A Terrible Night I Recently Had

Gather round folks, cause I need to vent a little bit.

It all started a few weeks or so ago, when I noticed the bottom buttons on my phone stopped working. This prevented my phone from being able to do things like "make calls" or "do anything". I know with android devices you can root them and customize them, and if I really wanted to, I could've worked around not having the functionality of those four buttons, but fuck that I was under warranty and also lazy so GIMME A NEW ONE.

I braced myself for awfulness, because despite how simple you expect it should be, it never seems to be as easy as:

Me: Hey my phone's broken.

Rep: Terribly sorry about that, we'll send you a new one!

*new one arrives a day later*

Me: Hey thanks, it works great!

Rep: You're welcome, can I interest you in some potpourri?

etc..

So in an effort to get a replacement phone, I sent a message to the cell phone company's customer service, telling them about my problem. I waited somberly.

A day later, I got a message saying "Hey did you try all this obvious shit that has never fixed anything ever?" I politely responded with something like "Yes, I turned it off, and back on, and it's still broken," expecting to go back and forth for days with someone that had no common sense, and who was probably reading from a script. But impressively, fairly shortly after my initial response, I guess whoever was in customer service was like "fuck it let's just skip steps 2 through 8 and just give this guy a new phone." And for that, I was very appreciative. They told me they would overnight me a new phone, with the stipulation that I return the broken one within 14 days. Wow! This was actually going great! Ha ha HAAAA!!

My first mistake was telling them to deliver it where I lived. Silly me right?! Their first attempt to deliver it was at around 12:30pm on a Tuesday. Because I was not one of the probably 8 people on earth that are normally home at that time, I did not receive it that day. I figured "hey, they'll probably try at a different time tomorrow and my roommate will probably be home if I'm not. The next day they tried to deliver at about 3:30pm, but my roommate's job was like "HEY EVERYONE LET'S HAVE A MEETING TODAY OF OUT FUCKING NOWHERE FOR SOME REASON!" So once again, despite him normally being home at 3:30, the fates would not allow delivery on this day either. Whatever, I'm sure the 3rd time's the charm right? Well, you are far too optimistic, anonymous reader.

So on the 3rd day, I returned home to see a delivery slip that shows they tried at about 1pm, and this was their final delivery attempt! RAAGE! But! The slip said they would hang onto it for 2 days at a holding center, and I could pick it up after 5pm if I brought the slip and a photo ID. I was ready for a bike ride, so I checked the website to make sure it was actually at the holding center before setting off. It said something vague like "it's on a truck" which is basically like saying "it exists." I refreshed the page endlessly until about 6:45 (so I guess not endlessly), and it finally said it had arrived at the holding center. Good thing I didn't just go "after 5 pm!" Unfortunately, this holding center was in the midst of East New York. Where is that? Let me show you a little map. I did not create this map, and although it's a little outdated, I think it basically tells you what you need to know:

See that "don't even think" portion? YUP! The holding center is located even farther south than that arrow is pointing. I don't mean to cast aspersions on East New York, but suffice it to say, I wasn't very excited about biking a couple miles into this area. Hey, but at least in waiting for the fedex website to update, it had gotten nice and dark!

So I ventured forth on my serendipitous journey. Surely vast and untold treasures awaited. 

I hopped onto my bike and plunged into the darkness. Keep in mind, because my phone didn't really work, I could not rely on GPS to guide me. I had to resort to the antiquated employment of pen and paper. 

"Instruct carriage driver to turn right at first cow path."

The ride itself was fairly uneventful, aside from riding past a fresh car accident, and the annoying discovery that this neighborhood didn't really see street signs as a necessity. See, I had written down which streets I needed to turn onto, but failed to include extra landmarks. You know like "turn onto main st, and if you reach smith st, you missed your turn." So I would ride for awhile, and then come upon what may have been my turn, only to notice that there was no sign indicating what street this was fucking ANYWHERE. I had to improv it a bit, taking a couple wrong turns, eventually figuring out which street I was on at the next intersection, and doubling back. Eventually I arrived at the fedex holding center. This is what it looked like:

Ok, maybe just what it felt like..

Once I got up to the counter, I showed the guy my slip, and a photo ID, you know, like it said, right on the slip. He asked "do you have a proof of address?" I said "well, no..the slip said I needed to bring just this, and a photo ID." He gave me a shitty look, like a shitty asshole, and with a shitty tone said "It's our policy to get proof of address for certain items as well." I tried to remain polite and said "Oh sorry, I didn't notice that, where does it say that I needed that? I would've brought some if I'd noticed." To be fair, he could probably tell I was being passive aggressive as fuck, and that my tone was only very minimally sheathing what I was thinking, namely "OH YEAH? SHOW ME WHERE IT SAYS THAT DIPSHIT." He paused, still with a shitty look and shittily said "I'm just telling you for future reference, so just remember to bring it next time. I'll release it to you this one time though." I wanted to launch into a tirade something along the lines of "Good! You fucking better! I brought exactly what your note told me to bring so don't fuck with me!" but figured that wouldn't help me get my package. He returned with my phone, still being all shitty, and I signed for it and left. In keeping with the night's events, more misfortune followed. The phone came in a box much bigger than was necessary, and I realized "hmm, I didn't bring a backpack, how am I going to carry this?" God I'm an idiot sometimes. 

