four things i don't want you doing in a bathroom at work

1) answering your phone while taking a number two...


-i don't care how important the call is. also, i don't care if you speak a different language so i can't understand what you're saying. as far as i'm concerned, if you are answering your phone while taking a poop and speaking another language, you are a terrorist. isnt that how 9/11 got started anyways?

2) brushing your teeth...

-anytime i see someone brushing their teeth in the bathroom at my office, i can feel them giving me one of those "ahh...my teeth are sooo important that i have to brush them three times a day" looks. unless you eat a lot of cabbage or chain-smoke, twice a day is enough. which brings me to my next point...

3) eating cabbage or chain-smoking(see point number two, pun intended)...

4) holding a conversation above and beyond, "hey, how's it going"...

-point in case, last week i was caught in a bathroom love triangle. two guys walked in together (also a 'no-no') and continued their conversation. the conversation continued to the point where one guy sat down in a stall at the north sector of the bathroom and the other stood at a urinal on the south border of the bathroom. me? well i was at the central part of the bathroom. picture our hypothetical pooper canada, our hypothetical pisser mexico, and me....topeka, kansas. i was caught between the two, trying to take care of business and just couldn't concentrate. don't be a jerk. don't do this.

when a game of scrabble turns into a true moral dilemma

i've always been a fan of clearing up things that are underrated and overrated.  for example, sushi is overrated. fact. on the other hand, 'america's funniest home videos'...incredibly underrated (side note: why are the three finalist videos always the worst? frankly, i don't even stick around for the last 10 minutes of the show. at no point in the history of mankind has a parrot playing basketball with a monkey ever been funnier than a kid hitting his dad in the nuts with a sledgehammer. anyways, i digress..)

scrabble...underrated. it is one of the few board games that i have never gotten sick of. it's not a game that requires a ton of skill and/or attention (you can play it while drinking beers and watching tv) and you only need two people to have a solid game. while this seems like a pretty laid back way to kill some time, if you're anything like me you like to turn everything into a competition.  such was the case when i played scrabble not too long ago with my girlfriend and her family.

on this particular weekend, i was in new jersey meeting her family (parents, grandparents) as well as neighbors and family friends. we were getting ready to have a cookout, and we were passing the time with a friendly game of scrabble.  i was playing against her brother-in-law, while she sat on with both of her grandparents and observed.  wanting to assert my dominance in this age-old classic board game, i had no intentions of losing. however, i began to get a little worried as i learned how formidable my opponent was. i slowplayed the match a bit too long, thinking i would eventually drop some 75 point humdinger and march off in a blaze of glory. to put it quite simply, that was not the case.

with the match in doubt, i caught a lucky break. he had to pass on his turn since he had no moves. this opened the door for me. i knew that if i could somehow get rid of my last three letters, i may have enough points to muster up a come-from-behind win. i looked to my opponent: he had 3 tiles left. since he had no moves, my hunch is that he had a couple of crummy letters. i then looked at my letters: C L T. i then looked to the board. with so much going on, there weren't many open spots. an open Y.....what the hell could i do with that. maybe that A-M would work....nope. then, i saw a break in the action. standing all by it's lonesome on the northeast corner of the board was an open I. above the I was two open spots, below it-two more open spots. think about it......... that's right, i had a perfect opportunity to spell a word otherwise known as 'nature's rubik's cube'

i looked to grandma. i looked at my letters. i looked at grandpa. i looked back at my letters. i wasn't going to lose this match...i couldn't. just as i pictured myself celebrating the victory by high-fiving...well, myself, i also pictured the disgusted look on everyone's faces and me getting thrown out of the front door by her father. i couldn't put myself through it. i found myself at a moral crossroads and i, unfortunately, had to take the high road. "no moves", i begrudgingly declared. moral integrity: 1. scrabble pride: 0.

never pass up the opportunity to beat up a teenager

today's lesson: never pass up the opportunity to beat up a teenager.


so, today after work i was playing a little tennis with a buddy. let me rephrase that. today, i was playing a little shirtless tennis with a buddy. don't worry, i'm not naive. unless i missed some sort of memo, i do in fact understand that 5'9'', 175 lbs is not the new 6'2'', 180 lbs of lean, mean, 'iron your clothes on my abs' fighting machine. needless to say, i was at a local park and could care less about what people thought of my "modern" body. things were going well until a group of teenage skateboard punks showed up trying to act cool. i wanted to kick their asses although, they shouldn't have taken it personally. i was one of those same punks 10 years ago, and, well, i'd like to go back and kick my ass.


after they spent about 15 minutes skating around, saying cool things like "nice ollie, pussy" and "you're a homo" to each other, they skated past my shirtless, sweaty, play-doh body. in passing, the ring leader of the group said (in a sarcastic, mocking, 'i'm a douchebag', pre-pubescent, voice) "ahh...look at my flubby tummy..."

at that point, i didn't know what was more embarrassing: the fact that these kids are arguably bigger bad-asses right now than i'll ever be, or the fact that i (probably 10 years their senior) wanted to physically fight them. (to complete the triad of embarrassment, it is quite possible....in fact likely....that they would have kicked my ass). immediately, a couple scenarios ran into my head:

1) quick. point out something embarrassing about one of the kids, so the other two gang up on him and laugh with me

2) take one of their skateboards and break it

3) hit a tennis ball at one of the kids

...long story short, i didn't do any of those things and i really regret it. this is something that's gonna bug me for awhile. a feeling comparable to, "hey, i meant to tell you, 3 years ago when you were dating whatsherface i saw her blowing some guy in the bathroom". so, everyone out there, next time you see a teenager being a dickhead, don't give him the benefit of the doubt. please.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfR42GOAemI