Champion of the Day: Full Force Man

Congratulations to that guy I saw walking his dog on 40th. Your pit bull looked very tough and menacing, but you, sir, were anything but. That macho 80s look you were sporting made you stick out more than a camel toe sticks in. Your shiny jheri curl, your Gargoyle sunglasses, your puffy white shirt, and baggy super-tapered pants had me thinking you were getting ready to meet up with the other members of Full Force.

For making me hope you were dressed that way because you, Ozone, and Special K were putting on a breakdance show to save the local youth center, you are the champion of the day.

Drunken karaoke.

How did it come to me standing with a microphone yelling "Hey you - who said that? - baby how you been?"

I remember a few shots of tequilla and then an aborted attempt by me and some friends to shoot pool. Someone suggested "karaoke" - and it was on.

We found a place on Telegraph and 44th that had private party booths. Wisely, the manager stuck us all in the booth farthest away from the front desk. After noticing their "no alcohol" policy, half of us trekked over to the liquor store to buy some liquid courage and sneak it in.

All I have left to say is that you really form a bond with people when all of you are belting out Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of your lungs.

Coin slots and vegetable medley.

I needed to do laundry the other day, so I threw a pile of clothes into a basket and headed to the laundry room directly below my apartment. I totally slammed the laundry room door by accident, by the way. I threw the clothes into the washer, put in my 75 cents, and headed to the Piedmont Grocery to pick up some veggies for dinner.

I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to picking vegetables or fruit. When I got to the market, I loaded up the easy stuff first – garlic, ginger, shallots (I went with shallots because they’re small, if I got an onion, I’d end up wasting half of it). And then I went for the frozen bag of vegetable “medley” because pre-cut carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and baby corn are easier to swallow than the Mexican version of KISS. (Okay, that was a little forced, but there really isn’t a smooth way to ease that horrible album cover into a conversation. Better to just hammer it in there.)

After the grocery store, I put away the stuff I bought and ran downstairs to move my clothes to the dryer. After loading my wet clothes in the machine, I noticed the coin mech to the dryer was jammed. Mother “F”!!! You have GOT to be kidding me. But there it was – the slot-loading, quarter-eating, coin mech was as broken as boken gets. I stood there and stared at it, hoping my Jedi mind tricks would miraculously unhinge whatever was jamming the slot – thus, making me the hero of the apartment complex and entitling me to a huge ceremony where Princess Leia awards me the medal of laundri-tude and then I turn and roar at the crowd to make them stand up and cheer. (I know, I know, Chewie didn't get a medal - but he should have.)

When that didn’t work, I had take my wet clothes out of the dryer, load them into a basket, and then drive down to the nearest laundromat. This totally sucked because I had rockstar parking right in front of my building, and I knew there was no way the karma of the parking gods would shine on me twice in one night – especially during the dinner rush on Piedmont Avenue. ...and in an even bigger gyp, drying your clothes for 45 minutes cost $1.25.

Crotchety Joe and the leaky pipe.

I’ve got this friend that lives in an apartment building. The kind that’s got five flights of stairs and no elevator – so of course she lives on the top floor. The building is pretty old, and you can expect it to have some “old building” problems. One of them, apparently, is with the plumbing.

When I heard she had plumbing troubles, my first reaction was, “What’d you do to the toilet?” But it turned out the pipes in the shower were leaking.

Right now, I want to interrupt my story because I’d like to say that the funniest thing you can do after moving your bowels is to walk out of the bathroom and announce, “If anyone’s looking for the prime rib... It’s in there,” and point back over your shoulder with a thumbs up. You can substitute “prime rib” with any food of your choice. Okay, back to the story...

The leaky shower pipe wasn’t causing any problems in her apartment. It was, however, causing a bit of a drip in the apartment below. And the crotchety old man who lived down there wasn’t going to have it. Everytime my friend or her roommate would run the water, Crotchety Joe would bang on his ceiling accusing them of trying to flood him out of his apartment.

I'll admit that a wet patch on your ceiling is a sign of a leak - especially if it's causing some dripping when the people upstairs run the shower, but you've got to be pretty deluded to freak out and believe that they're systematically building up a swell of water that's going to crash down and turn your apartment into an aquarium.

