Happy Thanksgiving five days ago, I hope you had a good one, I HIGHly recommend Paula Deen’s “Not yo mamma’s banana pudding.” This dish would be included in my last meal on Earth.
Both my siblings came to New Orleans for the holiday, both by plane, from opposite coasts, on the busiest travel day of the year.
I’ve flown on many airplanes. I’ve been asked for ID (at age 23) for sitting in the exit row (minimum age: 16…FML).
I’ve lost luggage, I’ve gone through FULL BODY SCANNERS (what’s the big deal people??), I’ve peed in tiny stalls, I haven’t been able to fit my overstuffed luggage into the overhead bin and held up the line and had to “check it” à la Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents.
I’ve even met a B-list celebrity at an airport.
But I’ve never been too drunk to get on a plane. Probably because airport alchol is too damn expensive. Airport Chili’s in ATL? JETWAY HIGWAY ROBBERY!
My twin sister Joy’s ex-boyfriend, Mike, was too drunk to get on a plane, but he got on anyway.
Joy was dropping him off at 5 a.m. and he was still drunk from the night before and Joy had to give him specific instructions not to talk to anybody.
I wasn’t surprised. Mike loved vodka and he’d come over with a Jansport backpack with a big bottle of cheap vodka (FLEISCHMANN’S….UGH) and soda water and make drink after drink after drink.
You’d think a 5 a.m. flight would change this routine. I mean, I think it should have, because flying hungover suuuuuucks.
Not even SkyMall can help you when you’re nauseous and breathing recycled air and SERIOUSLY WHO EATS A TUNA FISH SANDWICH ON A PLANE?? (uh, for example).
Mike missed his 5 a.m. flight one Saturday morning to go home for his birthday, a flight his grandfather had paid for.
He got way too drunk the night before and slept through his 5 a.m. alarm clock. He called Joy at 11 a.m. or so to whine about it.
“Grandpa is sooooo pissed!” he said.
Joy called him a retaaaaard, helped him switch his flight, and told him that she would personally make sure he’d be up the next day for the Sunday 5 a.m. flight.
But Saturday night was a reggae festival at the park, and Mike snuck in vodka Fleischmann’s and got too drunk to even walk in a straight line back to the car.
Joy was furious with him, told him that he OBVIOUSLY didn’t care about grandpa’s feelings, and she let me and our friend, April, walk on either side of him, balancing him as we walked back to Joy’s car.
Mike spent the night at our house, so Joy could drive him to the airport, and when she shook him at 5 a.m. to get up, he got right up, wearing no shirt, put his backpack on and said, “Ok, LET’S GO!”
Joy stared at him.
“OK, you can’t go to the airport without a shirt on.”
“Yes I can.”
“No you can’t. You need to put on a shirt. Where is your shirt?”
I guess Mike didn’t feel like putting on the shirt he wore the night before, and didn’t think to open up his packed suitcase to get another one.
So, he walked over to Joy’s dresser and pulled out one of her small LSU T-shirts and put it on.
Joy laughed as Mike’s arms bulged out of the constrictive sleeves, and the shirt rode up like a midrift. The bottom of the shirt hovered around his belly button and you could see his nipples through the fabric.
“You’re really going to wear that to the airport?” Joy asked.
“Yes, let’s GO!” he said, clearly, still drunk.
Joy became concerned when he was incoherent all the way to the airport, so when they pulled up to the terminal, she instructed him not to talk to anyone.
“Don’t talk to the security people, don’t talk to the ticket agent, don’t talk to anyone,” Joy said.
(She’s very good at imitating Mike’s response to this request):
“JUUUUJHASSSSH,” he said.
Joy blinked. He tried again.
“JUUJUJUUSHHSH”
He took a breath.
“Joy,” he said very slowly, controlled. “I don’t know why you shink that I’m hammered.”
Then Mike got out of the car, walked inside the terminal and Joy came home to go back to sleep. She saw a text message from him when she woke up hours later.
“Made it on the plane, but security took my sunscreen,” he wrote.
“Well of course they did, it’s a liquid dummy,” Joy said aloud after reading it.
How Mike ended up flying halfway across the country working off a 12-hour drunk, wearing an uncomfortably small LSU T-shirt, is beyond me.
I forgot to ask him if he was still wearing it when grandpa picked him up at the airport, because that sounds like something I would have LOVED to see.
Threat level purple and gold.
-Jenny
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
TOOLBAG TUESDAY
If I had an extra thousand dollars lying around that wasn’t already designated for something totally boring like paying off credit card(s) and outstanding parking tickets, I’ll tell you what I wouldn’t do with it: I wouldn’t loan it to my boyfriend.
Especially if he wanted money for something completely unnecessary…like braces.
I’m totally serious. I learned recently that this deal actually happened to a friend of a friend.
This girl took out $2,500 in extra student loans for her now ex-boyfriend to straighten his teeth.
When I heard this, I had several questions. Did she require that his teeth be straighter? Was he in a fight and needed emergency dental work? (And I’m not just suggesting that because he works at Chili’s.)
The answer was no to both, this dude just wanted his teeth straighter and figured his girlfriend could just keep borrowing and borrowing with her gold mine student status.
The two have since broken up and he has yet to repay her for the braces, although the friend noted that he was recently at dinner with 10 or so people and picked up the entire tab.
And then he asked her AFTER they broke up if she would co-sign a car loan.
This isn’t an isolated incident. Chivalry is dead! Guys today have no problem using their moneybags girlfriends’ moneybags.*
Three of my own friends have loaned their boyfriends a significant amount of money and by significant amount of money I mean more than $500. (Speaking of…payday Friday hurry the eff UP!!)
-One friend paid off her boyfriend's credit card so they could get a better deal on a house she envisioned them buying together in the future
-Another loaned her boyfriend money to buy furniture.
