Coffee Through a Straw

My Coffee Spilled

2012-01-08T19:12:00.000-05:00

It happened and it was done.

I've never seen coffee spill so fast, and in so much volume. My first instinct was to not let it drop on the floor, so I covered the counter with my body. The floor was saved, my pants weren't so lucky. A great wet spot gathered around my loins with a hot stinging sensation. Someone was walking over, I had to think of something.

"What happened here," she said.

"Some lunatic spilled his coffee and ran off," I lied. "Did you see where he went?"

"No, but someone needs to clean this up."

I agreed. This sort of mess was not fitting for such a fine coffee place.

She called for an employee. "We need some napkins."

"What happened here," he said. He was just back from his break wearing the green, untied apron. His name tag read: Steve. Not Stephen, Steve.

"Someone spilled all of their coffee and ran off," she said.

"Do you know who it was?" He looked around as if the perk was still sneaking around the scene of the crime.

The woman and I both answered no. I tried to hide my half empty coffee stained cup. This had gone too far for me to confess now.

"It even spilled on this poor fellow," she pointed to my crouch and I turned red. I was the poor fellow, now. Really moving up in the world.

"I'm so sorry, sir," said Steve. "I hope your pants aren't ruined."

"It's alright," I said. "No one's fault. It was probably a mistake, is all. You guys fill it up to the brim and expect us to fit in some cream, well, mistakes like that are bound to happen."

"We don't fill it that high, sir." Steve no longer wore a smile, and his fingers twirled the loose ends of his apron.

"Then what do you call this," said the woman. She moved her coffee cup in plain view and we all looked at the black liquid lapping the rim, dribbles crawling on the side from the soft motion of her bringing the cup upright. "I had to walk on a tight rope in order to get from the counter to here."

"I'll go get more napkins." Steve dropped his apron ties and walked back behind the counter.

"Thank you," I said to the woman.

"I'm just worried about whoever did this. Imagine. In this day and age."

This woman helped me, and I owed it to her to tell the truth. Such a trivial matter, anyway, spilling coffee and lying about it. People make mistakes, and when they are made, we fix them. We help each other. And lying helps no one.

"I have a confession to make," I said. She put her coffee down and gave me her attention. "It was my coffee. I spilled it."

"Pathetic," she said, and walked away.

Steve came back and started mopping the counter. Most of it was dry by now, but he still gave it a good scrub.

"Than you, Steve." I didn't have the heart to tell him the truth.

The Christmas Commercial

2011-12-19T11:25:00.002-05:00

The problem with the magazine rack is Maxim is right next to Wired. When I'm trying to catch up on my gadgets at a glance a paranoia sets in that causes my body to haunch over, my eyes shift from left to right after reading each sentence. I don't want to be caught with insinuations of my reading dirty magazines. My reputation is to be upheld, whatever is left of it.

So when some lady started talking aloud about the free gift wrapping, I nearly jumped out of my jacket. I showed her evidence of what I was reading.

"They said this cat can communicate with words when wearing this head device," I said.

"What?" she was alone, cradling a coffee, peppermint mocha by the smell of it. I instantly wanted one.

"Nothing." We stared at the table of stringy haired moms throwing around scissors and tape and wrapping paper. They worked fast, the boxes they covered were tight, and they said "Happy Holidays" to each customer.

"Well," she said. "Can you believe it? They'll wrap your gift for free but won't say Merry Christmas. Unbelievable."

"What is it you want from them?"

"Excuse me?"

"Do you want Christmas to be commercialized? Or for the commercialization to contrast Christmas?"

"Yes, Christmas is much too commercialized," she said. Her demeanor flurried to a bandwagon cheer. "Too much of a profit is being made on behalf of a beautiful message hidden behind the glamour of sales."

"Then why would you want the very entity guilty of your accusations to fuel the Christmas fraud? Wouldn't them saying "Merry Christmas" further hinder the message we hold in our hearts? To criticize them for not saying Merry Christmas, and then bark at them for making Christmas too commercial, well, nobody can win."

"I want them to recognize the reason we celebrate this season."

"As long as you recognize the reason, and live your life as an example of that reason, the Merry Christmas will come from the heart and not out of duty, and that is something no one can ignore."

"I just want someone to say Merry Christmas again..."

I put my magazine back and told her Merry Christmas. A warmth surrounded her blue eyes and she touched my shoulder, then looked at the magazine I was reading. Whatever heat that beamed from her eyes immediately chilled to ice.

"Wait!" I said. "It's not what you think."

"I love technology!"

The Cat Problem

2011-12-12T12:11:00.000-05:00

My grandmother's house had crickets the size of softballs that would jump at you instead of away from you. We would marvel at the new windup toy trekking across the kitchen floor when my grandmother would say, "no, that's a cricket." We'd whip out the tennis rackets and swing at the slightest noise and shadows moving in the corner. They made a nice crunching sound when flattened.

Why, God...why?

She brought home a cat but never named it. We called it: The Cat (first name The last name Cat). The was the best cricket hunter. Often, we'd find her sitting still but for her one paw, slapping and clawing and slapping this helpless cricket half her size. Our cricket problem was solved.

The had a play toy, a small, square piece of plywood with a spring screwed in the middle, and on top of the spring a multicolored ball. When The wasn't around, I would paw the ball-spring as The would if she was playing with it herself. One day, The decided to play with me, and we had fun. Cats are fun, I remember thinking. We had a staring contest, and it seemed I was winning, so The pawed me like a ball-spring toy. It didn't hurt, but I didn't expect it, and that's when the tears came.

I was five, and all of these years later, the fear of cats has never left me.

My backyard used to have a horse farm. Before you start remarking how cool it would be to have beautiful prancing thoroughbreds ten steps from your back door, let me tell you: it smelled, all of the time. Summers, especially, were horrific. Sun baked horse cakes cause offense to the nostrils.

My mother would often scream and I'd see her in the backyard with a fishing pole hooked with a carat, leading the escaped pony back to the stables. He'd leave behind half eaten bushes, crap the size of my head, and holes big enough to fit a family of gophers.

But this isn't about the horses. We're here for the cats.

He's here for your soul

The horse farm was also home to hundreds of cats perched on the barn and fences, meowing, waiting for me to make a wrong move where they would pounce. When we'd fight, I'd jump in with the biggest stick I could find and start swinging. My brother would throw rocks, and at the setting of the sun we'd walk back to our home in triumph. The night is theirs, anyway.

