If you have a law degree but can't write coherently, satisfactorily, or cogently for that matter, I have to excoriate you. I must—especially when you're running for the Nebraska legislature! (Note: I refuse to capitalize "legislature." Sue me.) There's no gray area here. You're supposed to be educated. You're supposed to be more than an empty suit and a three-dollar haircut. Get your act together.
His name is Brent Smoyer. We went to the same high school; he was a year below me. While a genial fellow, he was an unpopular goof. Plays, choirs, and musicals occupied his time, not that there's anything wrong with that. He was the most ungainly football player ever. One gasser would leave him wheezing like a geriatric without an oxygen mask. He'd jog out to practice, and his face would already be as red as a maraschino cherry. His car? An Oldsmobile that looked like a beige outhouse. I mention this to highlight the fact that he failed to relate to anyone then. Toss in the nugget that people don't normally change drastically. So how's he supposed to relate to the populace now?
He's chasing a fairy tale and losing ground.
It's as clear as day: Besides being a wannabe, he's just another callow, jerkwater politico, albeit one with the language skills of Danny Bonaduce.
His error-strewn "Issues" page:
www.brentsmoyer.com/Issues.html
What is this dross? And it is dross. Is it a first draft?
It's redundant. It's schlocky. It's infantile from alpha to omega. It's categorically boring. Where's the flair? You have a law degree, and this pabulum is you putting your best foot forward? Forget that. You're not earning, or getting, my vote. You're earning my contempt. This isn't quantum physics. How can you sleep at night? Reproach yourself this instant!
(I'll forgo adding a [sic] to all of his oversights. There'd be far too many of them. They'd bog down the writing. I'll just get it out of the way: [sic].)
Ever heard of a hyphen? No? Okay. Didn't think so. "Ever growing need"? "High caliber universities"? "Well being"? Dude, it's a blasted noun. Hyphenate it already! That is sad and pathetic. Hemingway was a drunk who ate a load of buckshot but he respected and employed the hyphen. Correctly using a hyphen can be a gratifying experience. But I'm talking jabberwocky right now, aren't I? Hyphen. Hy-phen. Not hymen. Hyphen.
Understand the rules of a period? Nope? Not surprising. Here's a free lesson: Always, always, always, always, always, always place a period (or a comma) inside the quotation mark. Is "always" too vague for you? Too ambiguous? The Unabomber was a deranged (and violent) stargazer but he cared about his manifesto's grammaticality. He cared. Why don't you? Hmmm, perhaps I'll cast a write-in vote for Teddy Bear Kaczynski.
Here's you: "family".
Here's me: I'm now flaccid.
Here's civilized society: "family."
"Nebraskan" is singular. "Their" is plural. "Child"? Singular. "Them"? Plural. "Them" cannot refer to "child" and "their" cannot refer to "Nebraskan," yet you nonchalantly do it. Repeatedly. Interminably. Strangely. Unprofessionally. Vexingly. Is it pathological? It's as if you think the—what you see as negligible—difference between singular and plural is pure semantics reserved for stuffy grammarians in ivory towers. Are you ignorant or just careless?
Did you write this tripe or did one of your surrogates, say a toddler on the refrigerator door with crayons?
Looks like someone skipped remedial English many summers ago to put on a fantabulous rendition of Guys and Dolls at the Piccadilly Dinner Theatre. I hope you enjoyed your curtain call. It was surely your last.
April 27, 2008
April 23, 2008
Don't Accost Me in a Restroom!
Whosoever accosts a stranger in a Gold's Gym restroom/locker room deserves unequivocally callous scorn. Last night, I was said stranger. The no-neck, tatted-up, partially cross-eyed accoster was a redheaded stepchild if I've ever seen one.
It was 11:15 p.m. I was blowing my nose after running about four miles. Sweat saturated my shirt. MP3 player blared Phil Collins' "Something Happened On the Way to Heaven."
In walks the goon with the cartoonish mass, acting as if the room were too small for his gigantic muscles. (C'mon, you have to save that swagger for O Street!) He wore sweatpants and a blue wifebeater. His left arm was one continuous tat, with the U.S. flag emblazoning his shoulder. "You're looking at a patriot. Get my patriotism in ink. I was a special-needs student throughout school. Do you do tramp stamps? I want a rainbow." A pro-wrestling reject, I thought. His underdeveloped mustache looked as if he'd smeared Dorothy Lynch under his nose. His eyes had this slow-on-the-uptake glaze about them. Dopey-looking—that's the choice descriptive.
