Sunday, December 14, 2014

The Mauling of the Faithful 2014

Welcome to the third annual Mauling of the Faithful.  I find it pleasant and warranted that, during this season of thankfulness, unity, and love, that I remind each and every one of my readers that I know what deviant scumbags they really are, and that I don't think they post enough on the Facebook page. 
  • Elizabeth O'Sullivan writes Perfect Strangers fan fic.  Slash fan fic.  
  • Will Gulley was the Rio that Duran Duran sang about.
  • Jolene Schafer has been waiting years to get her chance to be a field goal kicker for a college football team ala Necessary Roughness.
  • Annelise Montone believes herself to be the next coming of Stevie Nicks.  She doesn't worry that Stevie Nicks hasn't died...yet.
  • Stephen Wheeler lobbied so hard to get the nickname "Wheel Dog" that he lost every friend he ever had.  
  • Bryant Rasbold has been slipping up and calling the pet store next to his work the "grocery store" too many times for his coworkers' comfort. 
  • Liberty Heidmann still thinks that there is only one letters between K and P in the alphabet- Mellaneno.  This is because when she was younger, no one cared to correct her when she sang "H, I, J, K, Mellaneno, P".
  • Anthony Jacob Homer wet the bed until he was forty years old.  He is currently only 24, and has a rocky road ahead of him.
  • McHale Baden funds every book Nicholas Sparks writes.
  • Stephen Murphy teaches children to lick every doorknob they come into contact with.
  • Jay Phoenix still makes sure to include an Austin Powers impersonation in every interaction he has with anyone.  
  • Jackie Chase Oldenberg has created a holiday that is a mix of Valentine's Day and Halloween.  She jumps out of bushes to scare children, then pelts them with candy hearts while screaming "I love you all!"
  • Dori Gregory took her Halloween costume of a One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater too seriously and devoured three party guests before the cops subdued her.
  • Chloe Buicke makes a special dish she called "Necco Wafers Pot Pie" whenever she goes on a first date.  
  • Matt Lesley became a clown for one reason and one reason only: the unadulterated thrill of greasepaint.  
  • Benjamin Kloch refuses to be taught how to say the word "Worchester" correctly.  He says if he does, then the Republicans win.
  • Kurt Lewis has a song he sings while he eats jelly beans, set to the tune of The Specials "Guns of the Navarrone"                                                                                                                           "Who loves the jellybeans?                                                                                                              Kurt loves the jelly beans!                                                                                                                All of the jelly beans!"                                                                                                                 He gets very quiet then, chews for a moment, and angrily grows the last verse.                            "But not the red ones."
  • Regina Harris Lee was originally one of the Spice Girls, but was replaced with Baby Spice when the other members felt that her "Creepy Spice" character wasn't doing well with fans.
  • James King, David King, and Clara King will be assassinated soon by Ricky Prince so that Ricky can assume the throne.  Even Ricky isn't sure what throne that is though.  
  • Courtney Freed still uses a Wang computer.
  • Ted Humburg has worn the same shirt for the last seven years.  He says mesh can never get dirty.
  • Jordan Riccio ate a sandwich when he was three years old that has haunted him ever since.  Nothing he has experienced has ever lived up to the glory he felt as he ate it.  In a few years, the yearning will have driven him mad.  If only his mother would just tell him that it was a Big Mac.  
  • Michelle Vela is responsible for every Hitler comment on every website comment thread.  Every single one except Vogue.  
  • Andrea Buntz Neiman has written a musical based on the life of Aunt Jemima.  Every other lyric contains the word "buttery".  The the other lyric is "evil".
  • Karey Gelrud. Bic Pens.  There's a story there, but I am legally not allowed to tell it.
  • Elizabeth Friedel reenacts Revolutionary War battles with children in her neighborhood.  The children are never aware of it until the first cannon shot is fired.  
  • Virginia Fisher, my own mother, started calling her favorite crock pot Greg.  She says there should be at least one Greg in her life that doesn't disappoint her.
  • Travis Shaw knows the Muffin Man who lives on Drury Lane.  In the biblical sense.
  • Tracey Dolan Portwine is like one of those cats that can smell cancer, except her ability is that she can tell when Willis Kurtz is going to vomit.  It is a completely unnecessary talent she thinks.  On January 7th, she will figure out just how wrong she has been.  
  • Rachael Osberger says that the world is going to hell, and she uses the remake of Shaft as her proof.
  • Ashley Jean Effinger went through a Goth phase in high school, but she was shunned because her Goth name was Phyllis.
  • Sarah Timmons-Marshall dyed everything she owns puce thanks to the book Summer of the Swans.  
  • KC Corbitt thinks that microwaves are a form of witchcraft, and worships them with blood offerings. 
  • John Mann is the last known person to speak Sanskrit.  Because of this, he has never been able to order food from a drive through. 
  • Corey and Jeneanne Kehew opened a Bed and Breakfast just to make it easier for them to watches strangers sleep.
  • Laura Wienand can only truly express herself through interpretive dance.  That dance just so happens to closely resemble the Safety Dance.
  • Adam Poston has waited on a porch for the last three years, just waiting to yell at a kid to get off his lawn.  
  • Pretrenya Williams refuses to follow the B story on any television show. 
  • Jordan Bradford spends 30 minutes every day trying to teach his son to knife fight.  He's desperate to make money to feed his Cinnamon Toast Crunch addiction, and he thinks that "Baby Knife Fights" are real things. 
