The Time I Flashbacked #1 ("And It's Over In A Flash")

This is another new segment, where I'll be posting old old old posts I had on my old blog and leaving foot notes in red. Some of these are 5 years old, so forgive me, I have not edited these at all except for some spelling mistakes. Let's begin.

"And It's Over in a Flash"

So lets see where i was when i left out i believe there was some hilarity in the inability for the color guard to hold onto their flags/sabres (this was a reference to a blog I posted regarding the Elon's colorguard being just a tad overweight). Lets take a look back and see what happened in kelson's life this week:

Monday-Thursday....nothing really me and kristen went to hillsborough NC because im a tool and decided i would super duper cool and go there because i live in hillsborough NJ (Apparently punctuation wasn't cool in 2003.) I had been there before but this time we drove the whole entire town...that took about 3 minutes and we decided to go to wendy's and every single employee was eating in the front ...and then a lady with 4 teeth or less decided she would try to take our order but ended up scaring the shit out of me because i dont think she realized halloween was over (I don't recall this joke or this lady, but both are atrocious attempts at comedy). so we ate but not before a little gang tussle. on one side we had the yokels who worked at wendys with less then 12 teeth combined and a presumably smaller IQ and then apparently the other side of "the boro" who didnt seem to be crips or bloods rather...hawaiian? gang members...we quickly ran i think i narrowly escaped a bullet wound (This is true. I was much smaller then and able to dodge bullets.)

oh yea and on tuesday me and kristen drove all over the state of north carolina lookin for the steel train cd and surprisingly we didnt find it (this was back before the days of emo being on MTV. Nowadays, I'm pretty sure I could buy Steel Train at both Walmart and the BP down the street). When i say surprisingly i mean im not surprised at all. Apparently there wasnt enough room for it on the shelf because the new steely dan cd needed about 4 racks full. ...asses. So that was also fun a few days later we drove to exit 152 to take a picture of the sign since its on the taking back sunday cd...i had heard it was on this road in NC because the singer used to live there so again i brought out my toolness and drove like a giddy school girl with lauren and kristen to it...however it was the wrong sign , by the wrong sign i mean i was completely on the wrong road, by wrong road i mean im probably in the wrong state because north carolina=suck (still true, to this day, I have no idea where that sign is located, but I get heart palpations everytime I think of it). This was a bad bad omen for the weekend. we proceeded to hot topic to make kristen into a punk rAWK princess and then came home (This post screams of my 18 year old emo kid and I gotta say, I'm slightly embarrased). The next day we were going to see coheed and thrice and thursday and so on the ticket it said show at 8..which in normal show speak means doors open at 8 but nooooooo in north carolina they have to be "on time" so we left at 615 ish and got there at 830 cause of traffic and of course i missed coheed and proceeded to follow justin timberlake's instructions and cry him a river (Not the last time I took his advice, as the year 2007 was all about me bringing sexy back.) then we watch thrice(blow) they didnt even play the single...sluts...and then thursday which was fun because they played an awesome set and i was in the pit but there were kids that came bearing leather gloves to mosh with ...these kids were also 10..so i put them in there place with a pistol whip to the back of the head. (In the coming years these 10 year olds would go on to form gangs (each with their own colored bandana) and would gang/fake fight at shows. A pistol whipping just 2 years later would probably result in an emo skull fuck from the "Pink Bandana" crew.)

We got home and i did my radio show and proceeded to cry some more over the air got home and slept woke up to leave around 830 to leave at 9 and of course didnt leave till 1030 ish...another good sign so me and kristen and lauren drove up and got lost because lauren decided to not use her words and use her fingers instead and being that she was behind me i didnt see so we got lost for an HOUR we asked two different gas stations and of course they didnt really know ...they pretended to point off somewhere and then i believe throw some numbers at us...i mean why should they know really....they only live in the town and the road was 15 minutes away...apparently the rule in rural north carolina is that you cant know any roads more than 5 miles away from the point in which you are standing (Important to note that we were going to see a concert in Philadelphia, a good 8 hour drive. Yes it was an emo concert and YES I'm even more embarrased.) so we get there just in time to see moneen play (at this point lauren has decided not to speak to me because its fun like that. so we saw the show moneen -good taking back sunday...if you are a tbs fan i will probably kill you before the sunsets tonite...all these 10 year old little girls screamed and rushed the front of the stage (This was the beginning of the end for going to concerts. The one morsel I can take from this show is that all those 10 year olds are now overweight 15 year olds that like My Chemical Romance just a ltitle too much.) ....when the BANNER dropped down..really it was obviously there first punk show and they wanted to be raped by the fat indian/mexican guitarist...so it was the most frightening moment of my life because EVERYONE was singing and FINGERPOINTED with their little devil horns...aww its so cute.. and then saves the day came out and rocked and all the little boys pretended to not like the new cd and were all like play through being cool and i thought umm werent you 4 when that came out...yea.....o and then this guy ..about 14 ...really tough.(he had an eyebrow ring) decided to push me out of the way to try to see tbs with his girl (who really had no clue what was going on) and i said yes!!! run to your taking back sunday they are god!!!!!! and he said fag...i was quite hurt so i said whens your 15 birthday party....HAHAHAH! take that . Look at me picking on children ...you cant stop me..im unstopable. (Pretty sure I was trying to say that I was better than everyone else there, and I'm certainly not one to argue with myself.)

So then STD played Hey Ya as an encore...and that rocked the hizouse (I hate that song so much. Thank god Outkast broke up.) So they were done we drove home lauren and kristen were like asleep so i put them to bed after singin them quite a lullaby on my childrens guitar that doesnt have real strings just plastic ones. then i hit the down (town) with derril...and elise.....and then me and derril played guitar till around 3 and i was gonna chill with this charlie fellow but it was late and i was almost dead. so i went to bed at 4 and woke up at 9 we got on the road and were having a grand ol time with lauren still not speaking to me then magically everything was better there was singing and games and hurrah! a trip to dairy queen where kristen risked her life by gettin pumpkin pie ice cream "freak much"...then we drove and drove and drove around 7 it happened. (This whole paragraph reads like I imagine a heroin addict's list of errands reads like. To my knowledge I was not on heroin.)

