Crimes Against Nature

Assault and Butterfly

Grand Theft Otter

Man Sl-Otter

Crimes Against a Manatee

Hake Crime

Domestic Bass-ault

Henocide

Hamdalism

Joeyriding

Pros Tit Tution

Codomy (depending on state)

(originally published 9/30/2007)

Crappiest Job: The Prequel: Silly String and Gummy Worms

I nearly forgot about this job, even though it wasn't really a job because I was underage, worked for less than a day, and I didn't get paid. But it really shaped the rest of my working life, I think, when I look back on it.

A friend of John's family was opening a convenience store at the beach, building it from the ground up. John somehow got the go-ahead to come and work some mindless menial task, and was able to finagle a job for me as well. Just getting there was a task in itself. When I approached my folks about the possibility of working after school, they naturally shot that idea out of the sky. I was 13. What the hell did I need with a job? It was out of the question. But I wanted to work, and wanted a little extra cash to burn, so I crafted some elaborate, cockamamie scheme whereby I would ride my bike to school, which would explain why it took me so long to get home in the evening. I left early and biked a mile or so down the road to my friend Josh's house, stashed the bike in the woods and caught the normal bus into school. After class I caught the bus to the beach, where John and I were to begin our working lives. It was a flawless plan.

The gig was easy enough: we were stocking a store, which consisted mainly of opening boxes, removing the contents, setting said contents onto shelves or into coolers, breaking down the boxes, and throwing them into the dumpster. Easy. Piece of cake. I could taste that $4/hour already. I loaded a few shelves, ran a bunch of boxes to the dumpster, and all was going well. Until I went back and found John behind the dumpster.

"Check this out, man!" he said with pride, as he reached under the dumpster and fished out a giant tub of Gummy Worms for my approval. Looking behind him, I could see that Silly String was sprayed EVERYWHERE.



Now, Some interesting things to consider:

1) Things which are important to 13 year-old boys: Silly String and a giant tub of Gummy-Worms.

2) Gummy-Worms are important enough to a 13 year-old to:
a)steal, and
b)hide under trash, supposedly with the intention of retrieving and eating later.

Please understand, gentle reader, I had no intention of storing food under trash and then eating it. I only wanted to throw broken boxes into that trash and collect some cash. But John hijacked that meager dream.

And of course, as luck would have it, as I turned to walk away, leaving John with his Trash-Gummies and his no-longer-silly string, the boss came out through the back door.

"What the fuck is this?"

"Uhh, uhh... " John stutters and attempts to hide the tub, forgetting that part of his guilt is sprayed all over the alley behind him. The boss isn't impressed. He reaches under the dumpster and pulls out the Tub-O-Gummy, and grabs John by the collar of his t-shirt. Meanwhile, I'm going back into the store to keep working.

"Don't go anywhere, kid," I'm told. He's dragging John back inside, and now I'm guilty by association. We're taken back into the store, into the office. John is pushed rather brusquely into a chair. I stand in the corner.

The boss calls John's dad, tells him we're ready to be picked up right now.

The boss doesn't say much for the next half hour or so, and I keep trying to melt into the wall. It doesn't work well.

When John's dad shows up, Bossman follows us out to the car. He waits until John and I are inside, me in the back and John riding shotgun. He tells John's dad through the window, after the car has been started, what happened, how he found us both in the back, conspiring to rob him of his earthly possessions, how John had been caught in the act, red-handed.

John Sr bids his friend farewell, rolls up the window, watches him return to his store. He turns to John and pauses, observing his child for a moment. Then he punches John squarely in the jaw. His right hand rains down again and again against the boy, finding easy weaknesses in the meager defense his boy puts up. He is bigger, stronger. He beats the living shit out of John while I sit in the backseat watching, cursing and spitting. I'm terrified. For all I know, I might be next.

Afterward he drives me to Josh's house, John quietly crying and wiping blood from his nose, me holding the door handle the whole time, ready to bail and take my chances against fast-moving asphalt rather than those meaty fists.

Much like the timeI got caught shoplifting, I don't go back to that store for years. I never really liked Gummy Worms to begin with.

Seeking Guest Bloggers

Seems as if I've become a medium sized fish in a gigantic pond in recent weeks and I can't quite explain it.

In short: A lot of people are into this blog and want to talk to me about it, usually in person. Sometimes a tale I tell reminds someone of a similar event that happened to them. Just tonight Nancie was telling me how she read about me getting puked on and it reminded her of getting peed on not once but twice at sleep-away camp.

This, friends, is a story that needs to be told.

So I implore you, gentle reader: tell me your story. I shall publish it here with full credit given, links to any site you want, and props for any product you are selling. You will have as much or as little editorial oversight as you wish. I think it would be hilarious. It doesn't have to be so elaborate. Just tell an amusing anecdote. Humiliation always plays well around here, especially when it is directed at oneself (me, usually).

Or maybe it's stupid. You could say that too. But I have faith in the project.

That Time I Got Puked On

I was attending a sleepover with some of my neighbors, kids my age. We couldn't have been more than eight years old.



Thad was hosting. He was a skinny redhead who usually wore wide-striped long-sleeve shirts. He was funny and a good soccer player. Nathan and I were the guests. Nathan was a little on the dorky side. A little socially awkward. Chubby. I remember once he and my younger brother got into an argument in our garage. Shawn, who was at least a foot shorter, literally jumped upwards and punched Nathan square in the nose. Blood poured out in a torrent, Nathan cried and ran home. Served him right, I thought. We were trying to build a robot.

As I recall, Thad's parents weren't around, and we ate M+M cookies and watched a copy of Friday the 13th on video disc. When his folks eventually came home, it was time for lights out. We were to sleep in the backyard in a tent that Thad had received from his Grandma for his birthday. We crawled into our sleeping bags, me in the middle, Thad and Nathan on the either side, and after some cursory chit chat, fell asleep.

Later that night I awoke wet and confused. What the hell happened? I tried to make sense of what was going on. Had I pissed myself in the night? How embarrassing! What was I going to do? I'll never live this down!

And then I noticed the smell. We all know the acrid stench of vomit. It's horrifying. I sat up. There was puke all over my sleeping bag, my head. I looked to my right, and saw Nathan asleep, a smattering of vomit around his mouth.

That little bastard! He had woken up, puked on my head and gone back to sleep!

I turned to my left and started shaking Thad:

"Thad! Wake up! Nathan puked on me!"

Thad came around and nearly lost it from the concentrated stench. We didn't know what the hell to do. We were just kids, after all. In the hubbub, Nathan awoke and immediately started crying:

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!"

"You jerkwad! You puked on me!"

Somehow Thad's parents were roused, Nathan's parents were called and they took him home, crying and hysterical. I spent the wee hours of the morning in the bathtub trying to wash puke off myself. I swear, for weeks I was picking bits of vomit out of my hair.

I'm glad my brother punched that son of a bitch.

Eating my hand at the mall

I don't like the mall.

I'll give you a moment to pick your jaw off the floor. That's right. I prefer to spend zero-time at the mall if I can help it. Circle-Slash-Malls. I was going to get a t-shirt made up, but I'd have to go to the mall.

I'm reminded of a little incident that occurred about a few years ago. I was hurting for an Xmas present for my mom. Try as I might, I can't get my family to join me in my Xmas boycott. Something about their being born again Christians... It's a big deal for them.

Kinda like Groundhog Day if your god and savior was a groundhog, and was crucified on a little groundhog-sized cross, and half the fucking world made a mess in their pants several months before Groundhog day, and stressed out and fought each other in parking lots for a spot because they need to buy useless crap that has a groundhog theme.

But I digress. I was in need of an Xmas present for me mum, my time was drawing short, and I had no clue what the hell I could get her for this stupid holiday that I don't even like in the first place. So, against my better judgment, I went to the mall. They got stuff at the malls, right? Surely something will seem appropriate for Mumsie.

I walked around, all scared-like, for what realistically seemed like two hours, my heart racing, my eyes wide, and a thin, greasy film of sweat breaking out on my forehead.

A little background info: I like breaking bad habits, and I broke myself of the bad habit of biting my nails at about 16 years old. I got tired of painful, bloody stumps on my hands. And people who bite their nails always look guilty of something, so I decided to quit doing it. It wasn't that hard, and now I am a reformed nail-biter.

Flash forward to the mall, Xmas time in the present. I'm walking around trying very hard to keep myself from just bolting in any direction, panicking and scratching for a way out. Absent-mindedly I was chewing on my fingernail. The left pointy-one, to be exact.