  • Edward Eason burns down every building he leaves, just so that no one else can have it.  
  • Valerie Sedai was forced to close her day care when she handed the painters the wrong piece of paper.  Instead of a sign reading "We care for your kids all day" it read "Bet you can't eat just one". 
  • Libby Davis savors the winter, when she lashes together all of her pets and forces them to pull her on a sled. 
  • Jaclyn Whittington tries to invent a new racial slur every day.  Everyone is going to be pissed when they find out what "Pochungo Badow" refers to.
  • Bernadette Bellerjeau Cunningham once ate a Pop Tart in the shower.  I wish I was joking.
  • Drew Stoppels kills Poppells.  That wasn't meant to be cute.  He is a murderer and someone needs to stop him.
  • The greatest compliment that Gus Medina has ever received is that he "has the teeth of an elder Dutchman".
  • Cory Schroeder boycotts Long John Silver restaurants because she says that they discriminate against chickens.
  • Chynel Degenstein won't last a week in prison, and that is why she has a plan...
  • Simon Austin has already aligned himself with the Mole People in anticipation of the upcoming war.
  • Chelli Follman cannot kick ass and chew bubblegum at the same time.
  • Keith Sechrist was the best weatherman channel 6 out of Souix Falls had ever seen until the one day he accidentally referred to Detriot as Nipple-opolis. 
  • Sean Shank started a band called the Sean Shank Redemption. It is just him playing a recorder, yet it is the greatest band I've ever heard of.
  • Jessica Leiby got Freaks and Geeks taken off the air.  For just $5 I will give each of you her address.
  • Katie Cavallo raises attack goldfish.  You laugh now, but one day you'll be screaming.
  • Nell Owens owns every copy of Innerspace that has ever been on sale in Kentucky.  She lives in Delaware.
  • Leigh Angela will have her hair feathered next week.  This is only the first step in her plan to create a real life Dukes Of Hazzard.   
  • Lisa McQuighan has, on several occasions, stated that her main thrill in life is to see the look of wonder on children's face right before she eats a rabbit alive in front of them.
  • Handrikus Webb sounds like a kind of sex device.
  • Timothy J. Lankes considers soup to be a finger food, and showers to be a spectator sport. 
  • Michael Asplen has lobbied for years for NBC to bring back "Wings".  Stephen Weber has pleaded with him to stop.  Tim Daly doesn't care.  In fact, most mornings he can be found on Mike's balcony, drinking Night Train and screaming at passersby.  
  • Derric Gray, Lanier Green, Laura Redfield, Cody Brown, Brian Rose, and Jen Greenwood made a breakdancing crew called the Crayola Kids.  They were quickly beaten up by every other breakdancing gang.  
  • Sabrina Senger was the dancing queen until she was removed from the throne in a bloodless coup.
  • Kris Webb-Flowers won't speak to anyone with the letter A in their name.
  • Colleen Thomson has held a grudge against her best friend for three years for saying that Wesley Snipes played Willie Mays Hayes in both Major League and Major League 2.  The stupid bitch couldn't tell that he was replaced by Omar Epps in the second?  What a racist.  Colleen might just tell her that at the gym tomorrow.  Yup, she's finally going to say it.
  •  Jeremy Peterman says that napkins are for poor people.
  •  Mirium Deniger decorates her Christmas tree with dead pigeons and people's hair she buys from the barber shop because she says that "It's the thought that counts."
  • Margaret Alldredge Randall anxiously awaits the day where she can be the sexually suggestive 50 something woman that tries to lure high schoolers to her home to mow the lawn. 
  • Layla Asplen think I've been joking about her naming her firstborn "Flapjack".  I have a man in the hospital ready to print up a gift certificate for Flapjack Arnold Horshack Asplen the moment he is born.  He shall be a king among men. 
  • Mel Curro won't answer the telephone out of the fear that Danny Devito will find out were she lives.  
  • David Weston Gregory Jr. can't wait for frilled collars to come back into style.  
  • Jade Marie Vega will never admit it, but part of her died the day they cancelled Harper's Island.
  • Katie Sill was once so adorable that she gave diabetes to a hummingbird.  
  • Michelle Trotter Milne sits down every night with a nice glass of Vegetable oil and watches "Showgirls" until the world makes sense.  
  • Beth Brennan Shaw created a computer virus.  The only thing it does is puts invisible umlauts over every letter in a Word Document. 
  • Thomas Murphy wishes to remain out of this.  I don't respect his wishes, or his refrigerator.  You don't even want to know what I did to that.  
  • Andrew Tanner tells everyone that he was the missing son from Full House. 
  • Jazma Ward has written every single episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  It was years after they actually aired, but she still did it.
  • Tretrunk Edwards is a maniac, maniac on the floor.  And also according to the state of Michigan.
  • Dimpy Sharma is obviously not in the witness protection program.
  • Sveinn Storm rocks himself to sleep, cooing and stroking the deathray he built out of pop rocks, Coca Cola, and plutonium.
  • Rose Howlett calls water "wet air".
  • Curtis Evans had to quit his job at Yankee Candle to to a condition he referred to as "Scent Boners".
  • Ryan Hershfeld might not be familiar to you, but you probably know him by his birth name: Debbie Gibson.  
  • Laura McSpadden Belle Isle used to be a peninsula until frightful governance and a freak flood cut her off from the mainland.  
  • Scott Humburg is simultaneously the worst and greatest Woody Allen impersonator that you will ever meet.  
  • Stephen Ursu has 37 different names for his penis, but forgets his name some days.
  • Patrick Evans eats his own eyebrows.  It isn't a compulsion, he just thinks they are tender and delicious.
  • Alana Collits was raised in an artificial habitat, like an orphaned bird.  She was fed by hand puppets made to look like her parents.  
  • Daniel Leneghan won't eat veal because he is jealous that those baby cows get to be locked up in little cages and treated badly.