I'd shaved off my mini-afro earlier in the day and was/am rocking a cut that a friend calls the Jack Shephard, and the lastingly wretched sunburn on my forehead had warped my face into a grimace. I didn't exactly look like the kindest, most approachable fellow in the gym.
Meathead was unfazed. He asked, "Have a nice workout?"
I said something like, "I work hard and have overactive sweat glands. It's the perfect storm."
Curtains. Or not.
(The following one-sided conversation occurred with about ten feet between us. He was still in my personal space, and I was out of my comfort zone. He was a body language abecedarian, okay, know-nothing. He sure as heck couldn't read mine. I often glanced away. I twirled my earbuds. I discreetly tapped on my left wrist where a watch might be. No difference.)
He launched into a gassy monologue that was as self-serving as it was unintelligible. Besides "Cool, man," "I see," "Good luck with that," "Oh," and "That sucks," I couldn't get a word in edgewise. He inconsiderately prattled for about three minutes—it seemed like three years—about tearing a rotator cuff and a bicep, some bone protruding somewhere, and bodybuilding competitions. (Bodybuilding? He had breasts! C cups. He needed a "mansiere.") This wasn't/isn't his fatal flaw. The motormouth could not enunciate. No enunciation, period. He'd spit out a paragraph like it was one word. I could maybe understand every sixth word. (Insert your own "Hooked on Phonics" joke.) "Body" was the only word you'd find in a dictionary.
It was highly perturbing. I wanted to bail but didn't want to be overtly rude. Why couldn't I be more of a fire-eater? "Enough out of you! No one cares how many steroids you injected today? You're not Lyle Alzado." I couldn't do it.
He said he has three jobs, I think, one as a bouncer. Of course. A person with piss-poor to no people skills should work with people, and unthinking, sodden, dissatisfied ones at that. Makes sense.
My breaking point came, and I walked past him. He was still crowing illiterately about powerlifting, bronzing, and pose-offs. I waited for him to take a breath and said, "Dude, I'm not gay."
Interaction? Flatline.
It was 11:15 p.m. I was blowing my nose after running about four miles. Sweat saturated my shirt. MP3 player blared Phil Collins' "Something Happened On the Way to Heaven."
In walks the goon with the cartoonish mass, acting as if the room were too small for his gigantic muscles. (C'mon, you have to save that swagger for O Street!) He wore sweatpants and a blue wifebeater. His left arm was one continuous tat, with the U.S. flag emblazoning his shoulder. "You're looking at a patriot. Get my patriotism in ink. I was a special-needs student throughout school. Do you do tramp stamps? I want a rainbow." A pro-wrestling reject, I thought. His underdeveloped mustache looked as if he'd smeared Dorothy Lynch under his nose. His eyes had this slow-on-the-uptake glaze about them. Dopey-looking—that's the choice descriptive.
I'd shaved off my mini-afro earlier in the day and was/am rocking a cut that a friend calls the Jack Shephard, and the lastingly wretched sunburn on my forehead had warped my face into a grimace. I didn't exactly look like the kindest, most approachable fellow in the gym.
Meathead was unfazed. He asked, "Have a nice workout?"
I said something like, "I work hard and have overactive sweat glands. It's the perfect storm."
Curtains. Or not.
(The following one-sided conversation occurred with about ten feet between us. He was still in my personal space, and I was out of my comfort zone. He was a body language abecedarian, okay, know-nothing. He sure as heck couldn't read mine. I often glanced away. I twirled my earbuds. I discreetly tapped on my left wrist where a watch might be. No difference.)
He launched into a gassy monologue that was as self-serving as it was unintelligible. Besides "Cool, man," "I see," "Good luck with that," "Oh," and "That sucks," I couldn't get a word in edgewise. He inconsiderately prattled for about three minutes—it seemed like three years—about tearing a rotator cuff and a bicep, some bone protruding somewhere, and bodybuilding competitions. (Bodybuilding? He had breasts! C cups. He needed a "mansiere.") This wasn't/isn't his fatal flaw. The motormouth could not enunciate. No enunciation, period. He'd spit out a paragraph like it was one word. I could maybe understand every sixth word. (Insert your own "Hooked on Phonics" joke.) "Body" was the only word you'd find in a dictionary.
