The Morning Grind

   I was sitting in a Starbucks today, merrily drinking an iced venti stirred caramel machiatto, when much to my surprise a man of about 22 sat down at my table.  He grinned at me like he knew me and hadn't seen me in years.  I wondered to myself for a moment, "do I know this bloke?"  I racked my brain to determine if I had seen this fellow, but not even one spark of recognition.
   Then it began.  "Hi!"  It was an overly enthusiastic tone.  "Do you know Jesus?"  Also enthusiastic.  Way too enthusiastic.   I had come here because I needed a pick me up.  The kind of morning pick me up that can only be induced chemically.  Now, this moron sat across from me with some kind of unnatural energy, this I know because he was drinking apple juice.
   "I do."  Was really all I could muster.  For a moment he looked disappointed.  His subtle betrayal of his overly chipper self didn't last long though.
   "Are you saved, " he asked as his eyes widened like a starved cartoon character staring at you because you've just turned into a large baked turkey.
   "From what?" I asked him back, beginning to enjoy this exchange.  My question bewildered him for a moment.  I could see his wheels turning as he was thinking that everyone must surely know what "being saved" means.
   "Um...saved from him."  Him?  That was the best this guy could do.  I could tell he was quite unprepared.  Probably some left over energy from a particularly uplifting Bible study or evening church where someone told him to go out into the world and spread the word of Christ, and like an idiot he had gone out, but forgotten to take the words with him.
   "You mean Pete?  Yes, I've been saved from Pete since I was six, when I got this tattoo."  I said as I lifted my shirt revealing a hairy belly with no tattoo upon it.  Now he looked really confused.
   "What tattoo?"
   "This one, right here in the middle of my rummy tummy."  I grabbed his hand, and made my eyes all wide like his had been.  He started to shake a little bit.  So I took advantage of his momentary panic and pulled his hand toward my naval.  "Can you feel my tattoo?  Its in the hole that God gave me, when he poked me to find out if I was done, before taking me out of the oven."  His face twisted a bit, into what I was certain was fear, with a tiny bit of disgust.
   "What are you talking about dude?"  He asked me, trying to feign anger over top of his fear, but the slight whine in his voice gave him away.
   " I was talking about our marriage.  I think we should get our vows renewed."  Now he definitely looked afraid.  "I'm just saying its been too long, and I think our Jesus cards are close to expiring.  We wouldn't want to get a notice in the mail from God telling us our Jesus cards had expired - then I'd have to get a new cat."
   He started to stand up, but realized I hadn't let go of his hand.  So he started tugging.  I played along, acted like it was a game.  A game which he was clearly losing as I almost pulled him into my lap.  This game was getting boring though.  So I stood up and yelled, "give me back my bagel you little punk, Jesus wouldn't want you to steal."
   "I didn't take your bagel let go of my hand you freak!"  He was nearly in tears.  I suppose I had done enough damage.  I let go, tried to wipe any emotion of my face.
   I sat down and shrugged my shoulders.  "I guess I ate it, " I said as ambiguously as possible.  I stopped looking at him and went back to my coffee and the grumbling I was starting as he interrupted me.  I didn't feel right anymore.
   He looked upset though.  He moved away from my table like I was made of spikes, he put his hands out carefully as if to guide himself backwards without taking his eyes of me.  "You need help man!  You are some kind of freak!  I'm leaving, don't let this freak touch you, " he yelled to the other patrons who barely looked away from their electronic devices.  They were like me.  They needed their coffee and needed to check their emails.  They wanted to grumble while the woke up.
   Once he got far enough away from me, he bolted, making strange noises as he left.  I looked at the customer next to me, who looked back.  "What got into him, " I asked.  The man shrugged, and went back to his e-book.
   I felt suddenly better.  Ready for the day.  I love Starbucks, it always has a unique way of bringing me up.

Now what do I do?

   I find myself again in one of those positions where I have no idea what I should do next.  I can't call my father because he said not to call him again after the whole "sir there are no sea lions allowed in this bank" incident (I'll go into that another time).
   At this very moment I am driving around in my 2006 Nissan Altima, and I don't feel like I can stop.  You see in my trunk is a very angry person.  Mind you, I didn't put this person in there.  Actually, I just discovered they were in there about 10 minutes after I left to go to work this morning.  I was driving along peacefully, navigating my way through traffic, and just shortly after jumping on the 101, I hit bump.  Then it started, "thump thump thump."  Then, "bang bang bang."  Like a guy kicking his feet, and then beating with his arms.
   You may ask why I didn't stop to check.  Well I will tell you why.  I'm not entirely certain it wasn't me.  I did have quite a bit to drink last night and there is more than one person I'd love to stuff in my trunk.  So I might open the trunk only to receive a well deserved foot in the face.
   At any rate, stopping and checking was no option.  At this stage, stopping anywhere isn't really an option.  I don't want other people to hear them as well.  I've got my radio up loud, and I'm playing 80's hair band with cranked up bass.  Perhaps people will just think one of the subs in my trunk is coming loose.
   I feel like I have a few options at this point.  First, I have one of those trunk popping clickers on my key fob.  I'm thinking of driving around all day, finding and empty parking lot, walking quite a ways off, and popping the trunk, just to see what happens.  Maybe if it isn't someone I know they won't recognize the car.  If it is, maybe I should have a secondary plan, like sneaking up and hitting them with a tire iron.  Wait, that won't work the tire iron is in the trunk.
   I'll get back to you later with and update.

