Monthly Archives: October 2013

I used to be rich

Growing up is tough. Like when you’re a little kid and you have to beg your parents for everything. “Mom! I want some new action figures! Mom! Take me to the comic book store!” and, I shouldn’t assume everyone had the same childhood as I did, but my parents weren’t the type to drop whatever they were doing to satisfy the demands of their snot-nosed little son. Before I was old enough to get a job, this meant waiting desperately for some sort of a special occasion, Christmas, my birthday, one of those automatic days where I was entitled to presents.

Now I’m an adult, and yeah, I guess if I really wanted to, I could buy whatever I want. You know, within reason. If I don’t have the cash, just put it on the credit card. Theoretically speaking, there’s really not too much that’s off limits. But at what cost? Am I really willing to put myself into unnecessary debt because I want something that badly?

And so I don’t know what’s worse, being a little kid and having no sense of money, or being an adult and knowing all too well the true cost of material desires. I think back though, and there was an exception to this, it was a period in my life right after I got a job but before I had any bills to pay. It only lasted for about two years or so, but man, I was a god amongst men.

I started working at a restaurant when I was fourteen, scooping ice cream and making cappuccinos at a place a few towns over. After an eight-hour shift, the boss would give me sixty bucks, cash. It doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but to a freshman in high school with absolutely no responsibilities besides doing homework and working at this restaurant two nights a week, this job meant that I was rich.

Like, really rich. I remember the first time I got paid, I went from having absolutely nothing in my pockets, ever, to having sixty bucks. I might as well have been carrying a grand. The day after my first shift, I rode my bike to the park to play basketball with my friends. Normally, we’d all be lucky if we could pool a dollar and a half together to buy a soda.

But like I said, now I was rich. I took everybody to the pizza place and bought a pie. It was incredible, all of that cash, just burning a hole in my pocket. And that’s how it went for the next two years or so, before I bought a car, before I wound up throwing all of my money into a 1991 red Dodge Stealth.

The car gave me an even greater sense of freedom, but it was just a taste of what lay ahead, bills, insurance, gas, repairs, tickets. I still had money, but now when I went to the comic book store, I couldn’t just buy every new release without consequence. I’d been living the past two years never in want of anything. If I even remotely saw something that I liked, I bought it. But little by little, the adult world sucked away my surplus of money.

After school it was rent, and then cell phone service, and healthcare premiums. Whatever, everybody has to pay bills, so I’m not going to go through all of the things that I currently have to save my money for. But nobody prepares you for how it’s really going to be. I think back to when I was fifteen, when I had stacks of twenties in my underwear drawer, how I couldn’t imagine a time where I’d be even remotely close to having to stick to a budget.

I had no idea how good I had it. Maybe it’s a pattern, always looking back and waxing nostalgic. Maybe ten years from now I’ll look back upon right now as the best time of my life. I don’t know, I just remember going to the mall and buying like twenty new CDs. I think this summer I bought two albums on iTunes. What happened to my priorities?

I think I ruined our camping trip

A few summers ago I went upstate on a camping trip with some of my friends. If you walked into the woods a little bit, there was a pretty decent sized clearing, so we’d bring a cooler, one time we brought out a Frisbee. I love playing Frisbee, and I’ve got a pretty good throw, but I let loose with this unusually wild toss, and the disc went spinning into the trees. “It’s all right,” I ran toward where I saw it enter the woods, “I got it.”

And I tried to play it all cool, just casually separating the tiny branches, like I wasn’t scared of whatever might be in this brush, spiders, a rabid raccoon. I have no idea what poison ivy or poison oak looks like, so I was trying not to let anything touch my legs, but it was pointless, imagine the thickest patch of woods.

I saw the Frisbee, any damage that could’ve been done by any poisonous plants, it was too late to worry about that now. I’d grab the Frisbee and act like the retrieval wasn’t a big deal. But just as I reached down to pick it up, I noticed a bunch of smallish green fruits. They were everywhere. I looked up and this one tree had like hundreds of apples.