-A third paid for her boyfriend's portion of the rent for several months because he couldn’t figure out how to save up a lump sum by the first of the month.
All three ended up breaking up, and two out of three friends haven’t seen a dime.
The third eventually got back the rent money she paid for him, but it wasn't fun being a nag and it came in sporadic $20 here, $45 there, here let me buy you five beers at the bar and take off another $25 – increments.
Beers I could live with. Other indebted boyfriends tried to make stupid deals in lieu of paying back actual cash.
Take my friend Sally. She and her boyfriend Daniel had just broken up and I was helping her move out of their shared apartment one Saturday morning.
“Do you think this desk is worth $200?” she asked. “Because Daniel said I could have it and take that much off the money he still owes me.”
It looked like a school desk I used in third grade, very short with synthetic wood and a half table that you slid in and out of. I didn’t even know they still made those.
“Um, HELL no,” I said. “That’s not worth $50. That’s a ridiculous deal.”
“Yea…” she said, walking over to the kitchen, looking at the furniture that once held so many hopes and dreams.
“He said I could have the kitchen table for $300 off his loan and we only bought it for $150.”
“Exactly. Don’t get hosed,” I said.
Of course Sally did end up getting hosed, because the majority of the money Daniel said he’d use to pay her back was his security deposit, and he wasn’t completely moved out by the 1st of the following month so the landlord kept it. TOOLBAG!
Now $800 isn’t anything to sneeze at, so Sally did what anyone would do: She called his mamma. (She still didn’t recover the money, but at least she got some sort of apology.)
Then, one day Sally figured out how she’d get him back for it. It wasn’t $800, but it would still hurt his wallet, and she’d benefit too.
She cancelled her cell phone contract before it was up, which was linked to his account.
(They had one of those shared minutes plan. Domestic bliss, right??)
“You know what, I don’t even want him to be able to see who I’m calling or texting anyway,” Sally said. She cancelled her plan and he was stuck having to pay for the $250 charge.
Sally fully expected Daniel to call her about it fuming mad, and I think she was kind of looking forward to her calculated (no pun intended) response about how this was JUST A DROP IN THE BUCKET, BUDDY.
But he never called.
Maybe he doesn’t know about the charge yet. Maybe he doesn’t care.
Maybe he’s looking for a new girlfriend with an excellent credit score to take care of the problem.
-Jenny
*Ok, yes I know some girls that also have no problem taking large amounts of money from their boyfriends, but it’s not as funny.
One girl I know let her boyfriend buy her a used car (that was much nicer than the one he drove) and he stupidly put it in HER name so when they broke up he couldn’t even get it back.
She reasoned that he put her through so much hell during their relationship that she “deserves it.”
Another friend bought his now ex-wife fake boobs and gets pissed off routinely thinking about other guys…um…enjoying them.
But, still. Not as funny as braces.
Especially if he wanted money for something completely unnecessary…like braces.
I’m totally serious. I learned recently that this deal actually happened to a friend of a friend.
This girl took out $2,500 in extra student loans for her now ex-boyfriend to straighten his teeth.
When I heard this, I had several questions. Did she require that his teeth be straighter? Was he in a fight and needed emergency dental work? (And I’m not just suggesting that because he works at Chili’s.)
The answer was no to both, this dude just wanted his teeth straighter and figured his girlfriend could just keep borrowing and borrowing with her gold mine student status.
The two have since broken up and he has yet to repay her for the braces, although the friend noted that he was recently at dinner with 10 or so people and picked up the entire tab.
And then he asked her AFTER they broke up if she would co-sign a car loan.
This isn’t an isolated incident. Chivalry is dead! Guys today have no problem using their moneybags girlfriends’ moneybags.*
Three of my own friends have loaned their boyfriends a significant amount of money and by significant amount of money I mean more than $500. (Speaking of…payday Friday hurry the eff UP!!)
-One friend paid off her boyfriend's credit card so they could get a better deal on a house she envisioned them buying together in the future
-Another loaned her boyfriend money to buy furniture.
-A third paid for her boyfriend's portion of the rent for several months because he couldn’t figure out how to save up a lump sum by the first of the month.
All three ended up breaking up, and two out of three friends haven’t seen a dime.
The third eventually got back the rent money she paid for him, but it wasn't fun being a nag and it came in sporadic $20 here, $45 there, here let me buy you five beers at the bar and take off another $25 – increments.
Beers I could live with. Other indebted boyfriends tried to make stupid deals in lieu of paying back actual cash.
Take my friend Sally. She and her boyfriend Daniel had just broken up and I was helping her move out of their shared apartment one Saturday morning.
“Do you think this desk is worth $200?” she asked. “Because Daniel said I could have it and take that much off the money he still owes me.”
It looked like a school desk I used in third grade, very short with synthetic wood and a half table that you slid in and out of. I didn’t even know they still made those.
“Um, HELL no,” I said. “That’s not worth $50. That’s a ridiculous deal.”
“Yea…” she said, walking over to the kitchen, looking at the furniture that once held so many hopes and dreams.
“He said I could have the kitchen table for $300 off his loan and we only bought it for $150.”
“Exactly. Don’t get hosed,” I said.
Of course Sally did end up getting hosed, because the majority of the money Daniel said he’d use to pay her back was his security deposit, and he wasn’t completely moved out by the 1st of the following month so the landlord kept it. TOOLBAG!
Now $800 isn’t anything to sneeze at, so Sally did what anyone would do: She called his mamma. (She still didn’t recover the money, but at least she got some sort of apology.)
Then, one day Sally figured out how she’d get him back for it. It wasn’t $800, but it would still hurt his wallet, and she’d benefit too.
She cancelled her cell phone contract before it was up, which was linked to his account.
(They had one of those shared minutes plan. Domestic bliss, right??)
