Ryan, I promise you that many of your fellow Americans believe it DOES tastes like shit. Right now. In this dimension. I’m not talking about contaminated water, like from the ongoing crisis in Michigan and the burgeoning crisis in California. I’m talking about clean, potable water, which some people truly fucking hate. I drink way too much seltzer these days, to the point where flat water tastes like poison to me. My father-in-law only drinks Diet Coke. I have friends who have to remind their own parents to drink water so that their folks don’t die of fucking typhoid. Water haters are real, and they are legion.What if water tasted like shit?
Probably. I know I dreamed of that. Anyway superfans have a lot of justified reasons for dressing up at games. First of all, they’re drunk. Drunkenness is paramount. Secondly, they all know that if you dress up, TV cameras will find you. I could act like this is some sign that we’re living in a broadcast dystopia, but that would be too melodramatic. Being on TV is fun. Seeing yourself on TV after the fact is even MORE fun. I know. I’ve been on TV. I have called my kids over to the fucking television and cried out to them, "Look, it’s dad!" Two seconds later, they’re back to staring at other screens. Whatever. It was worth showing them that I am a world famous sports pundit who appeared on an NFL Network Top 10 filler special for a half-minute blip. It’s no sin to get a kick out of your 15 minutes.Who are these superfans of NFL teams who dress up as vikings, skeletons, and luchadors, and are ostensibly capable of yelling and punching air for hours at a time? When they were kids did they dream of growing up and dedicating their entire lives to following a football team?
Fortunately for you, it’s both. One fart philosophy feeds into the other. I am 43. Farts come out of me like they’re breaking out of prison. This is especially true in the morning, when my asshole becomes its own alarm clock. This is not ALARMINGLY involuntary flatulence here. I’m not riddled with polyps. I just fart more than I used to and lack both the physical strength and the self-consciousness to hold it all back. I got better shit to do with my time. So I let it out and move on.This indifference sometimes bleeds over into my public comings and goings. Like, I’ll stroll through my neighborhood and fart. May as well. We were walking the dog once and I farted out loud and my wife was like, "Drew." I had gone too far in my lasseiz faire approach. I have three kids and farting around them is funny! We play the fart game just like Eddie Murphy did. I pull dad farts all the time in the house, which means I’m more apt now to unleash them upon the general population. Sometimes I feel bad about it, like if I’m at a Christmas party. Other times, a fart gets the best of me at the grocery store and what am I gonna do about it? I can’t unfart. I just keep shopping. I don’t give a shit. Get older and you get pickier about who and what to give a shit about. Unless you’re Trump, farting in public is not terribly high on the list of prioritized concerns.Does it become harder to suppress farts as one gets older or is it just that you stop giving a fuck about not farting in front of people after a certain age?
I think he’d be able to finish the mile. He would not run the whole way. His knees don’t bend. He’d spend the bulk of that mile on the phone with Carl Icahn talking about some newscaster he hates but would still like to fuck. But he’d finish. First of all, he’d take performance-enhancing Dexatrim before the race even started. Secondly, Trump has already proven capable of wearing down 350 million of his fellow Americans and then CONTINUING to do so. He never fucking stops. He never WORKS, mind you, but he never stops popping out of helicopters to tell you that actually, Nancy Pelosi was born in Albania, so she shouldn’t even legally be allowed to have her job.This takes genuine energy. Granted, Trump derives most of his energy from consuming day-old Burger King chicken fries, but it’s energy all the same. He can talk on the phone for HOURS at a time. I can’t be on the phone for more than five minutes without wanting to die. On the campaign trail, he hopped on his plane—also tiring, even if it’s a private plane!—and attended a dozen rallies a day. Again, I couldn’t do this. And even Fox News executives don’t have the stamina to watch as much Fox News as that man does. I bet they advise AGAINST you ever doing it! The man has physical energy. Again, I don’t know how. He should be fucking dead. But he isn’t.If forced to run a mile (like tell him Paula Abdul is at the finish line or some shit), would Trump be able to finish? If so, what would his time be? Personally, I think he'd keel over somewhere around halfway through.
I think the whole dynamic is pretty normal. (Dr. Evil voice) Quite standard, really. I’ve moved up people’s shit on the belt to make way for my crap, especially my food is in a basket and weighing me down. I don’t move their shit rudely. I gently rearrange for space and say "sorry" as I’m doing it. I’ve had people do likewise to my goods. When they do, I go, "It’s all right" and that’s the end of it. If someone is actively SHOVING your goods to the front of the belt and upsetting your careful setup (put the heavy items on the belt first!), then you’re free to shoot them dead. Otherwise, there’s usually a way for everyone to coexist on the belt in relative harmony. No one has to be the asshole.On my recent trip to the grocery store, I was the third person in line. The first person was with the cashier checking out, the second person had nothing on the conveyor belt, and then me. I had two items on the conveyor at the end. Out of nowhere a 4th person comes up and pushes my items (with the rubber stopper) up so he can make room for his items. Who's the asshole here? Me, for not leaving room for the new items (but then my items would be in front of the 2nd person) or him for not waiting 30 seconds for everyone to move up?
