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."

All the Pretty Cougars

Subchapter: No Couture for Young Men

by: Cormac Mccarthy

A staunch heat rises off the blacktop as a group of adults, young by current standards, cross a busy street 182 miles inland from the Eastern Seaboard. A man, gauche by current standards, scans the area for sign of human trafficking but all he can see are metal cars and lazy stars and lemmings sprinting toward an inevitable decease. The August night is devoid of possibility, full of inevitability, fated to unfold like rewound origami. Branches relax over the cracks in the sidewalk and the aforementioned group ducks the foliage, quacking to each other the destination, as if the destination was chosen instead of prescribed. The decision tree: an eco-systemic dichotomy - the Porch or the Bassment.

The Porch features all that is required of it by law and land: flashing lights, a short line, air conditioning, a liquor license. The Bassment features a guarded door a thumping dance floor and is a covered picnic basket of mystery, to forever be filed away as a question mark because the ducks choose the Porch. Forget millionaires, forget billionaires, the Porch is a playground for Legionnaires, in two respects: those infected with the “ubiquitous aquatic bacteria” and those that are members of the American Legion. At the door, the bouncers bothered not with checking ID’s as the average age of the club’s proprietors syncs perfectly with the average temperature of coastal water near Los Angeles in December.

Before the group entered, patrons (not Patrón) had been scattered about the room, clumping together in pathetic cliques. The scene was full of paper cliché; so much so that it made an anorexic model wanting to try a new flavor of abusive French boyfriend look ingenious and cutting edge. Cutting-edge like the blade that parses cocaine and the razor that teases the wrist, like an LCD picture of Ockham and Maugham holding hands and writing bikes as Somersets.

Looking past the false teeth and the vacuous moans of the gathered cattle the man with the broken finger and the borrowed shirt steps to the twilit dance pasture. A few snapping fingers, and the beat is found, the pulse is cornered. A few cattle rattle their bells and turn toward the newcomer. The few that can read notice that his shirt is scribed with the following: “Kiss my Blarney Stone.” He falls back into the dark arms of his comrades, a cockroach falling from a sudden and unwelcome intruder. A shade slips forward, dancing between pink green and yellow ribbons of light, seeking out the fresh-faced wonder whose cheeks are beginning to take on ribbons of a color called “get me the hell out of here.”

The shade is strong, perhaps made so by years of rigorous pursuit of invitations never conceived, let alone received. The young man is pulled back into a DISCOrdant rainbow only to discover a severe lack of Trix up his sleeve; similarly, he wonders where all the pots o’ gold have sifted off to.

Exit Cormac: at this point, I have a 60-year-old dragon slurring fire down my neck and pulling me back toward its den. I made like a blade and planted roots as soon as I realized what was happening. It turned back toward me, failing in several attempts at articulation, and then pointed at one of her co-conspirators – a toad like creature decorated with a thoughtful pink bow. I gathered that this was the treasure which awaited my arrival. I backed up a step before it was on me, grabbing the Blarney Stone portion of my chest. I could hear gears forming words: out of respect for all that is elder, I paused to listen. I heard 5 key phrases/words that made my life want to end:

1. Bachelorette
2. Menopause
3. Suck face
4. I’ll be the best kisser you’ll ever meet
5. You look like you’re my daughter’s age

August Snowballs

We in the first-world are blessed with a world full of outlets; places where we can sit down, plug-in, and recharge our batteries. With so many outlets and opportunities to refresh it seems amazing that we can hold secrets so well. We have death bed secrets, sexy secrets, dawn and dusk secrets, corporate secrets, and seasonal secrets; egging someone is falls into all those categories save dawn and corporate.

On a slippery night in early August, with summer twisting its heating coils like an author his friction, we walked. Like brave handmaidens, we lock and unlocked our leg joints in an effort to complete the task at foot. Laughter floats to us through a thin layer of cheap foliage; three men are drinking cards and playing malt liquor at a rusty tin table. In the distance, a cat barks. We three, one of us a King, reach the main causeway and turn right; one of us executes a more precise turn, for he is wearing Velcro.

Minutes pass, cars float by, then minutes come back for seconds and for an instant, time stands still. Ahead, a fork in the road. I pick it up, examine it, stick it in my drawers, and then we knife to the left. We search for the mythical Qdoba, short on stature but thick in all the right places. Jake, ever the Snack Snake, insists we find Qdoba. The King, like a gentleman, walks on the inside, protecting the children from a world of exhaustion and Tom Cruise control.

