Yesterday, I took my wife's clothes to the dry cleaners, an errand I ran for her without her asking me to do so. And when I do something benevolent like that, I expect full credit and reams of endless praise for being so considerate. So I came home and left the dry cleaning ticket right out in the open, specifically so that she'd see it there and know that the deed was done. And then I waited patiently for her to discover it and then jump for joy and tell me how big my biceps are. And sometimes, when you do that for someone, they don't immediately notice and it gets you all pissed off, which is what happened in this case. So I got impatient and went right for the throat.
ME: Did you notice that I… (waves dry cleaning ticket around in the air like a million dollar paycheck)
HER: Oh! Oh tha…
ME: NO NEED TO THANK ME. JUST PART OF THE EVERYDAY MIRACLE THAT IS YOUR BIG-DICKED HUSBAND.
It's the little things that make a marriage work. Onto your letters:
Brian:
Is it bad for you to hold farts in?
According to this completely random site I looked up using a Google search just now, holding farts in isn't necessarily bad for you, except that it may cause you some gas pain. Apparently, it could also cause hemorrhoids, so it sounds to me like you're better off just letting fly. If you hold them in during the day, they'll just come out while you sleep. And that would deprive you pleasure of farting openly and loudly. Ever hold the fart in for a second, then start pushing it out, and you feel that little bulb of gas form in your butt right before you make the assplosion? Great feeling.
Christina:
Why is that every time I go to fill up my fountain drinks (because fountain drinks RULE and beat 20 oz. plastic bottles any day) I never get the ideal amount of ice on the first try? It's always too much. It's like there's an unnamed power that compels me to pour out some of the ice every time. Even if I know it's the right amount, I have to pour some out. Then I get really pissed when I have to go and add more when it was so right the first time.
This is because virtually all ice machines have been programmed to ANGRY FUCK YOU dispenser mode, where it violently ejects nine pounds of ice into your glass before you even have a chance to react. "Oh, you want ice? Oh, I'll give you ice. HERE'S YOUR FUCKING ICE, YOU PIECE OF SHIT. HOW YOU LIKE YOUR ICE MACHINE NOW, BITCH?" I don't know why the flow of ice can't be made a bit more stable. That shit just assaults your hand the second you push the stick back. We had a fridge at our house when I was a kid that had the most passive aggressive ice dispenser ever. You'd put your cup under it, and then it would make you wait, and wait, and wait, and then BAM! A gallon of ice would come down so hard that it would bounce out of the glass and onto the floor, and then you'd have to bend over to pick it up and your day was fucked. Meanest ice machine ever.
Brendan:
I'm watching the Mavs celebrate their win over the Heat right now and find myself wondering about a hypothetical scenario. What would happen if we found out that Dirk Nowitzki, directly or indirectly, came about as a result of Nazi experimentation? Would the media gloss over it or make it into a human interest story or vilify him and all his accomplishments? I'm legitimately interested into how this would play out.
That's a horrible, awful thing to ask, and as someone who is married to a half-German, I feel compelled to say to you… HOW DID YOU FIND OUT?! THEY'VE BEEN PLANNING THIS NOW FOR DECADES.
Dirk turns 33 next week, which means he was born a handful of decades after the fall of the Third Reich. So for him to be the product of a hideous Nazi breeding experiment would be a real stretch. A somewhat better theory would be that Dirk was the product of Communist experimentation, but that's also a stretch because Dirk was born in Wurzburg, which was once part of West Germany, and not the Communist East, which they stapled horse testicles onto female Olympians, fed them nothing but steroid-injected placentas, and turned them into stoic, clumsy, remorseless skinbots. And Dirk isn't anything like that, given all his Plaschke-approved amounts of good ol' fashioned Western scrappitude.
But let's set aside reason (very easy to do in this column), and assume the Nazi breeding program of Lebensborn was kept alive in small pockets of the country after World War II, then secretly thrived along with the country's neo-Nazi movement. If Dirk were revealed to be part of that breeding program, I think it would ultimately be covered much the same way the Pope's involvement in the Hitler Youth was: a ghoulish factoid that the media ultimately dismisses. Unless Dirk were to slap on an armband and grow a Jordan Hitler ‘stache and display outright Nazi-esque tendencies, I doubt seriously that it would affect anyone's overall judgment of his character. In other news, I'M SURE GLAD HE SHOWED UP THOSE ARROGANT YOUNG HIPPITY HOPPERS FROM MIAMI!
Adam:
I just heard Van Gundy again call Udonis Haslem a "Miami native"— this is like the 5th time during the playoffs I've heard this.