It was highly perturbing. I wanted to bail but didn't want to be overtly rude. Why couldn't I be more of a fire-eater? "Enough out of you! No one cares how many steroids you injected today? You're not Lyle Alzado." I couldn't do it.
He said he has three jobs, I think, one as a bouncer. Of course. A person with piss-poor to no people skills should work with people, and unthinking, sodden, dissatisfied ones at that. Makes sense.
My breaking point came, and I walked past him. He was still crowing illiterately about powerlifting, bronzing, and pose-offs. I waited for him to take a breath and said, "Dude, I'm not gay."
Interaction? Flatline.
April 21, 2008
Am I Trying to Sabotage This First Date?
I behave stupidly. Ergo, I do stupid things. To understand why I do stupid things, I may as well do stupid things.
My brainlessness was on full display yesterday—during a first date. At one point, I even thought, Am I trying to sabotage this? During this meltdown for the ages, I riddled my feet with lead. Though I was a gaffe machine, the date still seemed to go well, somehow.
The Litany of Blunders
1. The previous week, I'd emailed her various songs. These included Buckcherry's "Lit Up," the Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together," and Stone Temple Pilots' "Sex Type Thing."
2. The yolky sun arcing over Saturday's Red-White Spring Game and its temperate rays terribly seared my lily-white skin, so my nose, forehead, and cheeks were glaringly rosy. The tops of my knees and the bottoms of my thighs looked as if I'd colored them with dullish red chalk. I was in such pain that I'd been popping Aleve like they were Chewy Runts. I wasn't nervous. No. I was in exorbitant agony from all the melting flesh. Thus, no yips.
3. I showered but moronically chose to wear the same clothes from the night before when I was a walking sales rack for American Eagle. I likely reeked of Budweiser and Michelob Ultra.
4. We tried to eat at The Green Gateau. This was Sunday at noon, so it was packed. We tried to eat at Bison Witches. What a zoo. We went next door to The Coffee House. Thankfully, the place was dead. I was down to my last strike.
5. After making a platitudinous comment to the barista about "muffin tops," I ordered two "giant" muffins, blueberry and pumpkin. Muffins? Really? Can a man—okay, I'm not a man; I'm a lad in a man's body—order muffins on a first date? Isn't this tantamount to a man ordering a salad at a restaurant on a first date?
6. I somewhat rudely chastised her for trying to pay for her food and drink. She pulled her purse from her bag, and I said, "Put that away! We're not going Dutch." The total cost was $7.92. Yep, I looked like a real cheapskate.
7. We sat down and began eating. The muffins were disintegrating like wet sandcastles. I was making a mess. Crumbs everywhere. And I was talking with my mouth full.
8. I was dehydrated from three nights of insobriety so I ordered water and chomped away on ice cubes. My date? A future dentist. She duly and politely called me on it. I unabashedly continued crushing those glorified hailstones.
9. I yammered about Nazi Germany and how it was a good thing that my ancestors fled to Russia decades earlier. I said, "Who knows what the Nazis would've done with my ancestors...probably put them on a train to Auschwitz-Birkenau." (Germans exterminating other Germans? What?) Boy, you're some conversationalist. Will you wise up?
10. I told her I'd shaved my legs on Saturday and said, "Go on. Feel 'em." She did. I said, "I'm just not that hairy," and delved into this story: "It was junior year of high school. I was jogging out to football practice when some, like, seventh-grade girl goes, 'Hey, do you shave your legs?' 'No!' I shrieked. She almost reduced me to tears." By now, I'd completely, if not irrevocably, emasculated myself, but the self-destruction was far from over.
11. I mentioned how I'm set to apply to the Iowa Writers' Workshop. "I used to be like, 'I know I can write at that level.' Now it's more like, 'I think I can write at that level.' I'm not as arrogant as I once was." A short while later, I blurted out, "I've wasted prodigious talent." Gee. That's attractive. That's what every woman wants to hear.