We were about 30 minutes from school and i took the wrong RT 87 so we turned right into a driveway to turn around i let the car behind me go and then a car coming the other way was about 1/4 mile down the road so i had time to go i started to back up and before i could put it in drive i was hit (I'm ashamed that the most dramatic moment of this post was summed up in one run on sentence. Just know that when your driver side gets hit, head on, from another, you barely remember anything.) Perhaps the scariest moment you could possibly imagine we figure the car was going about 80 ish (Police claim it was going 35 (or 15 MPH UNDER the speed limit, you know because teenagers often drive well below the speed limit)). ...and it was just ... i dont know. kristen was in the front and she was ok and my legs were stuck ...i thought i was paralyzed but somehow i pulled them out( no idea how, all the EMT's said we were all very very lucky...the lord was with (you) and im just like...um yea i dont really believe...however there will now be churching every week (This was true for one week, then I returned to the agnostic I was growing into thanks to Catholic high school. Yes, I'm going to hell). and we turned and lauren was out and i was so scared that i had killed her but she came to and was confused but we all went to the hospital me and lauren on stretchers and kristen came for the ride. being as scarred as we were me and lauren proceeded to crack the emt's up because well we are just plain funny people (I believe we sang songs). he cut my pants ...now im down to one pair...and lauren was screaming for her shoe..when it was on her lap...scary but nonetheless funny...and then she begged me to sing the quiet things no one ever knows (I believed right). ...yes shes insane. so we went to the hospital and its small they put her in the hall and me in a room and just left me there to get me blanket that they didnt get for 25 minutes and all i wanted was my feet covered since i had no shoes! they then came and put a blanket on my body......but not my feet. wonderful so kristen bounced back and forth and the cop came in and stuff then about 47q23q0h hours later i got my gown on...oh yea the other two didnt get one...but kelson did then i wanted some water but they wouldnt give me any till i had xrays so about an hour later they came to give me my xrays and then i asked for water again....and they still said no...the doctor came in to check me out and was like nothing broken...sprained right ankle...sprained left knee and some cuts here and there..so the nurse cleaned me up and i was discharged and i had kristen call margaret to pick me up(shes awesome) and then i got into my wheelchair(temporary) and visited lauren..who had an IV put in while i was there..where i tried to distract her by doing the vogue dance....o and it worked so then margaret came and i left and had to use crutches to walk from the car while she laughed at me...but thats alright now i cant really walk it takes about 5 minutes to walk to the bathroom which is 10 feet away and my teachers showed real compassion "bottom line : this shows you do NOT wait till the last minute to do a project" (Somehow I still got a B in that class and briefly considered maiming myself every 6 months for the sweet perks.) ...but we are all ok for now all very sore and bruised ..knees, brains...ya know the norm...so that was my weekend if you think you can beat it i dare you to. o wait you cant? thats right...sucka. (When I tell the story now, I often say "I couldn't walk for a week after the accident." It's true and it ads so much more drama, rather than saying "I sprained my knee and ankle on opposite legs. I'm starved for attention, but you knew this. That's why you are here.)

so even though we all almost died we didnt and we are stronger ...yes...stronger than yesterday (Corny much?)..now its nothing...and we decided to get tattoos to commemorate us (Didn't happen and to be honest I don't even remember the date of the accident. (We were gonna get the date tattooed)). ....not dying...plus we saw two fairly awesome shows so seriously beat that...you might be able to get the downs or the ups..but both in the same weekend...i think not. again id like to end with a song that really means something to me this time im gonna be serious...cause ive been through alot...and i dont think its quite sunk in but im so happy my best friends are alive and i love em and we probably wont fight ever agian..until me or lauren go insane. so give it a day. but this one is for them:

I don't know what you heard about me
but a bitch can't get a dollar out of me
no cadillac no perms you can't see
That I'm a motherf*@^ing P-I-M-P

(I used to end each post with a lyric of a song that was popular at the time, just because the words are insane when they don't have a beat to them. I think this is 50 Cent, maybe a certain friend who reads this and loves rap music can confirm. Seriously though, look at those words, don't you feel embarassed for people who claim 50 cent is there favorite artist?)

Love

Kelson

Im listening to : nothing...every single cd i own was in that car..o yea by the way the car is totaled. but if i was listening to a cd i would probably go with Coheed and Cambria. but if you are under the age of 16 you arent allowed to come to their shows.

PS. Im gonna pretend i dont know what im doing.

PPS. but really will know what im doing because i think im funny and cool and its fun to mock people.

(I think this was a shot at a girl who was jerking around my emotions and I'll be honest I sound just a wee bitter about it in this PS and PPS. Needless to say she is now one of my best friends.)

Epilogue:

So I tended to write a bit on the cheesy side for the accdient. I really thought it was going to be a life changing experience, but it wasn't, I was just trying to make it seem that way (sounds like 03' Emo to me!). We didn't get tattoos, we didn't go to church and to be honest we were never really friends again. Lauren took a semester off from school and Kristen transferred to a school in Florida. Last summer all 3 of us hung out again for the first time and it was kind of a bummer because of course people change and it's ridiculous to think that just because we were all in a major car crash together we would love each other forever (I believe the last time I saw Lauren she was standing on a balcony, looking simliar to white trash, which i told her(although this would later be revelaed as a costume) and smoking cigarettes at full tilt. After I screamed up something along the lines of "Hey where's your double wide?" she called me an asshole and I said I was kidding and she gave a smirk that said "Doesn't matter."

As for the car, well it was beyond dead. Luckily, I got to relive the whole event thanks to a court case in which I was being sued (remember the other car hit me). The suit began two years after the accident and just recently ended (All I know is that I didn't get money and I didn't have to pay money. Let's call it a wash).

So that was me in November of 2003, an emo child that obviously is emo-ness on his Panic at the Disco! logo emblazoned sweater vest (As opposed to an emo adult who wears his Get Up Kids t-shirt underneath his collection of long sleeved plaid shirts.) I hope you enjoyed and remember...you just got FLASHED.

(back.)

The Time I Got A Little Jealous

I'll be honest: I am a jealous person. I have always been jealous and we won't go into the reasons of that jealousy but you can pretty much guess figure it out with a three letter hint (emo). So I don't like it when guys hit on my girlfriend. I suppose there is one camp that says "other guys want my girlfriend, but I got her" but my mind says "other guys want my girlfriend, she might leave me." (I have flabby hips, a quick temper, natural fear of public places and people and a compulsion to buy shiny electronics. Sounds like a man who may spend his midlife crisis trapped in the bombshelter (basement) of his parents house, watching old re-runs of 24 and illegally downloading the newest Hooters magazine online (yes there is a Hooters magazine)).

So this very situation came up this past weekend. I was away at the beach as previously reported and Amelia was away (for the second straight weekend) to a distant location ...we'll say...Vagina Beach, VA. She was meeting with a bunch of old friends, which seems fine and everything went well except for the fact that she didn't come on Sunday night like she said because she was too busy watching Biodome at 2 AM... Hmmm.....(Jealousy starting to rage).

When she came back I pulled my best Katie Couric and asked her a series of meandering questions that really beat around the bush. The worst answer? "There were 7 guys sleeping over, no girls". I think my jaw droping the floor mixed with a hint of road rage was the appropriate reaction and I tried to find out more, but you can't really ask "hey did you cheat on me?" (Note: I don't think she would cheat on me and the logical part of my brain knows that. But it's always weird when your girl goes away for the weekend with 7 guys, maybe it's just a thing that I have.) We resolved the conversation and I was able to calm my fears with the always delicious Tokyo Express.

Two days later the bomb dropped. Out of nowhere she asks "Hey do you remember that guy "Shark" (name substituted with an animal that rhymes) that I kind of had an on/off thing with before we started dating?" No. I didn't remember. That's not the type of thing I like to harp on when I've been in a relationship for over a year. I feel like thats more of a down the road "Hey remember when you were competing with that guy 25 years ago?" type of thing. But then I did remember and I saw where this was going.

She proceeded to tell me that Shark told her again he loved her and that she should dump me for him (because relationships that start with breaking up another relationship from 300 miles away always works.) So I was pissed with that. But then it clicked. It FUCKING clicked.

"Was Shark at the house this weekend with you?"

"Yes."