Udonis is actually from my hometown, Jacksonville. I played middle school football against him and a friend played high school basketball with him until he moved to Miami his senior year of high school.
I think Udonis says he's from Miami because it sounds harder than being from Jacksonville. Fuck that. Dude is from fucking Jacksonville.
Noted.
Chodems:
What could possibly be the point of those sexing (abduction) machines at the gym beside increased sexing ability?
Well, if you want to seduce someone and then quickly choke them to death by squeezing their head between your thighs as they're about to go down on you, that machine is also useful. It's what Famke Janssen used to prepare for Goldeneye.
Dutch:
This is one of 2 secession themed license plates in my neighborhood. Morons.
It makes you wonder just what would happen if a state like Texas actually DID secede from the USA. Imagine if they broke away and, any time you wanted to fly into Dallas or something, you had to go through customs and bring a passport and all of that horrible shit. I can't imagine how awkward that would be for everyone involved. You'd be standing there with the customs agent and you'd be like, "Hey, remember when we were, like, countrymen and stuff?" And than they'd say yes and then it would be painful silence for the next three minutes while they stamped your documents. Doubly awkward if we were in the middle of a war with them for their precious oil fields and stripper reserves. I think that prospect alone will forever keep Texas in the fold.
Nick:
Do you find the collected foodstuff that accumulates in the kitchen sink drain horrifying? I'd like to think I have a tolerance to other gross things in life: dog crap, diapers, dirt in the yard, etc... but the foreign stuff in the kitchen drain just throws off my game.
It is gross. Which is why I got rid of the drain on our sink a long time ago. Never again will I take out that drain and subject my fingers to digging around for three kernels of corn, a piece of onion skin, and a pound of wet bread crust. Repugnant.
I once had my garbage disposal clog and the plumber came and fixed it. The plumber then told me to never put anything in the disposal. Not eggshells. Not old cereal. Nothing. Anything you put down there is inviting the pipes to clog.
ME: If I can't put anything in the disposal, then why do they have disposals?
PLUMBER: To keep me in business.
And yet, I have violated the plumber's instructions numerous times. Because I really don't want old wet cereal going into the trash can. It's unpleasant.
Drew (not me):
Do you think anyone has eaten edible panties just because they were hungry?
Doubtful. Has anyone ever purchased those things? I assume they taste like cake sprinkles that have been left out for nine months. Like mainlining food coloring. People who buy edible panties are the same people who think they can make anal beads out of donut holes.
Luke:
You know how you get gmail ads based on the content of your emails? Well, the other day, I got a gmail ad based on the word that is my PASSWORD for my gmail account. This word is not contained anywhere in my gmail history. I searched to make sure. It's just my password. And I'm getting ads based on that. Bullshit. BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!! (My password is not "bullshit," by the way.)
/changes old gmail password, which was simonlebon
Barry (not that one):
If you and eight of your buddies had to play the Little League World Champions, who wins? Let's say that your friends are like my friends, and while they've all played some baseball before, none have played competitively beyond high school.
My take is that the little leaguers get rocked. Even if they're all lying through their eyeballs about their real age, I still think we take them, purely because we've got grown-up strength. We can throw faster and hit harder. I think we could spot them a few runs, and still take the ballgame easily.
Plus, if one of the kids tries to give me any shit, I'm totally coming inside and plunking him in the rib cage.
So you're talking about guys who have played before in high school? Yes, they would beat the tar out of those little fuckers. And if I were on the team, I wouldn't feel bad about it for a second. I don't like Little League World Series players. I bet they all have coach dads and act like little shit kids when they're off the field. And I bet they send back food at TGI Friday's. Not like those charming young ruffians from The Sandlot.
However, that's with former high school players. If you're talking about ME, someone who is genuinely awful at hitting and fielding regardless of opponent or venue, I think those kids would probably crush me. Like if it was those kids versus the staff of Deadspin? We get annihilated. These kids may be 11 and 12 years old, but some of them can throw upwards of 70 miles an hour. I can't hit that. I'd be a blubbering pile of shit in the face of that. And then the kids would beat us and Craggs would be ever more bitter than usual and I'd have to restrain myself from running up to the pitcher's mound and going all Nolan Ryan on the miniature Roy Oswalt who beat us. Because you know those little punks would go rubbing our face in it. They think they're so fucking great. Well, FUCK YOU, kid. Enjoy it, because that's as good as your life will get! IT'S ALL BABIES AND MEMORIES AFTER THAT!
HALFTIME!
