Dear Entire Office,

As you have all probably noticed I'm in the unfortunate position of having the cubicle closest to the restroom. It is bad enough as is with the smells and you all are only making it worse. There is a garbage can in the bathroom, I would be enternally greatful if you would all cease and desist from using my waste basket to despose of you're wet paper towels. It's sort of rude and completely grosses me out. I appreciate your immediate attention to this concern.

Thank You,

Eric

CVS Lady

When I go to CVS and I buy $9.02 worth of products and only have a $10 you really can't hook me up with the 2 cents and just give me a dollar back? Is it really going to kill the bottom line to spare 2 cents? You seemed so nice when I came up to the counter and you smiled and asked me if I found everything ok. I thought this was going to be a very pleasant transaction then I'd be on my way but you had to go and mess everything up didn't you CVS lady. You didn't even have a take a penny, leave a penny tray that I could use, I would left some pennies next time I came. But no, now I'm walking home with 98 cents clanging around in my pocket wondering if things will ever be the same between me and you CVS lady. I hope you're happy.

And I Don't Have To Take It

I'm pretty sure I got sexually harassed at work today. And not the good kind like in Disclosure where my really hot boss forces me to have sex with her against my will. This was from a guy. I guess sexual harassment is a bit of a harsh term for, it's not like he is making advances at me or anything, he just makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable whenever he's around. He always comes over to my cubicle, puts both hands on the back of my chair, and hovers over top of me looking at my computer all sleazylike. Then he will sit on my desk awkwardly close to me and ask weird questions about dancing or something equally cringe worthy. It seems very benign but for some reason it makes me shudder a little bit. I'm just dreading the day when I get an unsolicited shoulder massage.

The thing about it is that I'm not the least bit homophobic. I worked in a restaurant for a couple years after college and had a gay boss who openly flirted with me. Hardly a day went by when he didn't make an overtly sexual remark or proposition me and it didn't bother me at all, in fact it was funny, it turned into a running joke. Actually it was kind of flattering. Some people just give off a much creepier vibe.

He's not even gay (which makes the previous paragraph completely unnecessary but whatever). Well he may be, he just doesn't know it yet. He is from India and once said that the concept of homosexuality was completely foreign to him until he came to America for school. Also in India, according to him, it's totally normal to walk around with your arm around a buddy. This sort of seemed like p.d.a. to me (well that or like one of the old Mentos commercials). Another coworker decided to investigate that claim a little further so we asked some of the other Indian folks at work(there are quite a few). Not only did they refute that claim, they said homosexuality is not at all an alien idea in the home country. He named an apparently very famous and openly gay actor to which the other incredulously replied, "He's gay?"

Maybe I am homophobic and don't even realize. Maybe my former bosses' sexual overtures didn't bother me because they were so outward that a joke could be made out of it and I'm more distressed now because I don't know if it's gay or not and the fact that it might be is what weirds me out. I'm not really sure but either way I wish he would stop sitting on my damn desk because it gives me the willies.

Cupcakes

Is there anything worse only having one dollar, that is to wrinkled to go in the vending machine when it's 7:30 in the morning and all you want are some damn cupcakes? The answer to that question is yes, there are literally thousands of the things worse than that. Geez, get some perspective on life and stop being so self-absorbed.

Stone Age

I lost my cell phone this weekend. I feel naked. I know it was only a short time ago when I knew how to get by without one but it feels like eons. I got my first cell the summer before my junior year of college and in the following six years the ability to communicate with people without one has been erased from my memory. I haven't had a house phone in a few years. It's gotten to the point where I now get sort of confused by my office phone. And I haven't memorize a phone number in years thanks to that handy phonebook in your cell phone that does it for you. I'm pretty sure the brain cells that used to perform this function are either dead or used up with Anchorman and Wedding Crashers quotes, so at least I put them to good use. I have no idea how to get in touch with my parents. The ability to use new fangled technology like email seems to have eluded them thus far so who knows if I'll ever talk to them again. There is a Sprint store on the ground floor of my office building so I'll probably get a new phone in the next day or two, but I kind of want to see how long I can go without one. You know, rough it for a while. I wonder how many people would think I died or hate them because I haven't talked to them in so long.