12. I waxed nostalgic about my days as an opinion columnist for the Dakota Student newspaper—the old Dakota Stupid—when I was "the most reviled columnist at any student paper in the country." I said that the students created a Facebook group. It's name, you ask? "Jake Beideck...I Use Big Words to Feel Smart." I added that they labeled me a pompous ass.
13. Then I brought up abortion. "I'm pro-life with an asterisk, because if a woman is raped, she should have every right to an abortion." Was I brain-dead? Bless her heart for changing the subject.
14. We left and walked to my truck in the parking garage across from BDubs. I walked around to the passenger side, saying, "We open doors in my family!" I motioned to insert the key into the lock and saw that she hadn't locked it. (I may've made a snide remark. "You didn't lock your door." I don't recall. I did say, "We lock doors in my family!") Then I didn't bother opening the door for her.
15. I drive a '98 Dodge Dakota. It has a tape player. Led Zeppelin's "Misty Mountain Hop" played as I started the ignition. I proudly said, "I made this tape on Friday. I'm the last person on Earth who still makes tapes." She laughed. "I made this tape" guarantees a laugh—but it's usually out of sheer pity.
16. We drove by the Cornhusker Hotel. I said, "[Redacted] once pulled a Keith Moon in one of their hotel rooms. You know, throwing lamps and stuff." (She got the reference, which I thought was hotter than hot.) How does sharing this off-center anecdote further my cause?
17. Finally, I realized I'd forgotten to tell her that she looked beautiful, which she most certainly did. So I wrote it in an email.
End
"Yep, I'm a real man. I'll prove it to you by gnawing on ice cubes, eating a delicious pumpkin muffin, and flaunting my smooth legs. Call me."
My brainlessness was on full display yesterday—during a first date. At one point, I even thought, Am I trying to sabotage this? During this meltdown for the ages, I riddled my feet with lead. Though I was a gaffe machine, the date still seemed to go well, somehow.
The Litany of Blunders
1. The previous week, I'd emailed her various songs. These included Buckcherry's "Lit Up," the Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together," and Stone Temple Pilots' "Sex Type Thing."
2. The yolky sun arcing over Saturday's Red-White Spring Game and its temperate rays terribly seared my lily-white skin, so my nose, forehead, and cheeks were glaringly rosy. The tops of my knees and the bottoms of my thighs looked as if I'd colored them with dullish red chalk. I was in such pain that I'd been popping Aleve like they were Chewy Runts. I wasn't nervous. No. I was in exorbitant agony from all the melting flesh. Thus, no yips.
3. I showered but moronically chose to wear the same clothes from the night before when I was a walking sales rack for American Eagle. I likely reeked of Budweiser and Michelob Ultra.
4. We tried to eat at The Green Gateau. This was Sunday at noon, so it was packed. We tried to eat at Bison Witches. What a zoo. We went next door to The Coffee House. Thankfully, the place was dead. I was down to my last strike.
5. After making a platitudinous comment to the barista about "muffin tops," I ordered two "giant" muffins, blueberry and pumpkin. Muffins? Really? Can a man—okay, I'm not a man; I'm a lad in a man's body—order muffins on a first date? Isn't this tantamount to a man ordering a salad at a restaurant on a first date?
6. I somewhat rudely chastised her for trying to pay for her food and drink. She pulled her purse from her bag, and I said, "Put that away! We're not going Dutch." The total cost was $7.92. Yep, I looked like a real cheapskate.
7. We sat down and began eating. The muffins were disintegrating like wet sandcastles. I was making a mess. Crumbs everywhere. And I was talking with my mouth full.
8. I was dehydrated from three nights of insobriety so I ordered water and chomped away on ice cubes. My date? A future dentist. She duly and politely called me on it. I unabashedly continued crushing those glorified hailstones.
9. I yammered about Nazi Germany and how it was a good thing that my ancestors fled to Russia decades earlier. I said, "Who knows what the Nazis would've done with my ancestors...probably put them on a train to Auschwitz-Birkenau." (Germans exterminating other Germans? What?) Boy, you're some conversationalist. Will you wise up?
