I'll take a B.J. (Brake Job)

I realize the last post was terrifying, and had an abrupt ending, but I wanted you to know what it feels like to be dragged into a dark corner with the bright lights at the end of the tunnel flashing before your eyes. Like red-eyed rats holding pitchforks over the gravel graveyards we call alleyways, I hold dearly the cubic space around my fleshy frame. I advise you to practice positioning yourself as far away from Cougars as the great taxidermist in the sky will allow you. We are so much stuffing; hackers raised to raise our own hackles.

In lighter news, my friend Summertime Susan killed a kitten. It is buried in the bushes behind an apartment complex in Raleigh. The kitty’s world collapsed in the following manner: One (1) freshman, origin of species uncertain, began to talk about how he loved and lived in Chapel Hill. I began to think about formulating a response, when I realized that he was as young as my brother, and I should not be socializing regularly with people who share a birth year with my brother. I stepped outside, and took one (1) brisk walk about the building to clear my head. On said walk, I discovered the remnants of an ancient pine’s seed; a cone of coprolitic proportions. I marched it back inside with me, and began to assault Zhang it! on the shoulder while he played Beer Pong. It is a well known fact that I refuse to take drinking games seriously, so my conic probings went largely ignored.

Summertime Serious, however, jokingly threatened to crash the pinecone’s adventures by claiming she was going to take the seed outside and toss it into the bushes. Finally, after several attempts, she was able to wrest the cone from my grasp and bound through the door and into the night. I followed, but too late. I arrived at the hedge just in time to hear a loiterer say “What did you just throw into the bush?” Before Summertime could open her guilty mouth, I informed the crowd that my former friend had just blasted the delicate body of one (1) baby kitten into a dark lake of leaves. The inky-skinned and small-brained group was nearly moved, in unison, to tears. Summertime went back inside, scared of an uprising. I knelt over the bush, prying at it with my digits and holding back tears. I asked the crowd to leave, using something like “Get out of here, loitering is just littering with your bodies.” They obliged, not because my comment made sense but because you aren’t allowed to take pleasure when a man can’t find his pussy.

Fudge left for South Korea, and to celebrate I set up a “Fudge and Chicken” event at a local park. Our volleyball team (3-2 on the season) held an extended match, and by the time we finished handing the other team brochures for PTSD, the Fudge had melted and the chicken was cold. In recompense, we went to Chili’s, where over a basket of unlimited chips, I found out what Man U. really thought of me. During a discussion over how big my ears are, Man U. chipped in with the following compliment, “I’ve never actually noticed his big ears… How can you, with THAT CHIN!” When this wasn’t taken as an insult by me - I’ve got a quick and quirky chin – Man U. attacked the fact that I refuse to get a new car. I told him that I would rather pay child support than make a car payment, because at least my kids would appreciate in value, even while deflating my bank account. Seeing as our arguments were caste in different lighting, we agreed to disengage. Fudge was happy to have lobes to poke fun at, and I think her last night in America was a good one.

I had dinner with Rachel Peachpit, her boyfriend, and several of his Duke Theology allies. God blessed them with a purpose, the ocean with a porpoise (apropos), and me with an undoubtedly idealistic view of life as a limited opportunity to make discontented people feel otherwise. As I was on my way home from the lovely meal, I slid up squeaky style at a red light behind a car that I’d assumed was going to go though and violate law but not protocol. When the car’s inhabitant heard my Intrepid’s shrill pleas(e) to get new brake pads, the door swung open and a face assaulted my vision with its appalling grace. A human growl, a metal moan, as the car’s frame shifted; “Did you hit me?” both asked, in different languages. I answered in the negatory. The question was repeated, I remained upright and seated, and my answer didn’t change. The light changed outfits, and directives. The car’s frame cried again, the door was sucked inward as if some inner obsidian gargoyle had suddenly sprung to life. The door then flew fully open, the bowling ball rolled out into the passing lane, and my mind climbed out of the gutter and into a bubble, waiting for something or someone to burst.

Thundering like my worst atmos-fear of liquid nitrogen, she performed one of the well-known but naught respected “Let me pull up my pants before I bend over” move. She inspected her bumper, and my teasing grin, then flipped me off and melded into her driver’s seat. The beast rode away with its burden.

Later in the weekend, I went running with Zhang it!, and he showed me how badly it hurts to run a 6.5 minute mile. Chris Candlewick dealt me a quadriceps contusion during basketball, and I was so hobbled that over the next two days in the office, I fell over twice while standing and working on my model poses. I had an older co-worker come up to me in the break room and say, “Saw you get up from your chair and walk away. You looked like I do when it’s about to rain.” He has a metal hip and a grin that rivals Creed’s.

A couple great compliments were paid me during calls over the last few weeks. First, a man named J.J. said he would name his first boy after me, after I helped him recover an important presentation that he had deleted from his computer. A few calls later, I was presented with a situation in which a lady was not showing up anywhere in the company’s system. She wasn’t able to do anything productive and I decided to help, even though I didn’t have the resources or permission to help her. I contacted a friend on the backend (did you just touch my ass?), and he was able to get some dirty laundry ironed out. The next day, her manager called me during an online meeting she was holding, and told the whole meeting that I had done a great job and deserved their praise. Half the people thanked me by name - though I had never met them and they all lived in California - and the manager gave them all my e-mail address and told them to call me with their issues. She said that if she came out to North Carolina on any business trips, she would take me out to lunch. That is the third person since I’ve started that has propositioned to buy me a meal over the phone.

Next time: blood drips from the CarbamaRaptor, a car dies in the forest and no one hears a sound, and I buy a Michigan football ticket with a dirty quarter…

P.S.: this post will be published to 30threads.com, in the Humor section, so by referencing it here, I might break the internet. It's like looking into a maze of mirrors, or Google searching "Google search."