Category Archives: Uncategorized

I’m committed to this community

I’m committed to being a positive asset to this community, which is why I’m apologizing, I’m really sorry I knocked into your mailbox. And, you know, just think, there was damage to my car also, not that it’s any consolation or anything, I can’t imagine a baseball sized dent on my rear fender would somehow make things a little better for you, but I don’t want you to think that I was taking aim at your property, at you. I’ve just got to get used to this driveway, it’s like, I could have sworn I had it, the angle looked great. You should see the inside of my dash, it’s got one of those rear-facing cameras.

But it’s not important. If anything, I think we both learned a valuable lesson here, that you really can’t rely solely on those cameras. Even though, yes, it clearly says, “Check your surroundings. DO NOT rely solely on this camera,” but come on, of course you’re going to rely solely on the camera. Why have a giant display if not to focus totally on what’s happening on the screen? Am I supposed to somehow crane my neck to get the real view, all while bending toward the front every once in a while just to use the camera as a backup?

What if that mailbox were a little kid? I’m getting ahead of myself. But, like I said, lesson learned, from now on I’m not even going to pay attention to the camera at all, in fact, I’m covering it up with tape. No, I’ll paint it over, just so that way there won’t be any turning back. Because I’m serious about being a good neighbor. I’m serious about that whole commitment to community thing.

Like, I made you this cake. It was supposed to be one part, “I’m sorry for destroying your mailbox,” one part, “I’m serious about my commitment to this community,” and a final part, “No reason, just thought I’d make you a cake.” I even wrote out “Community” in homemade vanilla buttercream frosting. But on my way over to your place, well, I guess this is a testament to what a clean house you keep, but I couldn’t tell that your sliding door was closed, there was seriously no glare whatsoever in the glass, and the cake wound up getting smashed.

And yeah, that doesn’t by itself sound like too much of a big deal, but when I went to find a hose or something to start cleaning it up, I wound up picking up this rake that you had leaning against the house, I don’t know, I thought there might be a faucet in that half foot or so of space you have in between the siding and that big central air box. Look, I’m cutting to the chase here, I swung around with the rake and …

Well, look at the bright side, at least you don’t have to worry about getting the buttercream off of that glass right? Haha. But seriously, I’m very sorry. That’s why I figured I’d start off with the mailbox, which I’m hoping might soften the blow somewhat for the glass. Like if I went straight to the broken sliding door, yeah, I’ll admit it, that’s huge, that’s a hassle, even if you do get a good price on glass, they’re not going to be able to replace that thing until Monday, at least.

Which is why what I’m about to tell you next won’t even seem like a big deal at all in comparison. It’s almost like a joke really, I mean, you’ve got a good sense of humor, right? Well, after I broke the glass, I just kind of reacted, like sprung into action, but I wasn’t thinking, not really, I was thinking about helping, obviously, but not about how I was going to help. It was mostly just pure instinct, a instinct of assistance, and I got hung up on the concept, the word, helping, totally out of context.

What I’m saying is, I stepped all over the cake, I walked into your house, I don’t know why, I thought I’d find a dustpan or a broom or some paper towels, but I think I just made a bigger mess. And then your dog ran out. But he’s chipped, right? Chipped. You know, where they tag the dog with a chip in case he runs away?

Look, I make great flyers. We’ll have that dog back in no time. Seriously, I’m pretty good at the Internet, and I’ll try to get like a viral campaign going, everyone’s going to be looking for that dog. And while I’m at it, I’ll launch a Kickstarter to help you raise funds for that glass, and the mailbox. And can I use your Internet? They haven’t hooked it up in my house yet, and I can’t figure out where I put my phone charger.

It’s just, listen, I know this is an incredibly awkward way to start off this relationship. My name’s Rob, by the way. But I just want to let you know that I’m committed, absolutely committed to becoming an integral part of this community, a force for positivity, someone that people look to and think, wow, that guy is such a great addition to the neighborhood.

My freezer is kind of broken and I can’t get myself to deal with it

The ice cream in my freezer kept getting softer and softer, to the point where it felt almost like soft-serve in a pint, and while I could lie to myself, try to ignore my problems and think about how cool it was to always have soft ice cream on hand, eventually the decline in freeze got to the point where I needed to do something, I had to like look up something on the Internet or call up somebody to come and take a look at what was going on.

Even this thought took a couple of weeks to really plant itself in my head. Slightly above temperature ice cream is one thing, but that box of frozen hamburger patties? How long could I really continue to enjoy this stuff without worrying about all of the harmful bacteria that might start to take advantage of my less that optimally functioning freezer?