10. I told her I'd shaved my legs on Saturday and said, "Go on. Feel 'em." She did. I said, "I'm just not that hairy," and delved into this story: "It was junior year of high school. I was jogging out to football practice when some, like, seventh-grade girl goes, 'Hey, do you shave your legs?' 'No!' I shrieked. She almost reduced me to tears." By now, I'd completely, if not irrevocably, emasculated myself, but the self-destruction was far from over.
11. I mentioned how I'm set to apply to the Iowa Writers' Workshop. "I used to be like, 'I know I can write at that level.' Now it's more like, 'I think I can write at that level.' I'm not as arrogant as I once was." A short while later, I blurted out, "I've wasted prodigious talent." Gee. That's attractive. That's what every woman wants to hear.
12. I waxed nostalgic about my days as an opinion columnist for the Dakota Student newspaper—the old Dakota Stupid—when I was "the most reviled columnist at any student paper in the country." I said that the students created a Facebook group. It's name, you ask? "Jake Beideck...I Use Big Words to Feel Smart." I added that they labeled me a pompous ass.
13. Then I brought up abortion. "I'm pro-life with an asterisk, because if a woman is raped, she should have every right to an abortion." Was I brain-dead? Bless her heart for changing the subject.
14. We left and walked to my truck in the parking garage across from BDubs. I walked around to the passenger side, saying, "We open doors in my family!" I motioned to insert the key into the lock and saw that she hadn't locked it. (I may've made a snide remark. "You didn't lock your door." I don't recall. I did say, "We lock doors in my family!") Then I didn't bother opening the door for her.
15. I drive a '98 Dodge Dakota. It has a tape player. Led Zeppelin's "Misty Mountain Hop" played as I started the ignition. I proudly said, "I made this tape on Friday. I'm the last person on Earth who still makes tapes." She laughed. "I made this tape" guarantees a laugh—but it's usually out of sheer pity.
16. We drove by the Cornhusker Hotel. I said, "[Redacted] once pulled a Keith Moon in one of their hotel rooms. You know, throwing lamps and stuff." (She got the reference, which I thought was hotter than hot.) How does sharing this off-center anecdote further my cause?
17. Finally, I realized I'd forgotten to tell her that she looked beautiful, which she most certainly did. So I wrote it in an email.
End
"Yep, I'm a real man. I'll prove it to you by gnawing on ice cubes, eating a delicious pumpkin muffin, and flaunting my smooth legs. Call me."
It's four a.m. Time to buy a gun.
Well, it happened again. I was in Wal-Mart in the wee hours and overheard two sows, er, associates in requisite grody blue vests talking about "some guy in sporting goods making a scene because he can't buy a handgun." (I giddily smiled like Larry Craig in a men's room.)
I heard a similar conversation at a similar time in the same Wal-Mart in 2003. One associate said, "No good comes from buying a gun at four in the morning." Amen to that. The smartest thing a Wal-Mart hump ever said! If she'd have said, "It's not like Biggie Smalls said. Quote, 'I never thought it could happen, this rappin' stuff. I was too used to packin' gats and stuff,'" I would've barebacked her with closed eyes while feverishly burning, inhaling, and hacking on an entire pack of Marlboro Reds. I made a Taxi Driver joke—"Travis Bickle wants his insanity back"—that didn't land whatsoever and trudged away.
Why would a man suddenly need a heater at four bells? Perhaps desperate times call for gunplay.
I've puzzled over this for days and can't make heads or tails of it. I don't know if there's something in the water in Lincoln, if Wal-Mart is the honey to every bee of a wacko, if every nutter in town hits the streets under a full moon like in the "Thriller" video, or if alcohol propels these schizos to believe they're characters in any Grand Theft Auto game, craving ballistic mayhem and fantasizing about pistol-whipping streetwalkers.
(Nothing is sacred—not even inappropriate and crass fictitious dialogue about gun violence.)
"Yeah, my ex's cat puked on my favorite bedspread. Gimme a Glock. Now."
"I love the phrase 'hail of gunfire.' I'd very much like to do that. Call me crazy. So yeah, I want that gun and that box of bullets."
"Any gun will suffice. Just hand me a bullet and a gun and look the other way, friend. Please. This is such an upside-down world. How can Santa Claus not be real?"
"The six degrees of Kevin Bacon is a thought that continues to keep me up at night. Well, not any longer."