First I tried riding the bike with one hand, while balancing the box in the other. I rode about 4 feet before realizing this would most likely end in my death. So then I managed to awkwardly stuff the box into my coat, only it wouldn't really stay put unless I rode my bike like I imagine Quasimodo would. This was not ideal, but it would have to do. 

And now began the journey back home. 

I have a pretty bad sense of direction. If it's more than 3 turns, I'll probably get lost. Again, my phone didn't really work, so I had to read my written directions in reverse, but adjust a bit because I didn't want to bike the wrong way down narrow one way streets. Why didn't I write a second set of instructions for the way back, since I would need to find a slightly different return route? BECAUSE MY QUILL PEN RAN OUT OF INK. No, actually because...fuck you.

Anyway, I figured this wouldn't be too big of a deal, so I set forth, mostly relieved that my sojourn was almost over. 

My inner monologue at this point was something like "LALA I DON'T CARE WHAT HAPPENS EVER I'M LEAVING THIS TERRIBLE PLACE LALALALA" and to make things even BETTER, at one of the intersections I happened to glance down, probably to avoid a legendary pothole, and found $5! No way right?! I crammed the $5 into my back pocket, pretty satisfied with my life up to this point, and even decided to bike the wrong way down a one way street! Who cares if I wasn't supposed to, I had a new phone and $5, so I was basically indestructible! I wondered what I would buy with my $5. Ice cream? Beer? Beer? I rode a few more blocks, but couldn't remember what street I was looking for next, so I grabbed my directions, confirmed my route, and then stuffed the directions back into the same back pocket with the $5. Only what's this? This pocket feels a bit empty..oh god no. 

NO!

My keys! My keys were gone! I felt probably about as close to getting covered with diarrhea as you can get without actually being covered with diarrhea. I thought about what was on my keychain. Could I go without these keys? Maybe.. I had my 2 apartment keys, a mailbox key, a bike lock key, a drum key, and a practice room key. Most of those were replaceable. But oh, I also had a little tag on my keys with my address on them that I got when I first moved in, that I never bothered to remove. So great! If I didn't find my keys, some random asshole in one of the worst neighborhoods in brooklyn could stumble upon them, and know exactly which building they would unlock! Awesome!!!!

Sleep tight!

I figured I had dropped my keys when I found that $5. The lord giveth, and the lord taketh away indeed. So after a few minutes of going over my options, I resigned myself to the fact that basically I had 2. Go back and look for my keys, or don't. The good thing was, if anyone felt like giving me shit, I was on a bike, and they would have to be a really determined crazy person to catch up with me. I liked my chances, and biked back into the depths of human dissatisfaction. 

Of course now, I was all turned around. One state of mind that is very much not conducive to good memory is "violent rage" which is basically what I was feeling. I started to play out the possible end to the night's events in my head, willing to subject myself to the possibility of utter despair as long as there was an equal chance of jubilation. I biked back to where I thought I had found the $5, only to think "wait, is this actually where I found the $5?" Apparently my lust for riches had blinded me to my surroundings, and I could no longer remember at which intersection I had discovered my fortune. So now I had to bike around the whole neighborhood, GPS-less, angry, and growing more and more upset by the minute that chancing upon this $5 had sparked this most unfortunate chain of events. After looking at a couple spots I thought might've been where I'd lost the keys, and failing to find them, I threw up my arms in exasperation. I decided to bike almost all the way back to the fedex holding center, and retrace my route entirely. 

This was perfect, because I wanted to bike around this neighborhood as long as possible. 

The whole search was basically uneventful, which was good and bad. Good, because it meant I didn't get mugged or anything, and bad, because it also meant that I never found my keys. I had been over every intersection multiple times, and figured that either someone had already picked up my keys, they had fallen into a sewer drain, or I just hadn't spotted them. If I just hadn't spotted them, then I never would, because I couldn't spend the entire night searching. I frustratedly biked all the way back home, buzzed back into the apartment, vented, and drank copious amounts of alcohol. But at least now I could activate my new phone! 

Here's how the activation process went.

Me: Ok it says here to just turn the phone on and follow the steps. Ok, *turns on*. Ok, looks like it's connecting to the network. 

Phone: No!

Me: Ok, hmm, it's not connecting to the network. Guess I'll try again.

Phone: No!