“You know what, I don’t even want him to be able to see who I’m calling or texting anyway,” Sally said. She cancelled her plan and he was stuck having to pay for the $250 charge.
Sally fully expected Daniel to call her about it fuming mad, and I think she was kind of looking forward to her calculated (no pun intended) response about how this was JUST A DROP IN THE BUCKET, BUDDY.
But he never called.
Maybe he doesn’t know about the charge yet. Maybe he doesn’t care.
Maybe he’s looking for a new girlfriend with an excellent credit score to take care of the problem.
-Jenny
*Ok, yes I know some girls that also have no problem taking large amounts of money from their boyfriends, but it’s not as funny.
One girl I know let her boyfriend buy her a used car (that was much nicer than the one he drove) and he stupidly put it in HER name so when they broke up he couldn’t even get it back.
She reasoned that he put her through so much hell during their relationship that she “deserves it.”
Another friend bought his now ex-wife fake boobs and gets pissed off routinely thinking about other guys…um…enjoying them.
But, still. Not as funny as braces.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Thoughts while running through a cemetery (Neurotic stream of consciousness)
I ran a spooky 5K race through a cemetery on Sunday, which not surprisingly, reminded me that I haven’t exercised since before Halloween.
(For the record, I wasn’t stepping on plots or anything. It was a New Orleans cemetery, so all the tombstones were above ground and very old and fancy. Some were bigger than the size of my bedroom in my apartment, those lucky bastards. Just kidding.)
I wasn’t able to read the tombstones as I ran past them, of course, because I was too busy trying to stay alive myself, huffing and puffing and trying to ignore the fact that my socks were WAY TOO THIN and rubbed the instep of my foot in a terribly obnoxious way.
Are people buried with socks on? I wondered.
We ran loops around the brick path, and I saw the Mayor running about 50 feet in front of me. He didn’t seem to be struggling with the run at all. (He must have had normal socks on.)
If the mayor died, where would HE be buried? I wondered. I bet CNN would cover it.
The first mile was easy because I was all adrenaline-filled about the run and distracted looking at my surroundings and the backs of people’s T-shirts.
I was also busy making sure I didn’t trip on the brick path because that’s definitely something that would happen to me.
I then thought how terribly ironic it would be to fall and fatally hit my head right next to all these tombs.
Would that automatically allow me to be buried in the cemetery? I thought. Because some of these tombs look really roomy.
Mile 2 was the worst. Breathing became harder, my feet became heavier and have you ever had to burp during a run? It’s…awkward.
It was also that time when I realized that about half of the songs I added onto my MP3 player the night before weren’t as motivating as when I was jamming to them on the couch, ahem, Eminem.
Then my face got really, really hot and red and it reminded me of high school cross country meets where I used to wonder why I signed up for hell every Saturday morning.
Feeling desperate in the middle of mile two, I tried to motivate myself by breaking down my 10-minute pace into number of songs.
Only three more songs until the end of the race! I told myself between panting (and burping.)
Wait…are songs three minutes long apiece?? I was starting to panic. Does 3 x 3 = ten? I don’t think I can run further than three songs worth!!
During a two-second silence between songs I thought about walking, just for a second, and then shouted to myself internally, NO! YOU ONLY HAVE TWO MORE SONG LEGNTHS LEFT! THE TIME IT TAKES TO BOIL A POT OF WATER FOR KRAFT MAC AND CHEESE! mmmmm mac and cheese...
I then noticed that the mayor wasn’t slowing down, he was actually running faster and faster.
What's he thinking about? I wondered. “What music is HE listening to? I envisioned a Susan Boyle album.
Against my leg’s wishes, I didn't walk at all, and followed the pace of a muscley girl with HUGE calves in front of me who was wearing a red, white and blue striped Lycra outfit.
I then remembered that one year my roommate was an American flag for Halloween. Cheapest costume ever, I thought.
Then I looked around at the tombs.
I wonder if anyone buried here was a solider.
Now, I’ve made the mistake before that just because I see the finish line doesn’t mean I should sprint towards it, because it’s usually much further away then I expect, and I burn out and let everybody my cross country coach down.
And I bet the newspaper is here to take pictures! I thought, and then got panicky.
I’ve seen pictures of myself at plenty of finish lines, and half my face looks droopy, like a stroke patient.
Smile dammit! I told myself as I saw people on the sidelines clapping and cheering and TAKING MY PICTURE as I approached the finish line. Look like you’re not about to keel over! You’re having fun!! Weeeee!!!
I almost punched somebody when I thought I crossed the finish line, but I had another 20 yards to go, SURPRISE! and I awkwardly sped up and then almost tripped.
I bee-lined for a tree and laid down onto my back under it, which my cross-country coach told me never to do.
Blood flow, schmlood flow! I can't move!
My throat hurt, my feet hurt, my eyes hurt. I was immediately uninterested in the pots of jambalaya and the crawfish bisque at the after-party going on around me.
The grass was itching the back of my arms and legs, but didn’t have energy to do anything about it.
The music from the band was clashing with The Who’s “Baba O’Reily Teenage Wasteland” still playing in my earbuds.
I wonder how long I’d have to lie here motionless before someone came over to see if I was OK? I thought. I wonder if anyone has sunglasses I could borrow.
How cool would it be to be buried with sunglasses!
When my friends finally passed the finish line (slow and steady doesn’t ALWAYS win the race) it took literally all I had to stand up and walk around the parking lot.
I ate three bites of some jambalaya and a bag of popcorn.
The daiquiri screwdrivers were another story.
I would have been SO popular during cross-country meets with these things! I thought.
After ten minutes, I didn’t feel like dying anymore, although I looked and smelled like it.
I went home, showered and laid down in bed still wrapped in a towel, closed my eyes and felt like I could sleep for 100 years.