  • Jordan Free has been the frontman for no less than five failed Bananarama tribute bands.
  • Erin McSpadden keeps a box full of chiggers "just in case". 
  • Brooke Summers has voted for Dukakis in every election since 1988, including American Idol.
  • Liam Webb needs to realize that there is a fine line between trick or treating and extortion and coercion when you are in your twenties.  
  • Brian Massey is so grouchy because he has had a pimple inside of his nose for the last ten years.  Bet you feel bad about calling him a dick now, don't you?
  • Laura Brockmeyer started life as Laura Sanchez until she developed a weird obsession with Breckin Meyer.  
  • Mary Kate Schneider Truesdale sleeps in tupperware to stay young. 
  • Erick Tirrell will never find a publisher for his memoirs "37 Days of Mac and Cheese: The Best Month and a Week of My Life."
  • Dan Fox was Dan Fugly until he lost a bunch of weight and had a weird looking mole taken off his chin.
  • Bodine Boling has had a crush on me for years.  I've begged her to get over it, but she still makes me little cookies in the shape of hearts.  Anatomically correct hearts that spurt red icing when you bite them.
  • Tina LeBlanc says that eggs are a myth made up by the government to keep Duran Duran in retirement.  She might be the smartest woman I have never met. 
  • Joseph Jiminez created a board game called "Beep".  It was burned in a house fire three days later, and Milton Bradley has no alibi for that night.
  • Barbie Niva was an up and coming host on Food Network until she bit Giada Di Laurentiis' ear off in a bar fight.  
  • Vicki Fisher lives in an elaborate fort made out of couch cushions she has stolen from 37 houses in 7 states.
  • Lara Kristine Turner started the hipster trend as her own way to bring about the apocalypse. 
  • Elizabeth Doll earned her name for her impressive collection of Care Bear dolls, including little known and hard to find ones like Dysentery Bear and Unlicensed Driver Bear.
  • Kaitlin Butler Rothstein has lost more chili cookoffs than any person in United States history du to her insistence that the greatest spice is hunger.  She kidnaps and starves the judges for a week before every competition.  
  • Megan McGilloway runs a bathtub Ecto Cooler speakeasy out of her basement.
  • Heidi Hartshorn believes that she was born to be the love interest in a superheroine movie.  She has since become very good at getting tied to bridges and falling in love with the wrong kind of guy.  We have a date later this week.
  • Helen Dowling feels that Journey has let her down.  They told her not to stop believing, but they never specified in what.  Now she doesn't know what to believe or who to trust, and has turned to a life of crime.
  • Lindsay Robibero Scully reenacts the boom box scene from Say Anything to elderly people.  She does it while blasting "Cum On Feel The Noise" and brandishing a pistol though.
  • C.J. Sellers ever wanted to be a garbageman, but sometimes, a calling just finds you.  Other times you get drunk right before the SAT's and your uncle has to bail you out by getting you a job with the county when your dad goes ballistic.  
  • Denise Flanagan-Doyle still uses Internet Explorer as her primary browser, even though she knows better.
  • Tom Barnes was the first person ever rick rolled.  He will carry that shame to his grave.
  • Kevin Kiley has a condition he calls the "sleep poops".  It is ten times more horrifying than it sounds.
  • Lisa Burkman Solier loves her lime green velour jumpsuit more than anything.
  • Joel Van Goor was the third Bosom Buddy, but he tested even worse than Peter Scolari.
  • Nina Coderre will never admit it to herself, but last Thursday was the greatest day in her life, and it really is all downhill from here.
  • Andi Kttn needs to buy a vowel and some yarn.
  • Vineta Byrd has attempted to start a cult following around the movie "Dante's Peak".  She has used $3 million of the taxpayer's money to do so.
  • InSung Yoo and Travis Humburg created a delicious chocolately drink.  Travis proposed they used their last names and call it Yoo Hu.  InSung wanted to call it "Eye Gunk".  Unfortunately, Travis is scared of InSung, and now they are both bankrupt.  Insung's wife Catherine Chow Yoo didn't fare much better with her product "Cat Chow", a vitamin snack for the elderly.
  • Stephanie Marie O'Brien feeds strangers at restaurants like she is a momma bird.
  • Jessica Emerson has been shot with a speargun on six different occasions, yet she refuses to stop wearing sharkskin. 
  • Ben Carioso's time as an amateur bee keeper came to an end last Thursday when he mistook a jar of honey for his hair gel. 
  • Jacqueline Leslie Miller's favorite dinner is boiled chicken and plain white bread.  Anything else is too spicy and brings out her "urges".
  • Christopher Neu created a dish consisting only of cooked spaghetti and white chocolate chips, meant to be eaten with your hands.  Again, I wish I was joking.
  • Teresa Dupuis has a very fun name to say.  Dupuis.  Dupuis.  Du-puis.  Dooooooo-pwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.  It's lost all meaning.
  • David Wendig was arrested in 1989 for public urination.  It was thrown out of court because he urinated on Keith Richards, and Keith Richards loved it.
  • Chris Biller watches movies on Betamax because he says it just "feels right".
  • Antonia Segura is a fun name as well, but more in the supervillain way.  His path has been laid.
  • Sarah Ogle will also live up to her name, and MY EYES ARE UP HERE, LADY.
  • Reggie Gilbert will never leave this room again.  He just got up and tried to leave.  Sucker.  
  • Lisa Fretz has been crowned the Greatest Scratcher by all of her cats.  The vote will later be overturned when it is found out they were forced to vote under duress.
  • Natalie Litofsky has unsuccessfully tried to incorporate the phrase "I don't cotton to that" into her everyday life for seven years.  
  • Nicole Ann Forrosuelo was born with hands for feet, which explains her extremely creepy foot fetish.
  • Ellen Kathryn has never thanked me for saving her life.  I could have hit her with my car, but I talked myself out of it.