Me: Dammit, something's wrong. OF COURSE. *cancel*. Guess I'll just call customer service with this phone to see what I need to do. Usually they'll allow you to at least call that number.

Phone: No!

Me: ...it won't even call customer service?! Ok, I guess I'll take this apart, put the battery back in my old phone, and try on that one. 

Other Phone: No!

Me: WHAT? THIS PHONE ISN'T WORKING EITHER?!?! Spence, can I borrow your phone? 

Spence: Sure.

Me: *Dials customer service* 

Rep: Hi thank you for calling your customer service center, my name is whatever, and I'm just so happy to be taking your call right now, I would love to assist you with whatever problem you are having, but first, I would like to..

Me: SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO MY PROBLEM.

Rep: ...

Me: My old phone broke, so you folks mailed me a new one, and it's not activating properly.

Rep: LOL DID YOU TRY TURNING IT ON.

Me: ...DON'T FUCK WITH ME.

Rep: Ok, let me look at your records here *beep boop boop* OH! It looks like we forgot to do the thingy that we needed to do to make the new phone work! Let me just press a few buttons here, *beep boop boop*....There! Ok, try again, it should work normally!

Me: *sigh*...ok thank you!

Rep: LOL YOU'RE SO WELCOME THANK YOU FOR CALLING THE CUSTOMER SERVICE CENTER WITH YOUR ISSUES, I'M GLAD WE WERE ABLE TO ASSIST, PLEASE CALL US BACK WITH ANY OF YOUR ISSUES! IF YOU--

Me: *click*..ok, let's try this again.

Phone: No!

Me: !#%(*#^$@

Phone: ....wait....ok.

Me: AAAHAHAHAHAHA HALLELUJAH!!! 

So to celebrate, I drank some more alcohol, and rejoiced. By then I was ready to go to bed, so I triumphantly walked back into my room, and collapsed onto my chair.

And there,

On my desk,

Were my keys. 

Still More Public Transit Gripes

HEY WHO DOESN'T LOVE COMPLAINING AMIRITE?! Seriously though, when you ride the trains for hours every week, you can't help but pick up on more and more irritating things about it. I've bitched before, and now I'm going to bitch some more. That's probably the last time I will rhyme in this post.

Toast!

Ok, actually done now. 


Passenger Indecisiveness
Often times on the train there is no place to sit. Duh. So when you wrestle your way onto a crowded train, and navigate the jungle of not paying attention passengers until you find a comfortable place to stand, you feel like a hero. A hero that has earned the right to ignore everyone, and pretend they are not in a cramped smelly shit wagon. Hahah, what a foolish hero. Next stop, the doors open, passengers flood in, and everyone simultaneously realizes their favorite spot on the train is on the other side of you. For the next five minutes you're all

because no matter how much time passes, if you don't stay vigilant, you'll hear "excuse me" from someone that has to peruse the entire subway car for the perfect fucking spot. Occasionally you'll have to lean into an uncomfortable position to let this person pass, and despite hoping you were only briefly going to become a contortionist, this person will annoyingly linger in what was only supposed to be a temporary void. 


Connecting Train Bullshit
Let's start this one with the most obvious statement in the history of the universe: Sometimes trains don't run on time. Now let's add the fact that there are lots of popular travel hubs throughout cities, where people will transfer to different trains. Put these two together and you get the inconvenient fact that to keep passengers happy, if a train pulls into a station 30 seconds ahead of a popular connecting train, it should probably wait for the other one to arrive so that people can quickly make their transfer and go about their days, lest the people on the arriving train miss the connection, and have to wait on the stupid platform for another god damned 8 minutes.


I have frequently been on the shit end of this situation. The train is cruising along, and I'm miraculously only a couple minutes late probably. We pull into a station, and just when the doors should close, suddenly "hold on folks, we're waiting for a connecting train!" 

But I bear it, because I know if the train were to leave, my on time-ness would be at the expense of hundreds of other peoples' lateness. 

But wait!

Then we pull into the next station, where I need to make my transfer.

And my connecting train is pulling out of the station.

Whaaattttt?!

YOU COULDN'T WAIT 5 FUCKING SECONDS?! I don't get it.

The Turnstyles are at Crotch Level.
This is more of a personal gripe. I'm at the perfect height and proportion that if I want to race through the turnstyle in a hurry, I'm going to collide with it exactly at ball sack level.

For the French speakers.

No dammit. I've got places to be. My haste shouldn't be interrupted because of this unfortunate testicular happenstance. 

Screaming Babies

"Yes! I made the train, phew! Now to hopefully ride in silence!" -You. Haha, you fucking idiot. 

Nobody hates babies, but everybody hates screaming babies, which is too bad, because when a baby is on a train, they struggle to make sense of this strange room full of strangers rocketing through the earth to points unknown. All they can think is "Hmm, guess I should probably scream about this."

"SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM. I LOVE TO SCREAM"

And sometimes they sound truly horrifying. It's like the world's worst sound passed through the world's loudest amplifier, except it only amplifies the worst part of the sound.

Plus, they occupy that unfortunate space where a rational person has nothing to be mad at. You can't be angry at the baby, cause that's what they do. They eat, shit, and cry. You can't be mad at the parent, because look at them trying to comfort the baby. They don't want their baby to cry any more than you. Who else is there to be mad at? Society, for fostering an environment where babies aren't placated 100% of the time and therefore would have no reason to cry ever? That's dumb. You're dumb.

So again, you bear it. Except in the case of the neglectful parent that's basically making no effort to calm their child. What's the matter with you? Can we all get permission to smack these people? Well, the baby was already screaming, and now someone's attacking their parent, I guess that won't make them stop crying. 

Wait, I know! Train clowns.

Haha. 

Old Shitty Science Projects of Mine

I think most of you know me as a man of science. I tend to be (sometimes annoyingly) analytical, logical, emotionless, etc.. So it may come as a surprise that although I thoroughly respect the scientific method and and its contributions to technology and society as a whole, I'm pretty fucking awful at it myself. I remember three science projects from my junior high and high school days, and I don't know which one to feel more ashamed of. I will now describe them to you in as much detail as I can remember.


Grade 6 Science Fair


To be fair I was still pretty new to the whole "science" thing at this point, and although I considered myself relatively bright for my age, the concepts of "hypothesis, experiment, and conclusion" were kind of lost on me. 


"So wait, you want me to ask a question, make up an answer, and then see if I'm right? Why don't I just look that shit up in a book?" I thought. 


"Well this could be something you maybe haven't found or can't find in a book. Something you've been curious about that you can play around with. Science is fun!" A teacher would answer. 


I then thought to myself "If I can't find something in a book it's probably because nobody gives a shit about it. But whatever, I'll do your fucking science."


I probably had a month or so to do this project, which for a sixth grader roughly translates to "you will never have to do this." But suddenly, the science fair was a few days away and I hadn't done shit, so I furiously racked my brain to come up with some bullshit I could test. I settled on, "What happens when you put different shit in cat litter?" Because fuck it, I had two cats, and therefore cat litter, and it seemed like something nobody else would ever think of because it's probably the least important thing there is.

The Experiment 


Step 1: Grab 3 different fruit peels and put them in 3 different buckets of cat litter.


Step 2: Leave one of each peel in regular dirt as the "control"


Step 3: Hate yourself.


The Hypothesis
The fruit peels in the cat litter won't decompose as fast.


So I threw some fruit in some cat litter and forgot about it. A couple days later, with no excitement whatsoever, I checked the results. The fruit peels in the cat litter were all dried out. The fruit peels in the dirt were all wet and gross and smelled terrible.


Conclusion
This was a waste of time.


I presented my findings to a jury of my peers, detailing how "cat litter absorbs shit, and dries it out, effectively reducing the smell of rotting fruit the same way it does for cat piss." Nobody, including the teacher, gave a shit, and I got an A+.

Grade 8 Science Fair
Sorry to skip grade 7, I have no idea what I did that year. But hey grade 8, I was a whole 2 years smarter so probably came up with something really great right? Nope. I think I procrastinated even more this year. I found myself with probably less than 36 hours before I had to present shit and realized I couldn't sit around and wait for science to happen, I had to make the science quickly. I had no idea what to do. Well, I was really cool and had a rock collection, so I figured I could include that somehow and maybe get bonus points for geology or whatever. Also, that night we happened to be cooking some food on a little gas grill on the porch. So I settled on the scientific query, "What happens when you cook rocks?"


Seriously.


The Experiment
Pretty straightforward really. I would find a bunch of different rocks from my awesome collection, throw them on the grill for an hour or so, and see what happened. I don't even know what I used for a control. Uncooked rocks probably.


The Hypothesis
I don't know, they would get hot?


So I started the experiment, while my parents probably thought to themselves "wow let's go inside." I waited. I thought maybe something cool would happen to some of the softer looking rocks, but after an hour they looked pretty much the same so I just left them there and did something else because maybe they were shy or something.


Well I came back much later, and one of the rocks was kind of black underneath, but another one had broken in half!

Phew, something to write about.


Conclusion
I basically wrote in the fanciest scientific language I could muster, that nothing much happened. I made up some shit about chemical reactions causing color changes and probably mentioned kinetic energy because I had just learned that word, and called it a day. The teacher wasn't very impressed, but I got a B.


Sophomore Year Biology
This year was more textbook based, and didn't include a whole lot of free experimenting, but there was one project that involved living like a zoologist. This was exciting in theory. We got to pick two animals, one vertebrate, and one invertebrate, and we would observe each one for three separate sessions of ten minutes each. The idea was to watch them in their habitats, and to not interfere with their behavior, and record everything they do for some reason. Here was an opportunity to go out into the world, and do some real field work! Haha fuck that!