Still, there was so much inertia, I couldn’t stand to let another day go by without taking care of the problem, but I was frozen, unable to think of how I’d go from not doing anything about it to doing something, anything.

I think the root of it had to do with my not-so-irrational fear of freezers. That sounds crazy, but it’s not, it comes from a real, traumatic experience. My wife and I were living in Ecuador as Peace Corps Volunteers. We had this cheap-o refrigerator, so wildly out of synch with what we were used to dealing with back home. This thing didn’t have whatever our modern freezers have that prevents frost from accumulating and building up along the sides of the walls.

Again, it was this slow issue that never really warranted immediate action, but left undealt with, it was like one day we couldn’t close the freezer door anymore, the ice had literally snowballed it’s way into becoming this problem that had to be addressed immediately.

And so, with no Internet to look up how to take care of something that I would have never had to deal with back home, I imagined a reasonable course of action involved me taking a kitchen knife to the inside of the freezer, stabbing at the chunks of ice until I’d shaved off enough space for the door to close.

In retrospect, of course this seems like a stupid idea. You don’t just go hacking away at your problems. But at the time, I thought, OK, I’m getting somewhere, ice is falling off, this shouldn’t take too much longer.

But it’s an awkward stance, kind of half crouching down, jabbing my arm in an upside-down upward motion inside of a small frozen box. I hit something, I knew I had made a big mistake because it started hissing, a stream of gas blowing out of the freezer. I thought, that had to be the Freon, all of this gas leaking, this is what’s keeping everything cold.

I had to stop it. I had some silicon glue lying around and figured I’d stick my head in there and try to plug everything up. There were bubbles involved. I’d think I had everything patched up when there’d be a pop, more expelled gas. Finally the hissing stopped, and even though I had my fingers crossed, a few hours later it was obvious that both the fridge and the freezer no longer functioned in keeping anything below room temperature.

It was a nightmare, getting this thing fixed, it was like a whole month and a half with no refrigerator. I felt like a caveman. My wife was pissed. I’m still haunted by this story, every time there’s any sort of kitchen problem, it always comes down to me trying to stab my way out of everything. And that’s not even mentioning the paranoia I still suffer as a result of having probably breathed in way too much Freon. It never occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t be sharing a two by two foot box with all of that leaking gas. What are the long term effects? Do my lungs seem cold to anyone else?

So it was with this fear that I approached my current freezer dilemma. Fortunately, the Internet told me that before I called in a serviceman to charge me several hundred dollars, all I had to do was first clean out the vent behind the appliance. Apparently it’s a dust-trap, and after a couple of years of neglecting to be cleaned, this build-up can cause the cold to be not so cold.

But again, moving the fridge was this impossible chore, jostling it into a position in which I could at least see the back. There was dust everywhere, that patch of unseen floor was practically blackened with soot. And when I finally got to where I was in a position that I could maybe do something about it, I realized that I didn’t have a vacuum, and that my dust-buster was out of battery.

I made a weak attempt at wiping off the grate with some paper towels, but there was so much more dust that I didn’t really accomplish anything. Still, what was I going to do? I moved everything back into place and set the dust-buster to charge.

The whole thing took me like fifteen minutes. I’m worried that it’s going to be another two weeks before I find the motivation to attempt the cleaning again. And there are so many variables. Will the dust-buster still have any battery? Would the half-assed cleaning with the paper towel somehow have been enough to prevent me from trying again? Why do I keep fighting the urge to grab a kitchen knife?

I don’t know, man, I’ve got to commit to some action, my ice cream’s like soup, like not totally runny yet, but definitely less than soft-serve, and the frozen patties are starting to look a little gray.

Chill out, have a snack

Whenever you’re feeling agitated, ready to jump out of your skin the next time someone so much as looks at you the wrong way, take a minute, make yourself a snack. I’ve always found that getting some food in my stomach helps get rid of ninety-nine percent of whatever’s floating around in my brain that’s causing me distress. And even then, I’ll just eat some more, and that one percent is slashed, cut down to almost zero.

Does your boss get on your nerves? Is he constantly telling you to do this, to work faster, to stop standing around? Make yourself a sandwich. Go ahead and add that extra slice or two of cheese, and don’t be shy with the mayo. Let Mr. Manager get his knickers in a twist, just block out that voice and take a big bite.

Yeah, it doesn’t work immediately, I mean, you’ll still have to put up with those crazy thoughts running through your head for about ten minutes or so while your stomach digests all of that delicious turkey and bacon into whatever it is that calms down the nerves, quiets those impulses to tell your boss what’s what. And yeah, during that time, you’ll still have to stand there and listen to more of that, “What, you don’t have anything to do? I’ll give you something to do. Go put this over there. OK? That’s it? Yeah, well go get that and bring it over here.”