***********

Okay, funny story.  As it turns out I did lock the thing in the trunk.  It wasn't a person though.  See, I have a cat in my neighborhood, and she has a tendency to make my dog bark.  I guess, while I was drunk last night, I shoved them both in the trunk, and went back into the house to find the keys and feel asleep on the couch.  This is good because I think drunk driving is bad.  At any rate, the animals apparently fell asleep and were awakened by the bump in the road and proceeded to chase each other in circles at high speeds.  I know this because it continued when I opened the trunk (or at least I assume that is what they were doing as the sounds were the same).  

    So here is where it gets weird.  I guess I must have been a little enraged at the cat because somewhere in there I found time to shave it.  It was definitely a long haired cat yesterday.  I also must have felt very guilty about it because it appears that I made 3-5 coats of that baldness cover up spray.  This is actually more guilt than you might originally think because I am not balding at all, and don't own any of this stuff.  Which means I must have gone out and bought it sometime last night.  

   I have to give props to the cat because despite all this, the moment it got out of the car, it should itself off, and didn't look one bit ruffled.  No smudges, no scrapes or bites.  As a matter of fact, other than looking like it shared hair lineage with a thousand youtube video commercials, it didn't look like its hair was damaged at all.  If I every do go bald I will definitely use that stuff.  To be honest, I should have filmed it and seen if they company would buy this as a commercial.  

   My dog on the other hand looked like had just survived world war three.  It was covered in vomit, matted fur all over, even had a bloodied lip.  Cat fine, dog, broke ass.  I'm certain there was a lesson there.  That lesson I believe, is that there is a clear reason that dogs are not allowed in race cars, but that maybe they should allow cats.  Those drivers do get lonely.

Clowns and Goats

   So I was taking a nice walk in the woods yesterday.  I reached about the middle point of my walk and entered into this grove on the top of hill.  It was beautiful honestly.  The grove was surrounded on all sides by tall redwoods, and sprawling across it was a sea of flowers and grass.  I think I might have laid down if I hadn't seen perhaps the most horrifying sight standing just in the darkness beyond the tree line.
   The goat was the first to make its way into my line of sight.  It was smaller, one of the kind that is a mixed gray in color, and has eyes that look like they are about to burst from its head.  The goat really didn't bother me.  The fact that it had a rope around its neck, made me feel like a moment that I had stepped into Jurassic Park, but it was quickly followed by a human hand holding the length of rope that connected to it so my mind was quickly put at ease.
   That ease only lasted a few milliseconds though.  For out of the shadows of the trees stepped a clown.  Not just any clown, but a clown with smeared makeup, torn and bloodied pants, and moving at a pace that was faster than I expected.  He was staggering, as if the goat was pulling him.
   Immediately imagery from the move IT flashed before my eyes and I screamed in horror.  Perhaps horror isn't the right word.  Perhaps I should say that I screamed like teenage girl in ghost movie.  You know, my head sort of turned a little to the side like I was trying to take in the scene, then my voice got all high pitched, my testicles retracted into my body, and my head did that shaking thing that only really happens in the movies (except to me).
   The clown and the goat paused for a moment.  I realized the goat was pulling, or maybe the clown was holding him back.  The clown actually looked as surprised as I was.  Honestly, he looked horrified.  Then he broken into the crazed walk run pace he was in before.  Right toward me.  I soiled myself, closed my eyes and waited for the goat to reach me.  I was certain the demon clown would set his hell spawned goat upon me and that they would both feast on my warm spasming body as I lay dying on the ground.
   Nope.  He ran right past me.  Said something too.  I wasn't quite sure I made it out.  He just ran by.  Smelled terrible too, like dirt and sweat and blood.  What was it he said?  It rolled around in my brain not making any sense.  For the first few moments I was still trying to process the bloodied clown running at me.
   Then something else came out of the shadows.   Bigger.  All at once the word rolled into that area of my brain where it started to have meaning.  Bear.  He said bear.  Shit.  So I ran.  Soiled.  I really would have crapped myself again but I didn't have to go anymore.  I managed to push some gas out, but that was really all I had left in me.  I immediately took off in the direction that the clown and his goat were running.
   So anyway, long story short.  It turned out the clown had been at a birthday party of a local family.  He had come in through a back gate and accidentally let out a pet goat.  Being a kind fellow, he jaunted off into the woods to find it.   Find it he did.  It was being accosted by rather larger and angry brown bear.  So being brave and entirely unclown like he rescued goat, put a rope around its neck, and proceeded to run it home, with the bear chasing them down.  While running up to the grove, he tripped, ripped his pants, got up, brushed himself off, listened to a guy scream and crap himself (yes me, so quit asking), and then ran down the hill on the other side.
   Why you might ask am I telling you this?  One lesson:  Always trust a clown with a goat.  I'm just saying, its rare enough, and weird enough, that if you see a clown with a goat, he's probably not up to no good.