Fry:
So, you and your wife come to an agreement that you are allowed to cheat one time, with the celebrity of your choice. But, of course, there's a catch. You have to pick your celebrity ahead of time, and it's up to you to actually make it happen. Do you swing for the fences and try to bag your dream girl, maybe Natalie Portman or, in my case, Scarlett Johansson, knowing all the while that you stand no realistic chance? Or do you aim lower and go for someone like Julia Stiles or Christina Ricci or something, hoping that you might actually have a (still probably very small) chance to bang a celebrity?
Not sure Julia Stiles is really aiming low. Chyna is aiming low. Chyna will sleep with you for three dollars and a bag of Pemmican. Julia Stiles is just as impossible for you or I to attain as ScarJo or whoever else. There are no vary degrees of "you have no fucking chance" to be had there. I can't begin to imagine the degree of difficulty of targeting a legitimate celebrity like that and then making it your goal to sleep with that celebrity without the aid of prostitution fees or GHB. It's one thing for someone like Gwyneth Paltrow to slap a poster of Brad Pitt on her wall at dipshit prep school (that's supposedly true) and then become his girlfriend later on. It's another thing for a grown person like you or I to say, "I'm gonna go bang this person. WATCH!" You'd have to move and buy a pair of binoculars and everything. I know stalkers make it look easy, but it takes real dedication to be a terrifying creep like that.
Will:
So I'm moving out of my college apartment this week and I'm the last one to leave. Obviously all of my stuff was everywhere. I got back home and realized I'd forgotten to lock the door. I own a shotgun for occasional hunting and some clays that was conveniently leaning on the wall near the door because of the moving. I grabbed it and then proceeded to sweep the 3 bedroom apartment and check every possible hiding place for intruders Navy Seal style. I even took off my shoes for extra sneaking ability. The gun wasn't even loaded, I didn't even have any shells to put in it. Then most of could have done was hit someone with it. Plus my apartment complex is full of students so the chances of someone being there was pretty much 0. But even so sweeping my house like a Navy Seal was by far the most exhilarating thing I've done in months. I'm considering leaving the door unlocked more often just to repeat the sensation.
/buys shotgun immediately
I assume sweeping your apartment with a shotgun results in the same cheap thrill you get walking downstairs in the middle of the night with a golf club after the old lady said she heard something. Always a mixture of relief and regret when it turns out to be nothing. One night, I will go down there and there will be something worth beating the shit out of.
If I owned a gun and I lived in a state that allowed me to conceal and carry that gun, AND I lived alone in an apartment, I would enter the apartment every night with my gun drawn. Just because I could. Every night would be Federal Agent Night.
Andrew:
My wife is due to give birth any day now and for the past few months I have been fantasizing driving her to the hospital. The way I look at it, this is one of the few times when you are allowed to swerve in and out of traffic, drive on the wrong side of the road and evade police like Grand Theft Auto. My wife sensing what I was planning informed me I have to drive slowly and calmly to the hospital. LAME.
That part of the whole childbirth process is a huge letdown. Movies and TV shows train you to think that once the woman declares herself to be in labor, she'll immediately throw her legs up in the air, spurt blood from her vulva and start cursing and yelling and frothing at the mouth like a fucking Tasmanian devil. Not so. No, it's usually much more benign. The wife usually has to wait until the contractions are a certain amount of time apart before she's technically in labor. And even then, her cervix almost certainly isn't fully dilated. She can walk to the car. She can sit in the front. She can talk on the phone. She's not screaming in the backseat and kicking the headrest while you do 90 down the wrong way of a highway entrance ramp. None of that happens, and that's way uncool.
The two times my wife was pregnant, I spent days and days fantasizing that she would go into violent labor in some incredibly inconvenient location, and that I would have to deliver our child personally. Anytime we walked into an elevator, I'd think to myself, "This elevator will stop, and then she'll go into labor, and then it's fetus-rasslin' time." Never happened, and now that I've witnessed childbirth twice, I'm quite relieved for it.
Mike:
"Old Pedo" license plate spotted driving around Columbus, OH. Lock up your children, Buckeyes.
Old Pedo was apparently one of Jim Tressel's biggest supporters.
Chris:
Do you think if some sicko were to be able to get past the secret service and rape the president's wife or children, or even the president himself, that the public would ever find out about it? I would imagine that there would be a secret summary execution of this person similar to what happened in Pulp Fiction, to avenge such a heinous and high-profile crime.