"I've had it with people abbreviating everything. Les Mis? I mean, what is that? I'll take that shiny six-shooter. Then it'll be like, Les Comatose."
"There's a man from Great Britain who likes Nebraska, and the Lincoln Journal Star figured it was worthy of a column in yesterday's paper. I'm going to put a stop to this." (The Journal Star actually wrote this column in August 2004. Blockheads.)
"I'll take that snub-nosed piece. This isn't Dirty Harry. I'm not Billy Rosewood in Beverly Hills Cop II. My gun doesn't represent or overcompensate for my phallus. It's just, you know, my in-laws are staying with us. Hey, I'd also like to practice first. Do you guys sell bowling pins?"
"Listen, I've seen weeping willows before. Did they look like they were crying to you? I'll give them something to cry about."
(Speaking like Lumbergh) "Yeah, hi. My boss wants me to come in on Sunday. If I have to come in on a Sunday, I'm coming in heavy. M'Kay?"
"I told her I'm not getting a vasectomy. She's out of her gourd! Damn her. I need a gun with stopping power. I'm gonna empty that sucker, and she'll be on Dancing with the Slugs. Oh yes, she'll be doing the dance all right."
I heard a similar conversation at a similar time in the same Wal-Mart in 2003. One associate said, "No good comes from buying a gun at four in the morning." Amen to that. The smartest thing a Wal-Mart hump ever said! If she'd have said, "It's not like Biggie Smalls said. Quote, 'I never thought it could happen, this rappin' stuff. I was too used to packin' gats and stuff,'" I would've barebacked her with closed eyes while feverishly burning, inhaling, and hacking on an entire pack of Marlboro Reds. I made a Taxi Driver joke—"Travis Bickle wants his insanity back"—that didn't land whatsoever and trudged away.
Why would a man suddenly need a heater at four bells? Perhaps desperate times call for gunplay.
I've puzzled over this for days and can't make heads or tails of it. I don't know if there's something in the water in Lincoln, if Wal-Mart is the honey to every bee of a wacko, if every nutter in town hits the streets under a full moon like in the "Thriller" video, or if alcohol propels these schizos to believe they're characters in any Grand Theft Auto game, craving ballistic mayhem and fantasizing about pistol-whipping streetwalkers.
(Nothing is sacred—not even inappropriate and crass fictitious dialogue about gun violence.)
"Yeah, my ex's cat puked on my favorite bedspread. Gimme a Glock. Now."
"I love the phrase 'hail of gunfire.' I'd very much like to do that. Call me crazy. So yeah, I want that gun and that box of bullets."
"Any gun will suffice. Just hand me a bullet and a gun and look the other way, friend. Please. This is such an upside-down world. How can Santa Claus not be real?"
"The six degrees of Kevin Bacon is a thought that continues to keep me up at night. Well, not any longer."
"I've had it with people abbreviating everything. Les Mis? I mean, what is that? I'll take that shiny six-shooter. Then it'll be like, Les Comatose."
"There's a man from Great Britain who likes Nebraska, and the Lincoln Journal Star figured it was worthy of a column in yesterday's paper. I'm going to put a stop to this." (The Journal Star actually wrote this column in August 2004. Blockheads.)
"I'll take that snub-nosed piece. This isn't Dirty Harry. I'm not Billy Rosewood in Beverly Hills Cop II. My gun doesn't represent or overcompensate for my phallus. It's just, you know, my in-laws are staying with us. Hey, I'd also like to practice first. Do you guys sell bowling pins?"
"Listen, I've seen weeping willows before. Did they look like they were crying to you? I'll give them something to cry about."
(Speaking like Lumbergh) "Yeah, hi. My boss wants me to come in on Sunday. If I have to come in on a Sunday, I'm coming in heavy. M'Kay?"
"I told her I'm not getting a vasectomy. She's out of her gourd! Damn her. I need a gun with stopping power. I'm gonna empty that sucker, and she'll be on Dancing with the Slugs. Oh yes, she'll be doing the dance all right."
April 15, 2008
"Do you need help out?" Hell no!
Why are the cashiers in Lincoln such unsocial functional illiterates and grumps? Are "scowl your heart out" and "must hate life" job requirements?
How about a smile? Show me your Chiclets—if you have any. Dentures will suffice.