This is how Egyptians were buried in the pyramids! I thought. A mummy! That's a good Halloween costume, too…
Zzzzzzzzzzz
-Jenny
(For the record, I wasn’t stepping on plots or anything. It was a New Orleans cemetery, so all the tombstones were above ground and very old and fancy. Some were bigger than the size of my bedroom in my apartment, those lucky bastards. Just kidding.)
I wasn’t able to read the tombstones as I ran past them, of course, because I was too busy trying to stay alive myself, huffing and puffing and trying to ignore the fact that my socks were WAY TOO THIN and rubbed the instep of my foot in a terribly obnoxious way.
Are people buried with socks on? I wondered.
We ran loops around the brick path, and I saw the Mayor running about 50 feet in front of me. He didn’t seem to be struggling with the run at all. (He must have had normal socks on.)
If the mayor died, where would HE be buried? I wondered. I bet CNN would cover it.
The first mile was easy because I was all adrenaline-filled about the run and distracted looking at my surroundings and the backs of people’s T-shirts.
I was also busy making sure I didn’t trip on the brick path because that’s definitely something that would happen to me.
I then thought how terribly ironic it would be to fall and fatally hit my head right next to all these tombs.
Would that automatically allow me to be buried in the cemetery? I thought. Because some of these tombs look really roomy.
Mile 2 was the worst. Breathing became harder, my feet became heavier and have you ever had to burp during a run? It’s…awkward.
It was also that time when I realized that about half of the songs I added onto my MP3 player the night before weren’t as motivating as when I was jamming to them on the couch, ahem, Eminem.
Then my face got really, really hot and red and it reminded me of high school cross country meets where I used to wonder why I signed up for hell every Saturday morning.
Feeling desperate in the middle of mile two, I tried to motivate myself by breaking down my 10-minute pace into number of songs.
Only three more songs until the end of the race! I told myself between panting (and burping.)
Wait…are songs three minutes long apiece?? I was starting to panic. Does 3 x 3 = ten? I don’t think I can run further than three songs worth!!
During a two-second silence between songs I thought about walking, just for a second, and then shouted to myself internally, NO! YOU ONLY HAVE TWO MORE SONG LEGNTHS LEFT! THE TIME IT TAKES TO BOIL A POT OF WATER FOR KRAFT MAC AND CHEESE! mmmmm mac and cheese...
I then noticed that the mayor wasn’t slowing down, he was actually running faster and faster.
What's he thinking about? I wondered. “What music is HE listening to? I envisioned a Susan Boyle album.
Against my leg’s wishes, I didn't walk at all, and followed the pace of a muscley girl with HUGE calves in front of me who was wearing a red, white and blue striped Lycra outfit.
I then remembered that one year my roommate was an American flag for Halloween. Cheapest costume ever, I thought.
Then I looked around at the tombs.
I wonder if anyone buried here was a solider.
Now, I’ve made the mistake before that just because I see the finish line doesn’t mean I should sprint towards it, because it’s usually much further away then I expect, and I burn out and let everybody my cross country coach down.
And I bet the newspaper is here to take pictures! I thought, and then got panicky.
I’ve seen pictures of myself at plenty of finish lines, and half my face looks droopy, like a stroke patient.
Smile dammit! I told myself as I saw people on the sidelines clapping and cheering and TAKING MY PICTURE as I approached the finish line. Look like you’re not about to keel over! You’re having fun!! Weeeee!!!
I almost punched somebody when I thought I crossed the finish line, but I had another 20 yards to go, SURPRISE! and I awkwardly sped up and then almost tripped.
I bee-lined for a tree and laid down onto my back under it, which my cross-country coach told me never to do.
Blood flow, schmlood flow! I can't move!
My throat hurt, my feet hurt, my eyes hurt. I was immediately uninterested in the pots of jambalaya and the crawfish bisque at the after-party going on around me.
The grass was itching the back of my arms and legs, but didn’t have energy to do anything about it.
The music from the band was clashing with The Who’s “Baba O’Reily Teenage Wasteland” still playing in my earbuds.
I wonder how long I’d have to lie here motionless before someone came over to see if I was OK? I thought. I wonder if anyone has sunglasses I could borrow.
How cool would it be to be buried with sunglasses!
When my friends finally passed the finish line (slow and steady doesn’t ALWAYS win the race) it took literally all I had to stand up and walk around the parking lot.
I ate three bites of some jambalaya and a bag of popcorn.
The daiquiri screwdrivers were another story.
I would have been SO popular during cross-country meets with these things! I thought.
After ten minutes, I didn’t feel like dying anymore, although I looked and smelled like it.
I went home, showered and laid down in bed still wrapped in a towel, closed my eyes and felt like I could sleep for 100 years.
This is how Egyptians were buried in the pyramids! I thought. A mummy! That's a good Halloween costume, too…
Zzzzzzzzzzz
-Jenny
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
TOOLBAG TUESDAY
Sometimes persistence can pay off, like when you open a jar of salsa all by yourself or detangle an obnoxiously long necklace.
Persistence can work in relationships too. Just look at Lisa Turtle who accepted Screech’s offer to be her prom date after a ga-gillion requests. (Saved By the Bell! Best DVR recording ever!)
But sometimes persistence can fall flat.
This was certainly the case with Brandon, who had recently broken up with my college roommate and called our landline 27 times in a row before we unplugged the phone.
Brandon and Meghan dated for four years off-and-on from high school through college, and this particular breakup wasn’t his decision.
He needed her back right away, and thought that calling incessantly would be helpful.
“STOP CALLING!” Meghan and us other roommates would yell into the phone and hang up.
You’d think he’d be embarrassed getting yelled at by his ex-girlfriend’s roommates, but no. Two seconds later? Ring ring ring
Brandon even went a step further and got a job as a bouncer at the only bar that we could drink at without a fake ID.