Now that I'm older and somewhat more mature, I want to like cats. This silly feud that's been happening for years on an account of a misunderstanding, well, I'm tired of it. The white flagged has been waved and peace negotiations are ready to be hosted.

But a cat never forgets.

Vengeance comes as naturally as purring, and to them I am just another ball-spring ready to be swapped.

There are black cats that show up to my door, but they don't just give me dead mice or dead birds, a usual sign of affection, they give me dead mice and dead birds without heads. This is an act of aggression, of war, a mark for death.

They've infiltrated the internet with their funny memes and have made the population docile to their destructiveness. But I know...I've seen it...I know what they are up to...and they know that I know what they are up to. I know this...

It's happening...

The is dead, now, and the horse farm is gone, but their vengeance is strong, and their resolve is quick. Today I live another day, but tomorrow, I might be the remains of a litter box.

Mountains and Madness

2011-12-08T11:35:00.001-05:00

My room looks like someone took an industrial broom and pushed every kind of clutter to all four walls. I have four overlapping mountains in the center; one is made of clothes (clean), as is the other (dirty). The other mountain is a technological graveyard of broken gadgets, and the last one is a recycling dump of coke cans, pop-tart wrappers, and Ramen Noodles. I woke up trying to find my keys and in the depths of the mountain touched the hand of Cthulhu.

He waits...

Not only did I retract my hand, my entire body flung and fell into the mountain of dirty clothes. At the height of my madness a cloud of rationality told me to straighten things up.

So I did.

Faith really can move mountains.

It took all morning. I found my keys and Cthulhu was still sleeping. At the realization of the inherent lack of occupation within the newfound bareness, I needed furniture.

I'm not cool enough for Ikea and Office Max is closer, so I left to find some pieces to decorate my room. I used to work at an Office Max one Summer. The only memory I have of that dull period was when my boss asked me to take a floor model desk set to the dumpster and smash it with a hammer. I asked him why?

"There is a minor flaw in the wood," he said. "We can't sell it."

"Why do I have to destroy it?"

"So no one else can have it."

Life teaches you lessons you wish to forget but can never do so.

There was nothing at Office Max but office furniture. The last thing I want my room to look like is an office. A desk with a computer gives me chills. Guess that's what happens when you're chained to one for four years, and perhaps guilt for destroying a flawed desk set in my youth.

Forgive me...

Who I Am?

2011-12-06T11:54:00.001-05:00

My identity becomes inaccurate when I start walking. How far should my legs extend for the next step? Are my arms waving too violently? Shoulders back or relaxed? Who I am is more of a befuddled question than the start of a declarative statement (Who I am?)

So when someone complimented my sitting posture, the man I am supposed to be tapped my shoulder and hugged me with big, hairy arms.

It was raining out and I tripped on a wet plastic coffee lid. My glasses broke the fall since my hands were nestled deep in my jacket pockets (I didn't know what else to do with them). On hands and knees I cupped the frames, pushed out the cracked shards of glass from the eye sockets, and quoted the lines from that Twilight Zone episode.

"It's not fair...that's not fair...."

"Are you crying, sir?" Someone passing by asked me. They were pushing a baby carriage without a baby.

"No," I lied. "Just got a little rain in my eye."

I wiped the tears from my face, went inside, and ordered a coffee.

"So you getting ready for finals?" said the man behind the counter.

"No," I said. "'Tis the season, however, I am not enrolled this semester."

He didn't say anything, just shook his head in disappointment. The coffee tasted burnt, and the old guy sitting in front of me had this smell, a smell reserved for corpses and forgotten cadavers. I was too afraid to poke him, to see if he was alright.

"Excuse me," said the women next to me.

"Yes?"

"You drink your coffee through a straw?"

"Why, yes. Yes, I do."

"That is so..."

"Stupid?"

"Interesting."

So I told her all about the benefits of drinking coffee through a straw, and she promised me to do so from now on.

"You're a nice guy," she said. "I was almost afraid to talk to you. You sit like an important person. You know, one of those guys who have it altogether, like a professor or something."

"And then I opened my mouth, right?"

She laughed but didn't disagree with me. I didn't want to get up, for fear my true nature would reveal itself through my walking. So I sat there, holding my bladder and plugging my nose from smelling the maybe-dead-guy.

She left. When I began to walk a cool breeze washed me from head to toe. My legs relaxed, my shoulders heaved with the clairvoyance of a bard, and my arms wafted through the air with the grace of a golden eagle.

The old guy snored; he was alive.

I got new glasses. I am channeling Woody Allen with these frames.

Hello bumbling, neurotic white guy syndrome.

And check out the new John Holland film I'm starring in.

Inspirational Pastries

2011-12-01T14:57:00.001-05:00

I woke up the morning of December 1st with a question: what day is it? The past two weeks have been drips of water from a leaky faucet.

"When," I asked Myself, "are you going to become productive with your life? You are so good looking and have an enormous amount of talent. You're just wasting away, sitting in front of the window with a box of Pop-Tarts."

"Gives me inspiration," said Myself.

"The pastries?"

"No." Myself licked his jelly stained fingers. "Them: the people, the animals, the trees, the cars; action. It inspires me."

"Inspiration isn't a butterfly to be caught in the net of your gaze."

"Then what am I waiting for?"

"I don't know, have you tried juggling?"

"Too hard. Coordination is as fleeting as inspiration. You know this."

"And Mom's green candle holder didn't fare too well, either." We both shared a laugh and I reached for a Pop-Tart.

Something caught my eye.

White icing with red sprinkles spackeled over the pastry. I scoped this one sprinkle, high and to the right, and shut everything else out. This sprinkle and I were the only things existing, falling deeper into white room without a floor. Sure, it may have looked like all the others, tasted like all the others, felt like all the others, but this sprinkle and I had a connection deeper than the one I had with Myself.

So I ate it.

"You're right," I said to Myself. "They do give you inspiration."

Pre-Thanksgiving on a Post Thanksgiving Day

2011-11-23T15:14:00.001-05:00

"'Tis the season to be jolly," sang the woman pouring my coffee.

"Fa-la-la-la-la, La-la, La, La," I joined in and we finished the song in undulating melodies. She handed me coffee and we wished each other happy holidays.

This was in June and my soul was excited for the coming Winter season. Now, since Thanksgiving is tomorrow and Christmas is speeding around the corner, I came back and began to sing to her. This time, however, I sang alone. She bulged her eyes and faked a smile, and the song stopped half way. The line I was holding up was not amused. I apologized, and she handed me my coffee.

