The Formative Years

Recently I realized "I don't have a time machine." This upset me, because upon looking at pictures of myself in my younger years, I realized having one would definitely come in handy. 


Let's start at the beginning:

Here I am in my super-villain years. I'm smiling like that either because I just played out a world domination scene in my head or saw my reflection and thought "that train on my overalls is fucking awesome." 

Or, I had just finished my masterpiece

I think I was about 7 months old in this picture. See how that blanket is unnaturally ruffled up behind me? That's because my mom is secretly buried within it, holding me up, because I was unable to even sit up under my own power at this point. So maybe that's why I'm cackling. This was the first time I saw the world from the vantage point of "not on my back". But anyway, let's skip ahead a couple years.

Here I am at about 4 years old or so. At this point I still wasn't really dressing myself, so everything was still under control. A fairly normal picture despite the black, soulless eyes. 

Tell me your secrets...

Let's move on to third grade:

Well, this is interesting. Nothing goes with a purple tie dyed shirt like an unzipped gray fleece with a slightly popped collar. I was so ahead of my time fashion-wise, people just didn't understand. If you see any regret in my smile it's because I left my zebra print scarf at home that day. That would've tied the whole ensemble together nicely. 


Onto fourth grade!

Do you guys like my hamburglar costume? They wouldn't let me wear the mask and hat, but I think you get the idea. Also, the solitary button in the middle of the collar is where they hang the inmate number from, but they didn't want that in the picture either. So many restrictions on picture day, jeez. You might not be able to tell, but this was about the time my parents realized "oh god his teeth are growing in all fucked up."


Fifth grade!

Apparently the theme of this picture day was "wear a shirt you will never wear again". Or maybe "look as dumb as possible". I guess someone had a turquoise shirt and thought "this thing doesn't have enough random black stripes." Or maybe it was my rugby uniform, not sure. Look at the collar on this one. Doesn't it look like I'm wearing two shirts? Nope, one. Just setting trends every day of my life back then. A bit of an awkward smile, and I'm going to blame the braces. I seem to remember not being happy when I got these pictures back. Even at the age of 11 I realized how much I looked like an idiot. 


Sixth Grade!

Look at that handsome son of a bitch. Not merely content to wear one shirt, I decided to sew two shirts together I guess. I don't know what made me so happy that day. Well yes actually, I do. It must've been the shirt. Is that suede? The only thing missing is a slogan.

Perfect

Last one, seventh grade.

From my modernist art phase. Finally decided to get rid of the ol' sideswept bangs look. Why am I not ecstatic like I was last year? You obviously can't tell, but in this picture, at the age of twelve, I was still less than five feet tall, and as either the shortest or second shortest in my grade it probably started to wear on me. Or maybe it just wasn't cool to smile in your school picture like you just won the lottery. Actually no, I probably just missed last year's shirt. 


Hope you like the glimpse into my awkward past. Until next time.

The Platypus. Why?

Seriously what the fuck is going on with this animal? We all just take this pile of spare parts for granted. "Oh sure, the platypus, yeah it's furry, it swims and looks funny I guess." And then we forget about it, in an effort to continue thinking the world makes sense.


Well it doesn't. The rest of the animal kingdom was going along fine, and then WHEEEE the platypus drops out of the sky and fucks everything up. This thing is part beaver, part duck, part manatee, and part stupid. Remember that whole kingdom phylum class order family genus species jazz back from middle school science? Well this thing is the only animal in its family. That's right, the biological classification system used to distinguish every living thing from one another, and this thing has three tiers all to itself. 


Which means this:

Aww!

and this:

Ahh!

Have more in common with each other biologically than this thing:

"DUHH"

has in common with anything else on earth. Let's give it some fur! Now let's give it flippers! Only they won't be as good as flippers, they'll be weirder shaped and less useful. Fuck it! Let's put a bill on it! Ok what else, how about we make it the shape of a pile of shit? 

"DAAAHHHH"

If it didn't already exist, and some kid had an art project where they had to design an animal, and that's what they came up with, they would fucking fail art. They'd probably get made fun of too, and you know what? They'd deserve it.