He was over 21, and strategically kicked out any guy that talked to Meghan. She told him over and over that they weren’t going to get back together no matter who she was talking to, but he didn’t listen.
“Why did you throw Mark out?” she screamed when Brandon booted her guy friend from the bar.
“Because he’s an a**hole.”
(That was always his response.)
Meghan scowled at him and walked away when he came up to her at the bar, cock blocking preventing her from meeting anyone else.
I was with Meghan one night at the underage bar when an attempted conversation with a boy was ruined by Brandon’s lurking.
Fed up, Meghan decided that we were leaving RIGHT NOW, and we left out the back door and walked to her car.
She started the engine and we were reversing out of the parking space when Brandon came out of nowhere and THREW HIMSELF ONTO HER WINDSHIELD.
“MEG!” he wailed, trying to make eye contact through the windshield. “MEGGGGG!” DON’T GO! WAIT!”
I screamed as Meghan continued to reverse the car, not caring that he was hanging diagonally onto her hood, obstructing her view.
“MEG! MEG!”
If that wasn’t enough of a hot mess, a college bike cop was nearby and saw all this. He wheeled right over.
“Is this man bothering you?” he asked.
“Yes, actually, he is,” Meghan said. (Another clue the relationship is definitely over: she sells you to the cops).
Once Brandon was removed from the hood, Meghan sped off, and we agreed he was out of control. Five minutes later when we got home, the landline rang.
“THANKS A LOT, MEG, YOU JUST GOT ME AN $800 TICKET!” he screamed.
“What was the ticket for?”
“A nuisance thing. I’m going to come over and show you.”
“No.”
He came over anyway — bouncer job be dammed! — and stood outside our apartment. Meghan didn’t let him in.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT MY TICKET!” he cried from the front porch.
“Put it through the mail slot," Meghan instructed.
Brandon went to his car and then shoved a crumbled piece of paper through the slot. Meghan looked at it and frowned.
“Brandon, this is a parking ticket from last month,” she said. “I can read.”
“JUST LET ME IN SO WE CAN TALK FACE TO FACE! I WANT TO HOLD YOU!”
He was persistent, but it didn’t work out for him and Meghan. After a few more months of crazy, he met someone else and moved on. We got rid of the landline.
Perhaps if there were no landlines, there would be less toolbag behavior.
Also: throwing yourself onto a moving car is not (always) the romantic grand gesture to win your ex-girlfriend back.
-Jenny
Persistence can work in relationships too. Just look at Lisa Turtle who accepted Screech’s offer to be her prom date after a ga-gillion requests. (Saved By the Bell! Best DVR recording ever!)
But sometimes persistence can fall flat.
This was certainly the case with Brandon, who had recently broken up with my college roommate and called our landline 27 times in a row before we unplugged the phone.
Brandon and Meghan dated for four years off-and-on from high school through college, and this particular breakup wasn’t his decision.
He needed her back right away, and thought that calling incessantly would be helpful.
“STOP CALLING!” Meghan and us other roommates would yell into the phone and hang up.
You’d think he’d be embarrassed getting yelled at by his ex-girlfriend’s roommates, but no. Two seconds later? Ring ring ring
Brandon even went a step further and got a job as a bouncer at the only bar that we could drink at without a fake ID.
He was over 21, and strategically kicked out any guy that talked to Meghan. She told him over and over that they weren’t going to get back together no matter who she was talking to, but he didn’t listen.
“Why did you throw Mark out?” she screamed when Brandon booted her guy friend from the bar.
“Because he’s an a**hole.”
(That was always his response.)
Meghan scowled at him and walked away when he came up to her at the bar, cock blocking preventing her from meeting anyone else.
I was with Meghan one night at the underage bar when an attempted conversation with a boy was ruined by Brandon’s lurking.
Fed up, Meghan decided that we were leaving RIGHT NOW, and we left out the back door and walked to her car.
She started the engine and we were reversing out of the parking space when Brandon came out of nowhere and THREW HIMSELF ONTO HER WINDSHIELD.
“MEG!” he wailed, trying to make eye contact through the windshield. “MEGGGGG!” DON’T GO! WAIT!”
I screamed as Meghan continued to reverse the car, not caring that he was hanging diagonally onto her hood, obstructing her view.
“MEG! MEG!”
If that wasn’t enough of a hot mess, a college bike cop was nearby and saw all this. He wheeled right over.
“Is this man bothering you?” he asked.
“Yes, actually, he is,” Meghan said. (Another clue the relationship is definitely over: she sells you to the cops).
Once Brandon was removed from the hood, Meghan sped off, and we agreed he was out of control. Five minutes later when we got home, the landline rang.
“THANKS A LOT, MEG, YOU JUST GOT ME AN $800 TICKET!” he screamed.
“What was the ticket for?”
“A nuisance thing. I’m going to come over and show you.”
“No.”
He came over anyway — bouncer job be dammed! — and stood outside our apartment. Meghan didn’t let him in.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT MY TICKET!” he cried from the front porch.
“Put it through the mail slot," Meghan instructed.
Brandon went to his car and then shoved a crumbled piece of paper through the slot. Meghan looked at it and frowned.
“Brandon, this is a parking ticket from last month,” she said. “I can read.”
“JUST LET ME IN SO WE CAN TALK FACE TO FACE! I WANT TO HOLD YOU!”
He was persistent, but it didn’t work out for him and Meghan. After a few more months of crazy, he met someone else and moved on. We got rid of the landline.
Perhaps if there were no landlines, there would be less toolbag behavior.
Also: throwing yourself onto a moving car is not (always) the romantic grand gesture to win your ex-girlfriend back.