FAAAAAANTASTIC. Let me tell you something. There is NOTHING worse than the thought of having a borderline stalker (who apparently clocks in under 5' 7" - adding to the creepy vibe) spend a weekend with your girlfriend (a girl he used to date), profess his love to her, and then they proceed to get drunk together.

Again, I trust that she did not do anything and that's really not the issue here. It's him I don't trust. I have never met Shark, but trying to break up a relationship is pretty low. It reeks of desperation and a little bit of a...umm... let's say creepy...vibe. How many storylines have contained something like this:

Had the girl.
Lost the girl to an extremely attractive young man with a sensational sense of humor and wit.
Tried to get the girl back (twice, I was later informed that he had tried this manuever last year as well. Real show of class by Shark.)
Go on murderous rampage killing attractive young man with sensation sense of humor and wit because he "stole your girl."
This is basically every episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. (I'm guessing here. I'd rather watch 12 straight hours of Judge Judy).

What makes all of this worse is that she is still friends with him. Obviously, I don't tell her who to be friends with, but I feel like someone that is continously trying to harm our relationship, MAY not be the greatest of friends. But I'm just throwing out opinions here.

I'm not a violent man, but with my recent discovery of his small stature, I feel that my rotund figure could but a whoopin on him. Would any court (with a jury made up of jaded men) hold it against me? I'll end with this. I asked Amelia if Shark would still be invited to our wedding (if we had a wedding planned, which we do not. But if we did, and it was open bar, so any d-bag we sent an invitation to would want to come, instead of just sending a present, like we really want). Yes she said. So this is how our first meeting would go:

Amelia: Hey this is my friend Shark.
Shark: Nice to meet you.
Kelson: Oh, hey aren't you the guy that tried to break my girlfriend up twice in the last couple of years. (This is assuming he doesn't try it again.)
Shark: Oh that....well that was just a misunderstanding. When I said I loved her I mea.....
Kelson: (Neck snap on Shark).

Not a great way to spend your wedding day. I would hope he would NOT come to the wedding, but isn't it just as ridiculous that she is OK with inviting him? This a guy clearly not ok with being just friends. (Note: I did pose a similiar scenario with a past person in my life, and was told it was not ok to invite that person to our fake open bar wedding. I was also told that she knew she was being unfair.)

Moral of the story here: If you are going to try to break up a girl and her boyfriend, do not come to their wedding because Karma (or the boyfriend) will have a way of snapping your neck.

We're You Aware of It?

I will write here soon, but I have been working 12 hour days and I have a new cat "Tank" that meows constantly (especially when you don't look directly at him). He also loves to get into the litter box and meow without going number 1 or 2 and instead just meows and kicks litter out of the box. It's about an annoyance level of 11 on a scale of 1 to 10. I'm halfway to a slow suicide and my only fear is that the music will not be something like Elliot Smith or Dashboard Confessional, it will be the orchestral sounds of a 4 month kitten. I am now 51% there.

WE'RE YOU AWARE OF IT?

Short Stories With Tragic Endings #4

This weekend I was on my way down to the beach to see my parents, grandparents and aunt/uncle/cousin when I was suddenly interrupted on my peaceful drive. As I'm coming up I-40 (a three lane road, speed limit 65 MPH), I notice that I, and all the cars in front of me, are slowing down to approximately ....45 MPH (not safe for highway speeds) and I have my fingers crossed that there is a flaming wreck that we are all stopping for up in the distance (to provide some form of entertainment on a 4 hour ride). As I get up over the hill, I see nothing, all the other lanes are going the appropriate speed and so I see where the problem lies. A white minivan.

The minivan was plastered with "Celebration DJ" and my first thought is that this DJ caters to the planned old people community in the planned town of Celebration, FL. This is the only possible explanation for why he is driving 20 MPH below the speed limit. Then, like a jesus miracle from on high, the AARP member switched into the right lane and the crowd that had built up behind him broke free. Soon it was my turn to whiz by him and give the the signature scowl that us Jersey boys are known for. I was beyond excited.

As I'm just about to pass, he swerves (or tries) into the center lane, even though there is no one in front of him in the right lane. But this man decides he needs to slow down traffic in the center lane and I will not let him. There was probably about 2 car lengths between the car in front of me and myself and I think a senior citizen driving a large minivan that handles like a tank, might be a tad dangerous. So he swerves back out to the right lane, swallows his pride and decides to try again. Again, I do not let him and I lay on the horn real hard for about 10 seconds (this could've been minutes, I might've blacked out I was so mad). He then mouths "LET ME IN" into his side mirror." And I say "NO" but with my finger and my horn.

He then proceeds to squeeze his way in and (of course) slow down. I pass him instantly, show off my long awaited "glare face" and notice that he is indeed an old man, but he wasnt dressed in the appropriate DJ attire (Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses around the neck), which leads me to believe that he stole it or that he was recently fired for not getting the memo that all birthday DJ's must wear Hawaiian shirts. Nonetheless, he never even looked my way (for fear of the glare) and I moved on with my day, seething with enough road rage to kill a bushelfull of chipmunks.

Short story, Tragic Ending.

Ummm, WTF #2

Recently I've been going to Subway like a crazy person subjects himself to a 24 hour non stop loop of Pauly Shore movies. The reason? The scrabble game. Normally I don't bite into these type of games, but I got 2/3 pieces I needed to get a new car in the first 2 trips and even though the odds of finding the last one are probably similar to the chances that Jon Heder ever has another hit movie, I go because I like Subway (understatement) and I want a new car (you can never have too many hybrids).

The point of this story is that at the 3rd different Subway location I went to, the cashier had the eyebrow cuts. Now I've only ever seen these cuts on men that seem to be just gangsta enough to pull it on. I don't if they are a gang sign, or some sort of style icon and wikipedia has no answers. But this instance was different. Why? I'll tell you.

A) This person was neither man, woman nor beast. Because of their work attire I couldn't tell if it was a man or woman. It's face was pulled so tightly back it looked a little like RuPaul.
B) It didn't have a few cuts on the end of the eyebrow, it's entire brow was cut into increasingly smaller segments (starting at the nose and moving out towards the temple). It looked like it woke up one day and said "You know what, I really think my face would look better if I had candy cane eyebrows.

Ummm, What the Fuck?

The Time I Got Obese

This one is kind of an old-y, but I'm still fat enough to make this work. Let's go for the Gold! So, a few months back...(I guess six months by now), I went to the doctor because my health insurance was going to run out and I probably had not had a check up since Lucy Liu fell of the face of the earth (circa 2003).

To preempt this story, I must note that I had noticed that I had slowly been gaining weight. But, sadly, its one of those things where you see yourself in the mirror everyday and you don't notice the gradual change. So essentially, one day you wake up and your like holy shit, I could be a body double for John Goodman (this is more true than you know, as I grow hair like a hibernating bear preparing for winter). The real moment came for me when I looked at what seemed to be Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloon interpretations of me on facebook (not the greatest feeling in the world). This was shortly followed by my dad telling me he was proud I had kept the weight off after college, because he had gotten up to around 250 lbs. I immediately weighed myself. 245 (or approximately half the weight of a small European car.)

Then I started obsessing about the weight. I would watch basketball games and see stats pop up:

Amare Stoudamire - 6' 11'' - 250 LBS.