I, along with probably half the class, chose to watch a cat, and an ant. The teacher's face as we all announced our choices got visibly more upset. In my defense, the cat was a given for the vertebrate, because I wasn't about to drive to a zoo. And for the invertebrate, what else was I gonna do? Buy a lobster and watch that? Find some other bug that is functionally identical to an ant? Find a flying bug and inevitably lose track of it? Watch a...clam? Oh well, let the observation commence. 


Cat Observations
Sure, cats can be funny sometimes, but that's usually only if you fuck with them. For the purposes of this project, we weren't to interfere. As it turns out, when you just let your cat do its thing, its number one priority is to be not exciting. Over the course of those three ten minute sessions my cat did a whole fat load of fuck all. One session in particular I remember quite well. My cat was outside and walked over and sat on a stump. I watched it from a window in my garage, so as to not affect the science, and started the timer. The only thing he did in the whole ten minutes was turn his head I think once. After these sessions, I stared at my mostly blank notepad and thought the only logical thing: "I'm gonna make some shit up."


So I calculatingly wrote down some cat like activities, being careful not to make it too flashy or too boring. Fairly satisfied, but a little uncomfortable that I just faked an entire log of cat endeavors, I took a break, not at all excited to soon observe an ant, which could not possibly be any less boring.


Ant Observations
I (surprise!) ended up procrastinating a bit for this one. Then with probably a day left or so I remembered "Oh yeah I have to find an ant and watch what it does." So, I walked around my house not looking very hard for an ant. I predictably wasn't having much luck. At this point it was time for some self reflection. I wasn't sure which would be sadder, watching an ant for thirty minutes, or lying about watching an ant for thirty minutes. I decided that the world was a cold and unforgiving place to make me choose between the two, and ultimately decided to do the only logical thing: "I'm gonna make some shit up."


I was able to come up with several ant-like activities such as "walking" and "just standing there" totally on my own from memory. However, it became tiring to make up thirty minutes of unique yet not totally fake ant activities. I slogged through two "observations" and wondered how I could escape from writing pretty much the same old shit in the third one. I decided to boldly end this ant's tale with murder. I thought "how funny would it be if while watching the ant the cat came by and killed it?" So that's exactly what happened to this make believe ant in this project. RIP my imaginary insect friend. 


Conclusion
I don't think we had to present our findings, because if the entire class had to sit through shit like "My cat ate some food" over and over, we probably would have shit into our own hands and smeared it all over the chalkboard. I don't remember what grade I got on this project but after bullshitting an hour's worth of observations I guess any grade that's not an F was a win for me. 






So, what have I learned from science classes over the years? I realized "you can easily get away with procrastinating", "bullshitting is surprisingly easy" and "two days is basically enough time to turn anything into science" but most importantly "I will never be a scientist ever." 

Skateboarding. That is All.

You probably aren't wondering why I started skateboarding. Well, my bike had been stolen a couple years before, and I wasn't ready to go through that shit again, so I decided to find a new mode of transportation. One that might give me tons of chicks (nope). Enter skateboarding.

Oh hi.

After getting used to using words like "gnarly" and "stoked" unironically, I was ready to undertake what was to become a constant uphill battle.


At first I practiced on friends' boards. A decent board is kind of expensive so I figured I'd mooch off of others for awhile while I decided if this whole endeavor was worth it or not. Admirable, I know. I eventually got to the point where I could skate several feet without getting injured, so I was hooked. As far as some fancy ass tricks, I figured I'd start at the beginning with, the ollie.

Speaking of ollie, what a god damn weird show this was.

Well, while trying to figure out the most fundamental trick, I discovered something kind of bothersome about skateboarding: falling.


Yes sir, for those first several months I spent as much time skateboarding as I spent sitting near a skateboard shortly after falling off of it. But like any endeavor, if it doesn't make you severely handicapped or kill you, chances are you'll start to get better, and I did. After those first few months, I might've even looked like a competent skateboarder,  providing you were watching from a distance, and need glasses, but forgot to wear your glasses that day.


At this point, brother Mike had noticed that I was getting somewhat serious about skateboarding and just fucking went to the store and bought me one. It wasn't a professional board by any means, but you know what? I wasn't a professional. THANKS MIKE!!

• Tangent! This brings to mind an incident I remember about playing drums. My first drumset was secondhand, and of course after just a few months I wanted a one million dollar drumset so I tried to make excuses about how the quality of the set was interfering with my destiny. My dad said something along the lines of "well, I'm sure a professional could sit down at the drums you have now and blow you away, so don't worry about getting a new one just yet." Thinking back, I'm amazed he managed to say anything other than "shut up son".

Alright, tangent achieved.