Why is it so hard to find joy around the holidays? Does the song lie? Is this not the season of joy we all know and love?

It was so easy to recognize the joy springing from our song in June because it was not expected. Summer is sun and fun, Winter is snow and Christmas. When you attach either attribute to the other season, something inside cries foul and laughs at the incongruity--what philosophers call Absurd.

We expect the lights and the snow and the songs in the Winter, so we prepare ourselves to be sick of the monotony. Sing a Christmas song in the Summer and it is unexpected. We laugh because it is not the season to be jolly, there is no reason to be jolly, in fact, the jolly season will not occur for another couple of months. The anticipation for the Winter builds, and when Winter comes, it is a letdown, and everything we hoped it would be is not, and we are left with empty songs that hold as much meaning as an empty shoe.

I'm not cynical, there is enough poison in my life to reserve a special place for Christmas, and the idea of family and friends gravitating to a giving spirit and remembrance of the birth of Christ still warms my heart, but Charlie Brown was right when he said Christmas is dead.

Okay, he didn't say that, but that's what I get from the Special. People are too worried about gifts and decorations. Plans are made to spend time with family and friends you can't stand because that's what your supposed to do. But why do we give? And why do we indulge in the company of others?

Christmas is about making the ugly beautiful.

Christmas is about hope.

This is the time to make amends, to forgive, and to be thankful for what our lives have become. The tree Charlie Brown picked out was significant, he saw himself in that tree. No one gave it a chance, just as they never gave him a chance, until the absolute breaking point, when even he left it to rot. It wasn't until his friends came around and realized what they really had: each other. And with each other, they made something ugly beautiful. And with that, Charlie Brown saw hope for himself.

I still don't have a job so there is no hope for a coffee drinker like me this season.

A guy just walked by me and snarled. Should I be worried?

Uh-Oh, there goes the panic attacks again.

Santa, yes. That's what I'll do. I'll be Santa this year at a department store. If not Santa, then an elf. That's more my style, the little imp that helps the big guy, but ends up messing things up and everyone laughs at him, not with him, and you like watching the show because he's on.

The Latte Legacy

2011-11-08T12:40:00.000-05:00

Time slows down when it sleeps next to you. Wake up and find you're no longer cuddling a pillow but an abstract measurement of your life's fleeting moments.

"I take my pillow hugging seriously."

Quick, how many hours after waking up does it take to realize life is wasting away?

The answer is different for everyone. For me, it took two hours of watching the sun shoot through the window and climb up my bedroom wall. Convincing myself laying in a puddle of sleep is good. Hoping for a branch to pry my window open and ask to join him on a magical adventure.

"But where will we go!" I'd say.

"To the beyond." His bark and golden fall leaves would fall to my floor. "Where your dreams fly higher than your imagination can ever reach."

"Sure," I'll say. "Nothing better to do." And I'll jump out of bed and we'll both laugh because I'm not wearing pants. I never wear pants when sleeping.

"Our adventure awaits!"

Note to self: when musing about magical trees kidnapping you at morning's sunlight, when you and your imaginary tree friend laugh at the fact that you're not wearing any pants, go get a coffee.

So now I'm sitting here at Barnes and Noble, jobless, waiting for the panic to wrap me in her prickly arms.

The thing about lattes is, it is bad form to use a straw. Coffee, by all means, do the straw. But a latte is an experience for your lips. Especially if the drink rhymes with Shmeppermint Poka. This Peppermint Mocha latte is a dream.

The thing about lattes is, my throat closes up and I cough by reflex. My coughing is distracting these house moms who have the day off, these college students who are pretending to study, these writers who are working on the next Great American Novel.

The thing about lattes is, the more I drink the more I cough. The more I cough the more everyone else coughs. Like yawning or plagues it is very communicable, and on my third latte, I have the whole room coughing. It sounds like a tuberculosis ward. This seems like a good time to leave.

Another legacy swells before me.

I Quit

2011-11-05T15:43:00.000-04:00

My desk was home to many things: paper clip sculptures, sticky note puzzle art, pencil towers, Mega-Pen (pens of all colors and sizes bundled together by a rubber band), rubber band balls, rubber band cubes, rubber band triangles (an abandoned project), but one thing was missing: love.

No one loves their desk; it's something you have to deal with. You aren't given a choice you are given a desk, and she doesn't choose you either. There is a synergy of distaste and unmet needs, a bug of regret inching around your neck, but you work with her and she works with you and you get work done together.

I remember the first day sitting at this desk. I'd been given pieces of paper to glue together and file alphabetically in green hanging folders. During my pointless duties, I noticed a slight imperfection in the middle of the surface. A tiny hole, a rogue screw pushed too deep screaming for attention.

Like any vagrant office worker, I took my letter opener and stabbed the hole. For three years I stabbed, turned, twisted, ground, stuffed, prodded, pressed, and poked. During all these instances of poking, I had made a friend, and this desk I was stuck with became my desk.

Fortunately, my desk was the only friend I made through out my time working here. My co-workers were self indulged work-aholics, obsessive neat-aholics, annoying noise-aholics, and they didn't drink coffee they drank those five hour energies. You can't even fit a straw in one of those midget bottles.

The day I came in and saw my desk patched up where the hole should have been, I wrote my resignation letter to my boss. My first draft was filled with censored expletives like 'fudge' and 'shirt.' I revised it and to make no sense. The final draft said: "You took my desk. Sincerely, Yours." It wasn't until I handed it in that I realized it said nothing about me leaving.

"What is this," said my boss.

"That's my resignation letter."

"It says I took your desk. I didn't take your desk. Are you going to press charges?"

"N-no. I am just upset my desk is gone."

"Who took your desk?"

"The hole is gone. There's no hole anymore, it's filled."

"I see." He flattened his back to the chair and rocked back and forth, holding the letter close to his eyes dressed in bifocals.

"I am quitting," I said finally, in an inglorious fashion opposing what I had hoped for would be a fiery storming.

"Well, we are sorry to see you leave. Just write a letter and hand it in to me. I'll be sure to write you a good recommendation."

"I already did."

"Did what?"

"Write the letter."

"Then let's have it. I need it for the file."

"You're holding it."

"Oh," he turned the letter upside down, backwards, searched the envelope. "Quite an unusual way to quit. I like that, always liked that about you. Thinking outside the cubicle."

"Thank you, sir."