Wait wait wait. I am as fat as a large black basketball player, whose muscle weighs more than fat? If I was as muscular as him I'd weigh a metric ton. It soon got even worse when I delved into football statistics and started seeing that I weighed as much as linebackers, people who beat people for a living. I briefly considered trying out for an NFL team before doing 10 minutes worth of cardio (which subsquently put me about 3 minutes short of cardiac arrest).

What made all of this even worse, was that when people looked at me they really couldn't tell I was fat (maybe a little). I could see it when I look in the mirror with my shirt off. But the fat doesn't show anywhere other than my face, my chest and my stomach. I started playing a game called "guess my weight" (mainly because it would always make me feel better about myself) where people would normally ball park me around 185 or 200 tops. Oh, the things us fatties will do for positive re-enforcement. My only regret in playing this game was not betting them beforehand that they would NOT come with in 45 lbs of my actual weight. I would have bet them 10 pints of Ben & Jerrys's AmeriCone Dream ice cream. And I would have eaten them all in one night with my bare hands.

So back to the doctor (who I would've played this game with had they not weighed me before hand, as it would be more of a challenge and I was working my way up to carnie folk, the cream of the weight guessing crop). After weighing in at a svelt 246 and measuring 6' 1" I waited in the examine room dreading the shots I would need, the ball touching, and the weight issue. Turns out I needed a Tetanus shot (which gave me a dead arm for 3 days) and she did indeed touch my balls while I coughed. (There is nothing as embarassing as pulling down your pants as a doctor sits in front of you and your parts just happen to be at eye level. So many questions of awkwardness run through your head, that it might be easier to just have your friend check it back home or do a self test as instructed by Tom "one ball" Green.) But that is another story for another day.

She then noted that I had huge tonsils (which led to "The Time I Got My Throat Cut 1 & 2") and we moved onto the weight issue. She pulled out her fancy chart to tell me what my weight should be for my height. I believe she said between 185 and 200. Meaning I was 46 pounds overweight. 6 Thanksgiving turkeys too many. Then she pulled it out "You are actually just on the edge of being obese." I tried to pull the "but I don't look that, right?" card, but she knew better than to stroke my ego. She told me of a few books that would help me lose weight, excerise, eat better, the usual thing Oprah would say after she loses 20 lbs for the 867th time.

I knew what I had to do, I had already bought a stationary bike, now it was time to ride it. At least 5 times a week (for a newly obese kid this is probably the equivalent of you trying to hike a mountain daily, not Mt. Everest, but maybe the second largest mountain in the world. Kilimanjaro. Yeah, so let's just say I climbed Kilimanjaro 5 days a week for 2 months.) I started eating better (i.e. not eating Wendy's 5-6 times a week).

NOTE: This was the absolute hardest transition after college. There are no meals that someone will make for you at any time during the day. And after working 10 hour days at my old job the easiest thing to do was grab Wendy's on the way home. I mean Wendy loved me, so ...why wouldn't I love her back. I didn't want to be rude and I was too lazy to leave her. It was the perfect relationship.

But I got the book "Mindless Eating" and read 21/22 chapters (still unfinished to this day). It coincided with a show on TLC, which was basically the same thing. Little things you do to make your brain not want food. (Only take a little bit of food out of the kitchen at a time, don't clean your plate...oh god, I'm preaching, let's skip ahead)

So I continued to eat better and work out and before I knew it I had lost about 15 pounds. Then I hit the plateau everyone hits, where you don't lose 2 lbs a week because all the easy fat has already been sweated and shitted out of your system. I got the new job which requires me to walk anywhere from 5-10 miles a day but I stopped working out due to my living situation. Luckily I kept the weight off with all the walking and worked out occaisionally, but not enough. I didn't lose more weight until my surgery which prompted a quick 5 lb weight loss in 3 days. (I recommend this to Keira Knightley before the Oscars this year, she's looking a little ...thick...in the middle.)

The surgery caused me to stop working out completely and so I've probably gained some weight back and currently I sit at 225 (my lowest point was 218). So, at least I'm not technically obese, I'm probably just plain "overweight" , or if I was a 12 year old boy "Husky". The moral of this story is I need another kick in the pants to get down to 200 by years end, weight loss safety be damned, I need to look good for my naked Christmas Calendar photo shoot! So, in the comments section leave your best one line comment about how fat and ugly I am. Bonus points for "fat" synonyms I have not used, as well as grotesque photoshopped (you won't have to photoshop too hard) images of me.

Ummm, WTF? #1

Normally, I don't write about things that happen at my "real" job, but this needs to be said. I was working Saturday morning and decided I needed some food. There are a few restaurants (one has $4 coffee) and a gift shop (which randomly makes up prices, depending on how much money you are holding in your hand). So I decide to go to the little cafe to get a bagel and apple juice.

What would you pay for this combo? $3? $3.43? $3.50!

How about $6.14? Does that sound like something you might be interested in? Well, at the largest convention center this side of DC, all this could be yours. (The best part was that the lady behind the counter was from some 3rd world country, where $6.14 could probably buy her a hotel or at least the sweatshop used to make the bagels (I'm assuming the bagels are made with plastic, in bulk, to cut down on costs)). So with bagels costing about $.05 each to make and say apple juice is around..... $.50. That means the hotel is buying this combo for $.55 which would make it a 1100% markup.


To make matters worse the bagel (with cream cheese) wasn't made FOR me (ie, she handed me a small cube of cream cheese) and the apple juice was approximately 3 oz (smaller than a juice box).

Ummm....What the fuck?

Short Stories With Tragic Endings #3

I recently lost my cat. As you've seen on this very blog, I had a slight obsession with her (I wouldn't go as far to say she was my child, but she wouldve been, had interspecies dating been allowed and had men been given the gift of birth).

So she got out, but the real story starts a day later. We did the whole search thing - flyers, flashlights, food by the door, etc, etc. So the next day, almost a full 24 hours after her disappearance I hear rumbling and shaking outside the door. I jump to my feet rip open the blinds (obviously forgetting if it WAS her she wouldve been scared shitless by the sudden movement and run away again) and look for her (with as much enthusiasm as Artie Lange rifling through cabinets looking for a Heroine Hoagie). It was not her, it was a dog.

Ironically (or maybe not, I'm not sure Alanis taught me wrong so many years ago, I'll never recover) the dog was one of the dogs that lived in the neighboring house (bridged by a fence, the same fence the cat had just run under the night before.) The dog ate all the food, drank all the water and then hung out on the porch with an air of "well if there is free food here, then you can expect to see me everyday" about him. I slumped back down on the couch, had a quick staring contest with the dog (and lost) and went on missing my cat.

Short story, tragic ending.

NOTE: I've decided that all these stories will not end in ridiculous ways from now on. They will be short stories with a SORT OF tragic ending (probably me crying like Halle Berry in Monster's Ball or me getting real angry like...Billy Bob Thornton in Monster's Ball). Nontheless I hope to squeeze out at least one joke per column. I bid you adieu.

Short Stories With Tragic Endings #2

I was doing a delivery the other night and I went out on a "double" (two houses, one trip! What will they think of next?). I saw that one order came in just 20 minutes before I left, meaning I was gonna make good time, and possibly a good tip. I get to the house within 30 minutes of original order time and pull into the driveway. As I walk to the front door I realize that they have a gate in the middle of the stairs. Even more interesting, is that the gate has no latch or handle at all.