You know, it's an interesting thought. A lot of people have attempted to kill the President, but I'm not sure anyone has ever tried to RAPE him. And that's because killing him is easier. You can kill someone from a distance. You can't rape them from a distance, unless you were to tie a banana to the end of a fishing rod or something. Still, tricky. In order to rape the President (and I must stress that I do not condone such a plan, and that I find it utterly horrific, though damn ambitious of you), it would have to be an inside job. You'd have to already be part of his trusted circle. For example, if we're looking through Presidential history, you could have had Dick Cheney raping George W. Bush. Think about it. They're all alone in the Oval Office. Dick is maybe pushing a little bit harder for an Iraq invasion than maybe Bush would like, and so Cheney decides to go all Malcolm McDowell on the President in order to get his way. It's a terrible thing to picture, isn't it? That old bald guy just going to town on the spunky Texan? Doesn't it disturb you to get a good solid mental image of it in your head?
Anyway, if someone close to the President were to rape him (the only way I could ever see it happening), I assume it would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. And if someone outside the inner circle were to actually find a way to pull it off, I think that person would be publicly arrested and tried for a charge that carried a similar punishment (like attempted murder or treason) but without the graphic truth ever coming out. Same as if they did it to someone in his family. Either way, DO NOT TRY AND RAPE THE PRESIDENT. Can't emphasize that enough.
Mike:
This is a picture of a real school in Ionia, MI….
Seems like they should probably update that name.
Kieran:
If you were a radio station DJ and had to take a shit, what song would you play while you were poopin'? I think I would go with 'Scenes from an Italian Restaurant' with Billy Joel, only for the direct link between the Italian food and the situation I would find myself in at the time. What about you?
I hate Billy Joel, so I couldn't go with that one. I guess "Stinkfist" by Tool would be a good choice. It really depends on if I want a long song so I have more time, in which case any long song will do. Or, bucking convention, I could put on a normal-length song and try and time my shit to end JUST as that song is ending, which is a bit more nerve-racking but potentially more rewarding.
I work in the basement at home (BLOGGER!), and any time I go to take a shit, I put on some music from the computer to score my movement. But sometimes I forget that I picked a song from the general iTunes library, and that the library contains not just my songs, but also the great number of horrible awful songs that my children and/or wife also enjoy, so it can go from Mastodon to Justin Roberts JUST LIKE THAT. And when that happens, I often find myself really pressing to get that shit out so I can change the song before I'm subjected to "Something There" from Beauty & The Beast. When I fail, it's a real letdown. But when I succeed? THRILLING.
Jason:
We have a few homeless in my city and in my morning commute I see the same homeless man on the same corner every morning begging for change. Might I add that this is one of the busiest intersection in the city, so he's got to be pulling in the most. What did this guy do to get the same corner every morning? Don't you think there might be an unwritten code that puts them on some sort of rotation or schedule? What's preventing the rest of the homeless from kicking this guy's ass every night for monopolizing the best corner in the city? Could he be the homeless kingpin? Also, do you think there are codes that say you can't beg within x-amount of yards from another homeless?
Without any trite references to "The Wire," I'd say the homeless man probably either has proven to other bums that he has the muscle to maintain that corner (either on his own or with the help of fellow goons), or he just got there early, before everyone else did. It's probably the latter. Homeless people, as you know, are way lazy. That's why they're so homeless. So the dude that shows up to the corner at 2PM is gonna have an advantage over all the stragglers who get up at 4PM and drag themselves to the corner with a syringe sticking out of their throat. But is there an unwritten code among the homeless, as there is for hobos? I don't think there is, apart from "Don't pee on my shoes." "Don't pee on my shoes" is universally understood and accepted.
Mike:
I'm as white as they come, and I recently started dating a very dark black girl. I know you're happily married, but to all your readers: I cannot recommend this enough. As we walk down the street, we constantly get head-nods and smiles from happy onlookers, as if they're saying "Good for you! Way to escape social convention!" Instant self-glorification. (Caveat: only applies in liberal cities with a lack of old people)
Got it. Now time for your email of the week:
Bobby:
My friend's dad is an ER doctor and as such has seen pretty much the entire spectrum of stupidity. Stupidity and grossness. Grossly negligent stupidity.
Anyway, he has a guy come into the ER and inform him that it hurts when he pees. Doc takes a look and sees something neon sticking out of the guy's urethra. Asks him what it is, and guy shrugs, like he hasn't noticed this. Doc tugs on it, a bit comes out, he asks if it hurts and the guy says no.
Friend's dad, being the doctor and a bit of a funny prick, goes and selects the only male nurse working the ER and tells him he needs him to come and help. He then orders the nurse to pull whatever this guy has inserted out of his dick. Nurse gets forceps and pulls out…6 feet of yellow plastic wire. Turns out it's the wire you put into your weed whacker. Doc asks guy how it ended up there and he admits it pushed it up there all by himself. Doc asks him why and he just shrugs.
Boy, I hate it when that happens!