-Jenny
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
TOOLBAG TUESDAY
This may sound more like a “Guy confessions” item from Cosmopolitian Magazine than a Toolbag Tuesday, but for the record, “Jonah” DID turn out to be a toolbag and…tis the season for a good oyster roast story.
Do you know what an oyster roast is? It’s a big, delicious deal in South Carolina. People down here in New Orleans, however, have no idea what I’m talking about.
They only know oysters as raw, charbroiled or mixed in gumbo. (nothing wrong with that by the way).
Oyster roasts, common on the East Coast, consist of oysters steamed in a pot and then dumped onto a wooden table where people pick them up and shuck them on the spot.
Although it's dirty and you get mud under your fingers, it’s very social and a piping hot steamed oyster on a cold night totally hits the spot.
(I just got back from a wedding this past weekend in South Carolina and they had steamed oysters at the reception, and it was effing awesome).
In addition to being DUH-LICIOUS, it’s also really easy, since the only accompaniments to the oysters are a stack of Saltine crackers and cocktail sauce.
(The saltine crackers are important to note here, since they were ultimately Jonah’s demise.)
It was Jonah and my friend Annie’s first date, after meeting the night before at a party.
It was November, it was cold, and he was cute. A restaurant happened to be having a huge oyster roast that next day, and they agreed to meet there.
(Also, important to note that they MET at the restaurant, so there was no Jonah bringing Annie home business and goodnight kiss or anything like that.)
Hundreds of people go to the restaurant for their bi-annual roasts, and people filled up all the wooden tables that lined up on the side of the building. The tables had holes cut out the middle with garbage cans underneath to throw the opened shells into.
Annie and Jonah grabbed a beer and waited around for a table to open up, and when they saw one, Jonah told her to stand at it while he bought several buckets of oysters and got crackers and cocktail sauce.
It was a lot to carry, two buckets of oysters, little containers of cocktail sauce and all those crackers. He did his best to consolidate the items on the walk back to the table.
By this time, my friends and I had spotted Annie, and set up shop on the other side of the oyster roast table.
We were pointing out how cute Jonah was when he came up to the table with the goods, carefully placing the cocktail sauce on the table.
“Where are the crackers?” Annie asked, rightfully so.
He took all the little packets out of his front jeans pocket. He must have had 30 individually wrapped saltines in there, seriously. I remember someone made a joke about it.
It was getting dark in the evening at that point, as is the problem with STUPID DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME, and everyone was so busy chatting and scarfing down oysters that Annie didn’t even notice when she picked up a cracker and made a tear in the side to put her oyster on top of it.
It wasn’t a cracker.
Annie had ripped into a condom.
“What the--?” she looked down and, either out of disgust or shock, threw the condom onto the table and then everyone paid attention.
“GROSS! Is that from the people that were here before us?” asked another friend at the table.
(Jonah should have used that as an easy way out.)
Instead, he AWKWARDLY said, “ummm…ohh….uhhh…”
Annie looked at him.
“Is this yours?” she asked. “Did this come out of your pocket?”
We all stopped shucking.
“Yea,” he said.
We all looked the other way.
Annie was insulted by the presumption.
“Um, is that for you and me…or is that for someone else?” she asked. “You keep condoms in your front pocket?”
Jonah didn’t say anything, and we quickly left the table to let them discuss it.
When she said goodbye to us not much later, she whispered that he had no explanation. He waved bye from a distance.
After the roast, they went to a house party as planned, and both separately drove to the grocery store to buy beer. Annie said right in the middle of the beer aisle, Jonah brought it up again.
“About that thing earlier…that was weird huh?” he asked.
“I mean…yea,” Annie said.
They stayed at the party for exactly one half hour and Annie left.
Neither of them called the next day.
“I can’t believe I almost put an oyster on top of a condom and ate it!” Annie said, the next day.
What if it had COCKtail sauce on it, too?? we howled. Then we made a joke about words that rhyme with shuck.
Oysters are aphrodisiacs you know. You can never be too careful.
Hahahahaha
-Jenny
Do you know what an oyster roast is? It’s a big, delicious deal in South Carolina. People down here in New Orleans, however, have no idea what I’m talking about.
They only know oysters as raw, charbroiled or mixed in gumbo. (nothing wrong with that by the way).
Oyster roasts, common on the East Coast, consist of oysters steamed in a pot and then dumped onto a wooden table where people pick them up and shuck them on the spot.
Although it's dirty and you get mud under your fingers, it’s very social and a piping hot steamed oyster on a cold night totally hits the spot.
(I just got back from a wedding this past weekend in South Carolina and they had steamed oysters at the reception, and it was effing awesome).
In addition to being DUH-LICIOUS, it’s also really easy, since the only accompaniments to the oysters are a stack of Saltine crackers and cocktail sauce.
(The saltine crackers are important to note here, since they were ultimately Jonah’s demise.)
It was Jonah and my friend Annie’s first date, after meeting the night before at a party.
It was November, it was cold, and he was cute. A restaurant happened to be having a huge oyster roast that next day, and they agreed to meet there.
(Also, important to note that they MET at the restaurant, so there was no Jonah bringing Annie home business and goodnight kiss or anything like that.)
Hundreds of people go to the restaurant for their bi-annual roasts, and people filled up all the wooden tables that lined up on the side of the building. The tables had holes cut out the middle with garbage cans underneath to throw the opened shells into.
Annie and Jonah grabbed a beer and waited around for a table to open up, and when they saw one, Jonah told her to stand at it while he bought several buckets of oysters and got crackers and cocktail sauce.
It was a lot to carry, two buckets of oysters, little containers of cocktail sauce and all those crackers. He did his best to consolidate the items on the walk back to the table.
By this time, my friends and I had spotted Annie, and set up shop on the other side of the oyster roast table.
We were pointing out how cute Jonah was when he came up to the table with the goods, carefully placing the cocktail sauce on the table.