By this time, I'm freaking out, and not in a "omigod, I'm like totally freaking out," kind of way, but in a way that I feel I might actually die here, in this place with no windows, with its recirculated air, and its awful, awful music. My heart just might explode. I'm going to projectile vomit black bile and then fall over in the puddle, dead. DEAD!

And then I see the slippers. Fucking slippers! "Buy the fucking slippers and get the hell OUT!" [<-- that's my brain yelling at me] I grab a pair of pink slippers and start scanning around for a cashier. As I'm walking around, I notice this intense fire that is radiating up my left arm. I look down at my hand holding the slippers, and there is BLOOD EVERYWHERE.

I ate part of my hand at the mall!

Blood is all over my hand, and now, on this pair of fuzzy pink slippers. Everywhere. Covered. This is not good.

Well, like a good American, I stuck the bloody slippers back on the rack, got a fresh, non-blood-soaked pair (in my good hand), stuck my bloody stump in my pocket, and beat a hasty retreat. I think I really freaked out the girl at the register. She gave me one of those looks that I'm sure amputees and the facially deformed see a lot. That look where the horror sneaks out just a little before politeness kicks in, and you smiiillle, and whatever happens, for god's sake do not look at it...

Everything turned out ok in the end. I didn't die in the mall. Mom got a comfy pair of slippers for Jesus' birthday. I renewed my vow to avoid malls to the best of my ability. My half-masticated finger healed nicely. I have a picture of it, scabs and all somewhere. Maybe I'll go look for that right now.

(originally published 12/22/06)

I Ran Over a Lollipop Kid

Only one word came to my lips as I sailed through the air. Time slowed down, stretched out and seemed to crystallize around me, and I was stuck in slow motion. I could make out tiny flecks of sparkly material in the asphalt. I felt suspended, caught in an impossible sprawl as I uttered the first and only word that came to mind:

"Fuck."

Upon contact with the street, time suddenly sprung back into motion, over-compensating for its previous lapse. Things now moved very, very fast. Luckily for me, although I never could have known it at the time, I had been forced to take judo lessons as a kid. I was taught to not fight a fall, but to roll along with the force of inertia. I had actually placed third in a regional competition at the age of eleven. But all that was very far away. For now, it was simply: Tuck and roll, tuck and roll.
And so instinctively I tucked, and I rolled to a stop in the middle of the intersection. I came to rest on my back, draped across the pavement like a carelessly tossed sheet. I took a quick inventory of my body and all major systems seemed to be responding. That was good. Now I had to collect myself and get the hell out of the intersection before it was me who was the one getting run over.

I couldn't believe it. I had run over a midget.

I stood up and looked behind me. The midget was getting up as well.
"Are you okay, man?" I asked, not yet sure if this was real.
"Yeah... Are you alright?" He asked back as he hobbled along across the street. Some passersby hurried over to him, asking if he was hurt. I decided it was probably best for me to make a hasty get away. I hopped on my wobbly, warped bicycle and loped down the hill, continuing on my way. This was too coincidental to be real. I could almost taste the blood in my mouth from Karma's bitch-slap.

I am sure there is some dainty, politically correct term for the persons I am describing. Dwarves. Vertically Challenged Individuals. Little People, for crying out loud. But I refuse to use it. This is a story of exploitation and callous, selfish indulgence. I had once used midgets as my personal jesters. It was a reprehensible act, and I continue to expose myself as a jerk by using the term Midget. I may arouse some ire, But I feel it is deserved. Call it a penance of sorts.

It had all started innocently enough, as most of these kinds of things do. I had begun to notice that I had been seeing more and more midgets in the movies I had been renting, and they would always make me laugh. Without fail. Regardless of subject matter, a midget in the cast was a surefire way to have me rolling on the floor, clutching my sides with convulsive laughter. Imagine Marlon Brando as a midget in The Godfather. Goddamn funny, right? I suppose it got a little out of hand, as do most things that start innocently enough. I began renting movies based upon the sole merit of a midget in the credits.
--------------------------------
A short list of classic midget films:

Gone With The Wind employed midgets as extras in background scenes in order to make the main characters seem larger than life. Destination Moon was called the most realistic film ever made to portray a journey to the moon when it was released in 1951. Midgets were used in backgrounds to convey a sense of distance which was just not available on a closed set. Other films put midgets at the forefront, as was the case in The Wizard of Oz, or much later in the Star Wars series. No film, however, featured as many midgets as Terror in Tinytown, the all-Western, all-singing, all-midget film which predated The Wizard. It may sound funny and exploitative, and indeed it is, but Tinytown was actually played straight; as a legitimate musical western, played by midget actors exclusively. (I am aware of the irony of this statement). There were no cheap short jokes or puns intended to poke fun or ridicule. Make no mistake, however: the film was terrible. A certifiable goose-egg. But then again, so very few musical westerns ever make it into Hollywood's Hall of Fame.