"Here," he handed me a piece of paper from the printer. It was a recommendation letter, describing the wonderful clerical abilities of Stephen Hues. "Don't thank me until you get a job, and I'm sure you'll do fine." I walked out of his office and crumbled the paper.

"You'll do fine," I heard him say. I tossed the recommendation ball onto the desk I no longer knew.

You'll do fine.

I grabbed my Scooby-Doo bobble head and headed for the door. People's heads peeked above their furry cubicle walls.

You'll do fine.

I had a speech prepared, but my withdrawal from the big office was inconspicuous at best. Instead I pumped my fist while holding the bobble head and exited the building.

Love, Luck, Life

2011-09-30T15:54:00.000-04:00

I shook a man's hand on Tuesday and by Thursday he was dead. Life cues the credits much too early, as a good movie you never want it to end and you're left with an empty popcorn box filled with regret for not getting the free refill because the good part is coming up, you can feel it. Afterwards you realize how much you've been ripped off, but it's too late, and throw out your proof of purchase along with the empty sweets, here one moment gone the next.

His obituary didn't say how he died, just that he was a loving father and husband, recently widowed. We are only given a set amount of time to live, and I think half of that time is attributed to luck, the other half to love. When you lose the one you love, life is just a fifty-fifty chance.

As a kid you think the first person you meet and fall in love with is your soul mate. What they didn't tell you is how new love feels every time it hits you, and how different it is for each person you fall for.

Love is as precious as life, and luck has nothing to do with it, but judging from that man's smile after our hands unhooked, chances are he lived a good life.

Gossip Boy

2011-09-15T11:30:00.000-04:00

The water cooler has been the hot spot for gossip since the beginning of water coolers and gossip. In an office filled with two faced sharks dressed in pinstriped suits, it is logical they would gather in one place to quench their thirsts. Everyone loves to talk about everyone else, as long as that everyone else isn't themselves, so when I glanced over to see how crowded the area was, they were already staring at me, cups in hand, smiles plastered on their faces.

They were talking about me.

I refuse to take part in the gossip--anything more than a Hi or Bye with these corporate canaries I try to avoid. I do not like them and would rather continue not knowing them. They are probably swell people, too, but I can't like these people, that would fade the line separating my life and work life. I cherish the stark difference.

Mary from accounting, two cubicles down from me, she sits in her chair and relentlessly taps her calculator. The only breaks she takes is to eat, which is every ten minutes. The donut guy, Karl with a K, comes limping around with a cart full of pastries and coffee. She takes all of the good ones, and I'm left with the lime flavored cream filled croissant.

"Any chocolate glazed?" I ask. He raises his eyebrow, slants his mouth, and points in Mary's direction. I take a coffee and thank him. I don't bother asking how she can take all of those donuts for herself. He's a Vietnam Vet who just pushes the cart around the office, and Mary is a large, large woman. Nothing more to know.

She laughs like Giraffe if it had a sense of humor. A deep guffaw rumbles at the bottom of her bottomless stomach and swirls up and around her wind pipe until it squeezes out of her thick, sticky lips. Mary gets those chain emails I love to delete.

Why so much attention to Mary? Well, Mary has one of those hearing aids, even though her hearing is fine. A couple of years ago, she was getting off of a bus and the doors closed on her head like an accordion, over and over. She mooed like a cow, but the driver had no idea what was going on. A crowd of people gathered and watched this catastrophe unfold, some with a hand slightly touching their lips.

Somewhere a baby was crying, somewhere a coffee spilled on some one's pants (probably me...).

This was not a one time occurrence, either. A year later, on a different bus on a different route, as she was getting off, the doors flapped open and close on her head. There were no onlookers, and I am pretty sure I didn't spill my coffee. Mary was alone in her grief, laying on the sidewalk in tears with no one to help her, asking herself why God would do this to her not once but twice. What was he trying to tell her? She may never know, we may never know, but the kids around the block call her Bus Door Head, even to this day.

"Bus Door Head," she says in tears. "I can't even have a cool nickname."

Mary developed some hearing loss and freaked out and forced her doctor to suggest a hearing aid. Her hearing returned, eventually, even though she swears she is still deaf, but the hearing aid still works. In the quiet break room she would lift her head and stare into space. One had asked what's wrong. She shushed and said, "she's breaking up with him...and hes crying...poor thing." There are tenants above our office, a young woman who goes through boy friends like a banker changes money, and later that day, I looked out for this boyfriend, and sure enough he left the building with a handful of tissues. Mary can hear more than the average person. Mary can hear mice committing suicide behind the walls. She can hear the water cooler gossip.

Since I'm afraid she'd mistaken me for a large pastry and eat me if I enter her cubicle, I email her instead asking if she'd heard anything this morning around the water cooler, and added a ;) at the end, against my pride and better judgement, to indicate the only information I want to know is if it was anything about me. I hoped she'd catch my meaning--she didn't.

Instead I received an email back with a long exposition on her life, her accident, the life story of all of the coworkers, and what she was going to do today when she got off from work. It was painful skimming through very line, every word, but never catching anything that was said around the water cooler.

I sent another one, this time more direct: were they talking about me around the water cooler this morning?

She answered back: no, they were saying how fat I am and how I like you. But don't worry, I know everyone thinks I am fat. I am, after all. I eat too much. Say, would you like to come over for dinner? I'm making--

I couldn't finish the email. From then on I get even more chain emails from Mary. And I still can't tell what they are saying at the water cooler. Karl came around and said he had a chocolate glazed donut for me. I told him thanks, but I lost my appetite.

Summer: the Motion Picture

2011-09-03T11:47:00.000-04:00

Surprising: if people still read this blog.

Not surprising: my failure to keep up during the Summer.

I have a very low expectation of myself.

As you can see there is no Part II to my series of the awkward self, but I do have a mysterious black triangle with an exclamation point in the middle floating on the top right of my site.

I wish I could say I had a good Summer; some parts were good, though as a season it was one of the most boring to date. After twenty-two joyous Summers a bad one is expected.

I remember how tortuous those creeping one hundred eighty days of school were. The promise of Summer couldn't be realized sooner, and when that promise was exacted within the last days of June, there resided a palpable sense of freedom no words could describe. Looking around at your friends in the Lunch room, seeing your enemies in Gym class, stealing glances at that girl who you always liked but were too afraid to talk to in English class, you all shared something special: an accomplishment of achievement, and this is what brought us all together. New friendships were formed, old alliances broken, all in the name of freedom, akin to the days of the Revolution, and just in time for Independence Day.