Please greet me with anything besides a perfunctory, lifeless "hey." Change it up. Variety is the spice of Cashangri-La. Say, "Hi." Say, "Hello there." Say, "Whaddaya say? Whaddaya know?" Say, "That's some bulge in your pants." Say something different or just say beans.
Don't futilely talk at me as if you can enrich my existence with your dime-store insights. Get ahold of your life. You're fluent in Basic English on occasion so confidently arrange a few of those 850 words into a competent and piquant sentence and drop it like it's hot.
We're all in the same boat, are we not? Stop rowing retrograde. Stop whittling the hull of the Mayflower. We'll never discover the next brave new world together if we sink ignominiously or go out like the Andrea Gail. Pull-start your brain, don't overcharge me for the cheese popcorn, and let's have a conversation.
Stop blathering about the weather. Yes, it's nippy outside. I have skin! I know it's raining sideways. I'm not Ray Charles! Sure, the roads are slick. I just sideswiped a minivan and left the scene of the accident! Of course this mid-July day is a broiler. I have Old Nick on speed dial. Satan's in my Fave 5!
This brings me to this morning—specifically the small hours, about 1:20 a.m.—when I had an encounter with a fiftyish female cashier at the Russ's Market on Havelock that was grippingly head-scratching and moderately insulting. (It left me so flabbergasted that I ran a red light at 48th and Superior.)
The cashier wore reading glasses, the designer frames dangling on the tip of her nose like raindrops on a gutter, in an otherwise vain attempt to feign sophistication. She sacked up my groceries, and I grabbed the four light sacks and said thank you with genuine politeness. Then came this repugnant, irrational, and wacky dialogue:
Crazy Cashier: "Do you need help out?"
Me: "Uhh." What is she trying to say in this peculiar, un-English way? Light bulb! Oh, the sacks. "No." Dramatic pause. "It'd be pretty sad if I needed help carrying these." A faint grin.
Crazy Cashier: Nodding. "Okay."
Me: (In an inquisitive tone) "Are you required to ask that?"
Crazy Cashier: "No."
Me: Confusion glinted in my eyes. "Hunh? Well, do you ask everyone that?"
Crazy Cashier: Slowly shook head "no."
(This cashier was as guileful as Livia Soprano.)
I shambled into the parking lot with my mouth agape—you could've wedged a beehive inside. I almost had an out-of-body experience. What just happened? Was she insinuating that I was physically challenged? A limp gimp? Get real. Some featherbrained, menopausal cashier who makes minimum wage and can hardly afford gruel can't pull this crap. (It's a good thing that I didn't have a woman at my side or else I would've instructed, okay, warmly begged her to deck this hag.) How dare she? I wasn't wheeling around like Lieutenant Dan!
How about a smile? Show me your Chiclets—if you have any. Dentures will suffice.
Please greet me with anything besides a perfunctory, lifeless "hey." Change it up. Variety is the spice of Cashangri-La. Say, "Hi." Say, "Hello there." Say, "Whaddaya say? Whaddaya know?" Say, "That's some bulge in your pants." Say something different or just say beans.
Don't futilely talk at me as if you can enrich my existence with your dime-store insights. Get ahold of your life. You're fluent in Basic English on occasion so confidently arrange a few of those 850 words into a competent and piquant sentence and drop it like it's hot.
We're all in the same boat, are we not? Stop rowing retrograde. Stop whittling the hull of the Mayflower. We'll never discover the next brave new world together if we sink ignominiously or go out like the Andrea Gail. Pull-start your brain, don't overcharge me for the cheese popcorn, and let's have a conversation.
Stop blathering about the weather. Yes, it's nippy outside. I have skin! I know it's raining sideways. I'm not Ray Charles! Sure, the roads are slick. I just sideswiped a minivan and left the scene of the accident! Of course this mid-July day is a broiler. I have Old Nick on speed dial. Satan's in my Fave 5!
This brings me to this morning—specifically the small hours, about 1:20 a.m.—when I had an encounter with a fiftyish female cashier at the Russ's Market on Havelock that was grippingly head-scratching and moderately insulting. (It left me so flabbergasted that I ran a red light at 48th and Superior.)