Recovering addicts sometimes talk about how they hit rock bottom, and how it forced them to see clearly their problem and to take action. I suppose my rocky bottom on the wild ride of midget fetishism was my rental of the film Bloodsucking Freaks. This is a modern classic of trashy filmmaking, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The loose premise of the film revolved around young, helpless, half-naked women being gruesomely tortured by (that's right) a midget. I'm not proud to say I rented this movie, and even less proud to say I enjoyed it. That midget was a pint-sized dynamo, a horribly skewed Jerry Lewis. He was brilliantly hilarious, and he was obviously enjoying himself immensely. Disregarding all conventional acting tradition, he made no attempt to pretend the camera didn't exist. He would look directly into the lens and laugh a horrible, bone-chilling cackle through yellow, crooked teeth. I think he may have acted in the film for free, he seemed to be enjoying himself that much.
I suppose the only saving grace for me, if there can be one in this instance, is that I couldn't watch the entire movie. Somehow, seeing women exploited didn't sit so well in my stomach. But seeing a midget exploited? Comedy gold.
Addicts who hit rock bottom don't always kick their vice right away. Some keep to their habit, using it like a pathetic, disintegrating crutch, while they hobble about in a thinly disguised panic. I was no exception. I knew I had done something "dirty" by enjoying that film. I had crossed a line and could never go back again. But it took the event of me running over a midget on my bicycle in front of many witnesses to check myself into midget rehab.

I was riding my bike a lot in those days, and was pretty good at it. I could get anywhere in the city in small time. This particular day I was heading to a friend's house to attend a potluck dinner. She lived at the bottom of a hill. At the top of that hill was the fateful intersection. As I approached, the light turned yellow. I was already making good time, and I stood up on the pedals to get that extra burst of speed in order to beat the light. The mailbox and garbage can on the corner concealed the midget too well. I would have seen any normal sized person, even a really short one, in time to brake or at least swerve. But this wasn't a regular sized person. This was a midget.
Apparently, he too saw the light change, and bolted out into the street, convinced he could make it. He didn't look. He didn't make it either. He ran right out into the path of whizzing, two-wheeled fate. I hit him hard. REAL hard.
For anyone who wishes to know what this experience is like, imagine riding a bicycle at top speed, as fast as you can right into a tree stump. Don't apply the brakes, just careen right into it. That's roughly what this collision was like. Due to his lower center of gravity, he didn't have far to fall. I, however, took the brunt of the impact. I sailed over the handlebars, taking the bike with me, into that vast, slow-motion expanse I described earlier.
Afterward, I loped down the hill, not quite sure what to make of the incident. I arrived at my friend's house shortly thereafter. She opened the door.
"You will NEVER believe what just happened."

[* Although this account is absolutely true and entirely written by me, I feel compelled to inform you, gentle reader, that it is taken from a former blog housed in a site that rhymes with the words SighPlace.com. Since SighPlace is a dying scene and doesn't support blogging quite as easily or nicely as our friends at Google, I've decided to relocate it here. If you've read this before in another location, I apologize for wasting your time. If this is the first time you've heard of my traumatic event, feel free to leave feedback. In the future, I will indicate at the end of any reproduced blog updates (and there are many) the fact that they are relocationed entries with a far less verbose explanation. That is all. Thanks for your patronage.]

(originally published 12/27/2006)

The Crappiest Job

I thought I would do a bit about all the awful jobs I've ever worked. I have at least one anecdote from each that illustrates how ridiculous, terrible, or ridiculously terrible each one was, and perhaps how it crafted me in some small way into the industrious young man I am today. Or maybe it will just be good for a laugh. At me, not with me.

Without further achoo, Part I:

The Line House.

I grew up in Southern Maine, where the youngest that one could legally work was 14. So, as soon as I was eligible, my friend Mike hooked me up with a job washing dishes with him.