But that was then, this is now.

Now we are older. High School is the end of the feel good movie where all of the cardboard characters laugh at the nerd for being so socially awkward, and the camera pulls back through the window to a static shot until the credits roll with your favorite pop song supplementing your eagerness to stay and sit and offer respect to the filmmakers. But you need to leave because you have better things to do with your life, like go to college or feed your beta fish.

This point in life--after High School--is what happens to those characters. One gets pregnant and the father wants nothing to do with the kid, the other gets busted for possession even though the drugs aren't his, and that nerd, the one who was book smart but for the life of him couldn't get the hang of a high five, he is sitting in his dorm tying a rope into a noose, because boy scouts is only good for moments before suicide so you don't feel absolutely helpless if you have to Google how to tie a noose.

Life is ugly after movies end, so enjoy them while they are on, and thank the filmmakers who create them--yes, even Michael Bay, as much as I hate to say it, but he's made bank doing what he loves; what have you done with your life so far?

Don't let her smile fool you. She once had dreams of becoming a novelist. Now she talks in an Indian accent to irritated customers.

http://www.youtube.com/user/NarrowlandFilms

This guy isn't a Michael Bay but he is doing what he loves, and doing what he loves makes others love what he does and I love him for that...

Check him out, rate, favorite, subscribe, and comment.

The Philosophy of the Awkward: Part One

2011-06-01T12:56:00.000-04:00

There has been a growing fashion of encapsulating the essence of the awkward. This way of life is a practice of individuality, of recognizing the shortcomings within the self, and instead of fixing these flaws, they relish in it. "I'm so awkward when it comes to [insert social medium]." We've all heard someone proclaim this, maybe even ourselves, and it is said with a staple of pride rather than an expression of timidity. There is a time for awkwardness, and there is a time for aptitude; the latter should become more common place than the former. We all have a choice when faced with a situation that compromises our pride, our dignity, our familiarity with the way of life in which we are accustomed to. More times than not, I am forced into awkwardness, and I feel as if I've never had a choice.

Awkwardness at its core is believing everyone else but you understands how to navigate through social interactions. This is most evident within a massage parlor. To lie half naked on a bed is one thing, to lie half naked on a bed with a stranger in the same room is entirely different. What's worse is this stranger is going to touch you in ways you were taught was reserved for married couples. I should have closed my mouth as she began gently swathing her lavendar laced hands on the nape of my neck to the curve of my spine, but my mind works in mysterious ways, and to keep silent was worse than spewing nonesense.

"This room has a nice color," I said. It was too dark to see, and the candles made everything sepia, but I had to say something.

"Just relaaaaax," she said. I cringed. She could tell I was tense. This was going bad.

"Yes," I said. "Very, very relaxed. I feel very good. Yep. No problems here. Thank you. Yes, thanks. Ha-ha. So how are you doing? Everything good up there? How's the weather, ha-ha...So what do you...do...besides massaging." She only responded in a series of coos and relaaaaax-es, making things worse. I left more tense than when I came in, $40 poorer, and an increase burn of sexual tension. Violation isn't the right word, but close enough.

This is the point where you magine the massuese as well as other clients--the ones who reccomended you see one--have reached a level of social hierarchy where they can feel not only comfortable, but pleasure in a dark room with a stranger rubbing oils on a naked body. Call me awkward, it'll never make sense to me.

Standing in front of a public urinel is the equivilent to watching a dog get mauled to death by a baker's dozen or so cats. It's ugly, disgusting, and there's nothing you can do about it because it's going to happen.

I had a too much to drink at Starbucks to the point where my straw was disintegrating, and headed for the restroom. The inside was like any other, dank, murkey, and misty with stink. I positioned myself in front of a urinel, the one on the end so if someone else walks in, they can use the one on the other end. Common courtesy. Best case scenario: they use the stall.

The door opened and the sound and implication of the destruction of solitute was startling; I became cold. A prayer was sent up that this assailient would use the stall. God needed to provide me a best case scenario. He didn't. He probably laughed when the stranger decided to use the urinel right next to me. This is okay, I thought to myself. Just stare stright ahead and go. You really have to go, remember?

He started to go instead, in the otherwise silent room, where the only noise you could hear were the bugs underneath the stained tiles. His pompous, confident stream did nothing to hide the fact that I was clearly just standing there and nothing more. He could hear. He knew that I wasn't going. He knew. How could he not?

Don't think about that, I said to myself. Just focus...focus...focus...

"So what's up man," he said, looking straight into my ear, and my all the blood rushed to my feet. If evolution were true, this type of Neandethal man would have been extinct, or killed off in a mass genocide.

"Ah, nothing really," just trying to pee...

"Oh, yeah. Chillin. Chillin?"

"Yes, I am very chilling, chilling."

"Righteous. How about this weather? Pretty smething, eh?" He continued to make small talk because I am the only person who doesn't know how to talk and pee at the same time. Halfway through I gave up, zipped up, and told him how great this urinel session was.

The tragedy is not the incapablability to pee in front of someone, it's knowing that they know you can't. They are thinking about it, for there is nothing else to do in the restroom other than evaluate your surroundings, just like Neanderthal man! It's instinctual: to spot weakness, to pounce, to bring your prey to some backwards justice. Standing at a urinel is awkward to begin with, but practicing small talk with a stranger while doing so is reaching into the realm of the bizzare.

Check out Part Two next week.

Shorter Than Short Stories

2011-04-22T10:26:00.000-04:00

Hello All! Check out my Flash Fiction website http://writeshortlivelong.wordpress.com/ Enjoy, comment, rate, reflect.

Parade of Nonsense

2011-04-14T13:28:00.001-04:00

I helped my friend move in to a Hoboken apartment and quarreled with my fellow mover the ironic implications hoisting a recliner up many flights of stairs. I spent the night on the couch and woke up thinking how nice it would be to live here. The scene is strange enough and the homeless are nice. That's an important thing to look for when finding a place to live. If evicted, making friends will be easy.

We woke up early to participate in the Fast Breaking Race, a 13km race where no one really runs except for the guys from Kenya. Those who aren't from the Dark Continent dress up in avant-garde, toss confetti, and pull wagons of beverages and snack kiosks. It's a parade of nonsense. I'm pretty sure most of those beverage wagons sold alcohol, in about three minutes of the start of the race, a screaming broad came running up behind me toting a lightning bolt cane and slapped a name tag on my chest that said "Crack Baby." That set the tone of the rest of the day.

