Author: Chris

My wife found a bike online for me with a child’s seat.  We excitedly put our daughter in the seat and she began screaming because she hated wearing a helmet.  I was also screaming because I didn’t want to wear one either.  Helmets are for nerds!  (I’ve had five concussions – no nerds here!)  So this weekend, I took off the seat (it also hits me on the heels when I pedal about 15% of the time as a bonus) and went for a long ride.

My favorite part about riding a bike, is after having observed them for years, is that traffic rules no longer apply!  Go piss up a rope, car people, the road is mine!  I can block cars, ignore stop signs, you name it.  Well, until someone hits me, then I’m dead.  It’s a fair trade-off.

My least favorite part was being repeatedly passed by 50 year old women and dudes with biker shorts on.  I did pass a couple in their mid-60’s, so I had that going for me.  I yelled “Move it, losers!” to help motivate them to pedal faster.  Just trying to help.

I took a nice trail past some wetlands (aka fancy name for a swamp) which was nice to look at, if you ignore the wafting scent of wet mud and decaying foliage.  Mmmmm, swamp air.  I felt a little out of place also, as I was passing a lot of people enjoying picnic time along the trail while my headphones blared Black Sabbath and Metallica.  Nothing like watching people take in nature while you listen to Blackened, a song about nuclear destruction.

Of course, at the end, I realized that I had to pedal back up a two mile hill to get home, so I thought about calling 911 to come drive me home, but I didn’t have my phone on me, plus I don’t know how to hotwire a car, so I had no choice but to ride back (aka push the bike up the hill).  Maybe in another 3 years I can pedal up an incline over 4%.  Of course, my real goal is to get back into shape so I can make fun of fat people again.  We all have to have dreams.

I have never particularly cared for bouncers.  I was getting a very drunk friend out of a bar once and while we were walking out, a bouncer said, “Get the hell out of here.”  I said, “Yes, got it, we’re leaving.”  He said, “Yeah, that’s right, get out.”  It angered me, so I reversed course and said, “Actually, we’re not leaving.”  I made him (and three other bouncers then physically remove us.  Don’t act like you tossed us – we were leaving anyways.  Now you have to earn it.  I had another one toss a buddy out into subzero temps for a very small reason, so I had to wait with him for 20 minutes for a taxi and nearly lost an ear.

That said, I did it once for comedy show and it sucked all the way to the top.  I went to see a couple friends do their first ever paid sets at a bar – new comics pack ’em in, because there were over 200 people at the bar to see them and the other comics.  The booker asked if I wanted to make some extra money helping watch the door.  Sure, I thought.  Three hours later, he was smashed drunk and I had to take $5 a head from everyone that walked in, including townies and regulars.  One very aggressive white trash patron decided he was going to kick my ass because he didn’t have to pay.  Luckily, the owner was right there and overrode my “business partner” who was on his 9th Miller Lite.  After a tremendous shit show and three hours of trying to make change, argue with people and coming an inch from fighting a guy who I could tell had been to prison, the booker staggered over and handed me $20.

It was then and there I decided 1) This won’t happen again and 2) If I am ever put around money and the guy collecting gets hammered, I am making a hell of a lot more if you catch my drift.  There are severe disadvantages to having ethics and morals.  “Hey, it wouldn’t be right for me to take this hard working man’s money!”  (Gets punched while hard-working booker works hard on ignoring the door and ordering red headed slut shots; reconsiders entire upbringing, steals $125 in loose cash)

My wife and I had a wedding to attend this weekend, which means absolute panic mode for parents of a toddler.  Dressing up has become “I showered this week, I think.” and “Does this shirt have too many visible stains?”  I knew the wedding was formal, but I asked – “Did the invite say black tie affair or formal?”  My wife said, “I think black tie.”  Uh oh.

I have a tuxedo, but it was a gift from a very in shape professional ballet dancer and I had ice cream three times this week.  I knew it fit…pre-child.  I put it on, piece by piece.  Shirt:  Holy hell, unless I can squeeze my neck fat down into my nether regions, this top button isn’t getting buttoned.  Pants: OH HELL NO – oh wait, there’s fat adjusters on the side.  (Slides to max fat capacity, pants fit – there will no dancing, for sure)  Cummerbund:  What is the purpose of this thing?  (Stares at gut)  Oh, to cover that bloated disaster.  Jacket:  Hmmm.  I’m OK, as long as I don’t turn around, move my shoulders or try to button it.