  • Theresa DeLizza wants to dance with somebody, but god help us all if she feels the heat from somebody.   
  • Heather Davidson Friel swallows pennies to freak out the TSA.
  • Sharon Rothblum Schlenger likes to drop it like it's hot, and that's how she lost her job at the pet store.
  • Col Kpati has never been the same since a tragic game of "Red Light, Green Light" where he never heard them say Green Light again and stayed in placed for seven days. 
  • Michelle Bailey doesn't understand why she can't seem to replicate McDonald's secret sauce at home.  The closest she ever came to it was using Play dough and eyebrow hair.  She is not a good cook.
  • Timothy Dodge was always the first out in dodgeball thanks to his hubris.
  • Monica Cavanaugh is seen as the Grim Reaper of Peeps. 
  • Nancy Fisher North was the inspiration for both Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants and Murock from Macguyver.
  • April Baymer refuses to admit that the month of July exists.
  • Mike Muszynski learned to kiss on a life sized cardboard advertisement he took from a dumpster behind Blockbuster.  Gary Sinese was a gentle tutor.
  • Chris Law has standards.  For instance, he will not eat any food that has been in a trash can for longer than five days.
  • Nicole Blankenship is not a sea captain.  She has no power to marry you, and she cannot pilot your yacht, no matter what she says.  
  •  Ryan Protos is still good friends with his ex wife, Angela Bassett.  
  • John Beasley needs to buy some curtains, or at least some pajamas.  
  • Niahm O'Sullivan feels that there is a very real connection between her bloodlust and flannel sheets.  
  • Karen Donnelly is racist against giraffes. 
  • William Booz turned himself in to the police for a hit and run.  He is a little too literal to use bumper cars.
  • Lynne K. Fletcher colors her face with highlighters to express her moods.  
  • Rafa Madero hates Falco for beating him to recording "Rock Me Amadeus".
  • Jamie Doud Latsko plans to kickbox a panda bear for charity.  The charity is Punches for Pandas, a nonprofit she started last week.
  • Aoife Kirwan sends a letter to her grandmother every week.  Typically they are ransom notes.
  • Michael Winchell is the only known Cleveland Browns fan in existence.  
  • Becky Bradford has gotten every word of every lyric that the band Toto has ever written tattooed on the inside of her belly button.
  • Hanna Gribble cannot understand anyone when they speak.  All she hears is the 1993 hit single "Pocket Full of Kryptonite" by the Spin Doctors. 
  • Anela Collazo has just found spandex, and her life will never be the same.
  • Christina Courts is still scared of The Nothing in the Neverending Story.  
  • Brad Bury proposes to every person who has ever waited on him at a drive through.  He cries every time they think it is a joke.  
  • Amy Diane Holt-Arafat has spent her life carving busts of contemporary female celebrities out of cheese.
  • Dbo Johnson has eaten every one of those cheese busts.  His favorites were Paris Stilton and Char-cheese Theron.   
  • Twyla Moudy is the woman every country singer sings about.
  • Jacqueline Slosky was one of the Baja Men.
  • James Yamakawa wakes every day and laughs at the death of the moon.  Every night he falls to his knees and screams "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!"
  • Geri Ebertowski is the worst Asian name I have ever heard.
  • Van Zarr is the best.  
  • Emily Miller spent the first three years of her life thinking she was a bee.  It hasn't impacted her life much since, except for her constant insistence that she be allowed to pollinate flowers.  
  • Joe Flannigan once ate a 92 pound steak in under thirty minutes.  He was legally dead for six minutes, but the steak was free.
  • Kevin Johnston call the dentist a "voodoo warlord".  He will be the first person since 1637 to die from gingivitis.   
  • Randy-Amanda McGhee, your blatant use of hyphens will be the death of us all.
  • Matt Slaga fell from the monkeybars in the first grade.  When he hit the ground, he saw through time.  Unfortunately, he was still unable to stop Gangnam Style.  
  • Mandie Moore isn't tricking me again.
  • Carol Stone has a village named after her in Spain.  It only took three months of intimidation and audio warfare.  
  • The comic and movie "30 Days of Night" are based on Julie Stricker's last trip to Sizzler.  
  • Jesse Howell thinks that the Jolly Green Giant and Santa are pimps.  He sees no other reason for a man to say "Ho, ho, ho".
  • Christopher William Beasley will not rest until he creates a new flavor of Jolly Rancher.  All he has come up with so far is "Wood".
  • JessanJerry Roberts thinks music never gotten any better since Wham!
  • Tricia Boyce tells time with the metric system.
  • Ramon Thompson Sr. jokes with movie theater ticket salespeople about getting a "senior" discount.  None of them find it amusing. 
  • Megan Usilton sits at her desk every day, slowly singing "Dixie" while eating Chinese takeout and staring at a blank wall.
  • Maggie Small Ferguson trains herself every day, waiting for her eventual showdown with Maggie Gigantic Ferguson.  
  • Megan Foreman is never allowed back into the build a Bear-A-Bear store at the Mall of America.  Let her tell you why.
  • Joyce Phelps chooses not to see the color purple.
  • Jamie Book was thrown out of the NHL after she stabbed one of the Montreal Candians with a toothbrush shiv during penalty shots.  
  • Josue Servin would like to know if you have heard the good word of his lord and saviour Gumby and his apostle Cherry.
  • Gwyneth Whieldon thinks all white people look the same. 
  • Renea Stecik has never had to correct anyone on how to spell or pronounce her name.
  • Cristina Uribe is still going through her Pat Benitar phase.  She spent $1,000 on lace gloves last year alone.
  • Janine Eller Dowdle has made a scrapbook of all of the cease and desist letters that she has gotten from Stevie Nicks' attorneys through the years. 
  • Sarah Mattes lives every day like it is Arbor Day.
  • Matt Stephen, Jody Lily and Jason Andrew all refuse to take a last name.  
  • Leslie Somerville's favorite game is Candyland, prison rules.  