There was a sumo sized gorilla chasing a tiny person with a banana. A couple people were wearing cut off, acid washed jeans and muscle shirts. Too many mustaches; you can tell when they were talking as their lip hairs fluttered up and down. I thought, good for them. If you have the tenacity to proudly wear one of those, then by all mean. I know I can't. There were also some naked people. I was warned about it, but never thought I'd actually see one.

When I did, it was when a gaggle of cheerleaders were enticing the runners to try a cartwheel. It was sad watching the obese slap the pavement with their inflated palms, pointing their flabby butts to the heavens. Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do. After the fat guy, the crowd casted lots for the next embarrassment. One guy shouted, "let the naked guy do it," Sure enough, leaning on a streetlight: a nudist. He would have stuck his hands in his pockets if God had supplied any to our fleshy bodies. He attempted a handspring. It was the sum total of every horrific car accident I ever watched. I'll also be dealing with the flashbacks of senior citizens stripped of clothing.

A bearded man, whom I mistaken for the homeless, held a sign that read "God hates sinners" and underneath a list of superlatives of what a sinner consists of. I thought, what better way to spread Jesus's message of love, to tell people that His dad hates them. As I passed, people were throwing hot dogs at him, and this will forever remain such an absurd version of stoning a religious figure.

Afterwards, I felt dirty, repented, and took a shower.

The Long Way Home

2011-04-02T13:15:00.003-04:00

Getting back to work today, there was a troupe of Girl Scouts intimidating passerbys to purchase delicious guilty pleasures. Upon noticing the cluster of pre-teens donned in pointy barrets and flared, green sashes, I instinctively glued my phone to my ear and, in a timber tone, explained to the open air how to properly hide a decapitated body--there was blood everywhere, apparently. No way this dirty dozen was going to force me to buy three boxes of thin mints. I can't resist those cookies, and they can always spot a man too weak to avoid over-indulging.

This week I spent time traveling to Ireland and some other places, almost died one night in St. Petersburg, but until my legal team assures me I can't be extradited, it's best to remain silent on the ordeal. Due to horrid weather conditions, the plane needed to land fifteen hours away from my home. The airline offered a discount on the Greyhound Bus. I forgot how luxurious these things are.

Very colorful people ride Greyhounds, and by colorful, I mean the type of pigmentation found in dirty tie-die shirts stuffed in forgotten cardboard boxes in the attic and are only found after the old tree-hugger dies in a puddle of urine and vomit in consequence of all those years dabbling with experimental drugs and free spirits that never really were caged down once on the loose. Each crooked eye, frizzy dreadlock, and offensive aroma had a story to tell that I didn't want to hear.

Next to me was an empty seat and people were still boarding. I messed my hair and pushed my glasses down to the end of my nose, stuck out my front teeth like I had a massive overbite and left my mouth hanging open like a country hick would if you asked him about anything other than farming and how good looking his sister is. As people walked by, I would stare them in the face until they found somewhere else to sit. No one wants to get stuck next to the banged up guy on an overnight bus ride. It takes a lot out of you to pull this off, the looks you get from girls when you're pretending to be retarded are a mix between scorching daggers and muddled sympathy, but I have the will and a gaping black hole where dignity once resided. That extra seat is precious. I needed my rest.

I then met my match when someone with the exact same face as I came dragging his feet. He wasn't pretending and looked at me like "I have a brother!" sat down next to me and talked about Battlestar Galactica. He fell asleep on my shoulder after shutting up and snored like a dying dog the entire night. It was sweet in a depressing way, I made a retard feel accepted.

How to Waste Time at Work

2011-03-16T12:35:00.002-04:00

Refrain from rubbing two paperclips together to make a fire, it doesn't work, trust me. Since the sudden transfer from one slow branch to another, life in the workplace has become even more grueling and I've become even more complacent. If I had a time machine to go back and tell this to my two-week younger self, he'd slap me in the face to stop my screaming rants on how our life will turn for the worst in such a short amount of time. Get lost clown, he would say. I would be so speechless by his brash candor, then weep all the way back to my Delorean for the loss of innocence he will experience.

That line of thinking is dangerous to bring up to idealistic college kids; unbased theories abound (everyone is an expert these days). According to the rules of time travel, my future self would remember seeing my self lamenting warnings of a dystopian future. The problem here is, my past self was probably too doped up on Nyquil at the time and more prone to walking around in a daze. That would explain my calling my future self a clown. I just don't say that, and even if I did, I would try very hard to forget it.

At this new branch, they do something here besides wiping up the puddle of drool on a desk after taking a surprised, unshceduled nap: they work. To be more specific, they pretend to work. To be even more specific, they look for things to do with their time that they believe will help the company function more efficiently as a whole. In reality, they are just as productive as I am zoning out in the bathroom handicap stall with a half bottle of Nyquil between my legs, an activity I do way too often.

After setting up my station, an easy task of swinging my jacket on the back of the chair like a magician would, they put me to work. Every day the manager would recieve emails dicatating company futures, procedure changes, staff suggestions, and other menial tasks. I had to paste these papers inside manila folders.

The worst part was when the manager actually trained me to do this. I had to watch hims scribble glue all over the folder then press down on top. He did this three times before he looked at me and asked, "you think you get the hang of it?" I told him I knew how to use glue. He said, "Great!" like he was excited and proud of my skill set. He said, "if you have any questions, I'm at the cubicle at the end of the hall." The only question I had was, "are you kidding me?"

Since I was drinking coffee, sanity embued my spirit and calm rested on my shoulders. I glued and dotted all over the manilla folder just how I was taught, then started to mess around and play tic-tac-toe with myself. I'd get too ashamed every time I lost, even thought I was winning, too. The duality of man is hard to face when half of you is an idiot capable of losing tic-tac-toe everytime. As the day progressed (these emails never stopped, some of them were chain mail, the ones that said pass it on or you're going to have bad luck), I wrote messages; I hate you; bow to me; you are ugly; repent!; death. Eventually I got around to drawing racist charicatures of my co-workers to pass the time.

In my eyes this was a victimless crime. Slapping a fresh email about nothing on top hid what I'd done underneath. Unless you hold it up to the light, apparently, then whatever you've drawn in glue and despair is visible.

They transfered me back to my old branch without explaination, but I'll always know why.