Just try to ignore it, walk as slow as possible, give your body a chance to metabolize all of that delicious chipotle gourmaise dressing that you used instead of mayo. Did I forget to mention that? It’s not too late, even if you’ve already added mayo, add some of this gourmaise, it’s mostly mayo anyway, only it’s got tons of spices in it, man, I could eat this stuff as a dip for chips, so don’t get skimpy, it’s got a squeeze-top nozzle, and there’s plenty more where it came from.

But if your boss is like my boss, he won’t take no for an answer, even though you’re not saying no, you’re not saying anything, you’re just chewing, you’re eating that sandwich as fast as possible so maybe you won’t be so visibly angry, it won’t be as difficult to suppress that feeling of rage bubbling barely beneath the surface, in fact, you’re not really suppressing it at all, he’s yelling at you, you’re chewing, and you’re looking him dead in the eye, your eyebrows are locked in place, if you didn’t have a mouth full of cold cuts, who knows what sort of obscenities you might start hurling?

Get out of there man, just for a second, tell him you need to go to the bathroom, don’t ask for permission to go to the bathroom, just tell him, “I’m going to the bathroom,” and then sneak out to the deli next door. Buy a black and white cookie, trust me, it just looks big because you don’t realize how hungry you still are, that that’s why you’re in such a bad mood. Eat the first one right there, before you even pay for it at the register, and then grab a second one to present to the cashier, “You know what?” you’ll tell him, “Charge me for a Mountain Dew also,” and pick it up on your way back to work.

Don’t look at your phone, it’s probably just your boss sending you some toothless threatening text message, some unoriginal, “It’s not really professional of you to …” long text message, like you’re thinking to yourself, man, what exactly is your job? How much time are you spending writing out paragraph-long text messages to an employee that just needs a snack, just give me ten minutes to eat my sandwich and cookie and take a drink of soda, Jesus Christ.

But it’s OK, by now your system should be totally flooded with whatever it is your body’s released in response to the sandwiches, to the cookies. Enjoy that comfortable buzz in the periphery of your consciousness. The next time you look your boss in the eye, just think about that cookie, maybe softly caress the Snickers bar in your pocket. I did tell you to get a Snickers, right? Just think, five minutes, ten more minutes, tops, and he’ll leave you alone. Just go to the corner for a second, make it look like you’re doing some work, don’t do it too fast, because then you’ll be back to square one, task completed, no more work to do, “No work to do? I’ll give you something to do!” Just take your time, make that menial labor last, unwrap the Snickers and take little bites now and then. You’re just hungry, it happens to everybody, just chill out, just have a snack, just wait a half an hour and then go out for a smoothie or a milkshake.

32 and a half signs that you’re on the Internet/using a computer/or your cell phone