Okay, but you’re not the one who’s gonna have to live with that name, know what I mean? This is why my wife and I didn’t call our kids Mary, Harry, and Larry Magary. The novelty wears off real quick. This could be why your folks did NOT call you Bob. You would have been forever linked to the Charlotte Bobcats. Before being reborn as the Hornets, the Bobcats were given their nickname in tribute to then-owner Robert Johnson. Know who else thought that was cool besides Bob Johnson? Fucking no one. You don’t want Kit Katz to suffer the same fate, especially if her middle name is Karen or something. It’s a name, not a party trick. You gotta think about what it would be like to have that name. Some notable people, like North West, can pull goofy names off. Most can’t.My wife and I were informally talking about baby names. My last name is Katz, so naturally I tried to find names to play off of it. My father always used to tell me they were going to name me Robert, so that in the event I played sports growing up, they could cheer for me, "Let's go BobKatz!" My mother didn't bite back then and neither did my wife now. But then I came up with a name good for boy or girl: Kit Katz. Great name, or the greatest name?
I can’t beat that. Injera bread is the absolute shit. My neighbors are Eritrean and one time they brought us a full Eritrean dinner, injera included, and I nearly died of gratitude. When I crave that particular food, I crave it HARD. Same with soup dumplings. The need comes on strong. I turn into the fucking Terminator, walking through walls to zero in on the closet platter of beef tsebhi. Decades ago, my friend took me to an Ethiopian restaurant called Caffe Adulis in New Haven that had a dish called shrimp barka, with coconut and dates in it. When the injera soaked all that shit up, it was fucking perfect. That restaurant closed over ten years ago. Bereft, I tried making the barka on my own, at home. No injera. Not the same.By the way, injera is both delicious and insidious. You can eat 50 pounds of it in one sitting because it’s so light and fluffy. And then it gets into your tummy and expands. And expands. And expands some more, until it comes gushing out of your belly button. Still worth it.Let’s take this moment to go on a little tour of other perfect restaurant bites:Am I wrong in believing there is no better bite of food in a restaurant setting than the injera at the bottom after it has soaked up all the flavors and goodness of the food on top?
- First slice of pizza
- Boiling hot soup dumpling
- First bite of a Popeye’s thigh
- Spooning out the end of a goodass shake
- First little bundle of piping hot fries dragged in ketchup
- Sopping up the last bits of pasta sauce with bread from the bread basket
- Rice soaked up in tikki masala sauce, then heaped onto some naan. Starchception.
- The middle bite of a bacon cheeseburger, where it has the highest concentrations of bacon and cheese
- First bite of nigiri sushi on a sushi platter. I order mostly rolls to save money, but I always get a couple of nigiri pieces as a treat. A flawless treat.
- Fattiest part of the steak
- Big wad of nice ramen noodles
- Last of the rice at a Vietnamese restaurant, soaked in the fish sauce
- First bite of lobster bisque
Those stupid cafés aren’t even Capital One’s worst idea. They also pay Jennifer Garner a surely handsome amount to do her worst acting in commercials, with her barging into fucking hospice centers to pitch shitty credit cards to everyone. "Oh my God did I mention you get cash back on EVERY purchase? [trips over a wire and accidentally turns off your grandpa’s life support]"As for the cafés, let’s go look at one. They’re just existing branches that were due to be remodeled anyway. Capital One added a couple of airport lounge tables and sectionals to the space, plus a barista. That’s really about it. So if brand managers at Capital One end up shocked to discover that millennials, in fact, do NOT wanna hang out over coffee at some fucking glorified ATM kiosk, they can just fire the baristas (or, more accurately, just stop bringing them in as freelancers), make the coffee bar another counter for filling out deposit slips, and then move on as if nothing happened. As stupid as companies like Capital One can be, when it comes to cost, they almost always plan for both contingencies and efficiencies. Terminating their contract with a local pumpkin spice syrup vendor isn’t exactly a crisis for them.Are Capital One Cafes the most expensive bad idea a corporation has had in the last 20 years? Exclude all bad ideas that are actually crimes.
Say you put Eli Manning in a random location within Port Authority Bus Terminal. All he has to do is leave the premises without assistance, and $10 million is donated to the charity of his choice. He has his wallet and plenty of money, but no phone. He was blindfolded on the way over as well. Do you think he would succeed?
No. In fact, my daughter’s school had Career Day last week and I was due to give a presentation on my "job" to two classes. As part of that presentation, I asked the kids your question. They all immediately dismissed the idea that your neck is part of your head. I agreed with them but I put one final spin on it."Ah, but what if someone cuts off you head at the BASE of your neck? Do you say you got your head cut off, or your head and neck?" I asked."I would say I was decapitated," one boy chimed in."Okay, but still: The head is the main attraction if not all of it, yeah?"They grumbled in tacit agreement. Career Day went super.I'm mostly fucking with my wife right now but I just said your neck is part of your head and I decided to stick with it and it's getting her so good. Anyway, is it?
Email of the week!
You’re too old for that. You can pull that kind of shit for exactly as long as people you personally went to college with are still enrolled there. Friends a class below you, etc. Once they’re gone, you’re a fucking boomer on campus. Go to a keg party and you get demoted down another notch to potential diddler.I still get together with my roommates from good old state U from time to time and also communicate with a few other friends from back in the day. As we wax nostalgic about the goods times spent at school the topic of heading down to old Alma Mater for a weekend always comes up. We are all pushing 40 and most of us are married with kids. We have discussed going through the areas where the apartments and houses are to try and find a keg party. You know, just rolling up tossing on some Chronic 2001 and getting everyone to play a game of flippy-cup. Are we too old to just crash a random college house party (not a frat, those guys will definitely call the cops)? And if so, what is the right cut off age for a random guy to show up at a house party?