I look around and I see a little old man putter up in a golf cart, he came from the main road, just like I had, except he was driving about 20 MPH slower and looked like he could have been Wilford Brimley's brother (the one with diabetus). He yells "GARAGE! GARAGE!" So I go in the garage and wait for him there. He pulls in, goes into the house and brings me out my cash. His daughter (possibly great great granddaughter) said "wow that was fast." I felt good and then I got my tip and I felt even better.

Before he let me leave however he says "Make sure you slow down when you leave there are children playing in the next driveway over."

A few things:
- Apparently going the speed limit (35) is way too fast for the "slow" part of North Carolina. Was he insinuating that I was going too fast before? I drive a Prius sir, not a Porsche.
- The children were playing in the driveway, not the street. Yes there is the chance they pop into the street to chase a rolling barbie head or a magical unicorn, but in the event they do, and I hit them, I'm not at fault. The unicorn is.
- By the time I got back in the car, the children were no longer playing. Perhaps because my reckless following of laws sent them into a downward spiral of terror and deceit. Needless to say there were no children to even mow down on my way back.

I looked at him stunned and said "uhhhh, ok." Then I shived him.

Short story, tragic ending.

Short Stories With Tragic Endings #1

Welcome to a new segment here at Ummm...WTF? These will be short little blurbs to get your fix on a more daily basis. So in addition to 2 or 3 long posts/week you will now get almost daily short stories about one event that made me feel angry/hostile/awkward feelings that day. Try not to piss your pants.

I left work early yesterday and because of that I was able to get to the bank before it closed. As I pull into the drive-thru line, I see a large white pickup truck sitting in the ATM lane facing the opposite direction. Of course, my natural reaction was to assume that some d-bag decided that his passenger needed to use the ATM and was too crippled to walk to the walk up ATM on the outside of the building.

So I wait, for about 1 minute before inching slowly closer to the truck. Once I get closer I realize there is only one guy in the car and he is talking on his cell phone. OK...I will wait just a little longer. The man starts staring at me, probably the same exact stare I was giving him that went something like "Umm...What the fuck are you doing asshole?" So I decide to play chicken at the speed of 2 MPH and move even closer.

At this point the man gets out of his truck (still on his cell phone) and glares me down. He slowly walks towards the front of his car and looks for something. He bends down and pulls out an orange cone from under his car. He looks at me, holding the cone and then brings it to chest level (to show how very strong he actually is). He drops the cone on the ground (it was actually more of a flick, like an "I cant be bothered with your retardation, so I'm gonna take it out on this road cone, which I assume has the same IQ as you do".) He then points at it, as if to say "Did you not see this road cone? This lane is CLOSED." A little over the top if you ask me, I don't believe I have the same IQ as a road cone (as I can type and clean myself when a hobo shits on me). Not to mention that the fucking cone was UNDER his truck. Sorry for not seing the hidden cone, sir, maybe next time you can learn how to fucking drive.

As I left I screamed "Hey thanks a lot asshole," out of my open window and went to the walk up ATM in the front. It was broken too. Fuck. Me. So I went back, cut his hand off and shoved it in the top of the road cone in the shape of a outstretched palm (like the cops telling you to stop), so that people will KNOW it is closed.

Short story, tragic ending.

The Time I Attended the Teen Choice Awards

Ah yes, the Teen Choice Awards 2008. The surfboards, the TV stars (famous only to those under the age of 14) and Miley Cyrus, talking incessantly. Sounds like it's time for a live blog. Please note, that I tried for 20 minutes to get the fonts to match up but they wouldn't and I am a moron.

5:30 – Miley Cyrus appears live on stage, flanked on TV by two teenage girls that are also singing the lyrics to her song. I don’t know much about her other than the fact that she looks like she has braces and she may be the biggest whore since Pam Anderson, Denise Richards or any other celebrity the E! channel will throw a reality show at. Playboy countdown T-minus 3 years.

5:33 – She gives a rose to Fergie, who once again wets her pants in excitement. Someone needs their urethra checked. (PS this song makes no sense – “The seven things I hate about you” contain “you love me” as a reason. Then the song switches to “the seven things I like about you.” Just poor poor song writing.)

5:36 – They are going thru every celebrity who will be on this show and I know about half of them – including Brian Austin Green from 90210 – did he do ANYTHING other than fuck Megan Fox this year? The good news: This is hosted by Miley Cyrus and contains a Dance Smackdown.

5:38 – Miley claims this is the biggest music show in the world. Sadly, this is true as the Grammy’s passed away when Elton John and Eminem sang their gay little ditty 8 years ago.

5:40 – Choice Summer Movie – Well…teenagers are voting for this so I’m gonna guess Batman wins. Other choices are the Hulk, Hancock, Journey to the Center of the Earth (really?) and Wanted. Winner: “Will Smith” apparently he IS the movie. Good to note that the “envelope” is a big beach towel.

5:43 – I think he is spewing some scientology to the kids. Man, this is like the new Kabbalah, once Ashton Kutcher jumps on I’m in.

5:44 – Some girl I never heard of and Tad Hamilton present Gossip Girl with best TV Drama. No one is surprised, and somewhere James Van DerBeek is not-so-silently sobbing at “The Golden Years.”

5:46 – Rainn Wilson. Hmmm… does anybody else think that “The Rocker” is going to bomb at the theaters. At least he has a nice TV show to go back to and the thought that he will be typecast as a neurotic nerd for the rest of his life.

5:48 – He has bombing covered as he introduces “Ask the Jonas Brothers” to a herd of 10,000 screaming 12 year old sheep.

5:50 – The Jonas Brothers come out on stage to answer a question and two of them have curly hair. The third has jet black straight hair, I feel like they all need to be on the same page with the hair, because one of these things is not like the other.

5:52 – Sophia Bush and that asshole Drake Bell present best comedian. Sophia Bush just smoked a pack of Marlboro Red with the filters cut off and everyone can tell. Best comedian probably goes to Adam Sandler, who last made a good movie around 1996 (Happy Gilmore). Oh these teens are so out of touch.

5:53 – Sandler wins. I bet he references himself as the “sandman” in his acceptance speech….Nope he does the award speech as himself as a 13 year old….which was 30 years ago. Yikes. No kids laugh. Here comes Miley to take his surf board award back.

5:56 – Vanessa Hudgens shows off her cooch. Zac Efron giggles and hides his eyes. You’ve all seen it before let’s move on. A Gossip Girl star wins an award for “fresh face” which is ironic because I’m sure her face was covered in semen last night. BADUMCHA.

6:00 – I smell a dance smackdown. One of the crews is named ACDC. Surprisingly, they DON’T play rock music. It also appears they have been fake battling with Miley Cyrus’ crew across the internet for awhile. Is Miley Cyrus the queen of viral video? The performance also features Chris Brown and Jabawockeez (from the hit MTV show ABDC, yes I watch it. Weekly. And sure, maybe I’m a bit too involved, but they wear masks!)

6:05 – Awkward presenter duo of the night – Jesse McCartney (openly hitting on) Katherine McPhee. He did not grow into an attractive young adult. He gives favorite MySpace friend award to Ryan Sheckler, who apparently was raised by Lil’ Wayne and Master P.