The Hood

So I had to take one of my neighbor kids to the hospital today. I have to say please don't try this. I say this because 80% of the people who read this are at this very moment, or will suddenly find themselves more idiotic than a clown performing surgery. So seriously, don't try this. Honestly I can't afford to take everyone to the damn hospital. I'm certain the doctors would love it, and a brand new industry of hole patching could cause an economic boom, but just don't.

At any rate, the neighbor kids have been annoying myself and everyone else within a one block radius of their overpowered sound system with Angry Birds. You know what it is. If you don't then crawl out from under that rock in 1999 and join the rest of us in this depressed world where shooting pigs with birds is a fun night.

Anyway, because kids are kids, the steam from Angry Birds eventually dried up. At first it was sort of funny, watching them in the back yard. They started by throwing balloons with little pictures of birds on them at each other. Its all about escalation though. That very quickly graduated into real birds. You see we have quite an abundance of quail and pigeons here, and no one is too fond of them. When they first started they would run into the back yard with nets screaming, from two different directions trying to confuse the birds. Right away they caught a few quail that, quite honestly, didn't have a damn clue on what to do and just froze.

Then, the kids took turns playing the pigs, one of them would stand up on a stack of wood, and the other would throw half broken quail at them. I have to admit. I'm kinda morbid and I thought it was funny. At least I didn't have to listen to that damn theme song anymore.

Then it escalated again. Suddenly, birds were wizzing at my house, being shot from the end of a potato gun. Off in the faint distance, just before the splat of the bird on the back of my house I would hear "angry birds - da da!"

It was too much for me when the beak of a twisted and half featherless pigeon hit my ass. I mean its one thing to have a fresh clean bird smack into you, but another thing entirely for a recycled and mostly mangled pigeon to nail you.

Anyway, much to my pleasure that little phase didn't last long. You got it. Another escalation. They decided angry birds wasn't going to cut it anymore. So they started playing angry boards. You might ask, just what is an angry board. If you, like me you are morbid, you might just be able to guess. If not, I will fill you in. It involves jagged edges, nails, staples, and sticky crap stuck to the end.

I didn't get a proper introduction this game though. I just heard "angry board - da da," over my fence one day. Then I heard, "Kyle, are you okay? Kyle?"

I let it sit for a minute. Until they crying started. I walked back carefully over the landmine field of dead birds. I peeked over the fence, and there, laying crumpled on the floor was the younger of my little bastard neighbor kids. Now before you start accusing me of letting some terrible child abuse okay you should know he was fine. Just a little stunned, and covered in sticky crap. Oh, and with a hole in his shoulder, shaped suspiciously like a nail.

That it. The story doesn't really have a point. Well, maybe it does. Don't let your kids play Angry Birds. If you do they will end up impailing each other with sticky two by fours loaded with nails. Trust me.

The Jagged Edge

So I fell asleep last night and the strangest thing happened. I woke up somewhere else. I know what you are thinking, stupid sleepwalker, go to a clinic. Well screw you buddy, what do you know. Why don't you go to a clinic and have someone help you with your being an asshole. If you aren't in fact an asshole, and have stuck around then I'm sorry. After you've read my story here you'll probably understand a little better.

Anyway, back to what I was saying. So I woke up somewhere lese. I don't mean I had a nice night of sleep, I mean I remember drifting off, and then suddenly I'm awake somewhere else. Now I'm not talking about some nice Narnia like place. No lions and half goat people offering me tea. Just a couple of crack whores looking at me wondering if I have enough money to take them to a room so they can exchange infected bodily fluids with me.