The only good thing about it is that it lays eggs, because eggs can't run, making them easier to destroy.

"DERRRRRR"

Oh, and platypuses can poison you. Just what we needed! That's like going up to a group of people and saying "Hmm, which one of you is the dumbest?" and giving them a gun. There is no way we can trust this animal with the responsibility of poison. It probably fucks it up all the time. Imagine the klutziest person you know. Now imagine every time they dropped a plate or stubbed their toe somebody died. This is the kind of animal we're dealing with.  Go to its habitat and find something dead? A Platypus probably accidentally did it. 

"HDURRRR"

Whoever discovered platypuses must've thought "well, I'm going to go back to being an alcoholic now" because they made so little sense and that was the only way to deal with it. I'm so glad this thing doesn't live in the US. I'd be having a great day and then I'd remember I'm not at least 10,000 miles from most platypuses and my day would be ruined. 

"PFUUUHH"

So let's recap. Furry egg laying beady eyed wishes-it-was-a-beaver creature with poison barbs on its feet and a bill on its face. That exists. Great. I'm going to go back to thinking about anything else.


Platypuses are actually kind of cute and I want one as a pet and weapon.

Journey to England Part III

Here's part I, and here's part II. So, now that you're all caught up:


Mike had been in contact with the couple we were to meet, so one of them was all set to pick us up from the bus station in Nottingham. The guy was exactly what I expected. A middle-aged bearded boisterous fellow. The first thing I heard him say to Mike was "Is this your mate?" in my direction. Before I had the chance to blurt out "Whoa buddy, it's not like that" I remembered that mate doesn't mean the same thing everywhere. Haha, blurt is a funny word. Let's all use it more often. 


Off we went to their house. We weren't in London anymore, so I expected to see more of a spread out suburbia type town, but that wasn't the case at all. England is a little bigger than Maine in terms of square mileage, but it also has nearly fifty times as many people so they have to be a bit more economical with their space. I still saw tinier houses, basically all duplexes, and all made of stone because they don't have acres of forests to cut down for building materials either. 

Which is probably for the best, lest nature take revenge on them too.

These people were great. Let's just say their names rhymed with "Derek and Paula" (their names were "Derek and Paula") They gave us a bunch of food and tea, and we stayed up talking with them. At one point we asked "why take us in like this?" and their answer was something along the lines of "well why not?" and instead of replying "because you don't know us and we could kill you in your sleep" we expressed our agreement that meeting new people from faraway places is a rewarding experience. They figured if they had the space, they might as well share it, which they had done many times before. 


The next morning we took a trip with them to Sherwood Forest. The Sherwood forest.

Not to be confused with "Aruba."

Whether or not Robin Hood actually spent time in Sherwood forest, or if his fame was well deserved in the first place, here existed an opportunity to sell all kinds of Robin Hood themed shit, and this was not to be wasted. This time it was keychains/shot glasses/magnets/paperweights/mugs and clothing PLUS plastic swords, hats and bows and arrows plastered with Robin Hood's likeness.


The Major attraction of the forest however, was an enormous tree called "Major Oak". This tree is rumored to have been where Robin Hood spent time hiding. This may have been true, or it may have been a complete lie that only seemed feasible because this tree was so fucking big. So big it couldn't support it's own weight, and they had to resort to using buttresses to keep the branches from collapsing under their own weight.

"Just let me die..."

They had people working constantly to clean up the saplings that sprout up around its base,  to prevent them from growing and blocking light and soaking up nutrients in the soil that Major oak needed to live. 

"GET OFF MY LAWN! YOU ARE BUT A MINOR OAK!"

They handed out the saplings to onlookers that wanted to extend the tree's genealogy, and Mike took one of them. More on that later. 


At the end of that little excursion, Mike and I got dropped off in downtown Nottingham to explore, see the castle, and pursue debauchery until they picked us back up at 6pm. We arrived at the castle gates just in time for them to tell us they had just stopped letting people in, so we took refuge in the "oldest" pub in England, which happened to be just around the corner. 