A lot of young men in this country get their start in the working world this way. It doesn't take a whole lot of brain-power to do. It is, however, one of the crappiest jobs on the planet. The smell is the worst part. A pungent blend of bleach, industrial soap, grease, and old food, it really sticks with you. On rare occasions I will walk into a restaurant and catch a tiny whiff of that scent and be transported back to the late 1980's, scrubbing away in that tiny little back room.

The Line House was situated on the town line (get it?) between Kittery and York, Maine. It served your standard diner fare, blended with a few nods to the surrounding fishing industry. Think fish and chips and clam chowder, but nothing more elaborate than that. Burgers and fries, brunch on the weekends, that sort of thing. The burgers were pretty good, however, and it was here that I tasted Cape Cod potato Chips for the first time. One "perk" of the job was unlimited fountain sodas, which, as a teenager, is really all you need in life.

As I said, I worked in a small room with a low-ceiling in the back designated for dishwashing. It couldn't have been more than 12 x 12 feet, with most of the space taken up by a chest-type freezer, two industrial stainless steel sinks, a drying rack, and shelf space on either side: one side for clean dishes, the other side for dirty.

Dave was the line cook, a diminutive guy with tight, curly red hair, who thought nothing of tending the grill with a Marlboro hanging out of the corner of his mouth as he worked the spatula and barked at the waitresses as items were 86'd. He would torment the dishwashers in a good-natured way, and smoke a joint on the back steps with the waitresses after the place had closed for the night. He took to calling me Metal Head, as I had a habit of wearing Megadeth T-shirts and wearing my hair in the mullet style. I'd walk into my shift and be greeted with "METALHEAD!!!" Putting on a white apron, I'd smile, flash The Goat, and walk into the steam-filled abyss of the crappiest job ever.

Washing dishes sucks. It sucks. As a dishwasher, you are wet from your chest to your thighs all the time. Your hands will turn into pink prunes and smell of garlic and bleach for days. They will also blister, from the combination of the industrial chemicals and the searing heat of the washing process. That apron I mentioned does nothing to protect you, either from the water or the food and grease that ends up sticking to you like a ghost. But, as a fourteen year-old kid, I didn't have a lot of career options.

One Saturday in particular, the restaurant was slammed. Packed to the gills. Crammed into a small, greasy, hot and dangerous place, people tend to get a little cranky. Dave was screaming at the waitresses, and I was scrubbing like mad to keep up. Woe be unto the lowly dishwasher if the cook runs out of frying pans. Steve was the owner/boss, and he came into the back, needing more wine glasses. I looked around, and could only see three in the dish room. I washed those quickly and gave them to him. Shortly after, he came back again, and asked a little more pointedly, for more wine glasses. "I don't have any. Every glass in here is out front," I told him, getting a little testy as well.

A few minutes later, he came to me and said, "this is what I need you to do."

The Line House sat on a plot of land owned by Steve's sister, who had a house down a dirt road about 200 yards behind the restaurant. I was to jog down the road, open the garage door, go through the laundry room, and into the kitchen, where a case of new wine glasses was stowed in a cabinet next to the sink. Being the loyal foot soldier that I am, I clicked my heels, saluted, and jogged down that road.

As I opened the garage door, I could hear the telephone ringing. On the other end of that line was Steve, trying to call to warn me about the large German Shepherd that his sister owns.



I walked into the laundry room and opened the door to the kitchen, where I was greeted by the biggest fucking dog I had ever seen. His head was lowered, and as soon as he smelled the grease on me, assumed I was either an intruder or lunch. Or both. He lunged forward and bit me right in the middle of my chest. I'm sure I screamed like a girl, but I know I ran faster than I ever have out of there, the dog biting me twice on my ass as I fled. The t-shirt I was wearing, I later discovered, had a perfectly symmetrical bite mark taken out of the bottom of it.




Everyone from the back of the restaurant had come out onto the back steps to see what was going to happen. Dave later approached me, "Dude! Metalhead! That was fucking inTENse!" My hands couldn't stop shaking for hours after that. When I told my folks about it, my dad was pissed. But I defended the place, saying that Steve was a good guy, it was an accident, they were good enough to give me a job, etc. I know now that I should have sued the hell out of that guy. But sometimes I'm too nice for my own good.