It was dark, so I assumed it was night, but the amount of bustling activity on the street made me wonder. It was like a busy New York morning, not like midnight, which is what is looked like based on the lighting. It was warm too, too warm for New York, but too many buildings for some place like Phoenix. On top of that, every person I asked the simple question of "where the hell am I?" just ignored me or laughed at me.

I ran across this giant statue after I walked a few blocks. The statue itself was nearly two stories tall, and was probably the only thing that made me think cheesy fantasy movie. There in front of me stood what looked like a huge half bull, half dragon, made of stone. Giant gray wings rose from its back and whip was in its hand, wrapped around its wrist, and suspended in stone in the air in front of it. Honestly, all I could think was, "Okay...where is Gandalf."

I walked a bit further an noticed that one of the needle pushers from the alley I woke up in was following me. I turned, and he rushed me. He grabbed me by the collar, and hissed at me, almost like a snake.

"Wheresss my moneeey..."

Seriously. Back off Voldemort. "What money?" I don't remember having any kind of an exchange with this guy.

"You sssslept in miyyy alleeey..."

Come on man. Harry Potter wants his villian back. "Did I forget to pay rent," I joked.

"Daaamn sssstraight..."

Then suddenly: shiny knife in the air, reflection of his angry blue eyes against the blade, and a twinge of pain. I hit the ground. I didn't even see it coming.

Then I woke up. Blood on my bed, knife wound, and quite a bit of pain.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

The Aftermath of My Brilliant Invention

So as it turns out my brilliant invention is a total bust. Don't get me wrong it sold like wildfire. The problem is now I have a bunch of angry housewives on my tail. You see it all started with the mistake of using artificial intelligence for the damn program for the talking bathroom floor. We though this would make the thing have more useful and witty things to say.

We scoured the Internet looking for code for an appropriate AI and tried several different packages. We finally found one that we thought would work. I didn't know where it came from, but my intial exposure to it led me to believe it was smart, witty, and a angry. I thought - "this one is perfect!" What better personality for this type of thing.

We rushed it through manufacture, skipped the testing, and launched right into development of the product. Bad idea, seriously bad idea. There were immediate problems. The first day, we got calls saying things like "my husband won't come out of the bathroom," and "the urine on the floor has doubled, this thing doesn't work at all."

Of course we had to get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible. So naturally I installed one at the office. A week went by with no reports of problems. Actually, my mostly male staff said they loved it. I thought, that is weird...maybe people are nuts. I was SO wrong.

After a week I used the office bathroom. There was urine everywhere. On the floor, on the wall, in the paper towel dispenser, even a little on the ceiling. I couldn't believe it. How could things have gone so wrong. Then I heard it.

"Hey baby."

Hey baby? Seriously, what the hell was this? Oh, it was the floor. Doing its talking.

"I'm feeling awefully cold daddy."

Hmm? Daddy? That was a little embarrassing.

"How about you warm me up?" it asked in an alluring tone.

"How do you propose I do that?" I queried back an in almost mocking tone.

"You know!" It barked, as it shook a little, making me almost lose my footing. "Give me that Yukon Gold Daddy!"

Oh crap. I walked quickly out of the bathroom, slamming the door as it said a few things that I found embarrasing, something about showering in my man beer or something like that. Also, I think there was a movie reference in there, something abouut tasting the bubbles.

I quickly ran to the tech guys and asked the only question that could be asked. "Where the hell did we get that AI?"

The guys looked at each other and smiled, and it was only then that I noticed they were all completely soaked in urine. "GoldenFetish.com"

Crap.

Anyway, long story short - if you want a floor that invites you to piss all over it, and tells you what a big hunk you are for doing it, we've got your floor.

My brilliant invention!

I have finally created the thing that will help me to retire! This is the most brilliant thing that has ever existed! My family for generations will never have to work again. Are you ready for this? I'm almost certain that you will crap yourself when you hear what my idea is. I know you will because I crapped myself when I thought of it. I know what you are thinking. You are probably thinking that this guy craps himself all the time, it probably isn't the special of an idea. Well you sir or madam are a jerk and you can just bugger off.

So here is the idea. It is a talking bathroom floor. See whenever you pee on it, it talks. It can be made to say nice things like "Oops! You missed buddy, why don't you grab some TP and just wipe it up, nobody has to know!" Or it could even be programmed to say mean things like "Seriously, again? What is the toilet bowl even there for? Here I am just laying here on the floor, like a good tile should do and you just come along and whiz on me. Nice. How 'bout I wait until you hit the sack tonight and come lay a drizzle on you?"

I'm serious. Every mother, sister, and wife in the world will want one of these. Imagine if you could guilt your man into cleaning up his ring around the bowl. Invest in bathroom cleaning supply companies, because this one is a real winner!