Music Moves Men's Souls

2011-02-27T19:01:00.001-05:00

I went to a show in the park to see Dredge Range--two guys shredding on acoustic guitars. I think they did the soundtrack for that indie movie--where Daniel Reeves plays the best interpretation of my life--"Hearts in San Francisco," they have a song with the same name and their voices are just as whiny. The mayor hosted with a special promotion where if you buy a bundle of eco-friendly light bulbs, you get free meat. Even though I didn't understand, it sounded more American than anything I've ever heard. I hope tourists were there so that when they go back to their country they can tell their family and friends: "In America, when you buy light bulbs, they give you meat." This should be our new national identity.

Everyone sat on the grass like hippies. There was even someone near the front wearing a wife beater and bandanna almost in tears shouting in between songs, "you're delicate!" I thought it was touching until I realized it was one of their songs as they began to play it, so I guess he just wanted to hear it. Maybe he wasn't confessing something he'd been holding in for so long.

Near the end of the set, they had a girl join them. She sounded like Regina Specktor but twitched randomly and her smile drowned in crooked yellow teeth. At this point, some guy tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I wanted a seat up front. He was supposed to be there with two other people, but they ended up not showing. I didn't know what else he said because I ripped the tickets out of his hand and bolted for the metal dividers up front. This Regina Spektor monster looked more menacing the closer we got. I was terrified by her, but when she opened her mouth to belt those high notes, it was like watching your mother get beat up in a fight you told her she could win, and there's this twisting thing in your stomach because you put money on the other girl. There was that much betrayal.

I wept.

Short Poetic Novels

2011-02-17T13:25:00.002-05:00

I haven't done these since September. Read some of my Flash Fiction.

http://writeshortlivelong.wordpress.com/

The Network Issue

2011-02-15T11:09:00.000-05:00

You know Valentines Day was a success when you wake up the morning after in a bed full of peanut butter and chocolate stained wrappers with your feet tangled in the head board and earphones playing Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is" on repeat. A half empty bottle of NyQuil snuggled in my arms, the label worn from my incessant caress. Like everyone else, I dream. But I dream of things that no one else has seen, that no one else would want to see. I felt bad for the inanimate object nestled in my chest, but jumped up to get dressed the same as any other morning.

IT was outsourced. They don't call it termination, or getting fired. That'd be too mean. Usually I wouldn't care, if you've experienced one IT company, you've seen them all. The problem here was the company's failure to replace them.

I guess that's what happens with involuntarily outsourcing.

As I arrive to work, we find the network is down. We wonder what to do since we can't email anyone about this problem. Suddenly the phones begin to ring. Things started to change already in the absence of computers. Without email, employees are discovery the art of speaking into phones. Discussions that required three days and six emails can be settled within minutes. Viruses and Spam, two very problematic IT issues that have always been addressed but never relinquished, have vanished. The plague of email jokes, the ones that are funny the first time but after the third or fourth loses its flavor, are eliminated. The dreaded chain letters under the threat of personal catastrophe have been lifted.

To send a file to the next desk over, we have to lace up our shoes and skip over with a hard copy in hand, and while we're at it, exchange a happy greeting. "That color looks great on you, by the way."

"I stitched it myself."

"I didn't know you made your own clothes!"

We are learning again. Our feet are moving again. Until now, our butts planted in a chair and remained until feeding time or closing, whichever came first. Now the area between the desks once called No Man's Land is bubbling with rustling bodies and raining down with papers, excited voices and good cheer, ringing phones and snapping pencils. Lower back pain is disappearing, and color is rising in the cheeks.

The HR department may be a corral of sadistic scum, and Management may be incompetent, but these employees are good people. We like a well told joke and road kill makes us squeamish. We bleed when we are cut. We know what it means to be human.

"Network is back," yells my manger, gripping a phone and biting a pencil. Everything stops. The phones, the papers, the voices, everything. We all walk to our desks absent minded and plump at our computers to sign on.

"Oh!" says someone a desk over. The computer screen is bright on her face, she reminds me of an ogre. "Look at these kittens, they are so ridiculous. I'll send it to you."

I already saw this email the week before. It wasn't funny anymore.

Nothing is funny anymore.

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

2011-02-14T11:58:00.002-05:00

It's Valentines Day...

Yeah, I never believed in it. Breaking up with girls before the holiday has become such a habit now I don't even bother having a companion anymore. It really frees me up from having to spend money on perishable gifts like chocolates that are only half eaten by weeks end because she just doesn't like coconut or the weird medicine cherry taste that seems to inhabit each creamy center. Flowers shrivel up, and I get that if you prop them upside down they preserve their natural state, but the colors are all off and they crumble to the floor at the most minor swift wind. All it takes is a brush by an open door and all the sentiment is sucked out, like the life that'd once filled the poor plant. If these things are supposed to symbolize love, then I'd rather not know what love is.

Most of the feelings shared between the two love birds are for appearances anyway. It's the holiday we end up celebrating, not each other.

Boycott!

(What I've said is all a lie. I'm masking my feelings. I have a Valentine: myself. I'm having cake in the shape of a heart with family, and I told every one of them to think of a funny story about me. Tonight I will point to each person and have them recite the life of me.)

In other news:

I woke up crying again this morning, and I can't remember why--maybe because I managed to bite my nose, and there are a lot of reasons to cry for that, other than the initial pain. I've been hoping the world would end by 2011, that all of the 2012 talk was a year off. That makes sense for the type of society we live in. We can't get anything right. This false hope has also prevented me from looking for a new job--my current employers do not deserve me. I had to update my resume when someone mentioned to me the infallibility of the Mayan Prophecy. He made a good point, so I believed it.

All my resume does is qualify me for another office job, and that is a shame. I'll be going from one precipice of fires to another, maybe even more scorching than the one I'm in now. Becoming a temp is a humiliating idea. They make you take a typing class and a basics math test, like addition and subtraction. I think it's to break your spirit, to remind you that what you're doing can easily be done by a chimp or a third grader. It helps keep you sad so you don't cause any problems.

I had a fantasy about becoming an overnight security guard. I could sit, write, read, and sleep at my desk like a normal person, except then I'll have a gun. The problem is, I'd end up blowing someone away by accident in the dead of night. Then I'd have to cover it up. Sure, I'd get away with it, but it's too much of a hassle.

Okay, time to watch a Romantic Comedy and contemplate the humiliation of my love life alongside a carton of Triple-Chunk-Fudge Ice Cream. It's the little things in life...

HAPPEH BIRFDAI 2 ME!