So I picked about twenty or so and made a little basket by holding the bottom of my t-shirt out. “Hey guys, check it out, apples!” and my friend Josh said, “Apples? You can’t eat those.” I said, “Why not? Of course you can eat these.” I knew you could, I remember I went apple picking one time when I was a little kid, and this guy at the orchard picked one right the tree, he wiped it down with his shirt, and he bit right in.

So I did the same thing, I wiped it clean of anything gross that might be on the outside, and I took a bite, which I immediately realized to be a big mistake, because even though it felt like an apple, even though it had that characteristic apple crunch, this thing was beyond sour, like I don’t think there was any apple flavor at all, no anything flavor, just pure, unflavored sour.

I tried my best to make it look like everything was fine, so I chewed and swallowed, all why really struggling not to make a face, I wasn’t breathing through my nose, even though there wasn’t a bad taste to speak of, but I was reaching, I was doing everything I physically could to act as if I hadn’t just taken a bite out of something that I really had no business taking a bite out of.

“Gross,” Josh said, and luckily that was it. I couldn’t tell if I had successfully passed it off as a real apple, but nobody seemed interested in finding out either way. What was I supposed to do with the rest? I hoped nobody was paying attention, and luckily they weren’t, I threw the one that I was eating into the woods, but it didn’t make it, again, another wild throw. It hit this tree like three feet away.

And then I looked down at my shirt, at the rest of the apples. There was something off, I looked in close and there was something fuzzy, it was moving, there were all of these really little bugs, I couldn’t tell if they were worms or aphids or, I really had no idea, because they were so small. Did I just eat some of them? Were these things going to get stuck in my gut?

“Guys,” I freaked out, “I think I just ate some sort of a parasite, like a worm, I don’t know.” I tried to find the apple that I’d taken a bite out of, but I couldn’t tell where these things came from, if they were just on the outside of the fruit or if they had burrowed in. Is that possible? Then my skin started to tingle. I told myself, you’re being paranoid, you saw the worms and now you’re getting crazy.

Or could it have been poison oak? My friends told me to chill, that we were all drinking and that there was nothing to be done about it until tomorrow. “Just try to relax, have another beer, everything’s fine.”

I tried. But I couldn’t. I ran back to the campsite, I jogged the mile or so away to the ranger’s station. I told them everything, and they called an ambulance to take me to the local hospital. My friend Doug volunteered to stay with me, which I’m sure he regretted, the hospital waiting room was a dump, and they weren’t in any hurry to check me out.

And even worse, I started feeling much better. I think I really should have just chilled out for a minute. But no, what was I going to do, go back? Tell everyone that I’m crazy? I prayed for something to show up on those test results, anything that could have justified my reaction. But I got a clean bill of health. Everyone told me to stop apologizing, not to worry about it, but I could tell they were avoiding the subject, just trying to get me to stop talking.

I took Doug aside the next day, apologized again, especially to him, making him come with me, I tried to be extra sincere, and then I said, “But, do you think they’ll still invite me to come next time?” and he said, “Yeah, I’m sure. Just forget about it OK?” And, I don’t know, every time I see one of those guys, I’m always like, “So, when’s the next camping trip?” and they always say something vague, like, “I don’t know, nobody’s made any plans, but we’ll let you know!” and I always think, yeah, it’s probably in my head, they’d still invite me, right? I mean, I definitely wouldn’t do that again, no more wild apples. I still tell them that whenever I see them, I’m like, “Guys, I’ll never eat apples again. Really!” and I think they know I’m serious.

Happy Columbus Day!

Can we please give some credit where credit is due? I’m talking Christopher Columbus, the man who discovered America. Everybody knows the story, they taught it to as schoolchildren. In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And he found America. Nobody else had the guts to go out there and find America. Everyone was too afraid that they’d fall off the face of the flat Earth.