The cashier wore reading glasses, the designer frames dangling on the tip of her nose like raindrops on a gutter, in an otherwise vain attempt to feign sophistication. She sacked up my groceries, and I grabbed the four light sacks and said thank you with genuine politeness. Then came this repugnant, irrational, and wacky dialogue:
Crazy Cashier: "Do you need help out?"
Me: "Uhh." What is she trying to say in this peculiar, un-English way? Light bulb! Oh, the sacks. "No." Dramatic pause. "It'd be pretty sad if I needed help carrying these." A faint grin.
Crazy Cashier: Nodding. "Okay."
Me: (In an inquisitive tone) "Are you required to ask that?"
Crazy Cashier: "No."
Me: Confusion glinted in my eyes. "Hunh? Well, do you ask everyone that?"
Crazy Cashier: Slowly shook head "no."
(This cashier was as guileful as Livia Soprano.)
I shambled into the parking lot with my mouth agape—you could've wedged a beehive inside. I almost had an out-of-body experience. What just happened? Was she insinuating that I was physically challenged? A limp gimp? Get real. Some featherbrained, menopausal cashier who makes minimum wage and can hardly afford gruel can't pull this crap. (It's a good thing that I didn't have a woman at my side or else I would've instructed, okay, warmly begged her to deck this hag.) How dare she? I wasn't wheeling around like Lieutenant Dan!
April 10, 2008
April 8, 2008
An Unwitting Beard
I'm in a quandary. An ex-flame returned to Lincoln in June 2007, back from playing pro B-ball overseas. I saw her three times last year—including once at The Alley where I had to end a spat between her and her lover—but I don't want to see her anymore. I've ignored her texts ("Are you dead?" "Houdini, hello?") and calls for months.
Here she is at my twenty-first birthday extravaganza at the West A Pub.
Oops, wrong photo. This is it. (Check out the townie in the background. She wanted my junk, hard!)
I'm hesitant to go into details. (This one-time Miss Nebraska Basketball played for the Huskers before transferring after three years.) Her father and uncle were once made men in the Chicago mob. I'm not embellishing for effect. I spent an Easter at her uncle's compound somewhere in the wooded outskirts of Omaha, where they forced me to mash potatoes and watch The Crew and Goodfellas. The house had eight security cameras. C'mon, I know former wise guys when I see 'em. Ink. Humorlessness. Rooms brimming with what appeared to be ill-gotten merchandise. It was like having Easter brunch with Al Capone and Frank Nitti.
She's now a lesbian—I'd even characterize her as a lipstick lesbian—and I was the last guy she dated a handful of years ago. I was oblivious to her lesbian proclivities. A friend threw a non sequitur in an email that said he saw her and her girlfriend, now "wife," making out in the back of a van during a road trip. My mouth dropped. I didn't even know she was bi. Maybe she wasn't.
Maybe I was her beard! Did I actually play such a godforsaken role? It always seemed as if it'd be so much hotter to be a beard. Hmmm. It was colder than cold cuts.
Here she is at my twenty-first birthday extravaganza at the West A Pub.
Oops, wrong photo. This is it. (Check out the townie in the background. She wanted my junk, hard!)
I'm hesitant to go into details. (This one-time Miss Nebraska Basketball played for the Huskers before transferring after three years.) Her father and uncle were once made men in the Chicago mob. I'm not embellishing for effect. I spent an Easter at her uncle's compound somewhere in the wooded outskirts of Omaha, where they forced me to mash potatoes and watch The Crew and Goodfellas. The house had eight security cameras. C'mon, I know former wise guys when I see 'em. Ink. Humorlessness. Rooms brimming with what appeared to be ill-gotten merchandise. It was like having Easter brunch with Al Capone and Frank Nitti.
She's now a lesbian—I'd even characterize her as a lipstick lesbian—and I was the last guy she dated a handful of years ago. I was oblivious to her lesbian proclivities. A friend threw a non sequitur in an email that said he saw her and her girlfriend, now "wife," making out in the back of a van during a road trip. My mouth dropped. I didn't even know she was bi. Maybe she wasn't.
Maybe I was her beard! Did I actually play such a godforsaken role? It always seemed as if it'd be so much hotter to be a beard. Hmmm. It was colder than cold cuts.
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