“Where are the crackers?” Annie asked, rightfully so.
He took all the little packets out of his front jeans pocket. He must have had 30 individually wrapped saltines in there, seriously. I remember someone made a joke about it.
It was getting dark in the evening at that point, as is the problem with STUPID DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME, and everyone was so busy chatting and scarfing down oysters that Annie didn’t even notice when she picked up a cracker and made a tear in the side to put her oyster on top of it.
It wasn’t a cracker.
Annie had ripped into a condom.
“What the--?” she looked down and, either out of disgust or shock, threw the condom onto the table and then everyone paid attention.
“GROSS! Is that from the people that were here before us?” asked another friend at the table.
(Jonah should have used that as an easy way out.)
Instead, he AWKWARDLY said, “ummm…ohh….uhhh…”
Annie looked at him.
“Is this yours?” she asked. “Did this come out of your pocket?”
We all stopped shucking.
“Yea,” he said.
We all looked the other way.
Annie was insulted by the presumption.
“Um, is that for you and me…or is that for someone else?” she asked. “You keep condoms in your front pocket?”
Jonah didn’t say anything, and we quickly left the table to let them discuss it.
When she said goodbye to us not much later, she whispered that he had no explanation. He waved bye from a distance.
After the roast, they went to a house party as planned, and both separately drove to the grocery store to buy beer. Annie said right in the middle of the beer aisle, Jonah brought it up again.
“About that thing earlier…that was weird huh?” he asked.
“I mean…yea,” Annie said.
They stayed at the party for exactly one half hour and Annie left.
Neither of them called the next day.
“I can’t believe I almost put an oyster on top of a condom and ate it!” Annie said, the next day.
What if it had COCKtail sauce on it, too?? we howled. Then we made a joke about words that rhyme with shuck.
Oysters are aphrodisiacs you know. You can never be too careful.
Hahahahaha
-Jenny
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Toolbag Tuesday
Last year, I read an article about a bar in Australia where they were having a problem with the men peeing all over the walls and mirrors and missing the urinals completely.
To solve the problem, they put urinal cakes with a BULLSEYE on the center of it into the bowl, and, prolem solved.
It turns out drunk guys need something to aim at.
(seriously.)
Now, I’m not going to act like I’ve never been drunk and peed where I shouldn’t -- like squatting between cars (uh, waaay down the block) from a Mardi Gras parade -- but I’ve never peed somewhere odd.
Like onto my shoes. Or into a trash can.
Or on my significant others’ laundry pile.
But boys are…special. And when some of them get drunk, they have problems figuring out where the indoor plumbing is.
I’m not talking about being drunk and being outside and peeing on a fence (like during kickball or someone’s Christmas Oyster Roast...uh, for example);
I’m talking about the type of drunk boys who get out of bed in the middle of the night and decide the couch is the best place to take a leak.
I’m sure there's a psychology book about why boys don’t pee in the right place, and according to my friends who have male children (thanks Facebook!) boys are super stubborn about pee pee-ing in the potty from the start. More than girls.
My advice: put Cheerios in the training bowl and tell them to aim. It worked in Australia.
This "drunk boy peeing in odd places" is more common than you might think.
Below are the top toolbag peeing stories I’ve ever heard and one, witnessed.
(P.S. When questioned the following day, none of them had a good answer for their behavior.)
1.) TRASH CAN. I didn’t think my roommate’s boyfriend, Jesse, would ever wake up from his drunk stupor, considering we had to literally carry his lifeless body up two flights of stairs.
But he made his way out of his girlfriend’s bed hours later, went into the bathroom and peed into the trash can that was RIGHT NEXT to the toilet.
He literally aimed less than a foot to the left of the toilet rather than into the toilet.
He then proceeded to walk in our OTHER roommate’s bedroom, and jumped into bed with her. She woke up and yelled at him, and then he got out of bed and yelled for his girlfriend, and I was the one who noticed that he had peed in the trashcan and his girlfriend/my roommate had to wipe up the pee splatters.
2.) HOTEL ROOM. Hotel rooms are probably way more disgusting than any of us realize (and I’ve envisioned how disgusting they are, because I get bored.) So it didn’t help that my friend Laura’s boyfriend, Randy, got out of bed during their weekend getaway and peed right on top of his boots that were in the corner of the room.
They had both been drinking the night before at a concert and she woke up to an odd “streaming”-like sound, and saw him aiming at the corner near the floral couch.
“Randy! What are you doing??” she screamed.
“Huuh?” was all he could manage, his leather boots saturated.
Laura dragged walked him, haha bottomless, to the bathroom and “pointed” him at the toilet, but he was all done by then.
“And, those were the only shoes he brought that weekend!” Laura laughed. “Haha. Dumbass.”
3.) LAUNDRY. Louis was a big camper, and Alice was really excited to sleep in a tent and look at the stars and make s’mores with him.
Not so much camping fun? Waking up to Louis, DRUNK, PEEING all over their clothes inside the tent. Both of their clothes. (He didn’t even leave the tent to pee, y’all. That’s laziness right there.)
I didn’t even ask Alice what they did about dressing for the rest of the trip. Perhaps they found a nice river and some soap? Because I feel like urine would likely attract bears.
4.) BEER PITCHER. When I was a junior in college, there was a bar that had a game called “bladder busters” at this pizza place downtown (See: a game not made for boys.)
You paid $5 to get in, and you had unlimited supply of the bar’s keg until someone who paid the $5 either went to the bathroom or left the bar. Then, the unlimited supply would be null and void for everybody. It was a commitment.
Thus, we would all yell at people that went to the bathroom first and we’d yell at the people that left the bar first, most of them on their cell phones to ignore the jeering.
No one wanted to get booed.