Fooooooood Fight

As discussed in my last post I sustained a wrist injury playing football Saturday afternoon but instead of seeking medical attention I decided instead to go out for the night since it was CUA’s homecoming. The whole night I was worried that I would end up in a fight, which would suck because I couldn’t throw a punch with my right hand and would therefore get my ass kicked (I would get my ass kicked anyways but this would’ve been an extra special beat down). This fear was totally irrational because I’m kind of pussy and have never been in a fight. Sure I’ve developed some beer muscles from time to time and gone all meathead on someone and started a shoving match but it’s never dissolved into fisticuffs. My friends don’t get in many fights either, with the exception of Val but he seemed to be under control this particular evening. I knew it was unlikely that anything would happen, but I still had that fear. Shocker, Werle started a fight. Here’s how things went down:

We managed to make it until last call without incident, I’ll attribute this to the celebratory atmosphere, no one gets in a fight when you’re having a great time. Upon leaving the bar for the night me and Werle walked over to Pizza Bolis for a slice because when you’re leaving Johnny K’s, the worst bar in America, you experience isn’t complete until you’ve eaten some disgusting, super dry pizza. Being a generous guy Werle buys a few slices for the group and we head back towards the bar to find everyone. Sobo, who was straggling, is a little upset that there wasn’t enough for him so he goes over to Bolis as we start towards the cars. Right before we round the corner Sobo comes running by Mike and me with some pizza and yells, “I just stole some kid’s pizza, let’s go.” Shortly thereafter comes the kid in question chasing him.

Apparently the line was pretty long and Sobo was feeling the pressure to get some pizza quickly so he didn’t make everyone wait. This guy had already gotten a couple slices but was still loitering in the store taunting everyone (I say store but it’s approximately 9 square feet, so once you get your pizza you get the hell out of the way). Sobo took offense to this and decided to take action. Apparently this conversation pushed him over the top:

Sobo: I think I can get that kid’s pizza.
Random Guy: You should definitely do that.
Sobo: I’m going for it.

Yoink. Slice snatched, Sobo runs.

The guy obviously didn’t get a good look at the culprit because he turned the corner, saw Werle eating the pizza he bought earlier, and got in his face. Werle has no idea what’s going on so a shouting match ensues (I had the unique perspective of being the only one who really knew what had happened so I was pretty excited to see how this played out). Then the kid made his first wrong move, knocking the slice of out Werle’s hand. I don’t think Werle really wanted to throw down but the guy is totally insistent on the fact that he took his slice so he won’t give it up, wrong move #2. Then Sobo comes back and goes mafia on him. He confesses to stealing the pizza with a really smartalecky smile on his face as if to say, I did it what do you plan on doing about it. At this point I should also mention that Sobo and Werle both about 6’-3”/6’-4” and not skinny and that the pizza guy is about 5’7”, not really fair odds but he was feisty.

So after Sobo’s confession Werle demands an apology from the gentleman for the assault on his character like he’s totally innocent because it was only his friend that took it, not him. He refuses to apologize and starts shoving people, wrong move #3, so Werle punched him in the face. Me and Marc had been in the background enjoying being sober enough to watch this total disaster of drunkenness but once a punch was thrown Marc stepped in to break things up and move everyone along before anything got out of hand.

In summation this poor kid had his slice of pizza stolen, was forced to apologize for have his pizza stolen, and then punched in the face for not apologizing. And he didn’t even have any friends around to get his back. I felt pretty bad for him actually, I probably would’ve broken things up much earlier but I really didn’t think Werle would hit him, my bad. My friends are idiots.



P.S. I really wanted to title this post “Boy, that escalated quickly…” because it is very apropos and Anchorman is awesome but the son of a bitch Bill Simmons used the same title for his column yesterday thus ruining everything.