Suddenly, it’s Christmas. A snowball fight has commenced, and we have been chosen as worthless opponents. The first snowball strikes the top of my dome, glances off my glasses, and misses Jake by mere inches. I pause, admiring the determination it must have taken to pack a snowball from the one inch of snow North Carolina receives per year, place it in the freezer, save it for early August, and choose a King as a target for the incubated and crystallized ice-comet. One is required to bow at such craftsmanship, so I did examining the aftermath. By the time I reached up and discovered the snowball had peed on my head, the car had sped around the corner. Through some alchemic transformation, the snowball turned egg, the King became Konfused, and the moment turned golden. Or, at least, yellow.

Inside Qdoba, like Jonas preening himself in the lung of the whale, I wiped the egg from my face and hair. Looking into the mirror, I smiled, remembering that some people crack eggs in their hair when they want to treat it right. But when you treat something right on your own, what is left? Nothing, you have an empty carton of eggs and a hot mess in your hair. I, on the other hand, was blessed with a free egg; my carton at home still sported a dozen. It isn’t every night that you get salon-quality hair treatment, a burrito full of chicken, and get hit with an “August Snowball.” I may have started a trend or started a war, but either way, I am the origin.

...I was on my bike

A little illumination on alumni’s: they are intensely serious about how important it is that you recognize the superiority you share with them over all others, acknowledge that superiority publicly, and wholeheartedly accept that this alone is the only prerequisite for friendship in the adult business world. Last week, I made the mistake of walking into a restaurant with my Ross School of Business shirt on. Before I had even found my seat, an excited “agent” vaulted from his booth and shook one of my hands with both of his. “I went there ten years ago,” is how the conversation started, and “If you ever need anything, anything…” is how it ended. The man was so cleancut and obviously in charge of his faculty(ies) that I was almost tempted to say “No” when if he asked if I had a State Farm insurance agent. The truth is that, yes, I do have an agent, and I can’t believe I almost cheated on Doug Heins, CLU CEF CFA CAT (and many other three letter C-words.)

Jake and Kent left in what amounted to be the perfect storm. After stirring up controversy by convincing one of the other New Hire’s managers that they were interns (while playing volleyball), they rode a torpedo of my shame out of town. The only proof of their presence: two empty glasses in the sink and a snack pit that Jake left… I had to eat my way out.

The weekend snuck up like a charred turtle from a black canyon, totally not taking me by surprise. My friend Rachel got a job in Raleigh, and this so shocked me into a smile that I forgot to allude to it with an alliteration. Or did I?

On Friday night, Zhang it! and I went over to bid adieu to Luke, one of the One-years that has officially reset his job clock to zero by moving back to Wisconsin. Throw in one more since then, Andy, and that makes three gone in the last month. Zhang it! got attacked by a praying mantis, I made fast friends with another small dog. Before we headed home, we both grabbed some delicious baked goods that Luke was given by a baker that crashed into his car. Apparent reparations for damage and the tastiest from of blackmail.

Saturday, my soon-to-be housemate Chris Lethal invited me to test out my new mountain bike with him. This did not mean that I was to drag my bike up to his bed and wait for him to fetch the chain lube from the garage. The actual activities to be attempted were much more Rated X. Xtreme mountain biking, I found out, involves very tight helmets that may or may not allow you to draw breath, depending on the scale of crime you are about to commit, and serious altitude adjustments. For several hours, I watered the earth with the first derivative of my respiratory system, using my body’s largest organ as a fire hose. Chris and I talked the entire time, covering topics from the aspirations of our best friends to the apparent disconnect between the privatization of health care and the ideals of the voting (non-voting) minority (minorities). By this, I mean we shared back stories and tried, as most do, to place ourselves within that idealized version of our pasts. It always sounds much better when you are allowed to be the editor of not only your history but those of everyone who has ever been in your life.

After a late afternoon of Halo with Karrrl, Ben, and S.S. Kimu, I got ready to host some guests. Luke and Andy came up with a few of their friends to explore Chapel Hill. While everyone else ordered and consequently consumed late-night burritos, I sat in the booth and judged, quite heavily. I was not hungry, but I was tired from the bike ride, so I was not completely aware of my saying out loud “What is that girl wearing? Are those polyester pants? Uggggggly…” I was embarrassed naught, but it was the second time that night that my wide-mouth ass had spoken itself into a corner.