  • Julie Harvey enters a diorama of the burning of Rome, made out of chicken skin and Elmer's glue, into a local middle school's contest, and every year she brings home that gold medal.
  • Nancy Stange, what can I say about you that's any worse than you having to live with Jesse Howell?
  • Hannah Piper Burns has owed me a copy of the movie SLC Punk! for the last eight years.  I don't even want it anymore, but it is the principle. 
  • Katiedid Langrock thinks she is a better humor writer than me.  She's probably right. 
  • Annie Barrett's claim to fame is that she learned to play "Kickstart My Heart" using only a toothbrush and a kitten. 
  • Susan Rosensteel contends that "Willow" is a docu-drama based on true events.
  • William Chris Ward dances like no one is watching, and cackles like no one will ever be able to stop him.
  • Philip Walters cringes at the word "and".  His life has been a living hell.
  • Keith Robertson dresses like a homeless person simply because he loves sitting on the ground and holding up signs.  
  • Jessica Chappell believes the greatest creation of man is gravy, and she makes sure to drink 8 glasses a day in appreciation.
  • Jodi Bailey wishes she had been born with a prehensile nose.
  • Bridgett Heard believes that knickers are the height of fashion.  She will be right in 3 weeks.
  • Angela Desmond believes it every time Cher says it will be her final tour.  Angela thinks once Cher is gone, it will be her time to shine.
  • Jered Hannawald created a sentient robot to help him around the house.  It dismantled itself after the fifth hour of watching him sit in his underwear crying at the Golden Girls.
  • Marcia Milne passes off store bought cookies as her own at bake sales.  Anyone that tries to call her on it is never heard from again.
  • Steve Nickerson stabs himself in the leg every morning so that he can park in handicap spots.
  • David McKenna wears a child sized dinosaur costume while he shops for groceries.  He thinks that the clerks will never deny a Stegosaurus the use of expired coupons.
  • Jen Hamner Fisher is a Dallas fan.
  • Tenley Martin mistakenly thought that the song "I Don't Want to Work" was her own thoughts.  She's dedicated her life to playing the drum because of this.
  • Nico Danks has the "real" version of Titanic, the one where Johnny Quest saves the day.  James Cameron pays her dearly just to keep it quiet.
  • Pam Profit knows the names of every member of Chumbawumba.
  • Brian Rose doesn't understand why his catchphrase "B. Rose before Hos" hasn't caught on.
  • Margie Webber started a poop based newsletter called "Fecal Matters".
  • Dennis Fleming hates Jennifer Lawrence, but he is terrified to admit it.
  • Charles Saunders is going to give up pretty soon and just start going out in slippers and a housecoat.  It's just more comfortable.
  • Brittanie Bigler likes her coffee beans like she likes her men- lifeless and covered in scalding water.
  • Matthew Leeper swims immediately after eating, just to mock the children at the pool who have to wait.  
  • Shannon Lester doesn't understand how the "Uncle Fester look" isn't more popular.
  • Epi Valez can read in his dreams.  Trust him, you should be glad you can't.
  • Tawanda Grimes faints at the sight of grass.
  • Eric Wilder has a glass case in his house that says "In Case of Emergency, Break Glass".  The only thing inside is a bottle of bourbon and a sparkler.
  • Zach Rothstein's safe word is the guitar solo from "Stairway to Heaven" right before the part where it goes "And as we wind on down the road.."  
  • Michy Aja can't understand why Maclemore looks good with hat haircut but she doesn't.
  • Kate Alanna Fritz has tried every fetish you can think of, except the one we call "love"
  • Mason Hudson won't take no for an answer.  Nope, nyet, and nah are fine though.
  • Laura Freeman thinks a library is a fancy kind of quick stop store.  She is furious they won't give her nachos. 
  • Derek Douglas has based his life off of every bad guy in an 80's skiing movie.
  • Sean Murphy is married to the sea, and consummates that marriage nightly.
  • Keefa Cleary is known as the "Orel Hershiser of Snowcones".
  • Michael Breheny has worn a toupee since age seven.  It's been the correct color since he was ten.
  • David James Lee doesn't give into the demands of terrorists.  That's what he tells his dogs every night when they cry for dinner.
  • Alex Rodney Lynch was the member of Genesis that no one remembers or cares about.
  • Luke Madden stole the cookie from the cookie jar, that thieving son of a bitch.  He'll burn for it.
  • Last, but certainly not least, if Jefferson Starship Troopers Tolbert.  Jeff lost several of his fingers in an accident playing the boardgame Operation, but has made good use of the middle finger/pinky combo on his left hand and thumb/ring finger combo on his right.  Until the age of thirty, his main goal in life was to be either an explorer or the guy that brushes cats at the animal shelter.  Jeff suffers from a disease where if he meets someone named Steven, he calls them Stephen, and vice versa.  He says it gives him strange sexual powers as well.  For his ninth birthday, Jeff was given dropped off on a remote island and forced to find his way back home.  Six years later he was still on the island, weaving a raft out of dead and rotting monkey carcasses and leaves.  Every summer, Jeff goes to the beach and gets his hair braided and beaded, because he says "It's just what you do at the beach."  Jeff believes in the hollow Earth theory, mainly because he hopes there is a way he can somehow use that space to store his collection of creepy antique dolls, all of which he has named "Kimber-Anne".   Jeff will only drink goat's milk because he calls cows "rampant fornicators" and I once saw him throw a punch at Angela Lansbury, claiming that she owed him money on a basketball game.  In his free time, Jeff likes to draw pictures of himself in the style of famous cartoon animators, and then he forces the different versions of himself to kiss.  Jeff has never jumped in his life, for fear that a hawk will be able to snatch him easier if he wasn't rooted on the ground.  He finds baby corn erotic, and was thrown out of an Old Country Buffet because of this.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Dear OBX

