McMishap

Every morning the sun comes out and wakes me up. Like the inconsiderate dick that it is.

The problem is, there's a huge window in my bedroom and there's no shade. I've tried to get creative but I don't own anything big enough to cover the window. It's a problem.

So late tonight, I left my office and decided to swing by The Home Depot to buy a big tarp so I could make a shade. It was about 11pm and I hadn't had dinner, and when I walked in I couldn't help but notice a McDonalds inside the store.

McDonalds and I have an odd relationship. Since college, I've done my best to avoid McDonalds (and fast food in general) whenever possible. I've just learned too much about it and kind of want to never eat it again. The problem is, it's absurdly delicious and it's always up in my grill every time I'm driving.

I never plan to go to McDonalds. Like, I never say, "I'm hungry, I think I'll go to McDonalds." And 95% of the time I see a McDonalds, it doesn't cross my mind to go eat there.

But then there's the other 5% of the time. Those moments when I see a McDonalds and I have no choice. The scene is usually the same: it's late at night, I'm driving, I'm alone, and I'm starving. I pass a 24-hour McDonalds and my desire swells. I become immensely torn, until I see the happy little cartoon arrow indicating a drive-through and realize I don't even have to get out of the car. And it's done.

About 15 minutes after finishing, I always feel like hell, and think about all the heinous things I've learned about what's in McDonalds food, and wish I hadn't just eaten those glorious cheeseburgers and those absurdly delicious fries. It's not a good decision. But there are times when it's simply not up to me.

Tonight was one of those times. The Home Depot was about to close so I bought my tarp first and then left it with the cashier while I zipped over to the McDonalds at the other side of the store.

I got to the window and the cashier told me they had just closed. Though this was obviously a blessing in disguise, I said, "Really? There's nothing left?" You know you're in the midst of a moment of weakness when you're talking to the McDonalds cashier like she has the last available polio vaccine.

Sensing my longing, she turned to her coworker and asked her if there was anything left. She turned back around and told me there were no more burgers or fries but that she could make more nuggets.

Giddyup.

She asked me if I wanted a four, six, or ten-piece. "Get four," I thought to myself. "Four's plenty. No, get six. Six is perfect. More than four, but still not so many that I'll feel like death later. Perfect. Six it is."

"Ten please."

So she made my nuggets and when they were done, she put about four boxes in my bag. "Gave you some extra!" she said. Turns out I had 18 nuggets in my bag.

This wasn't good. I absolutely should not eat all 18 nuggets. That would be a terrible decision.

But what the hell am I supposed to do? Throw them away? In all their succulence?

I figured I'd start driving and figure it out. So I drove home, eating one glorious nugget after the other, and never had any chance of stopping. It was completely out of my control. There was nothing I could do.

I got back to my apartment and already felt like I had been impregnated by a manatee. Then I reached in the backseat for my tarp and realized I had left it at The Home Depot.

I made a one-hour errand so I could eat 18 Chicken McNuggets.

Sunday Thoughts

-The NFL in general is wonderful but it hurts my feelings a lot. It would be nice if the emotional abuse were just limited to Patriots-related things. But fantasy football means that no matter what game you're watching, something occurring on that field is probably hurting my feelings. And yes, my team is 0-2 and I have a lot of anger in me right now. Regarding both the Patriots and fantasy football, the bad times are badder than the good times are good.

-People aren't scared enough of dolphins. They're huge swimming carnivores with sharp teeth and a biting wit. That's scary. But because they're smiling all the time, people decided that they're not scary. Or maybe it's because they're just like sharks, but the nice version. So people are in the ocean and they're like, "Is that a shark?!!! Oh, no, it's just a dolphin, another huge carnivore. Yay!" Suit yourself. When I'm swimming and I see a dolphin, I'm getting the hell out of the water.

-Childhood doesn't end at 16 or 18 or 21. It ends when you have your first kid. I'm learning this as I grow older. When I'm hanging around with people in their 20's or 30's who don't have kids, it's still kind of like I'm hanging around with a bunch of kids. Getting married doesn't change this-- married couples without kids are still basically kids. But then people have kids-- and that's when they cross over. Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but in my experience, it's at that moment that people become a little less silly, a little more serious, a little more concerned. It makes sense, of course-- suddenly, you're living for someone else, not just yourself, and the stakes have become higher. Having kids is what finally makes you an adult.