Homecoming

This weekend was my alma maters homecoming weekend. Since I like to live my life in a bygone era, reminiscing on past glories it's usually a pretty big time of year for me. Mike described it as his favorite weekend of the year; I wouldn't quite go that far but I do look forward to meeting up with all the friends I only get to once or twice a year and acting like the jackasses we were in college. I won't bother regaling you with all havoc caused because while it was very enjoyable and exceeded all expectations I imagine it would translate to something super boring to most people. I'll just outline my very loose agenda for the weekend and take it from there. Here was the plan:

Friday: Down to D.C. after work, head over to Irish Times to meet up with everyone.
Saturday: Alumni baseball game in the morning
Jump back up to Baltimore for a flag football game at 4:00
Banquet to celebrate the baseball coaches 20th year at CUA at 7:00
Out to the bars afterwards.

Now I,ve talked several times in this blog about Eric Syndrome ( it's when I do something stupid to ruin a good time), and of course it came into play again. I love playing in my flag football team, mostly because it's an oppurtunity to get out and run around and our team is awesome and I enjoy beating people, but I debated whether I should bother driving an hour both ways for a 45 minute game. Especially considering the team we were playing was 0-3 and it was an almost garuanteed victory. I decided to head up because, like I just said, I love playing and we only have 8 games until the playoffs start. Shocker, that was the wrong decision. Late in our 30 point blowout victory I caught a pass and the guy covering me decided instead of flag football we'd be playing tackle for that play. Now to be prefectly honest with you, I'm kind of a pussy, I don't take a hit very well, and this time was no exception. I fall awkwardly on my wrist. I kept playing and didn't really notice anything until I took my gloves off after the game. That's when I observe a strange protusion on my hand, at the base of the wrist, that looks oddly like a bone sticking out where it's not suppossed to be. I decided that it was homecoming and I didn't have time for dislocated or broken bones so I just iced it and carried on with the rest of the night.

I've gained a new respect for amputees after this experience. My hand and wrist were terribly swollen rendering my right arm pretty much useless. Saturday night I was hanging out with a friend of mine in medical school who determined that nothing was broken so it wasn't necessary for me to run to the doctor right away, but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt like a bitch. I realized I might be the least ambidextrous person in the history of the world, I do almost everything with my right hand. I was pathetic, with the combination of me whining about how much my arm hurt and having to get everyone to do stuff for me. It took me a good 5 minutes to unlock my door after fumbling around with me keys lefthanded. I could barely shower. And just for fun try unbuttoning your pants to pee with one hand, it's not easy. Neither is putting a shirt on. I didn't even bother eating any food that was a sandwich just to avoid having to stab at my food like the sloppy, fat kid in third grade. Luckily I wipe my ass left-handed, so I didn't have to walk around with dingleberries all weekend.

I do have one particularly kick ass story from the weekend that needs to be shared with the group, stayed tuned for that.

A How To Guide from Eric

I do a lot of dumb things. The majority of them very benign, but dumb none the less. I’m very absentminded, add that to just not be very smart overall, and you find yourself in odd situations. I have accrued much wisdom from being a dumbass (I know that sort of and oxymoron, a wise dumbass, but that’s me) and I feel as though it would be selfish of me not to pass some of it along, so I will. So without further ado:

How to take a shower without a shower curtain because you forgot to bring it when you moved

The first thing to take into account is that the curtain tends to close off the shower area from the rest of the bathroom, effectively trapping in heat. You won’t get this effect without it so turn the water up a little hotter than normal so you aren’t freezing your balls off. Secondly is the angle of the shower head. You’re going to have the urge to angle the shower head as far away from the open side as possible. Resist this urge; the ricochet from the wall will cause as many problems as anything else. You want to adjust the shower head so that it’s angled towards the middle to bottom half of the wall, that way any splash back is contained inside the tub. Next you want to stay out of the stream of water whenever possible, do all lathering out of harms way, the less splatter from the body the better. When do find that it’s time to get into the stream use your body as a buffer, keep yourself between the water and the rest of the bathroom. Put an extra towel or bathmat right up against the edge of the shower, picking up a wet towel is a lot easier than mopping up soapy water. I would also recommend moving any magazines you were reading whilst pooping away from the splash zone (unless it’s that issue of GQ with Josh Hartnett on the cover, he sucks and deserves to get wet, you’re probably a better actor than him anyway). Last but not least, have fun, take advantage of this opportunity, pee in the toilet from inside the shower as opposed to peeing in the shower like you normally do, admire your excellent physique in the bathroom mirror while lathering, go crazy, the world is your oyster, enjoy it.

