360 degrees and a sigh big enough to suck the oxygen out of the strip mall. As you walk around the store, watch his eyes and pick the mattress that causes him the least distress.
Once you’ve got the salesman’s eyes back in place and he finishes tacking on the stain guard and undercoating to the bill, he’ll ask about delivery. I highly recommend taking the mattress home with you right there and then for two reasons. The first is so you actually get the mattress you think you want. At the factory in Guam, they make one kind of mattress and 24 kinds of labels to sew on to the mattress (not including the "Do not remove under penalty of law” tag.)
The second reason to drive you mattress home is the physics involved with a mattress tied to the top of your car. The tension of the twine. The power-to-weight ratio required to become airborne. Newton’s First law combined with the breaking power of the car behind you. The muscle mass required to hold the mattress on the top of the car with one hand stuck out the window. My buddy Russ passed his third quarter of Physics by showing up to the final with a king sized Sealy Posturepedic attached to his car with a coat hanger and sixteen feet of dental floss.Your first night with the mattress is the most important. Mainly because the spider eggs hatch that first night after being distressed during transportation. Also be prepared with a good one liner to combat your buddies who ask if you have “broken in” the mattress yet. I suggest the following response:
“Broken in? You kidding? I got fucked at the store.”
(Actually, I am kidding. We just bought a mattress from The Mattress Firm on Morse Road. It was a very pleasant experience and the sales dude was a great guy. We had it delivered and I even tipped the two delivery guys. And no, we haven’t broken it in yet… assholes.)
What you shouldn't do when you are in the Secret Service
Oddly enough, I know a guy who is in the Secret Service. I know another guy who isn’t. Him first.
The other guy was the perfect candidate for the Secret Service. He had military service. He liked guns. He was very smart, but just dumb enough to step in front of a bullet. Sadly, he did not pass a certain level of the Secret Service interview tests. I guess they hook you up to a machine and ask you various questions about morals and honor and if you would have sex with a chicken. Sadly, he failed this part of the test. I can almost (almost) guarantee that he wasn’t a chicken fucker, but he did take offense to the implication that he might be. He was not asked back to continue the process. He is now a professional chicken fucker on the internet.
The first guy (let’s call him Ralph) did make it past the chicken fucking question and is now an agent in the Secret Service. While Ralph was still being interviewed for the position, the Secret Service went out and questioned his friends and family. I was one of those people. The dude they sent out to interview me sucked every last drop of dirt I had on Ralph. I didn’t mean to rat him out on the drunken fun we had in college, but this SS agent somehow loosened my tongue and before I knew it I was relating stories about smoking pot and getting into fights and arrests for jay walking. After it was all said and done, I was sure that Ralph would never get the job. Perhaps my answers actually matched Ralph’s. He is a very honest guy.
After a few months, Ralph was assigned Presidential duty. I guess there is a lot of stuff the Secret Service does besides guard the President. Ralph wouldn’t say what, but what he didn’t tell me sounded interesting. What he did tell me was this:
Ralph was assigned to stand around the tarmac by himself, observing the herded crowd, while the President disembarked from Air Force One. He was watching for bad guys. He had the thing in his ear and a gun and sunglasses. He was very excited. The President walked out of the plane and waved to the crowd. Hurrah! He turned in Ralph’s direction and waved. Ralph was the only one standing there… so he waved back. Ralph suddenly realized what he was doing and put his hand down.
Later on, Ralph admitted to some other agents what he had done. In between fits of hysterical laughter, the got a hold of the video surveillance tape and confirmed the wave. I think most of the Secret Service has seen it now. I’m not sure as a joke or if it is being used for training.
The other guy was the perfect candidate for the Secret Service. He had military service. He liked guns. He was very smart, but just dumb enough to step in front of a bullet. Sadly, he did not pass a certain level of the Secret Service interview tests. I guess they hook you up to a machine and ask you various questions about morals and honor and if you would have sex with a chicken. Sadly, he failed this part of the test. I can almost (almost) guarantee that he wasn’t a chicken fucker, but he did take offense to the implication that he might be. He was not asked back to continue the process. He is now a professional chicken fucker on the internet.
The first guy (let’s call him Ralph) did make it past the chicken fucking question and is now an agent in the Secret Service. While Ralph was still being interviewed for the position, the Secret Service went out and questioned his friends and family. I was one of those people. The dude they sent out to interview me sucked every last drop of dirt I had on Ralph. I didn’t mean to rat him out on the drunken fun we had in college, but this SS agent somehow loosened my tongue and before I knew it I was relating stories about smoking pot and getting into fights and arrests for jay walking. After it was all said and done, I was sure that Ralph would never get the job. Perhaps my answers actually matched Ralph’s. He is a very honest guy.
After a few months, Ralph was assigned Presidential duty. I guess there is a lot of stuff the Secret Service does besides guard the President. Ralph wouldn’t say what, but what he didn’t tell me sounded interesting. What he did tell me was this:
Ralph was assigned to stand around the tarmac by himself, observing the herded crowd, while the President disembarked from Air Force One. He was watching for bad guys. He had the thing in his ear and a gun and sunglasses. He was very excited. The President walked out of the plane and waved to the crowd. Hurrah! He turned in Ralph’s direction and waved. Ralph was the only one standing there… so he waved back. Ralph suddenly realized what he was doing and put his hand down.
Later on, Ralph admitted to some other agents what he had done. In between fits of hysterical laughter, the got a hold of the video surveillance tape and confirmed the wave. I think most of the Secret Service has seen it now. I’m not sure as a joke or if it is being used for training.
The Power of Doug
You may recall my story about Stephanie and the Witch and how we went out one night and threw smoke bombs in cars and such. (In the photo above, the Witch is on the left, Steph is on the right.)
It seems that through the power of my writing that the two of them decided to cast aside their differences and get together in Denver. Stephanie flew in from Washington and the witch hitchhiked in from northern Colorado.
Click here to see the photos. They met at a really cool bar called The Cruise Room that was modeled after a lounge on the Queen Elizabeth. Steph took me here once and forced me to drink dirty Martinis.
The girls will deny it was a spontaneous visit, but I know that it was the power of my storytelling that brought the two together again.
They will also deny that they got hammered and went streaking past 1082 Broadway (now Club Vinyl) singing Nine Inch Nails songs at the tops of their lungs. Good times.
Go Buckeyes
The Buckeyes play Texas tonight. My prediction is Ohio State over Texas, 24 - 21.
On a different note, the over/under was at 14 days as to when I would be able to go out again to get a drink. At 6:18 today, it will be into the 14 day if you play by the Price is Right rules. Purists and people with common sense will tell you that it is still the 13th day.
Either way, at 7:00pm tonight, I will be watching pre-game from outside my home at The Rack with a chilly brew.
Go Buckeyes!
The Ohio University Marching 110 will be playing today in Northern Illinois. The pre-band warm up football game starts at 2:30 and the post-band football game will play for two more quarters after the band plays.
On a different note, the over/under was at 14 days as to when I would be able to go out again to get a drink. At 6:18 today, it will be into the 14 day if you play by the Price is Right rules. Purists and people with common sense will tell you that it is still the 13th day.
Either way, at 7:00pm tonight, I will be watching pre-game from outside my home at The Rack with a chilly brew.
Go Buckeyes!
The Ohio University Marching 110 will be playing today in Northern Illinois. The pre-band warm up football game starts at 2:30 and the post-band football game will play for two more quarters after the band plays.
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