This little fellow as you can see is called "The Cursed Galleon" and resides in one of the pub's rooms. Apparently everyone that has tried to clean it over the years has died mysteriously, so they just let it get all dusty and gross and put it in a glass case so nobody could touch it. 


After a few pints, which by the way are about four ounces larger than American pints, we realized it was 6pm and we were nowhere near the pickup spot. So we had to chug our beers, and get to the rendezvous point as quickly as we could without running, since we thought it impolite to vomit in Derek's car. When we met back up, he asked us what we'd been up to. We told him we had "definitely not spent just about the entire time *burrrpp* at the pub getting drunk".


I still remember some of the funny snippets of conversation. You won't find them funny but I'm going to share them anyway because fuck you. 


¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Derek: Yeah we're famous for queueing, it's not like how they do it in Germany where everyone just rushes to get in the front.


Paula: What? How do you know that?


Derek: Well how do you know anything!? Have you personally experienced everything you claim is true?
                                


Mike: Yeah you're lucky you don't get much snow, we recently had a storm and got about 2 feet of snow.


Derek: 2 FEET?! I can't POSSIBLY imagine...absolute chaos, the country would stop.


                                         


Derek: I'm an expert on Chinese Mammalia.


¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯


So the next morning we said our thank yous and goodbyes. We told them about our upcoming plans to do some hitchhiking, with stops in Sheffield to see Mike's friend Ross, and Lancaster, to see his sister, our ultimate goal being to make it to Scotland in four days. Derek dropped us off in a good spot to start our hitchhiking adventures, and bode us farewell. 


Mike had regaled me with tales of successful hitchhiking he'd done in Ireland, so I was excited to see what types of people we'd meet on the road. Well, hitchhiking turned out to be a great deal more difficult in England. 

Hmm, maybe we should camp...

The Horror of Bengay

(Thanks Brad for the suggestion)


For those of you unfamiliar, Bengay is a topical muscle and joint pain reliever. It goes on cool because it contains menthol, then another one of its active ingredients creates a heating sensation, which increases blood flow to the area, and can relax pain away. After several minutes the heating sensation wears off, and the cooling effect comes back to dull any remaining pain. I can't speak to its effectiveness however, because I've only ever used it improperly.


It all began with several of us hanging out at my house years ago. Brother Mike had a tube of Bengay lying around because he often needed to relieve the pain from being really tough and lifting super heavy shit all the time. Due to boredom, and my utter maleness, I wondered aloud, "What will happen if I put this on my balls?"


Oh fuck this is freezing!


Oh ok that's better..


Hmm, it's getting kinda warm now....

OH MY FUCKING GOD

The horror.


It got really painful really quick, and it kept escalating. After a few minutes I thought "surely the worst is over" and it wasn't. In this way it was not unlike getting kicked in the balls where the pain remains long after the incident. (Side note, why is 'not unlike' a thing? Why didn't I just say 'like'?) Anyway, ball pain! Yes, here's a little timeline to show you what the pain was like.


The Zero Hour: Freezing cold.


One Minute: Numbing, slight tingle.


Two Minutes: Warming up


Three Minutes: Starting to feel a little uncomfortable.


Four Minutes: I think I may have made a terrible mistake.


Five Minutes: I definitely made a terrible mistake.


Six Minutes: OH MY GOD I MIGHT AS WELL HAVE PUT MY BALLS IN THE FURNACE


Seven Minutes: WHY DOES IT STILL HURT SO BADLY? WHY?


Eight Minutes: MY BALLS ARE THE SUN


Nine Minutes: NOTHING IS MAKING IT BETTER. WHY IS NOTHING MAKING IT BETTER?


Ten Minutes: Hang on a minute...I think this might be getting better.


Eleven Minutes: NOPE.


Twelve Minutes: Oh wait..ok, it's starting to cool off a bit now...


Thirteen Minutes: I think I'm going to start exercising, donate to charity, and learn to play an instrument.




It really does last that long, and it really is that painful. I had no idea what I was in for going into it, so after several minutes of searing ball pain, I naturally thought what anyone would.