Michigan Mike (hence forth referred to as 6-pack), Zhang it!, And-I were seeking sustenance. While at a stop light, waiting for the Go light, I realized we were in an area of Chapel Hill where I had recently witnessed a very gross approximation of a misdemeanor. “I saw an old lady take relief by that tree yesterday,” I said with conviction, pointing left to the spot where said event took place. Zhang it!, ever the antagonist, noticed that not only had a car of girls just pulled up next to us, but they had heard what I said, or at least he assumed they had, and screamed “Wes, I can’t believe you just said that in front of those girls!”

The driver of the car turned on me – who was fidgeting in the passenger seat of Andy’s vehicle - like a hinge turns on a doorjamb, trapping me in the aforementioned corner. “What did you say?” The question was posed in such a way as to reveal her incredulousness, my disgracefulness, and our momentary sharing of a space in which an offal crime had recently taken place. This is me talking: “I said, ‘I saw a lady take a shit by that tree yesterday’.” As her jaw dropped, revealing nothing but the shadows of words I would never hear, I added, as if it would make a difference, “I was on my bike.”

Over dinner, we discussed the improbability that I will ever assimilate into the human race, and I promised that the night would turn out wonderfully. No one took my word for it. Not even me.

I convinced Wisconsin to come back to Michigan with me. While that statement may sound impossible, remember that a state is only a governmentally derived concept, and it isn’t impossible for one concept to insert itself inside another (see conception). We will be flying into Detroit on Wednesday, September 2^nd, and will be driving back with 6-pack on Labor Day. My lack of transportation and the fact that it is Welcome Week means I will probably be in Ann Arbor for that weekend. Might make it over to East Lansing. Speaking of MSU, I have convinced a family member who will be attending this fall to write a guest blogpost about the closing weeks of summer, and how the impending doom known as higher education surely taints the sunset of a season. It will be Wisconsin’s first time in Ann Arbor, so I am hoping to show him all of the nice parts, and none of what lies hidden in every city – proof of entropy: of both the universe and the human verse.

I will put off talking about the egging for one more post. Next time I will also cover Man U. and his stance on shiny cars and how this relates to my wanting badly to pay child support. I will leave you with a few awkward moments from the phone calls I have been taking.

__________________________________________________

Myself: let me know if you have any more issues relating to this

Client: will do. thanks much for the really quick action!

Myself: umm …?

__________________________________________________

I finished helping a lady connect to the corporate network from home. Right before she hung up, I blurted, “Good luck with all your connection today. See ya… I mean… talk to you soon?” Click.

__________________________________________________

Client: “What keys do I put my fingers on to type?”

Unloved and Homeless: a Wes-side story

In an unlovely and dry twist of irony, I am locked out of my temporary house for the night. Needless to say, I am actually sleeping in what will soon be my real home. My two med student roommates are probably locked in a library somewhere studying for a big test they have tomorrow, and they don't know I haven't a key. Cell phones: turned off.

This makes me feel more stupid than when I got egged... but that is a story for another day. Tomorrow, probably.

Snack Snake Valley

Almost a full week has passed, but it feels like just yesterday I talked to you about my life in the form of words and you listened in the form of eye strain and a computer screen. I think digital voyeurism, an activity in which you are currently partaking, became popular about the time when “Fun and Games” took a backseat to “Guns and Fame.” Well, I don’t own a gun and I’m not famous… so what are you doing here? Maybe you are looking for a throwback to Fun and Games; I’ll assume so and do my best to deliver. Just remember that where pillows are concerned, a throw is a sham and antimacassar is a good thing. Thus, I will try not to mince words or massacre memories.

Time for some truths:

Goodbye Michigan, hello Damn-Sandusky. Somewhere amidst the border between the mitten-shaped state and the cow pie state, while my nose and other facial features were buried in text, Kent led us to the gates of Cedar Point. While this would usually be taken as an open invitation to mount your favorite ride and scream in excitement, in this case it only meant that we had gone 45 minutes out of the way. Sandusky, Ohio isn’t much more than a pile of broken bones and patchy pasts. Busted homes fell toward the world’s most marketable roller coasters, like sunflowers bow to what is known outside our small universe as a perfectly standard ball of gas. We spun our tail-pipe in the right direction and exhausted the last of our diesel fumes wishing Michigan a fish again (Kent has a Jesus-fish on his bumper: ΙΧΘΥΣ).

I made the executive decision to spend the night in Elk Park, or somewhere thereabouts, right as the sun was going down. This meant that we would be camping out on the Tennessee/NC border, and then hiking in the morning. This also meant that two of us would be sleep outside, sans accommodations, and Kent would be reassuming the fetal position in the backseat of his Jetta. The thinnest hour, width-wise, is 1 AM, and this hour found us perusing the outdoor section at Wal-Mart, pining for warmth and comfort. Jake bought a hammock and I bought a $3 pillow and a 8’X10’ tarp. Then we both bought shoes, mine Velcro and his TreadSafes. These would suffice as some tangent to real hiking booties.

After an entire day of listening to Jake try to convince us that he never lies (which was a lie in and of itself), Kent and I were able to quickly drift off to sleep, but in my case, only after I set up Jake’s hammock for him. We fell asleep in camping spot #28, under the gentle and watchful eye of Dougie – Park Security Specialist.

Morning Snapshot: I wake up and plug in my phone behind an outhouse. A small child notices the Michigan license plate and questions me about the # of yearly ice-fishing deaths in my home state. Kent shivers in the backseat minus any blankie because he let me borrow his sleeping bag the night before. I threw it back over him, and went to wake up Jake the Snack Snake. His first words were “I’m cold.” Not much later “I need a snack!” Snack snakes are the hardest snakes to raise. I noticed he had slept with a knife in his right hand; Jake is an incredible specimen of a person you would want to be stuck in the elevator with, but not the wilderness.

At breakfast, we received a running social commentary from Jake on the patriotism of Southerners - his Exhibit A being the housecat-American-flag hybrid pin that a lady in the truckstop wore. A typical interaction would be as follows: Jake says a lot without really saying anything, I ask Jake what rocky crag of illogic his mind resides in, and Kent keeps a running total of how nice everyone is. After breakfast, we started up an unassuming entrance to the Appalachian Trail, which turned out to be quite steep. As the altitude rose, so did Jake’s fear of snakes, which came as quite the surprise since he himself is a species of Snack Snake. All the talk of snakes led to the naming of every object as such: Snake valley, Snake rock, Snake steam, Snake Ore Chasms, and Snake pudding (puddles). 10 miles of hick hiking, a dog with a permanently crooked neck, and several sucks from Jake’s CamelBak later, we found ourselves at the climbmax of our journey; the snake drive. While Jake was take a suckle from him water sack, Kent and I spread out into a meadow and pinched toward Jake. As we ran toward him, we told him that we were doing a snake drive and that all the snakes were streaming toward him, Don’t you see the grass moving, Jake? To call what Jake did next running is like calling what Nascar drivers do on the speedway parallel sparking; the kid laid tracks all the way back to the car.

On the way to Chapel Hill, I got a text from the backseat, Jake asking “What’s up?” I asked Kent to pull over and I got out the belt and told Jake that if he ever texted me when we were in a ten-foot radius of each other again I would give him a free belt. This is called reward-based discipline. Two minutes later, Jake was enjoying his new belt.

We went to Longhorn Steakhouse and enjoyed full plates of meat and full glasses of a 1910 bottle of Napa Valley tapwater: Blue Label. We finally made our final approach to my new townhouse, a place in which I had never even stepped foot. We found my temporary roommate Josh watching Shark Week. It has been said that the best way to bond with a new acquaintance is to watch teenage girls get ripped apart by two rows of serrated teeth and a primal reptilian attack approach, so we put this theory to the test. It seemed to work; I felt that I could trust anyone who could laugh at seaward atrocities with both feet up on a leather footrest and both hands behind his head.

After Josh went to bed, Kent and I held court with Jake about the civil liberties of Internet use. At issue was the right of a temporary lease-paying individual to partake in the unplugging and resetting of a wireless access point. Jake and Kent wanted to use the internet, and we didn’t have the password. I wanted to reset the router, Jake held that it was unjust, and Judge Judy Kent issued an injunction allowing one Wesley King to unplug any and all routers he could locate in a five minute period. Within four minutes, I had an open internet connection available to any man, woman, or child willing to proclaim that I was King of Router Resets.

Up Next: 15 miles of mountain biking, Jake and Kent pose as Interns, and me giving a client some “really quick action!”