6:07 – Best Male in a drama ….Channing Tatum, Emile Hirsch, Ryan Phillipe, Jake Gyllenahal and Mark Wahlberg. If this were the Oscars – Phillipe, but I’m gonna guess Channing Tatum, because he is the next Vin Diesel, and kids go nuts for that. He wins! I prefer him in Step Up 2 Da Streets, but that’s just me.

6:09 – Ask A Jonas Brother returns. I’ve discovered that the Joe Jonas has a strong brow. The Jonas Brothers are starting to fly and one gives the Black Panther fist, if only this was the VMAs, I’m sure Ja Rule would run in and knock em down like a pinata filled with cigarillos and blunts.

6:12 – JoJo rips off a list of winners for “minor awards” like best Comedy (Juno). Then awards best summer TV show to The Secret Life of American Teens, which I’ve never heard of. Am I out of the loop or does this show only exist for people under 14?

6:14 – Summer Movie Comedy is apparently different than “Best Teen Comedy”. Nominees – Get Smart, Kung Fu, Panda, Meet Dave (Eddie Murhpy’s finest hour), Wall-E (not a comedy), You Don’t Mess With the Zohan. This list leads me to believe that studios are paying to get their movies nominated. Get Smart wins, at least that is the closest thing to comedy.

6:16 – Randy Jackson (clocking in around 250) wearing skinny jeans. He presents Mariah Carey who has sufficiently dressed up like an 80’s beach prostitute. I’d like to take this moment to discuss the ups and downs of her career. 1992-1999 – popular. 2000 – Glitter and whoredom. 2005. Comeback CD! 6 Singles on the top 200 charts! 2008 – 2 weak singles followed by a marriage to Nick Cannon. I’m gonna guess she’s on the downside of her career now. By the way this song includes the line “I’ll be loving you long time.” Her dancers are also on roller skates, the last time I saw that was a Jessica Simpson video where she fellates an ice cream cone…yeah.

6:21 – Chace Crawford can’t even bear to look at Rachel Bilson as she presents best female action star. He’s certainly not doing a great job of hiding the whole gay thing. Hayden Panitierre wins and whores it to the stage in a dress sponsored by Kohls and Candies. She proceeds to scream, I proceed to mute.

6:25 – Jonas Brothers win like 6 awards all crammed together and then they act like it was unexpected. They thank their mom and dad, who could win an award for best/worst stage parents of the decade.

6:28 – Scarlet “round globes” Johanssen presents the “Do Something” award. Go to dosomething.org, because I don’t have the time to watch this fluff piece.

6:30 – Natasha Bedingfield is Miley’s rolemodel (interesting choice – someone who looks 34 and has one hit single) presents with LL Cool J, who easily works a plug for his new album in. Best Male Artist – Justin Timberlake Vs. Chris Brown. DECISIONS! I vote Chris Brown since JT hasn’t released an album this year. I am right. I’m like 4/4. The moral as always, I should either be a teenager or be controlling the teenage entertainment industry. Yes, Dan, you can come too.

6:33 – Apparently Brian Austin Green is going to be in Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles. You can officially mark that as cancelled by Season 3.

6:35 – Lauren Conrad (from the Hills) brings down the mood in the house by awkwardly saying DoSomething.org is awesome. Good news here is that she doesn’t flub any lines, I guess all that cue card reading on the Hills has paid off.

6:37 – Miley Cyrus’ dance crew rebuttal is essentially Miley and her dumb friend prancing in front of the stage as a real dance crew dances behind them. Unless they bring out Michael Jackson, they lose.

6:39 – Nope they lead into an LL Cool J performance….seriously? There is no way anyone in this audience is actually an LL Cool J fan. The closing line of the song is “ LL COOL J IS HARD.” Which comedy route should I go – the ironic “he is saying he is hard as a 15 year old dances in front of him” or the ironic “he’s claiming he’s hard (street) but he’s performing his shitty new single in front of 10,000 white kids on the Teen Choice awards." I’ll let you choose.

6:42 – Best female artist presented by the two David’s from American Idol. One feels a little too Daughtry for me, the other a little too Clay Aiken. Best female nominees: Britney (yeah lets reward this good influence for the teens by giving her an award), Fergie, Mariah, Miley. Rihanna. Only one winner is acceptable – Rihanna, but of course the host will win. And she does. She thanks “Big Jesus Christ” by pointing to the sky, but will thank him later with a few semi-nude pics sent straight to:

Heaven

C/O Jesus

777 Crucified Way.

Heaven, Heaven (So nice they named it twice.)

6:46 – Lil Mama shows up in a pink baby bonnet outfit.

6:48 Choice Hottie award – Female hottie – Vanessa Hudgens, Male – Jonas Brothers. Are any of these winners technically allowed to be called hotties?

6:49 – Choice Male Athlete- is this really the second biggest award of the night? I’m gonna guess Lebron wins. I was wrong. David Beckham. Of course, the 4 games he played for the LA Galaxy are enough to win the award. I’m thinking that these teens are just voting for the prettiest people. (PS, David Beckham sounds nothing like you think he would. Apart from being British, he has a very nasally, whiny voice and not a deep baritone like umm…any other male athlete.)

6:52 – We are winding down and Fergie is here to decide who won the dance battle. Let’s just call it for Miley and move on. 3 minutes later (probably the most tense 3 minutes of Miley’s life) and I am right.

6:56 – Apparently this is how they close out the awards. Making the best male athlete the biggest award of the night…Downer much? Metro Station (Miley’s brother) plays us out and something smells like nepatism.

To recap – I predicted about 6/7 awards correctly and the night ended with a rigged dance off between the hosts and the choreographer of Step Up 2 The Streets, (in short, my dream came true). It’s gonna be hard for FOX to top this next year, but I’m sure a Tween sex tape, the cast of Gossip Girl eating their own faces, and Shia LeBeouf getting drunk and pissing on the audience will ensure that FOX keeps the glory alive.

The Time I Delivered To A Haunted House

Let me paint a picture for you. 9:00 on a Saturday evening, you are 45 minutes away from being done with work. Of course you have to deliver one last pizza, and it just so happens that the house ordering the pizza decides to wait until right before we close to order their one medium pizza. I get the order and check the address. About 8 miles down a back country road and it's getting dark. Sounds like an adventure that only my blog could contain.

I check in with my boss to see where the road - Kime Farm Rd- is. He tells me it's off Benny Lineberry - which just so happens to be just below the cut off line on my map book (Yes, I bought a map, but I bought a Guilford county map and the restaurant is only about a mile above the next county over, so about 75% deliveries aren't on my map. Let's just say the percentage of me getting lost on a given delivery bares a striking resemblence to the percentage of deliveries not on the map.)

So Benny Lineberry Rd, then Kime (rhymes with lime? rhymes with seem? is of African Descent Kee-May? Apparently, rhymes with Lime is the correct answer). I make a mental note and start my journey. I find Benny Lineberry Rd and turn left on to it.

WERE YOU AWARE OF IT?

There are three types of "Lineberry" roads in the town of Lineberry NC. So far I have come across Benny, Fred and Mack and two are right next to each other with the third on the otherside of town. I hate the Lineberry family, WERE YOU AWARE OF IT?