So at this point I had taken up skating with a few friends that were equally not very good, and it was a great time. We could all do some simple tricks, so I had fantasies of soon becoming capable of this:

Even though all I was currently capable of was this:

Little by little we all steadily progressed. We were finally able to fall in such a way that it only took several hours to recover rather than several days. We even got to the point where we could go to local skate parks and less frequently think "wow, everyone here is so much better than me."


Years later we all got fairly decent. Each of us had our occasional moment in the sun, those days where out of nowhere one of us was suddenly capable of greatness. But for some reason, it never lasted. After throwing ourselves down a giant set of stairs one day, we consistently failed at a set half the size the next. After doing a kickflip off a giant ledge one day, we could barely manage to do it on flat ground the next. This constant up and down struggle was frustrating, but we just kept at it, and at the start of each day we would wonder "is this gonna be a good day or a bad one?" because you just never knew. And oh boy some of those bad days were very bad. Let's talk about a couple of the worst injuries shall we?


Fairly early on in the game, I was having one of those confident days. I was still on the skateboard brother Mike had gotten me. I probably hadn't fallen for fifteen minutes or something so I got cocky and thought "I'm gonna ride down one of the steepest hills in town!" I don't know why I felt so stupidly confident, it probably had something to do with my friends watching, but I even gathered speed before going down the hill. About halfway through I thought "ahhhh fuck" and just waited to fall horribly.

I knew it was going to happen. I was going way too fast to jump off and hit the ground running, so I just had to wait and cling to the .0000001% chance that I would make it to the bottom unscathed. Nope. Sure enough, I got speed wobble and slammed into the ground. If you've never experienced speed wobble, don't. It felt like falling out of a car.


..not a parked car. Like, a moving car. One moving the same speed that I had been going on my skateboard. Why did I include this hypothetical car?


So, I severely gashed both elbows, knees, and my back, but apparently after tumbling several times, I'm told I popped right back up onto my feet. I don't remember doing that, but I guess it's good that I did, so my friends didn't have to spend more than a second thinking "well, our friend is now dead." After this injury I should've just taken a break from skating for awhile, but about a week later I was walking somewhat normally again and figured I was good to go so I tried to ollie a cinder block and my knee hit the cinder block and oh god it was horrible.


Next! One day I was skating at colby college with a few folks, and we hit a favorite spot of ours, a long set of 5 stairs. I had gotten pretty good at launching myself down these stairs without bailing, so now the only thing to do was to try to do it while going faster.

Once again, my confidence made me complacent and I didn't pay attention to what I was doing. A good rule of thumb when it comes to weight distribution is to err towards the back foot. Why is this? Imagine riding a bike. What happens when you slam on the rear tire breaks? You skid along safely. What happens when you slam on the front tire breaks? You flip over the handlebars and slam your dumbass face on the ground. Well, I forgot that rule, and tried to stick a landing when leaning a bit too far forward. I landed on a rock and my board stopped dead in its tracks. Face smash!


Haha, no not really, but to prevent from smashing my face, I had to smash basically the rest of my body. It was a little chilly out, so it didn't really hurt at the time, but once I got back inside and my circulation returned it felt like I was being stabbed everywhere for hours.


All things considered, I've done pretty well to not mangle myself. I still ride these days, but I use it mostly as a mode of horribly inefficient transportation, rather than a ramp conquering sex chariot. I'll probably continue to ride it until my legs give out, and I look forward to the injuries to come. 

I'm Sorry, Enormous Stranger

Here's another story from back in the day that I may have shared with some of you. It's another one of those situations where I had no idea what the fuck to do, and to this day, I'm not sure if I could've handled it any better.

It all started back in college after a percussion lesson. I was playing a piece that required a certain sound that I just couldn't seem to get with the mallets I had at my disposal. I spent some time with my teacher going over some different choices, but we were both ultimately unsatisfied. Near the end of the lesson my teacher suggested that some mallets I had might sound ok if they had some thin rubber sheathing over them. I politely responded with "What? Where the fuck am I going to get that shit?" 

Well apparently a good place to check was the chemistry department, where they would hopefully have some rubber or plastic surgical tubing that was the right size to slip over the end of the mallet. If you haven't thought "well this sounds fairly sexual" by now, then clearly I'm not doing a very good job. 

Anyway, off I went to Aubert hall, which incidentally I had been pronouncing incorrectly all throughout college. I assumed it was pronounced "aw-bert", until my teacher was all

and told me it's pronounced 'au-bear'. 

Since it was the home of the chemistry department, and I was a music major, I had obviously never gone anywhere near the place. It was big as fuck, and the moment I stepped inside I had no idea where to go. There was no "surgical tubing this way" sign, so I had no choice but to ask strangers "hey do you know where I can find some uh...surgical tubing?" This was met with mostly "no." Or just a confused face. Something like..