2011-02-08T14:10:00.001-05:00

My Birthday falls on a Wednesday, so I took the previous days off to celebrate. No, I'm not partying it up. There are only eight times we experience a double-numeral in age: 11, 22, 33, 44...and that is something to recognize. I mourn the realization 22 will be my last double-numeral--we are not guaranteed another one, and I was too young and naive to experience the magnitude of 11.

I've been waking up with a tear dried pillow because of this...

My friend left for a business trip, so I was asked to watch her cat. I never had a pet before, anything left in my possession for a period of time ends up dead: animals, projects, relationships. This is why I don't babysit as much. The good thing about this cat is it's as lazy as I am. She passes out for hours and only gets up to poop in her flavored sand box, which is more or less what I've been doing.

We're having a competition, who can do nothing the longest. If I win, I score points for humanity. We'll enjoy staring contests and take turns sneezing. We have the quirkiest ah-choos. In case you were wondering, yes, I have been talking to the cat, sometimes in its language and sometimes in English. We've had long conversations about my childhood and the things that make me cry. I'm glad to know there is a crazy old lady living inside me somewhere hoping to be with a slew of kittens one day when I'm 88 and alone. There's always something to look forward to.

I wonder what 33 will be like...

Digital Media: What We've Become

2011-01-29T09:54:00.003-05:00

There are a bunch of Dateline Specials of the Internet Predators digitally piled up in my DVR box. I watched them all and destroyed what little faith I had in humanity--but what does that say about the person watching it?

These are the creepy people who scour forums and chat rooms for innocent preteens and arrange meetings when their parents aren't home. When they scamper to Little Johnny's empty driveway, the Predator is met by a reporter, asked a bunch of humiliating questions, then tackled by a couple of swat teams. I'm not sure what happens after that, maybe jail, but I hope something more satisfying to my justice gland.

The only redeeming quality of the show--the kind that makes American Idol funny and watchable--is these people are as stupid as they are disgusting. There was one guy in a baseball cap who looked lost without his trailer home. As the cameras popped out of the bushes, his head retreated into his shirt like a turtle would to his shell. He looked like a headless man and continued the interview like this, revealing how much of a strange person he is. It was like the pedophile version of America's Got Talent.

The next guy brought his six year old son along, and that was less funny. But at the very least, the kid will always know when and where his life went horribly long.

"But your Honor," he would say. "I was holding my dad's hand when he got arrested for being a pervert. I was only six. He told me we were going to get candy. Maybe that's why I shot up my school."

What does a judge say to that? "I'm surprised you waited so long," maybe. I would have sucker punched my entire Pre-School class, if that happened to me.

Then there's Mind Freak on Netflix. It's on Instant Que (I say it like quay). He held his breath under water for like an hour or two. I say it was a camera trick--it always is--like slow motion. I still rooted for his death, though. Don't we all with these daredevils? If there's no chance of him dying, what's the point, right? I would have been satisfied with an uncontrollable spasm, but instead got a wet magician sticking his arms out like Jesus. This guy is being glorified for doing the things I used to get yelled at for. Holding your breath underwater too long? Come on. What's next? Eating too fast, playing in the snow too long, holding out in a tree house for days?

This is what entertainment has come to, but I don't think it's changed much in the Billions of years in existence.

The Snow Always Wins

2011-01-27T19:48:00.001-05:00

Snow:

What was once synonymous with jubilee has depreciated to an ugly infection. Too much of a good thing can have that affect. My town hasn't seen this much in over forty years! Talk about born at the wrong place at the wrong time--but I say that about everything in my life. I look back to the days I visited California and Miami with much longing, such fondness. It's sad when the most memorable moments in life have only transpired not even a month ago.

My boss was talking about the relation between snow shoveling and Viagra (it was one of those days). I shut him out as he mentioned something about his hip aching. Attention pans are self induced, like selective hearing, and I have more selections than a fast food dollar menu, with as many unhealthy items to choose from.

I find his drooling pep talks as punishment for my being late to work everyday. My job then reverts from taking deposits to making him realize these anecdotes do nothing but drive me to commit murder. It hasn't happened yet, but even Oprah must feel an urge to decapitate her crew on her bad days. Money and power can make anything sound not as bad as it is.

So that I wouldn't continue down the road to a trial by jury for the senseless murder of a humble bank manager, I left to buy flavored creamer for my coffee. The roads were slippery, but I understand driving like NASCAR will cause worse things to happen. Foodtown was busy for some reason. What is with you people? The roads are dangerous!

I got out of my car and something happened no amount of preparation would ready me mentally or physically: I fell. The cursed snow had covered an icy lip at the end of the parking space. As the gray sky took place of the white ground, I screamed, "Oh, NO!" and punched the van next to me, causing the alarm to wail. I regained my former stance as fast as I'd lost it, and continued to the entrance.

A Mexican man pushing a child in a carriage was smirking as I passed. I asked what was so funny, and the kid said, "look, Daddy, he fell, he fell." I had to at least smile. My mistake made a child laugh. I pretended to fall again to make her giggle again, but it started to get too real when my foot went forward instead of backward.

On my way out of the store with my wallet thinner and a French Vanilla Coffee-Mate in one hand, I patted my pockets for keys. They were missing. I went searching on hand and knee where I fell.

My hip still hurts.

Miami Resurgance

2011-01-24T11:08:00.000-05:00

I've been bit by the traveling bug since my trip to California. It only made sense to leisure next at Miami.

The whole thing is a washy memory, I had to endure turbulence both to and from. The slightest shaking of the wings induces a lack of confidence in the pilot, and reason becomes a distant Uncle--you know he's around somewhere but you can't be so sure to trust him.

My hotel made me sign a waiver relieving them responsibility for my death if I were to swim in the ocean because the undertow was so strong. I swam anyway and nature showed me a lesson. The crowd of onlookers were hoping for the worst and felt letdown with my resurgence. I looked like I lost in a fight against a baseball bat. If it weren't for my orange swimies, I'd be dead.

I decided to stick to the hotel pool after that. They had waiters who didn't speak English. I kept telling them to charge all of my apple ciders to my room. Some people recognized me as the idiot who jumped in the undertow with the stupid inflatables, so I offered them to join my tab. Within seconds, I'd become so popular and generous, everyone was ordering and toasting to me. One bushy mustached señor with a spotty accent said, "you are very powerful. I am very grateful." I was finally a celebrity.

I realized at check out those drinks had to be paid for. At least I'm tan.