Moving

Moving is the worst. I hate it. I don’t even have a lot of stuff and I still hate it. There are a multitude of reasons why moving sucks, let me just throw a few out there.

Packing. Everyone begins a move with the intention of being as organized as possible. If we just pack everything neatly in well labeled boxes based on room designation and so forth then it will make everything from loading and unloading the truck to unpacking a great deal easier. Inevitably half way through you say screw it and just start throwing things in garbage bags and it turns in to a complete shit show.

Asking people to help you move. “Moving is the worst. I hate it.” That is a quote from myself two paragraphs up, it a safe bet to say that most people share my sentiments. So when people ask you to help them move it’s takes everything you have to not “accidentally” take a tumble down a flight of stairs just to get out of helping. Knowing how much I hate moving makes me feel like an asshole when I ask other people help me move. I know they’re thinking, I hate moving my own stuff, why the hell would I want to help you move yours.

Without fail something goes wrong. For example the guy at U-Haul acting super shady about renting me a van causing me to have to move over the course of two days instead of getting it all done in one. I find it very hard to believe that all your vans are all reserved at 11 a.m. on a Sunday afternoon. I see like 10 trucks back there. Don’t think I don’t know you’re lying to me. Just two weeks ago Brian went, sans reservation, and got a van no problem. I’m pretty sure that was Friday evening. You’re going to sit there, owning a U-Haul, and tell me all the vans aren’t reserved at prime moving time (the start of the weekend) but at the worst time (the end of the weekend) they are reserved? Apparently he just didn’t like the look of me. I did find a lot amusement in the irony of the Arab U-Haul guy being suspicious of the preppy white kid in his store. I felt a little discriminated against, it was weird.

Unpacking. I abhor unpacking even more than packing. I’m incredibly lazy, and after spending half the day packing the last thing I want to do is put it all away. It ends up that every time I move my stuff sits in boxes for weeks and some things never even get unpacked. The worst though is hooking up all my crap. I’m sort of electronics nerd, but I despise reconnecting everything once I’ve undone it. There are so many damn wires everywhere I just don’t even want to deal with the mess. The last time I moved it took me about 8 months just to hook up the dvd player in my bedroom, and I only did it because I had just gotten Tivo so I was already back there. It may be weeks before I have the internet at home this time.

I think the next time I move it will be because I finally bought my own house and when I do that I’m buying all new stuff, having it delivered and never leaving again.

Sometimes I'm Glad I'm Not On TV...

…because if I were then every time I said something dumb it would be broadcast nationwide, and that would not be cool. Here’s a quote from Brad last night on Survivor:

“In situations like these I just like to go with my gut. 95% of the
time my gut is always right.”

Really? 95% of the time it’s always right? That doesn’t make any sense Brad. Now I’ll admit that’s only mildly retarded. On scale of 1 to 10 that was only kind of dumb. See I just said something stupid but at least 15 million people didn’t hear it.

Speaking of dumb, The Bachelor premiered this week. Without further ado, Erica:

“I flew coach to get here. I’ve never done the before so you should
be really flattered.”

When trying to win a television contest for a husband is spoiled and pampered really the first impression you want to make. Granted she lists her job as “socialite” so you can’t really expect much from her. That and she went on TV to find a husband.

Then there’s the king of saying dumb things on TV, our fine president W. In an interview with Wolf Blitzer (who kind of sucks but has a kick ass name) he said that the war in Iraq would be seen as “just a comma” in the history picks. I’m not super political so I won’t get to into this whole issue but do you really want to come of so callous about something were thousands of people have died. It doesn’t matter the intent of the comment, even if it was misinterpreted you set yourself up to be misinterpreted by saying dumbass things, so watch what you’re saying. I mean, doesn’t this guy have speech writers for this kind of thing? Who ever had the idea to let him ad-lib probably needs to be let go (although he’s said it in multiple speeches, implying that someone actually wrote that down for him to say, which makes me sad).