Again, this is all rudimentary American history, I’m not going to go through the whole tried and true “it really happened” story. Because it did happen. And why do I even have to mention that, that it really happened? Because every year, Columbus Day rolls around, and you see a bunch of stuff on the Internet, like “Columbus was an asshole!” or “He didn’t really discover America!”

Or my favorite, “People didn’t really think the earth was flat!” to which I say, oh yeah? If the ancient Greeks knew that the earth was round, how come they didn’t send any ships over to find America? Because they didn’t know the earth was round, and they didn’t know America even existed. That’s why Alexander the Great’s empire collapsed. That’s why Xerxes won at the end of 300. And that’s why The New Adventures of Hercules and Eolis wasn’t renewed for a seventh season.

“Oh but what about the Vikings! What about Newfoundland!” Listen, has anybody ever been to Newfoundland? Because I haven’t. And if you’re thinking it’s a little solipsistic of me to write off a place as nonexistent just because I haven’t been there, I’d like to offer this: none of my friends have ever been to Newfoundland. Have you? Seriously, have you? Because I’ve had friends and family members visit a lot of places, Japan, Africa, even Toronto. So yeah, I can say with some confidence that I’m pretty sure they’re all real. But Newfoundland? Vikings?

I’m not even sure that the Vikings ever existed. But I’m getting off topic. Let’s just say for argument’s sake that Newfoundland does exist. Couldn’t these so-called Vikings have simply crossed the frozen North Pole, straight up from Scandinavia, and then ventured down south to Canada? So even if Newfoundland does exist, it’s not like these bearded adventurers had to cross any oceans or anything. No, because they wouldn’t have, because everybody that was born before Columbus proved that the world is round simply took it as a matter of fact that the planet Earth was flat.

“It doesn’t matter at all,” the naysayers complain every year, “because Columbus was a jerk, he butchered the indigenous population, he would chop off the limbs of little children to test out the sharpness of his blades, he demanded tributes of gold from everyone under his rule and mutilated anybody that failed to meet the quota,” blah, blah, blah.

No way. I remember watching this video in the first grade, it was the complete story of Christopher Columbus, it was a cartoon, how he convinced the Queen of Spain that the earth was round, how he led those three ships across an unprecedented transatlantic voyage. When he finally reached dry land, I distinctly remember him marching to the shore, meeting a group of curious Indians and saying, “Hello! My name is Christopher Columbus! I come in peace!”

Why would they teach little kids something if it were so completely contrary to what actually happened? They wouldn’t do that, not in America, not in the greatest school system in the world. It wouldn’t make any sense, to take something so wildly inaccurate and then present it to little kids as historical fact. What would be the point of such needless revisionism? No, I can only assume that everyone else is lying, that instead of looking to Columbus and seeing a great man, they’re just petty, angry, jealous that they weren’t the ones that got to discover America.

Everybody loves Christopher Columbus. The people of Columbus, Ohio, they really, really love Columbus. The nation of Colombia, they love Columbus even more, they named the whole country after Columbus. That should have been our country’s name, the United States of Colombia. I can’t believe we dropped the ball on that one.

Let’s just give the guy some credit, OK? To a great man, one of the greatest, Christopher J. Columbus. I wish every day were Columbus Day.

My friend Greg worked at haunted house on Long Island

When I was in school, I had this friend Greg. Every fall, Greg would work for one of those haunted mansion spook tours out toward the end of Long Island. I hadn’t been to one since I was a little kid, I remember I went with a friend and his parents, they took us on a hay ride from the parking lot to the house, and there were people running around outside with chainsaws, lots of screaming sounds projecting from inside.