-I go to bed late and I wake up kind of late. And people judge me for this. What the hell is that? If I work from 9-6 I'm normal. But if I start work at 11am or 12 I'm living a lazy life of lavish luxury (all those L's were not intended). And if I work till 9 or 10pm I'm "crazy" and I "work too hard." So not only do people judge me as a degenerate for waking up late, they then judge me as a workaholic for staying at work late. Well you should probably spend less time judging me and more time throwing down your sixth beer at happy hour and making small talk with your shitty coworker who is talking to you only because the other two people there with you are in their own conversation and this coworker ended up stuck listening to your stupid theories on the election and horse-racing and they're one third listening to you and two thirds eavesdropping on the other conversation because it's much more interesting and they keep thinking of things they want to add into the other conversation and finally they say "screw it" and interrupt you to jump into the other conversation and say their opinion and then you feel excluded so you quickly file through your head for something you can add and you finally think of it and say it and they're all like, "shit we have to include this person in the conversation now."

-I was at a friend's house the other night and they had a copy of "Oh The Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss. I'm pretty obsessed with Dr. Seuss and started reading it and got all excited for a mad inspiring experience. But then it got really dark and depressing about a third of the way through and kind of just stayed like that till the end. I kept waiting for shit to turn around but it didn't. What the hell?

-I'm not quite sure why everyone loves saunas. They're incredibly hot and kind of unpleasant.

-I go clothes shopping about once a year. When I do, I try to make it as quick as possible, since I hate clothes shopping. As soon as I enter a clothing store, I immediately revert into my 6-year-old self and start whining and complaining and pulling on the sleeve of whichever female is accompanying me, even though she's doing me a favor in the first place by coming along to make all the decisions. I just find the whole thing to be exceptionally boring and yucky.

So last week I was in the Grove on my annual trip with my friend Melissa. The plan was to deal with the whole thing in J. Crew (it's usually either The Gap or J. Crew). Everything went smoothly. Twenty minutes and 7 shirts later, we left, mission accomplished.

But after leaving, something remarkable happened. We passed an Abercrombie. I haven't set foot in an Abercrombie or a Fitch of any kind since high school, and I don't know if what I saw there is what they're all like now or if this was a special Abercrombie-- but it was shocking.

Standing in the doorway was a topless, bronzed, chest-shaven man. He was dancing. To the blasting techno music inside. I ventured in further. The whole store was dark, like a club, and there were colored lights flashing. There was fog and mist everywhere. Most of the employees were dancing. To ask a question, you had to interrupt one of the extremely good-looking dancing employees, and then yell loudly so they could hear your question over the music.

As I walked out, the bronzed, topless man thanked me for coming. His life has gone through ups and downs, lefts and rights, twists and turns-- and this is where it has all led him.

Later that day, I was still awestruck that one store could contain such a high level of d-baggery. I kind of respect it actually-- the executives at Abercrombie were like, "let's just run with the whole d-bag thing." Everyone's gotta have a niche, right?

12 Things I Wish Would Stop Happening

I'm on an airplane.

And the woman in the seat next to me just pulled out a full chicken and is eating it with her hands.

When I first boarded, she told me I looked familiar and asked if I was from New Mexico. She swore she knew me from somewhere. This happens less than it used to. But on airplanes it never fails.

I was pretty tired and not really feeling like explaining that we didn't see much more of Trump than she did watching so I don't really know what he's "really like," so I played dumb.

Then she started watching trashy TV on her seat back and I was trying to watch other things but every time I glanced over someone was punching someone or screaming at someone on Maury Povich, and now I'm watching it on my TV too. She left me with no choice.

Then later she pulled a whole chicken out of a paper bag and started eating it with her hands. We're in close quarters. This is unacceptable. I don't really care that she is kind of staring a little bit, trying really hard to figure out where she knows me from. I don't even care that she is dominating the armrest, and I can cope with the fact that I'll be spending the next 6 hours watching Maury Povich because of her.

But the chicken is upsetting me. Her fingers are slick with chicken grease. The smell is permeating the entire plane. I wish that this would stop happening. I wish that she would stop eating a whole chicken with her fingers in the seat next to mine.

And so, this seems like an appropriate time to touch upon 12 things I wish would stop happening, in general.

1) I wish people would stop going for the handshake as I simultaneously go for the hug.

2) I wish people would stop going for the hug as I simultaneously go for the handshake. Both of these happen constantly.

3) I wish my landlord would stop asking me to get my car's oil leak fixed. It's an extremely minor leak. There's barely any oil on the ground in my parking spot. But she tells me that someone could slip on it and file a lawsuit. No one is going to slip on it. My parking spot is in the corner and no one would ever have any reason to walk across my parking spot. And even if they did there's basically no oil on the ground. But she asks me to get it fixed a lot. I wish this would stop.

4) When I tell someone a phone number over the phone, I wish they'd stop making me repeat numbers I've already said because they said "uh huh" instead of listening to the numbers. The exchange goes like this:

Them: What's the number?
Me: It's 310...
(Simultaneously) Them: Uh-huh / Me: 860
Them: What?
Me: 860...
(Simultaneously) Them: uh-huh / Me: 5693
Them: 56 what?
Me: 5693.
Them: Okay, got it.
Me: I hope so you dick.