By the way, Brad followed up his earlier quote by saying, “it’s made with real bits of panther, so you know its good.”

RV there yet? (an incredibly long, and more than likely incredibly boring, post about my exploits from last weekend)

This weekend was RV Trip 2006. For those of you who don’t know our friend Jake went to The Pennsylvania State University so every year he likes to organize a trip up to State College, PA to enjoy a weekend of football, food, and friends. And booze, lots of booze. In fact I would say that is the most important factor for many on the trip but it didn’t work well with my alliteration. Penn State has an excellent tailgating tradition; they are ranked very highly by people who create polls that rank things like top tailgating schools. I’m sure Jake knows the exact numbers on this but I just don’t care enough to look them up for this blog. Since it’s and entire weekend affair most people, ourselves included, rent recreational vehicles for the trip. It’s actual a very odd and somewhat surreal scene, hundreds of RVs parked in a field outside a football stadium. It’s like someone’s white trash, campground nightmare, only awesomer. Here is a brief and completely inaccurate timeline of the trip (and I’ll probably lose the timeline format very early on because things get a little hazy after a while):

Friday:

11:40 - Mike, Brian, and myself ride up together. The plan was to meet at The Historic Round Barn Farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania at 11. Naturally we were late, and naturally we are the first ones there, with the exception of Jake and Iceguy, but that is only because they were picking up the RV’s. Although it sounds like we were making a tourist stop on the way to the game we weren’t. Jake’s family actually lives on The Round Barn Farm. We did take some time to pick some apples and eat them, check out the petting zoo, and walk around the round barn. It’s very round. Also there was a field trip of elementary school kids there that day. It was pointed out to me that as I was snapping that picture of a group of 7 year old that I probably looked pretty creepy but I needed to document the fact that people actually take field trips to Jakes house.

12:30ish – Stopped at Sheetz to pick up some final supplies and grab something to eat (the final supplies consisting of about 20 more Red Bulls and some batteries). This is where this conversation occurred:

Brent: You guys start drinking yet? (referring to the group in the other RV)
Mike: Yeah. You?
Brent: I cracked one open before we left the Round Barn.

For the record that’s when I this was going to be good.

After this we got stuck in traffic, there was an accident and we weren’t moving. Some crazy girl then started bothering us to use our mobile bathroom. We said no because you just can’t take the risk that this girl may poop in the bathroom effectively ruining the weekend (Rule No. 1 of RVs: No deuce in the toilet). Anyway she kept wondering around for some reason, this is a picture of her falling of the traffic barrier.

2:00 or so – Arrive at Penn State, park RVs, set up tents, start playing Baggo. Baggo is without a doubt the greatest tailgating/beach/bbq game ever and me and Brian have come together to form an almost unstoppable team that I like to talk a lot of trash about which will later come back to haunt me.

The next few hours: Just a lot of drinking and Baggo. Highlighted by Iceguy playing the all 80’s playlist from his Ipod on the boombox while frantically pounding beer and Red Bull in order to make up for lost drinking time while driving (which later results in a whole lot of him talking way louder than everyone else and yelling at us about how awesome the music is).

7:00 – Eat the delicious Kabobs Jake prepared for dinner that night. This is only noteworthy because everyone was starving at this point, so much so that Brent tried to eat and uncooked Kabob and gnawed on a piece of raw chicken for a good 15-20 seconds before I informed him that it wasn’t cooked he it was probably a bad idea.

9:30 – The beer pong tournament is winding down, I believe Leanne and Dave won, so I try to sneak off to bed because 10 hours of drinking has wiped me out. Some people catch wind of this and I get taunted mercilessly in the form of a chant calling me a pussy so I get up and join the flip cup tournament.