And yeah, it was cool, I think. I don’t know, I was little. It could have been circumstance that made it so exciting. Like, I was with my friend, and he’s acting all scared, so I could have been pressured to act scared, to fit in. It’s like when you go see a comedy movie with your friends, and everyone in the theater is cracking up, laughing out loud, and then months later you catch that same movie on cable and you sit back, ready to recapture some of those laughs, but nothing’s funny, you’re like, what the hell? Evan Almighty isn’t really that good. How did I enjoy myself the first time around?

So when Greg kept bugging me to make the trip out east to see him in action, I was pretty unenthusiastic. I’d have to take the train, I wouldn’t know where to get dinner, it would have been a huge thing. But he was persistent, “Rob, you coming this weekend? Only two weeks left. Come on man, I promise, it’s a really cool time, for real.”

And I don’t know, he caught me in a moment of weakness, I relented, and two Fridays before Halloween I found myself on the Long Island Rail Road, taking the train out somewhere far away. I got off at the stop and, you know how Long Island is, you need a car. There are usually a bunch of cabs everywhere, but not tonight, there weren’t any.

I considered calling a taxi service, but I really didn’t feel like waiting, and then I looked up the address on my phone, it was only a mile and a half away, I figured, I could walk a mile and a half, that’s not too bad.

So I made it to the house, the first thing I noticed was the total absence of any other people, no parking lot, no cars, no haunted hay ride. But my friend Greg, well, he was cool and everything, but if there’s one person I could think of that would work in an unpopular haunted mansion, well … well that’s a weird way to put it. Greg wasn’t weird. But if someone told me, “Hey Rob, do you know the haunted mansion that Greg works at? Yeah, I went last weekend, and there wasn’t anybody there. Like, I don’t know what kind of business they’re running, but the place was totally empty,” it wouldn’t be that hard to believe.

It was already dark out, and I’m not stupid, like if I walked up to an abandoned house, I wouldn’t assume that it was some sort of under-attended event, no, but there was a flickering light coming from somewhere inside, and so I figured this had to be it, maybe I was early, or maybe it just sucked and nobody wanted to waste their money.

The front door was open so I walked in. There wasn’t any ticket booth, no signs anywhere, in fact, the place looked pretty decrepit. If I wanted to set up a haunted mansion, I’d go over the top, add some fake cobwebs in every corner, maybe paint “HELP ME!” or other creepy stuff on the walls. No, this place was just old, it smelled old, dusty, like mildew.

And I don’t know why I wasn’t scared before, like I hadn’t even considered that I was walking into some creepy real abandoned house, but the sudden realization that this probably wasn’t where I was supposed to be hit me all at once, and I knew that I needed to get out immediately.

I turned around to leave and there was old man standing behind the open door, his face twisted into a grimace, I didn’t expect it, I freaked the hell out and tried to run, but he slammed the door before I could make a break for it. What could I do? I didn’t want to run any further in the house, should I try to get past him? Make a break for it?

“Boo!” he said. And then he just kind of stood there, he relaxed his face, and then he said, “OK, five bucks,” and he held out his hand. And I said, “Wait, this is the haunted mansion?” And he said, “Yup. Pretty scary, huh? You were pretty scared, I could tell. Five bucks.”

I said, “Where’s Greg?” and he was like, “Greg? He doesn’t work here. I’m a solo act. He gets a cut from everybody he sends over.” I said, “But, you didn’t even ask who referred me. If I hadn’t asked about Greg, how would you have known who to pay?” He went, “He should have told you to make sure to mention his name. I figured he had. He’s not the brightest, right? I mean, you see that, right?” I felt like I had to say something, try to defend my friend, but then I got pissed, because if Greg wasn’t the bright one, what did that say about me, apparently one of the only guys he successfully suckered all the way out east to give this old guy five bucks.

“Five bucks,” he repeated. I paid, I mean, I was pretty scared, if only for a second. I got back to school like two hours later, everyone had already went out for the night, Greg left a note, “Hope you had a great time at the haunted house! By the way, I drank your beer. I’ll get you later. Greg.”