I assumed most people in there would at least be able to point me in the right direction and help me narrow my search, but apparently the whereabouts of surgical tubing was some giant fucking secret. I eventually got some vague answer like "uh 3rd floor maybe?" and was somewhat relieved, but also a little irritated because who knows what further tribulations I would have to endure for two measly pieces of plastic if step one already took about forty times longer than expected.

GOD DAMMIT

Then, to even get to the 3rd floor meant even more bullshit because it was one of those buildings where certain elevators only went to the 2nd floor, and if you get off there expecting to maybe find stairs to the 3rd floor then fuck you because the only stairs on the 2nd floor go down, but then you can't get off at the 1st floor to start over using those stairs, because those stairs led only to "basement level C" or some other endless crypt. So back to the elevator. 

After finding the mythical 3rd floor, I had to hop around into various rooms and once again ask strangers, "does anybody know where I can get some fucking surgical tubing for christ's sake?" A few people responded with "what do you need it for?" See usually this means "yes I know where it is, but you have to give me a valid reason for using it before I'll give it to you" but instead they would listen to my story about mallets and end up telling me "ok, well that might be down the hall? I'm not sure!" Good. Well then I'm glad I regaled you with my tale for nothing.

I finally ended up finding a TA that told me where I could find some tubing, but after hearing what I needed it for, he told me they probably didn't have the right size. AWESOME. Well, I checked it out anyway, and sauntered down the hall for hopefully the last time.

Eureka! This room was definitely what I needed. It was a giant lab/warehouse looking room with boxes of shit fucking EVERYWHERE. Still didn't know exactly where to find the tubing I needed so I asked the only guy in the room. 

This guy, by the way, was huge. HUGE. He had to have been pushing 400 pounds. 

I told him what I was looking for and he expressed the same nonoptimistic sentiment as the TA in the previous room, and showed me one of the sizes of tubing they had. I told him it was probably too small. He said "well we have one size bigger, but I still don't think it's what you're looking for." I asked him if he wouldn't mind showing me anyway because hell I'd pretty much gone on safari to find this stupid room. He pointed to where it was and said "well, we might need a ladder." 

Sure enough it was stacked several feet off the ground on top of all kinds of boxes. We glanced around for a ladder, but couldn't find one. Then he saw a little metal stool and said "oh, well this should work." I said "...are you sure?"

I think you see where this is going.

This stool's structural integrity was dubious at best. But the guy approached it with a confidence that suggested he had no scruples about its ability to support his utter massiveness. 

I will now demonstrate my reactions to the situation as it developed, using owls: 

He climbed on and stretched his arms up to grab the coil of tubing at the top of the pile.

His balance wavered.

He regained his composure and stretched again.

The stool creaked.

He had the surgical tubing in his hand!

His balanced wavered again...

And the stool gave out. 

He crashed thunderously to the ground with a force felt by probably most of his ancestors. This. Guy. Fell. HARD.

He groaned slightly and I was immediately psyched that he was still alive. I rushed over to him and asked "Oh jesus, are you ok!?"

He seemed calm, but his answer was "No." 

He looked down. I followed suit, and glanced at his feet, which had maybe just taken more brute trauma than any feet in the history of humans. The sight was unpleasant.

Picture a foot. Now picture that foot upside down. Now picture the person attached to the foot not being upside down. I imagine this guy was in shock, as there was no reason he had to not being screaming like a completely psychotic individual. 

Despite the horror of the situation, the thought occurred to me, how to test the pile of tubing that had collapsed by his side without it being weird? But before I had time to give that much thought, the TA from down the hall had apparently heard the crash, along with probably the rest of the University of Maine, and had come to investigate. He immediately took action and called an ambulance. Hmm, guess I should've done that. 

So there we were. I was standing by being not all that helpful while the TA attempted to calm the fallen man, even though the TA seemed much more hysterical (seriously this guy's ankle was ruined). I had no idea what to do. I had resigned myself to not really testing the surgical tubing, as it seemed like the less important of two issues at the moment. But then, what the fuck was I going to do? The ambulance had been called. This guy was clearly suffering, and I felt horrible, but he was in stable condition, and being looked over. I thought about sticking it out until the ambulance got there, but then didn't really know what purpose I'd serve other than to confirm to the paramedic "yup, he fell." This guy didn't even seem comfortable with this TA all up in his face, so I didn't want to add to that. Plus, because this whole ordeal had taken a lot longer than I expected, I was almost late for class. 

So, I was stuck. I realized that leaving was probably the wrong thing to do. I was obviously partly responsible for this accident, so I guess I felt like I should see this thing through to the end. But then several minutes passed, the ambulance hadn't arrived, I felt awkward as fuck, and nobody was talking to each other. I finally asked the guy something generic like "hey man, are you gonna be alright?" and he responded with something equally generic like "yeah, I'll be fine". I apologized profusely, and he brushed it off, saying "it's ok, it's ok." Feeling like I couldn't possibly get any more closure than that, I left the room, apologizing once more, and feeling fucking terrible.