11:30 – Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey (the greatest band ever) comes on Iceguy’s 80’s mix. I think the consensus among the group is the most of the other tailgater’s have stop believin’ so the 10 of us choose to sing the entire song to remind them not to stop. Jake is in the bathroom at the point (aka the row of Port O’ Potties a couple hundred feet away). When he comes back he say, “not only are you guys by far the loudest ones here, I think we’re the only ones awake.” Awesome, still got it.

Soon after this is bedtime. A word of advice, when packing for a trip up in the mountains, in the fall, remember a blanket, they’re not standard in RVs. In doing so you can avoid the worst night of sleep of your life. Needless to say it was cold.

Saturday:

8:00 – Wake up way to early because it’s to cold and uncomfortable not to be awake. Toast a bagel (and by toasting I mean grilling, sounds strange but is surprisingly effective), start playing Baggo again. This is when the dominance of Brian and Eric comes to and end. Jake is playing out of his mind, scoring on nearly every toss, sinking all 4 shots in the hole (which by rule means the opponents have to shotgun a beer), he even made one with his eyes closed. It was the game of his life, out of nowhere he turned into Michael Jordan in the ’92 Finals against the Trailblazers, it was incredible.

9:30 – 2:00 – Drinking games and lunch. It’s been a really long time since I was drunk by mid morning. I miss college.

Another word of advice: two things that don’t mix, chugging beer and eating several hot dogs and cheeseburgers. This scenario played out beautifully after Aaron ate lunch then promptly lost two straight games of 99, having to chug 3 beers in a span of about 4 minutes (All mostly because Dave was purposely losing so that Aaron would have to chug more, I think he wanted to see him throw up). I don’t think the results turned out very pretty.

3:00 – Time to go to the game, Penn State vs. Northwestern, I couldn’t be more excited! Or the exact opposite, mostly because it was raining and who wants to go watch a blowout with to teams you don’t care about when you don’t really love college football. I don’t so me, Brian, and Mike sold our tickets and stayed back while everyone else went to the game. I think some people were jealous.

6:30 – Everyone came back from the game for more eating and drinking. It’s always an interesting day when you can get drunk, stop drinking long enough to sober up, and then still have enough time in the day to get drunk again. Once again, I miss college. The rest of the night trailed off into a bit of boredom. So much so that Aaron set his poncho on fire, no one really found this entertaining but Aaron, and he was absolutely mesmerized.

Then the clear highlight of the trip happened; a level of immaturity rarely reached by a group of 25-27 old adults. That’s right; Brian lit one of Mike’s farts on fire. I was always under the impression that this was an urban myth, that it couldn’t actually be done, but I was wrong. It apparently produces a puff of blue flame, and singes the butt cheeks (which Brent found particularly hilarious). The worst part of this is that I wasn’t there to see it; only three people witnessed this miraculous feat. This may go down as one of the biggest regrets of my life. But apparently it was funny; I’ve never seen 3 people laugh this hard, so much so that I couldn’t control my laughter. I thought I might throw up from laughing so hard at other people laughing at something I didn’t even see. We spent the rest of the night trying to recreate this magic. One time Mike went to off to the bathroom only to come sprinting out of nowhere yelling, “Get ready, I’m not kidding” and pulling his pants down only to blow out the flame with his flatulence.

Sunday:

6:30 – The carbon monoxide detector went of in our RV. I was willing to ignore it and go back to sleep, because I was exhausted, until Mike (who is a few months away from his PhD in chemistry and has, I’m pretty sure, been poisoned more than once by noxious fumes) informed me that one of the symptoms of CO poisoning in feeling tired. So we all woke up, cleaned up, and shoved off way early than everyone else thus beating the RV traffic.

All in all another successful trip, I consumed enough calories to feed a small village, drank 30-40 beers, and had an overall good time. We should do this again next year.


NOTE: They call Penn State Happy Valley. I don’t know if this is in reference to the valley it’s nestled into in the mountains or what but it’s a misnomer. I’ve been there a grand total of 6 days in my life and it has rained 5 of them. Happy Valley will henceforth be referred to as Sad Valley by me.