We dropped off our daughter and drove to the shindig.  I walked in and realized my wife either forgot or doesn’t know the difference between black tie and formal – I was the only one not in the party or wearing white gloves that had a tux on.  Now I realized I was overdressed, albeit poorly and a new panic came over me for being the well polished turd in the punch bowl.  Great.  Next time, I’m just wearing sweat pants and telling everyone I lost all my clothes in a fire or locust attack.

Here’s a brief synopsis of our founding, in case you fell asleep in history.  The snobby British were all, “Give us your money, we need more tea and crumpets and red dye for our coats.”  Merica was all, “Aw hell naw” and slapped bumper stickers on their horses that said “Our George can beat up your George.”  They were all like, you want some tea, bitch?  Then they dumped all the tea on earth in the water cause Mericans drink beer like badasses not wimpy tea.  That other George got all kinds of mad and tried to fight us at Lexington and Concord, but that was real dumb cause the worst thing you can do is poke a Merican cause then we kick all the ass and beat them out of Boston.

The lobsterbacks made a pact with Satan and almost upset GW in New York because there wasn’t no way that was possible otherwise, but then a bald eagle flew down from Freedom Mountain and gave him an AR15 and Captain America’s shield from the future and he killed 7 million Hessians and British in four minutes in New Jersey because no one wants to be in New Jersey that long anyways.  We also beat them down at Saratoga and stopped Canada from sending in death squads of beavers all hopped up on maple syrup.

Then Benedict Arnold went NWO on Merica so we got Sting’s great great great Grandpa to get a bat and come down from the rafters and team up with the Swamp Fox and kick that British guy from the Patriot movie’s butt and Arnold’s too and no one has ever been named Benedict ever again in this country.

Then GW was all “Time for my finishing move.”  He and a bunch of Mericans and a couple Frenchies dropped some crane kicks at Yorktown and then got drunk on Sam Adams’s beer for like ten years straight and didn’t let another British guy party over here until Ozzy and Mick Jagger came along.  The Frenchies couldn’t hang so they got all mad and plus we took their French fries and put cheese and chili on them and made them way better.  Then Patrick Henry invented football and monster trucks and the rest is history.

I think the most underrated form of comedy is a prank.  Very mean, very funny and makes for great stories.  I thought I would share my favorites.

In high school, a teammate of ours was observed to open his trunk by slamming his fist into a spot on the trunk.  So of course, we filled his entire trunk full of gravel, which took him 30 minutes to get out by hand.  I also used to enjoy pulling longways across the last three or four parking spots when I was running late because I knew my two friends who were also always almost late would have to park at the middle school and sprint up the hill to get to homeroom – one got two detentions because of my sweet moves.

My first job in Columbus was thanks to guy before me quitting.  He quit because the shop guys kept dropping bombs in his office bathroom, so he thought it was a good idea for a college degree having white collar office guy to go and yell at the working all three shift shop guys and tell them they were too dirty for his bathroom.  When he returned from Christmas break, 12 dudes had crapped in the toilet and not flushed.  One even fished out a turd and wrote “Merry Xmas” in poo.  He quit on the spot.

The winner though?  Same shop guys found out one of their co-worker’s locker combination.  When he left his shift, they would put an “out of order” sign on the urinal and then open his locker.  They put a funnel leading into his boots, then closed the door and put up another sign saying “Bathroom broken, truckers piss here.”  Every semi driver on 2nd and 3rd shift would then piss into his boots.  They then took down the funnel and sign before he got in.  On day three, he commented, “My feet stink!  I need some odor-eaters!”  Day four he came in and they had left the funnel and signs up.  He destroyed the entire locker room in a rage – fun for all!

I lost my keys this past weekend.  I looked high and low and up and down – no keys.  Then the last vestiges of my age-ravaged brain began to grind.  I took my keys outside to unlock my car and wipe down the interior from a spill.  I remembered seeing the paper towels on the counter, which meant I must have had the keys in one hand, the paper towels in the other and tossed my keys into the huge trash bin the city gets once a week.  Well, that and the fact I put the mail in the fridge also instead of the leftovers from lunch.  Other than warning signs of my mind going away, no problem, just fish them out, right?

Then I remembered that earlier that morning I had dumped out a bean bag, so about 80% of a 90 gallon bin was full of thousands of little foam beads.  I had to search through about 5 million foam beads.  After 20 minutes of scooping them out, I found a diaper and old Mexican food containers.  As I barreled ahead, I got to the dog shit we had cleaned up and ta-da, there were my keys.  The density sunk them to the bottom – right next to the dog shit.  I realized that I immediately need to stop aging…or then again, it could be the multiple concussions I had from sports.  Or both.