One time, my friend Sarah and I were at “bladder busters” night with a group of boys (one of whom she went on two dates with) and we saw one of his friends who was sitting next to me in the booth, hunching over it, oddly talking close to his friend across from him, looking unnatural.
“Uh, what’s up, weirdo?” we teased.
“Shhhhh,” he said. “I’m peeing. In the pitcher.”
“WHAT!” I looked to the right at him, and DOWN, in AWE and saw he was serious, and turned my head as he pulled the beer OF PEE from under the table and put the pitcher on the table.
It was more than halfway filled and it looked exactly like beer. Bubbles and everything.
Sarah and I stared at It.
My eyes widened, and Sarah made gagging sounds and we finished our glasses and left the bar. (Peeing in a pitcher? That’s disgusting.)
We definitely got booed for leaving, but I didn’t hear anything, since I was thinking the whole time about what percentage likely it was that the pitcher Sarah and I had been drinking out of had previously had BOY PEE in it.
And, even though the guy who Sarah was dating wasn’t the one who had actually peed in the pitcher, she was completely turned off, so she booed him never called him again.
- Jenny
To solve the problem, they put urinal cakes with a BULLSEYE on the center of it into the bowl, and, prolem solved.
It turns out drunk guys need something to aim at.
(seriously.)
Now, I’m not going to act like I’ve never been drunk and peed where I shouldn’t -- like squatting between cars (uh, waaay down the block) from a Mardi Gras parade -- but I’ve never peed somewhere odd.
Like onto my shoes. Or into a trash can.
Or on my significant others’ laundry pile.
But boys are…special. And when some of them get drunk, they have problems figuring out where the indoor plumbing is.
I’m not talking about being drunk and being outside and peeing on a fence (like during kickball or someone’s Christmas Oyster Roast...uh, for example);
I’m talking about the type of drunk boys who get out of bed in the middle of the night and decide the couch is the best place to take a leak.
I’m sure there's a psychology book about why boys don’t pee in the right place, and according to my friends who have male children (thanks Facebook!) boys are super stubborn about pee pee-ing in the potty from the start. More than girls.
My advice: put Cheerios in the training bowl and tell them to aim. It worked in Australia.
This "drunk boy peeing in odd places" is more common than you might think.
Below are the top toolbag peeing stories I’ve ever heard and one, witnessed.
(P.S. When questioned the following day, none of them had a good answer for their behavior.)
1.) TRASH CAN. I didn’t think my roommate’s boyfriend, Jesse, would ever wake up from his drunk stupor, considering we had to literally carry his lifeless body up two flights of stairs.
But he made his way out of his girlfriend’s bed hours later, went into the bathroom and peed into the trash can that was RIGHT NEXT to the toilet.
He literally aimed less than a foot to the left of the toilet rather than into the toilet.
He then proceeded to walk in our OTHER roommate’s bedroom, and jumped into bed with her. She woke up and yelled at him, and then he got out of bed and yelled for his girlfriend, and I was the one who noticed that he had peed in the trashcan and his girlfriend/my roommate had to wipe up the pee splatters.
2.) HOTEL ROOM. Hotel rooms are probably way more disgusting than any of us realize (and I’ve envisioned how disgusting they are, because I get bored.) So it didn’t help that my friend Laura’s boyfriend, Randy, got out of bed during their weekend getaway and peed right on top of his boots that were in the corner of the room.
They had both been drinking the night before at a concert and she woke up to an odd “streaming”-like sound, and saw him aiming at the corner near the floral couch.
“Randy! What are you doing??” she screamed.
“Huuh?” was all he could manage, his leather boots saturated.
Laura dragged walked him, haha bottomless, to the bathroom and “pointed” him at the toilet, but he was all done by then.
“And, those were the only shoes he brought that weekend!” Laura laughed. “Haha. Dumbass.”
3.) LAUNDRY. Louis was a big camper, and Alice was really excited to sleep in a tent and look at the stars and make s’mores with him.
Not so much camping fun? Waking up to Louis, DRUNK, PEEING all over their clothes inside the tent. Both of their clothes. (He didn’t even leave the tent to pee, y’all. That’s laziness right there.)
I didn’t even ask Alice what they did about dressing for the rest of the trip. Perhaps they found a nice river and some soap? Because I feel like urine would likely attract bears.
4.) BEER PITCHER. When I was a junior in college, there was a bar that had a game called “bladder busters” at this pizza place downtown (See: a game not made for boys.)
You paid $5 to get in, and you had unlimited supply of the bar’s keg until someone who paid the $5 either went to the bathroom or left the bar. Then, the unlimited supply would be null and void for everybody. It was a commitment.
Thus, we would all yell at people that went to the bathroom first and we’d yell at the people that left the bar first, most of them on their cell phones to ignore the jeering.
No one wanted to get booed.
One time, my friend Sarah and I were at “bladder busters” night with a group of boys (one of whom she went on two dates with) and we saw one of his friends who was sitting next to me in the booth, hunching over it, oddly talking close to his friend across from him, looking unnatural.
“Uh, what’s up, weirdo?” we teased.
“Shhhhh,” he said. “I’m peeing. In the pitcher.”
“WHAT!” I looked to the right at him, and DOWN, in AWE and saw he was serious, and turned my head as he pulled the beer OF PEE from under the table and put the pitcher on the table.
It was more than halfway filled and it looked exactly like beer. Bubbles and everything.
Sarah and I stared at It.
My eyes widened, and Sarah made gagging sounds and we finished our glasses and left the bar. (Peeing in a pitcher? That’s disgusting.)
We definitely got booed for leaving, but I didn’t hear anything, since I was thinking the whole time about what percentage likely it was that the pitcher Sarah and I had been drinking out of had previously had BOY PEE in it.
And, even though the guy who Sarah was dating wasn’t the one who had actually peed in the pitcher, she was completely turned off, so she booed him never called him again.
- Jenny
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