Month: March 2014

Many years ago, as if in a tale of lore, I heard of a land of wonderment called Ikea, where happy Swedes or Swiss or whomever made highly space efficient furniture in very bold, solid colors.  Women, in particular, regaled me with descriptions of the splendor and magic within Ikea’s walls.  I never went.  I had a condo for nine years.  It got decorated when my Mom went shopping for me around Christmas.  If not for Christmas, I would have had two old couches and a big screen TV only.

I finally got to go recently.  I should have worn workout clothes, since Ikea is about 14 linear miles by the time you meander that cold, solid colored labyrinth.  I was starting to fade out of consciousness looking at cabinets with words that had those double dots over the a’s and o’s when I realized they had food.  Food?  In a furniture store?

My fiancee – “Do you want to eat here?”  Me – “Do they serve alcohol?”  Her – “No.”  Silence.  Her – “We can get drinks later.”  Me – “Let’s eat here.”  Glad we figured that out.  Note to Ikea, if you herd people into a indoor steeplechase for six hours with no way of exiting, outside of taking a path of peril and trying to blaze your own trail through the wilderness/pillow section, please put some Swedish booze somewhere.  I’m sure you have some glacier vodka or pickled herring juice.  When I find the checkout line in a month, I’ll make sure they hear my idea.

I went last week to turn in my passport application.  I waited in line only to find out they weren’t accepting applications, not sure why, but I was very happy I waited in line for ten minutes to find that out.  I went to another post office, in a less than nice area.  When I walked in, a Somalian and two postal employees were arguing about a lock box.  By the way, any time a foreigner is screaming, I hear terrorism.  It ended when the guy tossed his keys at the manager.  “Who raised you?  Who throws their keys?  Were you raised by animals?”  Then they tossed him.  I knew it would take about five minutes for him to go get his gun, so I had to move quickly.

I walked up and said hello to the very angry looking lady behind the desk was chomping gum voraciously and staring at me with a look that said “I have no soul.”  “Do you have an appointment?”  No, I don’t.  “You need an appointment sir!”  OK, can I make one.  “You need to call sir!”  If I call, will one of you pick it up?  Seems like I could just make it now.  “CALL SIR.”  I walked out, called and made an appointment.  Not at that post office, I figured it would be crime scene.

I went back to the original post office.  “I have an appointment at ten.”  Another angry lady – “We don’t take appointments, sir.”  I talked to someone, they said I had an appointment at ten.  “SIR, WE DON’T TAKE APPOINTMENTS.  Come back at ten!”  That’s when my appointment is…whatever.  I’ll come back IN 18 MINUTES.  (I can be a dick too, lady.)

I came back inside and there was a man in front of me with a three year old girl.  Of course, he got in front of me, he had an appointment.  “I need to renew her passport.”  Sir, you can’t renew her passport if she doesn’t have one.  This went back and forth for several minutes, as a grown man was unable to comprehend the word renew.  I was about to have a stroke when the passport expert pointed out he had not filled out any paperwork.  Good thing he has a child.

I finally got it turned in, paid the ridiculous fees and had the passport lady proceed to tell me about her day, her work schedule, how busy she was…I blacked out until she looked at me and said “I said you’re all set.  Sir?”  Huh?  I’m sorry, I went into mental turtle mode.  I was imagining a world where I never had to stand in a post office and talk to strangers.

One of my new favorite shows on TV is Bar Rescue.  It’s a show where bars that are going under bring in Jon Taffer, an expert on turning bars around.  I don’t know how you get that title, but if he’s saving bars from going under, I think he’s doing the Lord’s work.  Plus he screams at people and degrades them, so that’s entertaining.

Since I’ve watched this show, I’ve learned a few things about what to do/not to do if you own a bar.  First, don’t get drunk  every single night.  Apparently, this interferes with things like “profit”.  On the other hand, you do get to get drunk at work.  I thought only comedy let you do that.  As an offshoot to that, don’t hire your buddies and let them get plowed.  When your friends drink $100 worth of booze each six nights a week, then take their shirts off and shout at all the women that walk in the door, it tends to hurt the bottom line.