You clicked on this link. It was blue and then you clicked on it, and when you hit the back button, it turned purple. Unless you’re in incognito mode, in which case it’ll probably stay blue. Or unless you’re on a phone, in which case you didn’t click on anything, you just tapped.
You’re wearing a shirt. If it’s cold outside, you might even be wearing a sweater. If you’re on the subway and it’s raining out and you’re reading this on your phone, a parka isn’t totally out of the question either.
Your leg is tapping on the floor. Isn’t that crazy that you don’t even notice it anymore? Tap, tap, tap, tap, your roommate used to say stuff like, “Stop tapping! Seriously, what’s wrong with you, everything’s falling off the desk, I can’t concentrate! Are you listening to me?” But you weren’t listening, not really, not enough to give a response, and he moved out months ago.
Your cell phone is constantly less than thirty percent charged.
And you’re at a restaurant and you ask the waiter, “Hey man, do you guys have an iPhone 4S charger?” and the waiter looks at you for a second, he can’t outright tell you to go fuck off, so he just kind of stares at you for a while, hoping that through his nonverbal response, you’ll get the hint, like stop wasting my time, of course we don’t keep chargers around for the guests. But you don’t get the hint, so you try, “Can you ask anybody in the back if they have a charger? Any of the other waiters?”
Everything that you read is in numbered bullet points. Like this one right here, number six.
And number seven too. It’s like, there really isn’t any difference between number six and number seven, it’s only by me, the writer, pressing the enter key that
I arbitrarily decide to make a completely new “sign” or “reason.” And that’s how we got from six to eight without having changed topics at all, not really.
But man, when I started writing, 32 and half signs didn’t seem like that big of a challenge. But here I am, I’m only nine deep, I can’t let the readers down, but I’m beginning to suspect that they’re seeing right through me, that I hadn’t really thought out this list, that, sure, three or four of these might be somewhat entertaining, but the rest?
Pure filler. You’re reading pure filler right here.
You’re in an airport terminal waiting for your flight, and that guy’s been hogging the wall outlet for the past twelve minutes, so you ask him, “Hey man, are you going to be done with that outlet soon? My phone’s at six percent.” But he says, “Sorry, my laptop’s at five percent, they take a lot longer to charge than phones do. If you want, you can watch me surf the Internet. I’m reading this list on BuzzFeed right now, “17 Things You’re Doing While You’re Waiting For Your Flight To Start Boarding.”
You’re wearing a shirt. Wait, I said that already. You’re wearing pants.
You’re probably not wearing pants.
Pull up your pants, man, or at least lock the door.
You’re out to dinner, and you don’t want to keep taking your phone out to finish reading this list, but you can’t pay attention to anything else, so you excuse yourself to use the bathroom, and you step outside the restaurant to finish it up, and you look up to see if everything’s OK back at the table, but nobody’s at the table, everyone’s outside with you, they’re on the Internet too.
You’re sitting shotgun in your parents’ new Ford Explorer, your phone is totally out of battery, the giant computer center console clearly advertises its ability to seamlessly integrate your phone’s browser with the car’s navigation system, but does that mean that it’ll be able to charge everything up? Mom? Do you know how to use this? You’ve never looked at the manual? OK, mom? Mom, can I use your phone? Because mine’s out of battery. Eleven percent? I’ll just use three percent, I promise. No, I won’t touch your Candy Crush, seriously, I stopped playing that game weeks ago.
You’re reading this and you’re thinking, “Oh my God, that is so true.”
You’re reading this and you’re thinking, “Well, I don’t really relate to this one.”
You’re reading this and you’re not even concerned that I’m saying one thing and then I’m saying the exact opposite right below.
You’re not reading this at all, someone linked to it on Facebook and you clicked, “Open in new tab,” but you already have so many tabs open, so many other Internet articles and lists that you saw on your news feed, there isn’t enough screen space to fit all of the tabs, and so you can’t even tell what the tabs are, there’s no room for labels, but still, you look at the browser, you think, I’ll read all of those, I’ll get to them eventually, and then months later your computer will freeze or you’ll be forced to reboot for an update, you’ll look at the fresh browser screen and think, wow, that was a relief, a new start, no old links to weigh me down, but just as you resolve to only open links that you’ll actually read, the browser flashes, “Restoring last session,” and there they are, all of them, tons of lists, this list, you’ll finish reading it eventually, you’ll get to it soon.
You’re saying to yourself, “We’re only at number 21? This whole list could have been condensed to two, maybe even one. Why did he decide 32 and a half? What a bunch of nonsense, and we’re barely halfway through. What the hell, man, why do I keep clicking on these lists, seriously, does anybody proofread these things? Why are they so popular? Is somebody actually making money off of content like this?”
You’re scrolling all the way down without reading, just to get a sense of how long this thing is going to go.
But even the writer is getting bored here, so it’s a relief to find the next few numbers to be nothing but short, filler sentences.
More filler.
If I had time, I’d look up some animated gifs.
Like a picture of a TV actress making a face, with the subtitle, “Gurl …” across the bottom.
Or a different TV actress making a different face, like a confused face, and this caption say, “Say what?”
This isn’t so bad. 28 already? 32 and a half doesn’t seem that far out of reach now. Maybe it’s not too late to make it 42 and a half. But that would involve scrolling back up and editing and more typing, no, I guess 32 and a half is fine.
Your phone is really, really hot.
It says something like, “Your phone is overheating. Stop using it for a minute and let it cool down.”
You just got an icepack out of the freezer and, it’s probably not a good idea for thing to be frozen either, so you just kind of alternate, fifteen seconds on ice, fifteen seconds off, fifteen more on ice, and over and over again until that warning goes away.
You could have sworn you read this same exact list sometime a few months ago, but this clearly says that it was written today, so you search Google to see if maybe it wasn’t posted somewhere else a while ago, but you get to Google and they have one of those flash games in place of their home screen, so twenty minutes go by, and you beat it, but you forget what you came there to look up in the first place, and all of the tabs are blurred together, you can’t even find Facebook, so you just open up a new tab and commit to not losing your place this time.