I tried to control a swarm of bees

I saw this clip on Reddit of a guy approaching a whole swarm of bees attached to a tree. He slowly puts his hand through the mass of squirming insects and removes it a few seconds later, totally unharmed. The next time, he goes back in, he pulls off a huge of bees, almost like the whole cluster was a liquid, like he was running his hands through a loosely cohesive whole.

Scrolling down through the comments, I hoped to find some sort of an explanation. And I found it. Someone wrote about how when you find bees attached to a tree or some other object, it means that they’re swarming, that they don’t have a queen to protect, and that they’re incredible docile. It all made sense as far as I could tell, I mean, I’m no beekeeper, but this was proof, right?

So when my wife called me outside a few months later, she was screaming, “Rob! Come outside, come quick!” I went out back and she was standing twenty feet away from the garage. “Look Rob, there’s some sort of a beehive.” And it was just like I saw on the video, there were tons of them, all clustered in the top left corner.

I said to my wife, “You want to see something cool?” and I was just going do it, like I’d run my hands through and my wife would be all scared but after a while she’d see that I wasn’t being hurt. How would she react? She’d probably start asking a bunch of half-questions, like, “But … how? This … what?” and I’d just laugh, making up some nonsense answer like, “It’s all about confidence. These bees are more afraid of you than you are of them. You need to project strong vibes, and they’ll understand that. They don’t speak English, but body language a universal means of communication.”

So I calmly walked toward the hive. “Rob? What are you doing, Rob?” to which I replied, “Hey, I’ve got it. Don’t worry.” And that whole confidence, posture, body language thing, it totally worked on my wife. She saw me chill out, she started chilling out herself. “All right, just be careful. What are you going to do?”

“Watch,” and, you know, even though I was fairly certain that this was going to go just as it did on the Internet, there was still a palpable sense of fear. I mean, even if you’re positive that something doesn’t pose a real threat, a swarm of bees is still pretty scary. I’m not even used to dealing with like one bee, but this? This was hundreds of bees. I got close and the buzzing, which I could hear from back at the house, it grew louder, deafening, I could feel it like a cloud of vibration surrounding the periphery of my being.

I raised my hand toward the swarm and I realized that I was fighting my bodily instincts. It was same feeling I had when I went to this adventure park over the summer. One of the attractions was called the Mega Jump, basically, you climb up to a really high platform, they attach you to this rope and pulley thing, and you jump off, confident that whatever it is they’ve tied you to will slow your descent before you touch ground. Again, even though I knew it was this controlled thing, I still experienced a very physical reaction, a terror really, as soon as I stepped up to the edge.

But this was all in my head, I told myself, and I knew that I couldn’t stand there hesitating for too long. I’d psych myself out, or worse, my wife might get the impression that I didn’t know what I was doing, she might get hysterical again and I’d back out if only to keep her from freaking out. I swallowed the lump down my throat and I reached into the mass.

And the stinging was immediate. I recoiled my hand instantly, it was covered in bees, they were all stinging me. The outer layer of the swarm broke off and started circling my body, my face. I wanted to swat them away, I instinctively started flailing around, hitting myself in the head, which, with my one hand still covered in bees, it was just spreading them to my head, my scalp, the ones that had already stung me and died, it was like they were glued on, and I crushed some of them against my skull.

My wife came over with a bucket of water and doused me, but it did little good. In a brief lapse in between bouts of panic and terror, I regained control of my faculties and ran toward the hose, sprayed as many of them as I could away from my body, and followed my wife who had escaped inside the house.

There were like ten or twelve bees that had made it inside, and right outside, it was just this cloud, a whole nest of angry pissed off bees looking for some revenge. My hand was bleeding, everything was starting to swell, my wife was swatting at the few intruders were still circling our heads trying to exact revenge. I looked at my ballooning hand, she looked at me, she said, “What the fuck Rob? What the fuck?”