OBX is not short for obnoxious.  No one cares that you've been to the Outer Banks.  There.  I said it.  You wasted somewhere between $5 to $10 to let everyone know that you went to a place full of sand and secession and nobody cares.  It's not like you are part of some mystic brotherhood of asshats who drove a car and ended up at South of the Border.  Judging by the number of these stickers I see on cars on the highway in Maryland alone, there was some mandatory decree that everyone see the dune where the Wright Brothers had their hovel, or Tyler Perry would remake "It's a Wonderful Life".  I'm fairly certain some people have bought those stickers for their car that haven't even been there.  There are just too many out there.

No, you are no better if you have some far flung retreat like Paris, Hawaii, or the UK.  You're just more artsy and pretentious than those that really wanted the world to know they bought Steak N' Shake instead of McDonalds one time and then got some really cool fireworks.   Good for you, you travel.  The only reason to announce it is to make yourself seem superior to those that don't, haven't, or can't. 

In light of that, I've started a line of stickers I call "Future Stickers".  These are all places you haven't been yet, but I highly suggest you go:




Sunday, November 30, 2014

Dear Hotel Guests

Working in the hotel industry, I get a different side of things from everyone staying at the hotel.  Whereas they are out to supposedly have a relaxing time away from home, I am trying to earn a living without having to gently sob at my desk at least three hours every day.  However, guests rarely hold up their end of the bargain, making me break mine.  It almost feels like the majority of people become even more edgy and prickish when they stay at a hotel.  Normal people suddenly feel the need to be pampered and preened by people barely making minimum wage, and if they don't get what they want, they throw hissy fits and threaten to post bad things on TripAdvisor.  Well guess what?  I don't negotiate with terrorists.  Maybe they feel like since they have to pay to stay there, they are owed everything, but in reality, I am just renting you a room for a finite amount of time.  The right there is where one of the dumbest things I see in my line of work occurs.

We are very clear with people that check in time starts at 3PM, and that you must check out of your room by 11AM.  We are not a large hotel, and we have to get the rooms cleaned up for the next arrival.  I'd say 70% of the arguments people have with me on any given day stem from their not wanting to honor our checkin or checkout times.  Fine.  Ok.  I get it.  You want in earlier and out later.  This is somewhat understandable, but not practical, so that's not what this letter is about.  It is about checkouts though.

I've worked my job for eight years.  Somehow, it still amazes me every time that when people come to the Front Desk to check out, I have to ask them, "Are you completely out of the room?"  I have to do this, because there is a 50% chance I will get an answer somewhere along the lines of, "No, I just have to go back in and get my things" or "No, I'll be out in 30 minutes though".  You cannot check out of a room if you are planning on going back into that room.  It negates the entire purpose of checking out, yet people think it is a perfectly natural thing to do.  By that very same logic, I should be able to check you in at 3PM, and not let you into the room for a couple hours.  Something tells me you'd have a pretty big problem with that one, but hey, why listen to the guy that does this for a living?  You know more than I do anyway. 

Everyone lately is so damned worried about not shopping on Thanksgiving.  Do you care the other 364 days of the year when you mock, berate, and make life hell for customer service workers?  Does anyone care when they book hotel rooms or go to restaurants on Thanksgiving or Christmas, or do we only care that the good people of Radio Shack get to have turkey with their families?