So, I turn left on Benny and head down the road, battling with the glare of the setting sun and driving defensively to ensure a) I didn't pass the street and b) I didn't "accidentally" hit any locals hunting for quail or duck or dog (or whatever the fuck they hunt in these parts). When I say driving defensively I mean coming to a full on stop in front of every mailbox and pulling into the opposite lane to shine my headlights on mailboxes, if that's not defensive I don't know what is.

I make one pass down the road, passing about 4 adjacent roads and finding no luck. I get to the end of Benny where it connects with Old Liberty and quickly pull an illegal U-turn and re-trace my steps. Benny is about 5 miles long I'm guessing, so I make another sweep and by this time the sun is down, the stars are out and it's times like these where you see houses that make you think of horror movies and "home" owners say stuff like "We don't take kindly to you in these parts." I get to the end of the road where I originally started and decide to call the house.

Normally we are given tickets that have the order, address and phone number. However, apparently the phone lady decided that a phone number wasn't imperative to find this house (or the house doesn't have a phone) and so I start calling numbers of people that could possibly open google maps. Mom, Dad, Dan, Scott, Charlie. No one answered and in Charlie's case, he could be dead, I'll never know. So I call Kir. NOTE: As I was doing all of this I was sitting in a closed down gas station parking lot, the gas station had the old timey pumps and 12 - 27 cars with various pieces strewn about the lot. Needless to say, I was almost in panic mode.

Kir answers and I proceed to inform her of my strange predicament and I find out she is in Utah. I ask if she is buy a computer. "No, but I can be." Success. I give her the address and my current location (mind you I am ON the road that this supposed road is off of, at most I have 2.5 miles to drive.) She tells me that I'm about 500 meters down, I ask if she is in Canada, and she then tells me it's a dirt road, thanks to google maps Street View . This feat is amazing considering up until 2 months ago Chapel Hill, NC had not even been Street Viewed, but Lineberry, NC has, weird.

So it's a dirt road I'm looking for and on the right I see a house with a dirt driveway...this isnt it. Is it? I see no indications and I turn down the road. I am greeted with what seems to be a half mile stretch of gravel and nothingness. It was like driving into a scary movie, only I was missing 3 key elements ( 1) 2 dumb hot girls, and a douche bag football player, 2)copious amounts of alcohol/ecstacy and 3) the bravado to act like a fear nothing because I once beat Southpoint High under the Friday Night Lights with a broken pinky on BOTH hands. Luckily, I would probably get out because everyone knows that if you have sex in a horror movie you die and I would not be having the sex in this foursome.)

The first thing I see is two "houses" on my left - on a bend of the road. I look at the mailboxes and they don't have number (of course). So I keep going and the road bends back the other way and bends back again. It's basically like driving into a forest, I could reach my hand out the window and touch a tree stump. It just keeps getting darker and more narrow and I decide that no one lives out this far and I turn around. I pull back to the first two houses and see a number that is just one off from the number I am looking for, so I figure maybe one is the right house. I pull to this driveway looking thing (which is basically a dirt road that forks with some forest in between and some cars broken down for extra creepy effect). The house on the right is a trailer, so I guess it's not that. The house on the left might be a stand in for the house in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, no I'm not scared....much. I park the car and get out and in pulling the pizza out accidentally honk the horn. This brings out a man who is probably 6' 5'' 275 and pure blooded native american.

"Can I help you....BOY?" (He may not have said boy, but let's pretend he did.) Did you order a pizza?, I ask and he says no, the address I wanted was down the street. So I get back in the car and head down the windy road. Below, you will find pictures of what it looked like as I came around the turns. Fast forward past the scary car trip another mile and I finally find the house.






The house is gated in by a chainlink fence and I pull up to find a dog coming headlong for my car. I have to slam the brakes to avoid hitting it (he wins in this game of chicken) and I get out to finally deliver this pizza. However, the house has no front door at all. So I make my way on to enclosed patio, which somehow has a very loud TV blasting in it, even though there is no TV visible. I knock on the glass door and up pops a little girl from behind the couch. "PIZZZZZZZZA." She runs out to me on the patio and then runs up a flight of stairs that is so narrow I would probably get stuck trying to go up it. The mini stairs lead over the garage to a small door. She opens the door and uhh...smoke, comes billowing out. A gentleman wouldn't say if it smelled like pot for sure (it did). The mom comes down the stairs and I say "I gotta be honest, I could NOT find this place for the life of me." She responds with something like "I KNEW IT, I TOLD EM. I TOLD EM!" Which I took to mean, she tried to tell the phone lady at the restaurant, but she just decided it wasn't worth noting on the ticket. Good times.

I hopped back in the car and made my way back to the restaurant to pack up. The whole delivery took me about an hour, even though it was about 10 miles from the restaurant. Do I feel dumb? Yes. Was I scared shitless? Ummm...yes. Did I get a good tip? Not even enough to cover the gas mileage! Did I make it out alive? YES! The moral of the story as always - don't be a football player that gets to have sex with women in scary movies.

Fin.

The Time I Got A Cheap Chinese Wallet

Several years ago (last year), I was the recipient of a gift from my dear friend Emily. You see, Emily had gone to China to "study abroad" but came back with no knowledge of Chinese culture, several thousand bootlegged DVDs, and a rare strain of the clap known as "The Ghengis Khan (only 2 of these things are true, you pick!)"

However, along with a variety of ointments and a Chinese subtitled version of Meet the Fockers, she came bearing gifts for all of her friends. For me, it was a wallet. A Chipmunk wallet. Yes, the Disney chipmunks known as Chip N Dale (better known to me as the rescue rangers.) At the time I thought little of it and I decided to use it in favor of my shitty black K-mart wallet.

The wallet probably cost no more than 8 million yuan ($1 American) and was velcro and shared a color scheme with that of a 1980's living room (bright yellow and trimmed with a red border encasing some just beautiful handmade white acorns or peanuts or whatever chipmunks eat.) My other friends got gifts of the same magnitude (chopsticks), but the uniqueness of this wallet made it stand out and thus I could be just different enough from everyone else (you know you have issues when your wallet says "hey, asshole, look at me! I, too, am an asshole. You can tell because I carry this abnormal wallet.")

But something happened instead of this asshole magnet. It became a sort of chick magnet. Now I am happily in a relationship with a lady so this is all speculation, but I mean I think that provides more credibility for the story (if this story had been written 3 years ago, I think you, the reader, would be more inclined to think that I was crazy and desperate (I was) and seeing things in girls that weren't really happening and squeezing every last ounce of attention I could into helping my own psyche. Now, I'm just embellishing stories for attention, not for girls. See the difference? Good.)

This wallet is a chick magnet for only one reason, the chipmunks. Everytime I whip the wallet out at a CVS, Wal-Mart, Wendy's (the usual haunts) and I girl is beyond the counter, I get this little giggle and an "ohhh" sound (like a puppy had just cried flowers from its eyes). The first time this happened I thought they could smell me or that I gave them a 5 instead of 10 and they thought I couldn't count. But eventually I got used to it and now I expect it. My transactions go as followed:

BEEP
BEEP
"Your Total Is"
Riiiiiiippp
"hehe, ohhhh, are those the chipmunks"
ME: Yeah, my friend got it for me in China. Gotta use it.