5) Every time I turn on my computer, Firefox opens automatically. Sometimes I don't want Firefox to start but it does anyway. I wish this would stop happening.

6) I wish that Tom Brady would stop getting his knee blown out and having to get surgery and miss the entire season. I know it only happened once, but I really wish it would stop happening. After an emotional roller-coaster today and yesterday, I've finally settled down and have sought out the silver lining. Here's what I came up with:

Pats fans are spoiled. To the point that it's not really fun rooting for the Pats. Even before last year's ridiculous season, every Sunday basically had the same possibilities: either they win and things are normal or they lose and it's devastating. There really wasn't much joy involved. From 2003 - 2007, they were the best team and anything short of a Superbowl victory would be extremely disappointing.

Now, for one year, I'm a normal fan again. Still disappointed after a loss, but suddenly, also really happy after a win. Likewise, winning the division this year would actually be a really exciting thing and I can root against the Bills, Jets, and Dolphins again (I've basically ignored them for the past 5 years). Sure, there's still a ton of talent on the team, but after replacing one of the Top 3 quarterbacks in the history of football with Matt Cassel, an unproven career backup, the Pats are back in the crowd, just trying to make the playoffs. And if they suck, it'll be comforting to know that next year, they'll most likely be a Superbowl favorite again.

Plus, Brady has been plagued by ongoing shoulder issues and the year off should give him time to really, fully heal.

Right?

[crying]

7) I wish I didn't consistently throw out a third of the groceries I buy. This happens because I have a really quick hook on food that might have gone bad. This is most likely a result being fed old food by my mother a lot in my youth. I'd point out that the orange juice had expired a week earlier and she'd say something like, "It's fine," or, "It says, 'Best if consumed before the expiration date.'"

There was one time I walked into the kitchen and noticed an open pack of cookies. They were chocolate cookies with white powdery sugar on top. Naturally, I picked one up and bit into it. My mom saw this and yelled, "Nooooo!" Not a great thing to hear as a reaction to something you've bitten. Cookie still in my mouth, she explained that she was about to throw those out because of all the mold.

The white powdery sugar was actually mold.

So I spit it out and though this incident wasn't particularly her fault, I clump it into all the orange juice type occurrences in explaining my fear of aging food now.

Also, one time I opened a can of peanuts that had been sitting on the counter for months and 8 billion horrifying bugs came running out.

8) I wish my limbs would stop going to sleep. You know those nights when you wake up and your limb is out cold? And you lift up your inanimate arm with your good arm and you're like, "So this is how heavy my arm is." Or sometimes you're like, "This is what someone else feels when they grab my arm." Or maybe you're like, "If my arm was amputated and I was holding it with my other arm, it would be like this."

In any case, this is the fun part. Then the blood starts flowing again and it hurts. Not pain, exactly, but it's a bad feeling. Like, you'd never say "Ow" while it's happening. But you definitely wish it would stop happening.

So I guess I'm torn on this one-- I kind of want my limbs to stop falling asleep but I also kind of want my limbs to keep falling asleep.

9) I wish that when I enter my car at night my face didn't collide with a spider web. But every time I enter my car at night my face collides with a spider web. I park next to a fence and one night I had left my window a crack open. When I returned to the car I noticed a single web strand coming from the fence, piercing the window crack, and going into the car. When I opened the door I saw a more extensive web in my car. You're not supposed to see spider webs in your car. But there it was.

So I grabbed it, to the extent that it is possible to grab a spider web, and I threw it outside, to the extent that it is possible to throw a spider web. I thought I had solved the problem. But though I allowed no such window cracks the next day, when I entered my car at night my face collided with a spider web.

There is a spider living in my car.

10) I wish my iPhone would stop crashing, forcing me to restore it on my computer, which takes a lot of hours. It's awkward because I am and have been the iPhone's biggest advocate. But this makes me angry. It's like dating a girl and going through a wonderful honeymoon phase, never seeing any flaws, and then suddenly she starts doing something that's really annoying, and you're not sure what to do. That said, I still love her and want to spend the rest of my life with her.

11) I wish people my age would stop getting engaged. It's kind of freaking me out.

12) I wish I'd stop turning my car radio to Rush Limbaugh. Last month, I was flipping around the AM channels for the hell of it, and came across Rush Limbaugh. He was ranting about how Obama is really educated and therefore out of touch and disastrous as a leader. It was pretty infuriating to listen to. And yet, I stayed tuned.

The next day I couldn't help myself and I tuned in once again. Again, he made me angry. Now, it's a month later. I hate Rush Limbaugh. The more I listen to him the more I want him to suffer a life of deep, dark unhappiness. I wish I'd stop listening to him.