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Dear Sleep

For someone with anxiety issues, sleep can be a blessing.  If I am able to get my body calmed down for long enough to let sleep take hold, I am almost guaranteed several hours of uninterrupted stress free time.  Unless work calls and wakes me up in the middle of the night, that time is mine to relax and let my fragile-frankie body and mind revive itself for another round of grief the next day.  As a bonus, ever since I started taking pills to make my brain ticks and chiggers whither and die, my dreams have been much more vivid and exciting.  One of them is even the basis for an entire subplot in the novel I pretend to work on between blog posts.  Much like most things in my life, I should have tempered myself when a good thing showed up, because inevitably it would be used to harm me.

It started off so grand.  I had dreams in amazing locations, bursting with vibrant colors I hadn't seen in my dreams for years.  One dream the other night, I moved to a wonderful theme park type city where everyone had videogame powers.  I took special pills that gave me super jumps, and I could bound across the land, and hop from rooftop to rooftop.  Basically, I lived like Nicholas Cage thinks he does.  I had another dream where I was hunting monsters through a gigantic warehouse.  That was intense, but so much fun.  You haven't really slept until you've obliterated a nest of leprechauns using a coffee can full of homemade napalm.  Little bastards couldn't find the end of that rainbow. 

Other dreams took me back to places from my past.  Several dreams involve some semblance of the house I lived in when I was in Delaware, albeit with odd new floor plans and hidden passages.  I have dreams involving friends I haven't talked to for quite sometime every so often as well.  These dreams sometimes give me insight into our relationship that I had never thought of while waking.  Several of my friends have received "Had a dream about you last night, that means its been too long" emails.  Most dread the "I had a sex dream about you last night" email I send as well. 

The worst came a few days ago. Sometime around 6:45AM, I started to have a dream where I was still on my high school baseball team.  I had roped a shot out into centerfield and somehow pushed my tank of a body into second base for a double.  Since in this dream I was clearly the great white hope when it came to running, I took a gracious lead off of second and tore off on the pitch to steal third.  In fact, I was so fast in this dream, that no sooner had I leapt from my lead, I crashed headfirst into the third baseman and laid on the floor in agony.

Unfortunately, this was not all just a dream, only the stuff leading up to head injury.  Sleeping on my stomach, and apparently in a half sleep, I brought my left leg underneath my chest as I prepared to steal third in my dream.  When I took off in the dream, my real body used the coiled leg to catapult my body forward, which just so happened to be where the wall behind my bed lives.  The wall and my head did the favor of denting each other before I grabbed my head and fell out of bed to the floor.  Not only was my head gashed and openly bleeding, but two toenails on my foot ripped out as my foot pushed off the bed.  I lay on my back, on the carpet, dazed and bleeding from my head and foot.  I could only assume I'd been thrown out and disgraced the team. 

That's right, I even injure myself in my sleep.  Even crack addled balloons in a razor blade factory have a longer expiration date than a man that slams his head full force into walls when he is supposed to be in blissful slumber. 

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Dear Neil Gaiman

As a famous author, it is your job to let me know whether you are a good writer or not.  I tell people all the time that I am the best at writing, so that they can use their time reading my excellent work instead of debating my greatness.  I do this, because I care about my readers.

I read your book "Good Omens" in college.  It was good.  Really damned good.  Good enough that my roommate Scotty Bob, who lent me the book, and I aped the style for a theater scene we needed to write.  Thievery is the sincerest form of flattery.  However, since you are too busy writing books to keep reminding me that I like your style, I neglected to read anything else you wrote for about ten years.  This probably wouldn't have changed had my Amazon Daily Kindle Deal not had two of your books each for $2.  I vaguely remembered enjoying your work, so I bought Americans Gods and Neverwhere, then promptly left them on my Kindle unread for several months.    Then, when I was at a bookstore, they had a hardcover copy of Stories for $5, and I picked that up too.  It went on the bookshelf, unread as well. 

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I worked my way through several other books I had been waiting to read.  Not many of them really stayed with me, and I wanted something good.  For lack of anything else jumping out at me, I started Neverwhere. 

I remember circumstances surrounding when I read several of my favorite novels.  I was home sick from middle school, and my mother picked up a copy of Dean Koontz's Tick Tock on a whim, even though she nor I had ever read him before.  My disease riddled body strained to stay awake so that I could read more.  Many years, and several other Koontz books later, she found a new novel by him, Odd Thomas, and purchased it for me for Christmas.  I still remember having to put the book down near the end because it was too much to take in.  I remember picking up And Then We Came to an End by Joshua Ferris at a Barnes and Noble right after graduating college, joyous that I now again had free time to read whatever I wanted, not just what I was told to.  I remember picking up Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing at the library on the way to work, needing something to read on a slow winter day while watching the phones.  I read it in two days, forsaking most everything else to keep reading. 

I'll remember sitting up at night and reading Neverwhere and inhabiting that world of London Below with the characters.  I was overjoyed to find that it was both a BBC miniseries as well as a radioplay, and I devoured both of those as well.  I regret that I may have taken years more to do so, however, since the simple cover gave no indication at the greatness that lay within. 

Had you taken the time to write me, call, or just name the book, "Hey Greg, You'll Love This", perhaps I could have arrived at this point some ten years ago, and been all the more happy for it.  No, you didn't though.  You were lazy, and I have so much lost time to make up.  Not to say that I automatically went ahead and read American Gods when I was finished.  That and Stories are still on the backburner, because you haven't told me to read them, and I never learn my lesson. 