I play it off because it's obviously a bit unsettling for a grown man to say, "yeah I got it so I could impress sweet cashiers like you" or for the real reason "I like being just a bit off and I am too lazy to buy a real one." But regardless, at least 60% of the time I get a comment when I take the wallet out.

My least favorite part is the eventual confusion of who the chipmunks are. I often get "I love Alvin, Simon and Theodore" and I tell them "oh you are so silly, these are the real chipmunks, not those paultry Nickelodeon knock offs that suck on helium to sing." Does no one understand the plight of the Rescue Rangers?

I do, and Emily does (and of course, the great country of China does as well), and for now I will hold the legacy until someone else buys me a wallet and when that time comes this wallet shall be passed on to those who can use it. For those who have trouble looking girls in the eye, this wallet shall be your savior. Would you like to reserve your pre-owned Kelson wallet? (filled with magical girl power). Sign up in the comments and receive a free beach towel!


(PS - I was watching "The Shining" for the first time as I was writing this. Needless to say, it probably makes as much as sense Hollywood greenlighting "Step Up 3 the streets: Battlefield Ballet." For that I apologize.)

The Time I (And Everyone Else) Couldn't Find A Career After College

So I believe most readers of this blog are college graduates or at least reading on a 5th grade level ( and thus have the ability to pretend like they are in college). As you might be able to tell from the title of this blog post, I too am a college graduate. I graduated from the great Elon University. The school with so much accreditation that it had to raise the tuition by nearly $10,000 (these numbers may not be factually correct) in the 4 years I went there. For those math majors, they are on pace to charge $50k/year by the year 2016! God bless America!

For my four years Elon crammed it down my throat that Elon would be on a level with Duke and UNC in terms of reputation within a matter of years (number 2 school in the south according to US News and World Reports). What those numbers apparently DONT account for, are the schools that actually make it on the top 100 list. So, in reality, the order goes: any southern school thats in the top 100, then Richmond U then us. So we are like ...17 ish in the south (not bad for a region known for it's intelligence). To be fair Elon's reputation did help. My new job gave me decent money only because I want to Elon, so in some ways it did help me out. But the fact that my current career path is currently spent with kids who did not go to college....well, let's just say that Elon has some work to do when it sends its prized possesions out into the real world.

If you walk the grounds of the campus on a tour, you will hear about the career center, working hard to find students jobs post graduation, because Elon wants to help their students and in turn help themselves when, ideally, a bunch of CEOs will thank Elon for their success. This sounds good and there is no fault in the theory. Practice, however, is a little different.

The communications school has pictures lining the hallways of its famous alumni and where they have worked, but it feels like a select handful make this jump to intern at MTV and maybe get a job there. But all you see when you walk the hall is a former student working at MTV (and let's be real isn't that the pinnacle of life, getting to stare at such celebrities as Vanessa Minillo and the whore from One Tree Hill all day?) and that doesn't mean they actually got a job there.

They say it's all about what you put into it, but that is untrue. Many of my friends worked the career center like Heath Ledger worked the streets for Ambien (Why So Sleepy?) and it got us nowhere. Below I am going to recount the stauts of careers of my friends who graduated Elon and any additional stories that may be included.

Kelson - I graduated with a BA in Corporate Communications (hoping to work for the Music Industry). I originally accomplished this feat by working for a entertainment marketing/event production company out of college. But this was in no way thanks to Elon's help. I started as an intern (found the internship through my mom's friend) and was working full time by the time I graduated college. NOTE: I quit temporarily my senior year and tried to use the career center to find other jobs like that, but the list they showed me was about 4 entries long and I feel like Apex, NC isn't the main hub for the entertainment industry (but maybe that's just my New York bias.)

Current Status: Working two jobs including Pizza delivery where I take orders from 18 year old kids who giggle when the name on the ticket reads Stoner.

Dan - Dan also graduated (albeit a semester late) from the communications school. Dan is an out going young man that could win over even the grumpiest of bosses on an interview and had experience working at a TV station in college. The problem is that Elon doesn't help you get interviews or internships, they just make you write 28 page papers on what your internship taught you. (An excerpt from my journal went something like: Today I learned more than I ever did in class. I couldn't believe that corporate communications wasn't just about Public Relations.)
No I'm not bitter.

Current Status: After a good 6 months Dan finally found a job in TV as a morning graphics person. Sometime later the company downsized (GOOOOOOOOO Economy!) and Dan is currently working retail and living with our mutual friend Cory.

Cory - Cory and I haven't spoken since our torrid love affair in the 80s, so this is all second hand. She majored in ...something...and she definitely graduated Elon.

Current Status: Daycare (aka organized babysitting). When a degree from Elon puts you on par with a 12 year old girl obsessed with Miley Cyrus, you know you are on the right track.

Scott 1 - Scott 1 graduated the year before me. I consider him the most succesful person on this list as he hosted his own morning show somewhere in the nether regions of Georgia. I admired him on the Elon 14 news as a freshman and so maybe he was one of the chosen few that Elon allows to find good jobs.

Current Status: Apparently Georgia isn't as beautiful as they make it out to be in Ludacris videos and Scott moved to Indiana be a professional nerd.

Scott 2 - Scott 2 graduated with me. He and I did a long running (1 year) radio show on WSOE and his dream job was to be the next Howard Stern. When he went to the career center to find radio jobs he was greeted with this answer. "Yeah.....we don't have many of those...so if you have any resources for US, could you let us know?" If you are keeping score at home Elon can't find jobs for people in Radio, TV, Music and whatever Cory majored in. (Not to worry none of these 3 areas are relevant. They are all fads and will pass when the country switches back to Colonial times.

Current Status: Scott spent a good 3 months unemployed and living at home before he became a substitute teacher. Luckily he caught a break and got a job as a part time promotions guy at an adult contemporary radio station and makes just above minimum wage. He gets to fill in here and there for higher ranking jobs in the station, so he's climbing the ladder.

Emily - Emily graduated with a very high GPA in Psychology. Rather than endure the rigors of more school, or the real world, Emily decided to join Americorps, travelling the country for pennies a day!

Current Status: Grad school.

Adrienne - She too graduated with a high GPA in Psychology and decided to take a year off (but we all know the real reason is that Elon would rather water the lawn 5 times a day than help prize students find career paths.)

Current Status: Grad school.

Chris - Chris and I became friends in the latter part of college and he too was a communications major. We shared a lot of the same classes, so we essentially had the same experience.

Current Status: Working at a bank. Not bad, but doesn't seem like Elon's diploma helped him get there.

Jeff - Jeff is also another success story. He was an editor at the paper and wanted to go into journalism and he did. In Guam. Alright not so bad right, Elon can get you jobs, just not on the mainland US. However, Elon played almost no part in finding him a job as he got it from a study abroad trip (yes through Elon, but let's not play semantics).

Current Status: Reporting youth baseball games in Guam. He ranks number 2 on this list.

So that's a quick recap of some of the career paths Elon has put their graduates on. Those who have communications degrees are bankers, av techs, substitute teachers and retail store clerks. Those who chose a real major were too burnt out to do anything else. So for anyone who tells you "Elon will find you a good career" (this will probably be a tour guide or admissions counselor for Elon) tell them you'll skip the $100k in payments and go straight to working at Food Lion.