32.5 You finish, you get to the end and you’re like, I did it, I read that whole thing. But where’s that sense of accomplishment you get from reading a newspaper or a book, of having done something? This feels like the mental equivalent of having just scarfed down a twenty-piece McNuggets as a midafternoon snack. And yeah, don’t forget about that that “and a half” punch line that wasn’t really that funny when you read it back in the title. Here it is. 32 and a half signs that you did it, you read the whole thing.

I am Banksy

I’m a little late to the game here, but I just found out about Banksy. Like, I had heard the name Banksy before, but that was about it, I never asked myself, who is Banksy? Why do I keep seeing his name popping up on the Internet? I never clicked through any of those links. And then a couple of weekends ago my brother was talking about Banksy and, not wanting to feel out of the loop, I did my best to pretend like I knew exactly what I was talking about, all while trying to steer the conversation toward another topic.

But now I know about Banksy. I mean, I still haven’t clicked on any links, but I get it, he’s a graffiti artist. He made some sort of a documentary. And nobody knows who he is. He’s like Batman, but without any of the crime-fighting. Actually, if you think about it, he’s actually a part of the problem, defacing public space.

Whatever, I’m not going to get into an argument about right and wrong. Even though I think that’s it wrong. Not that he’s doing it, but that it didn’t work for me. I heard that this guy was making millions of dollars, this whole mystery artist walking around town drawing little pictures of miniature men next to fire hydrants, I don’t get the appeal, of the art that is, I do get the appeal of the cash.

That’s why it appealed to me. That’s why I tried to get out there and tell everybody that I was Banksy. It made perfect sense, I mean, this guy doesn’t reveal his identity, and so I figured that all I had to do was study his drawings enough to make my own convincing Banksy-style replicas, and instead of fleeing into the shadows after I finished a piece, I’d turn around, I’d be wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a pair of sunglasses, I’d wait for the crowd to get really big, I’d even call the cops on myself, I’d be like, “Hello, police? There’s some guy spray-painting graffiti …” and then just as they’d come to handcuff me, I’d rip off the sweatshirt, I’d be wearing a t-shirt that said, “Banksy!” just, you know, to really drive home the point, and I’d scream out, “It’s me! I’m Banksy!”

But getting a crowd to gather, it’s not as easy as just wearing a bunch of clothes from Urban Outfitters and crouching down to tag a building. No, and I was just testing the waters, just kind of taking out the cans, I hadn’t even started painting yet, but nobody was looking at me, nobody stopped and said, “Are you Banksy?” No, not with the paint cans lined up in front of me, not when I started aggressively shaking the cans up and down, over and over again, each time the metal ball inside of the can hit the end I heard it as, “Bank – sy – Bank –sy.”

And finally, he wasn’t a cop, but he was some sort of a security guard, he came outside of the building and stood like a foot away from me. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t have to, he was just staring right at me, he had his security guard radio in his hand. It was like he was waiting for me to make a move. Well, a move further than just shaking the can up and down.

This went on for like a minute or two, finally I stopped shaking this one can, I held it out in front of me and slowly took off the top. The security guard remained unmoved, just watching me. I thought, OK, a game of chicken, huh? It’s not like this guy was a real cop or anything, and so I was game. I brought the can slowly to the wall, really slowly, like if this guy was going to make a move, I wanted to see just where that line was. But nothing. Maybe this guy was a fan. Maybe he would be the first person to witness me successfully steal the Banksy name.

Something had to happen, so finally I was like two inches away from the wall, and I made the smallest spray, I had the nozzle pressed down for less than a second. And that was it, the security guard wasn’t a fan, he kicked into action, that radio was out and he was shouting something, vandalism, graffiti, call the police. I panicked, I dropped the can, I didn’t even have a minute to pick anything up, I just screamed out, “I am Banksy!” as I booked it out of there.

And like three blocks, four blocks away, nobody was following me, I thought, if this guy’s really anonymous, how is he so rich? What if the police come and they dust my spray-paint can for prints, do I have to have my fingerprints already in the system to be identified? Should I commit some small infraction so the cops can link me to the paint? Could this still work out in my favor?

But then I thought about buying more spray-paint, about how it was so annoying the first time around, I went to this auto-parts store, all of the spray-paint was behind this cage on aisle seven, and I had to have a manager come out from around the back to unlock it. He was so impatient, he was just like, “Pick a color so I can get back to my job,” and I just wanted a minute, to think about which one I should buy, and this guy was so pushy, so I just chose like a royal blue, a sun-kissed yellow. I don’t know, I don’t really feel like going back, spending more money. I’ll just let Banksy be Banksy, for now, I guess.