Monday, November 10, 2014

Dear Audience at the Mike Birbiglia show

Much like morons who talk and make noise through a movie, I have no respect for someone who goes to a show or play and disrespects those onstage.  You paid money to see this a professional do their job, so why do you feel the need to interject your own "wit" every few minutes, or get up to get another beer every half hour?

I spent a good bit of money to go see one of my favorite comedians, Mike Birbiglia, at the Warner Theater in DC last night.  DC folk think that since I come from the Eastern Shore, I must be some sort of Podunk redneck that can't handle the city life.  The rednecks on the Shore put the mouth breathers in DC to shame in the manners department.  I should have been wary when the line at every beer stand was at least thirty people deep.  I should have been more wary that doors opened at 7PM, the show started at 8PM, and at 8:10 people were still filing in, talking loudly, and dicking around. 

The opening act had to deal with more and more people wandering in to find their seats.  There was a large sign at the entrance telling people that if they arrived late, they would not be allowed to sit until a set break time.  The Warner Theater staff decided that they must have been drunk themselves when they posted that, because repeatedly ushers with flashlights kept ringing people in all the way through the opening act. 

Finally, Birbiglia took the stage, and people still hadn't all taken their seats.  To his credit, he was quick to point this out.  "Well, I was here on time" he intoned to the people in the front row showing up 15 minutes into the set.  He then would stop his act whenever anyone was coming down the aisle and sarcastically thank them for coming to the show. 

This wasn't enough for the crowd though.  Trying to ruin the night of one of the most genial comics around suddenly became the united goal of the crowd.  Three rows behind me, a drunken frat troll from UMD began screaming "MIKE BIRBIGLIA" anytime there was silence.  Apparently , this cretin's $40,000 a year college experience failed to help him understand that comedy is a fragile thing that depends largely upon timing and delivery.  When both of those are interrupted by a backwards hat wearing pillow humper, it ruins the experience for everyone.  Birbiglia pointed out how ludicrous it was that this pillar of academia could think of no better heckle than the scream his name, and the grunting dillweed drunkenly murmured in self satisfaction for a few minutes.  He grew listless being out of the spotlight soon, and started yelling again.  Wisely, Birbiglia started to ignore him.  Frantic that his newfound fame was slipping away, the drunken crapweasel pleadingly degenerated his yell, until it was almost unintelligible.  By the end of the set, he was screaming "Mym Berblglera", most likely while high fiving the other members of his high school lacrosse team that he brought with him.

Next, a woman's cell phone went off.  Rather than quickly mute the call, she thought it was best to answer it, then loudly exclaim, "Hey!  I'm at a comedy show!" for all to hear, because nothing else had been nearly ludicrously ignorant enough up to this point.   

The final straw of the night came because of the ignorance of the venue itself.  As I stated, they were selling beer.  Ok, fine.  Let the asshats get drunk.  Problem is, they were selling very large glass bottle of beer.  Anyone ever loosely associated with something I can "rational thought" might realize that giving out glass bottles to an event that is largely based around hundreds of people being able to hear what one person was saying might be a bad idea.  Time after time, someone would stand up to go buy another beer in the middle of the set, and they would end up kicking their empty bottle.  It would spend roughly the next six minutes and thirteen seconds rolling down the aisle, pinging and clicking on everything it passed.  After the fifteenth time this happened, Mike simply lay down on the stage, wishing himself away to a place where people have even a modicum of social grace or respect. 

Bottom line is, Mike Birbiglia has never gone down to the Dairy Queen and screamed "DILLY BAR" at you until he was hoarse.  He has never gone to the Hooters your mother works at and completely ignored her while she tried to tell him what the specials are, and he has not banged pots and pans while you try to check people out at Walmart.  That being said, why would you go to the place where he works and be an ignorant fool?

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Dear Betty Rucker

 I barely remember what you look like, except that you were impossibly short and small and that you would never answer the telephone.  That doesn't tend to work well for sales people.  You probably worked with me for about two months, which was just long for them to order you a giant box of business cards which sat on your old desk for quite some time in your absence. 

I found myself at that desk for some mundane reason one day, whether to update the computer or steal a stapler.  What I found was a giant box of business cards for a woman I never particularly liked.  Those cards instantly became mine.  For what, you may ask, did I need business cards with the words "Betty Rucker, Sales Manager" on them?  I get bored easily, for one and also, madam, to make it rain. 

Every coworker I passed would get a hearty handshake, and in that handshake would be a card.  I'd use my deepest voice and tell them, "Hey there, Betty Rucker, good to meet you."  "Hey, Betty Rucker, how's it hangin?"  "Yo soy Betty Rucker.  Necessito un tortuga mas grande."

Betty Rucker was entered into every business card giveway in every fishbowl in every restaurant in the county.  You should thank me, because you've probably eaten like a queen thanks to me.  I scratched out the company logo and contact into so the cards just read "Betty Rucker, Sales Manager" as if you managed all the sales of everything.  Those cards were left everywhere.  People who shopped at a particular Barnes and Noble would find them in their the copies of "50 Shades of Gray" they kept hidden from their families.  Every copy of "Civil War Enthusiast" carried your card as an insert.  They were left in pairs of shoes at Nordstroms, in the pocket of chinos at Old Navy, and I even donated a dollar to charity so I could tape one to a sunny cloud at Rita's Water Ice. 

I'd like to say you had done something in particular to make me single you out, but the cards were there, and you were not.  So, it happened, and I really hope you've seen one.