Other bad ideas in biz include letting horses shit in your bar, never cleaning the kitchen, letting 16 year olds drink in your establishment, cancelling ladies night for heavy metal bands, having bartenders steal from the cash register…wait a minute, everyone should know all that, but from the amount of episodes, it’s pretty difficult to figure out.  If I owned a bar, I would probably do all these things, so I wouldn’t last.  Who doesn’t want to get drunk and ride a horse through a mosh pit?

I got my engagement photos this week.  I don’t know if I’m photogenic or not, but I know I can’t smile on command.  There’s a saying, “It takes less muscles to smile than frown!”  This may be true, but if you never smile, when you do your face hurts.  Usually within three minutes, my face begins to twitch and cramp.  I knew it would take all my powers pull out that many grins.

We got to the site of the shoot and as goes this time of year, it was about 25 degrees if the wind stopped, which it did about 14% of the time.  I asked if the photographer could edit my nipples out of the pics.  He didn’t really answer me, so I’m guessing no.  Luckily, we able to hang props off them, so it worked out.

It actually went very well, luckily my lady and I are so good looking we could have been covered in garbage and pulled it off.  It probably helped that I didn’t get to use my ideas.  I wanted to go shirtless holding a weapon (preferably a sword, but any would do).  I did get to hold an axe, so I was appeased.  I also wanted to be surrounded by bald eagles in a shot, but you can’t capture a bald eagle, unless it wants to be caught.  That’s in the Constitution.  Just like how every bald eagle is named Sam and if you touch one, a terrorist gets penis cancer.  I love bald eagles.

One of the roughest parts of doing comedy is trying to do it while you have other things going on, like working a real job so you can eat and not live in your car.  I once did a show on a Thursday that led to me getting under two hours’ sleep then working a full day.  Needless to say, when I get time off from both, it’s very welcome.

Since I have a little time off due to a job change, I wanted to maximize my time off, so I made a list of must dos for this week.

– Get a passport (or get started).  My honeymoon is going to be overseas, which is cool because I’ve never been outside my current hemisphere.  I can’t wait to go to Europe and tell Euro trash how sweet America is and how they are wrong about everything.  I’ve heard Europeans are very friendly and open to such criticism.  I should probably pick up an Uncle Sam top hat, fanny pack and bald eagle shirt so I can dress the part.

– Do my taxes.  I hate taxes more than I hate people that don’t pop their zits.  More than being stuck at the BMV next to someone with BO and realizing after 30 minutes they only take checks.  It’s 2014, who carries a checkbook?  In other words, I may fake an adoption to get more money back.  Feel free to send me ideas on how to pull that off.

– Write new jokes.  This usually involves me staring at a wall with a notepad until I give up.  Then two days later, while I’m driving in heavy traffic, I think of eight jokes, six of which I’ll probably forget before I pull over.  In other words, get ready for one new joke next week!

I was talking with a colleague recently about a crazy house party with some young men.  I went down memory lane as I remembered house parties from days gone by.  My favorite one was when my buddy’s parents went out of town for the weekend when I was 19.  Bad idea.

I walked in and found a bottle of 151 and a few pals.  Two hours later, two of the guys got into a condiment fight with mustard and ketchup, which meant they squeezed full bottles at other in a fury, staining the ceiling and some collector hand-woven baskets.  My other friend made a drink with milk, rum and about seven other ingredients.  He violently puked all over the screen door and fell on the ground.  Three of the four chairs at the table got cracked or smashed, which would’ve been a bigger deal if the table hadn’t been broken earlier.  We somehow broke the closet doors also, which I missed because two of the rowdies where literally spitting on each other.  In the face.

I had to work the next morning, which was fun being at a steel mill pumping waste acid into a tanker after dancing with 151.  I woke up about fifteen minutes before clock in.  I smelled a sweet but pungent odor as I ran to the bathroom to find toothpaste.  I realized, when I saw I was covered in full women’s makeup, that the smell was perfume.  It was so disorienting, I nearly missed the pink fingernail polish on my fingers.  I’m sure the fellas at the ol’ mill won’t notice that.

In summation, if you have underage boys, don’t ever leave the house.  Ever.  My buddy’s mom came home and figured we did about $700 in damage, which doesn’t sound bad until you realize we all made less than $8/hour and there were only eight people at the party, and by people I mean guys because what woman would hang out at a party where drunk guys squirt ketchup and spit on one another.  Maybe that’s why they covered me in makeup.  No more 151 for this guy.