How are the people upstairs supposed to know their shower pipes are leaking? Well, Crotchety Joe's solution was to go up and terrorize them. He banged on the door of my friend's place and demanded they stop trying to flood him out. When my friend opened her door, things got ugly -- there was a shouting match and Crotchety Joe actually PUSHED HER. I can imagine all this happening in slow motion, because it actually was that slow.

Sure, he's old, but he's angry old. And the angry old are scary. What was she supposed to do? Push back? He'd probably shatter his hip, because that's what seems to happen to old people when they get pushed. Or, they die. ...like Mick in Rocky III.

She tried to close the door on him, but Joe wasn't having any of that. He stood there leaning on the door, yelling as dead skin flakes and old man musk dusted the air. But Crotchety Joe was frail, and she was able to calculate and apply the right amount of strength to close the door forcefully, but without sending his skeletal frame hurtling down the hallway.

Poor Crotchety Joe, if he had just called a plumber -- like my friend did -- this whole thing could have been avoided and he would have been kicking back in his recliner eating creamed corn or whatever other soft, mushy foods old people eat.

MySpace Cowboy: Spring Break Fiasco

These are the stories of a hapless MySpace junkie and his efforts to meet women. As told by the people who have to listen to his "bragging."

This time the MySpace Cowboy has managed to rustle up some trouble without getting on the internet. For the quick background story - the 30-something cowboy was dating a girl who was still in high school. Hold on ...it gets worse. The girl is related to him. They’re cousins -- they may be once or twice removed, but still -- he’s a cousinfucka.

Of course there was some ugliness, and it ended, but the MSC wanted to “remain friends.” Anyway, in conversation with some other friends, MSC brought up that Cousin Jailbait had invited him on her spring break trip. --Yeah right, more like he invited himself.-- Now MSC’s latest dilemma has to do with where he’s going to stay during this spring break trip. Apparently, Cousin Jailbait hasn’t made accomodations for him AND one of her friends hates him. --Probably because of the COUSIN THING, ya think?

So the Cowboy is all stressed out because he’s got nowhere to stay and can’t get any love from Cousin Jailbait (seriously, there’s a story about a phone conversation between the two of them where he threw out the “I love you” bomb and she refused to reciprocate), and he’s whining to his friends how his “ex” is being wishy-washy about the whole thing. --Dude! We know she’s your cousin! But you just keep living a lie.

Here's his attitude towards the situation, “...if she doesn’t straighten this out, that’s it. I’ll wash my hands of her and be done.”

NOBODY was buying that steaming pile. He also had an answer for every question:

But Cowboy, it’ll probably be her last spring break with her friends before she goes off for school. “Most of her friends are older and they love me.”

Nobody loves you, Cowboy. What about her boyfriend? “Her boyfriend is real cool with me.”

Seriously, dude, boyfriends are NOT cool with that shit. Who wants the “ex” hanging around? Especially if it’s her COUSIN?

(I should probably include right here that Cousin Jailbait’s current boyfriend is 26. --but at least they’re not related.)

Well if you insist on going to spring break, why can’t you find your own place to stay? “Oh I could find a place to stay myself. Not a problem. I just feel like that shouldn’t be my job when she invited me and made arrangements for everyone else. I dont like being treated differently than her other friends.”

So she made arrangements for everyone else but you, and you can’t understand why you’re being treated differently? That’s it. I’m outta here...(brain flies out of head accompanied by slide whistle sound effect).

Finally the Spring Break Fiasco ended with the Cowboy staying home, BUT that doesn’t mean the story’s over. It actually gets more intriguing. I’ll have to save that for the next installment of the MySpace Cowboy.

Mad barista skills.

I've had to go through drink-making training at the cafe I just started working at. The first few drinks didn't really go as smoothly as I'd hoped.

The trick with all of these espresso drinks is in steaming the milk. I can say, however, that right off the bat my boss told me, "...that's a perfect cappuccino."

Too bad I was supposed to be making a latte. D'oh!

It turns to rocks.

I'm always getting busted by my friends for spitting gum on the ground. "Stop littering!" they say. But I can't help it, gum is just one of those things you can't wait to spit out once all the flavor is gone. Besides, "...it turns to rocks," is what I like to respond with.

Of course it doesn't, but I think it's a funny thing to say. And plus, it would be great to think that some archaeologist 500 years from now would be confused as hell as to why he can't figure out the sedimentary composition of some chewed up Big Red.