That surgical tubing might've been perfect. 

Giving Blood

It's not like giving blood is terribly uncommon, but I'm going to relate to you all my personal experience with it anyway. To those of you that haven't done it, take my story possibly as a warning.

Let's start with a little anatomy lesson. When you give blood, be prepared to sacrifice about half a liter. Is this a lot? If you're an averaged sized person, then no not really. More importantly though, will it fuck you up? Ha ha ha. Foreshadowing.


So I had made my appointment to donate blood one afternoon at the University of Maine. Incidentally, I was the typical lazy college kid, and my daily diet usually went as follows.


8am - Glass of orange juice, maybe.


10am - Nothing.


12am - Snack from the vending machine outside of class, maybe.


2pm - Nothing.


4pm - Small to medium lunch.


6pm - Nothing.


8pm - PUT EVERY CALORIE IN FACE.


This is basically the opposite of what every dietician/nutritionist/doctor will tell you is healthy, but whatever, it was college and I was a young high metabolism garbage disposal of a son of a bitch.


So on this day I had as usual woken up approximately 4 minutes before my first class and left no time for breakfast. Whatever, I felt GREAT. After class I skipped over to the place to give blood, like this:

Any excuse to use this picture.

While waiting to donate, I sat around forever. Then I got pulled into a little cubicle where they asked health related questions, like:

• Do you have AIDS?
• ...Are you sure?
• Have you had sex with anyone that has AIDS?
• Do you have hepatitis, or anything else? *coughAIDS*
• Have you participated in gangbangs/needle sharing/reckless drug use?
• Have you traveled to any countries lately? Specifically ones filled with AIDS?

So after convincing them I was fairly disease free, they tested my blood for proper iron levels by putting it in some liquid suspension and seeing if it floated or not.

 It sank like a fucking rock and I was cleared to go.

My blood.

Now the fun part! I hopped up onto the hospital bed, feeling a little anxious because I was about to watch a giant needle get stuck in my arm. I had never had a giant needle stuck in my arm before. Don't people sometimes faint from this? Is this going to hurt...forever? Well it stung for about a half of a second, and that was that. Phew. 


So at this point my blood was pumping away. After a short period of time, I felt a combination of lightheadedness, which I assume is normal, and extreme glee. I tried not to laugh, because I would have appeared crazy, but it was difficult to maintain my composure while thinking "Haha I am bleeding into a bag. On purpose." I thought if I didn't finish up pretty soon, I was going to look like this:

The whole ordeal lasted several minutes, but then I was done. Crisis averted. Then came some excitement, because you know, snacks.


That's right! To minimize negative effects caused by a sudden drop in blood sugar, they give you a bunch of sugary shit. Makes sense. So there I sat, munch munch, but it wasn't long before I started feeling peculiar. It was a mix of growing lightheadedness and nausea. I thought "eh, this is normal, be cool" but it was getting worse. I started getting nervous, so I pounded some apple juice and slammed down a bunch of cookies. Great plan! Maybe I thought my digestive system was going to distribute this food throughout my entire body immediately instead of digesting over the course of several hours like it usually does. Nope, still getting worse. I was pretty sure I was gonna pass out pretty soon, so I looked for a nearby nurse, hoping I could discreetly mention "hey I'm not feeling too well over here, what should I do?" but they were all busy with other people. Seeing no other option I said to some random dude next to me


"Hey man, I'm feeling dizzy as HELL." 


I'm not sure what I expected him to do about it, but luckily since I had told him at about the same volume as a jet engine, a nurse quickly rushed over to me, put me on a bed with my feet elevated, and put cold packs on my face. I felt fine almost immediately, so I told the nurse "Whoops, false alarm!....K....Bye!" But they wouldn't let me leave until I they were damn sure I was actually fine. Can't have blood donors passing out in the road on the way home I guess.




Fifteen minutes or so went by, which coincided with the first fifteen minutes of my next class. Welp, guess I wasn't going to that! I eventually flagged down a nurse and said "seriously, I'm ok, can I go?" She then looked at me silently for several seconds. I'm still not really sure what she was doing, maybe checking to see if my pupils were dilated or something? Do pupils dilate before fainting? 

So I sat there, waiting for her to you know, speak. Eventually she asked "are you ok?" And I said "...yes, kind of like I just mentioned." 


The nurse finally let me go, so I hopped off the bed and wandered off. I was fairly disoriented and still not feeling great, but I felt good enough to walk home without fear of passing out. Then, I slept. For the rest of my life.


So my story isn't all that unique I suppose, but remember kids, if you're going to donate blood, eat some god damn breakfast, don't be a god damn idiot. Like me.