When you spread something on your balls and the effects last more than 5 minutes that shit must be permanent right? So yes, I was a little nervous for a couple of minutes, but then it subsided, and I felt like I had really conquered something, really accomplished something, even though the only thing I accomplished was doing something stupid and not dying. And it wasn't over.


We were in a large group, so pretty soon every guy in the room did it.

Hey, what's he doing?

Where I was merely content to spread a small amount, others slathered dollops the size of grapefruits onto their nuts. Pretty soon the house was full of fools running all over the place, running up and down the stairs, Miah running into the bathroom and trying to rinse off his balls in the shower to no avail, and just general screaming and chaos.

FUCK IT HURTS WHEN YOU PUT IT ON MY BALLS TOO!

My parents were home by the way. 




By now I'm sure a question has sprung to mind:

Long answer? Some core concepts exist in the mind of every guy on this planet. We all recognize that pain on other people is hilarious. That's why when people fall, we all laugh at them. Additionally, we all respect a guy that takes one for the team, and puts the needs of his friends ahead of his own. If you combine these two concepts, you get a man that is willing to put himself in harm's way in order to make his friends laugh. When a guy watches another guy voluntarily hurt himself the way we all did, he thinks "Now there's a guy that cared about making his friends laugh more than he cared about his own balls, and I can respect the hell out of that."


Short answer? We're stupid. 

Job Interviews, Fuck 'em!

Let's talk about interviews. Or rather, I'm going to talk to you about interviews, and you're gonna sit there, and fucking enjoy yourself.


K! Job interviews, where you can go from this

to this

in seconds. We all know the importance of preparation, practicing answers to questions like "What makes you think you'd be an asset to this company?" and just getting a general idea of how the company works so you can seem knowledgeable when it begins. But we all still fuck it up sometimes don't we? There's always that one question that blindsides you, or one that's so vague that you ramble on for a few minutes without even being sure if you answered the question or not.

Tell me, what's your impression of business in the world? In general?

The interviewer might not even care about the answer, he or she is just asking to  see if you buckle when someone asks you something fucked up. All I can say is you better have an answer. There's no worse feeling than when you get asked a question, and you think for a second, then another second, then haha why haven't you thought of anything yet idiot? Even if the interviewer shrugs off the awkward pause, the panic you felt for those few moments sticks with you, and won't leave you alone. 

Oh hi! 

Soon you're very aware of everything but the task at hand. Once you start to get nervous while speaking, one of two things is bound to happen: The Sudden Awkward Noise Phenomenon, or Swallow Procrastination. I'm not sure which is worse. With Sudden Awkward Noise Phenomenon, your mouth has started to get a little dry, but no worries right? You just keep on talking when suddenly *HWRHAP* your voice cuts out and you kind of cough at the same time. 

Artist's interpretation

It's so unexpected so as to render any preventative measures useless. No pausing to put your hand over your mouth for this one, it's out into the world already, and you're left sitting there looking like a fucking idiot. 


And I'm sure you're all familiar with Swallow Procrastination. A little bit of nerves seems to make the swallow reflex extra strong, hence the classic *gulp* in cartoons or movies when the character fucks something up. 

Hmm what does this button do?

So there you are talking about something super important and insightful when the urge to swallow starts coming on. You'll be fine though I'm sure, just keep talking dipshit. It gets stronger and stronger. You're mid sentence now, so you can't stop. Suddenly you're in a race to finish your statement before the urge becomes too great.


"AndthatsirishowIfeelaboutbusinessinthewor--*GULP*.................world today...."


SON OF A BITCH!

Looks like somebody should've swallowed when they had the chance. 


Now you have to somehow recover from the fact that your nervousness has cleary presented itself. You'll have to tell them not to worry about that noise, it happens when you talk to ugly people sometimes, or something. Then make sure to laugh nervously, accidentally kick something over on your way out, then sneeze in your hand but go for the handshake anyway out of habit, because your only chance at this point is to make them feel sorry for you.    


Joking aside though, my interview today went fairly well. 

Inception Cat

Courtesy of Jesse: