The Essence of Space, Time, Spirit, and Buckley’s Cough Mixture

I’ve been given a request. This is a strange thing. Not only did I not realize that my blog was actually being read by people that don’t exist solely within my brainmeats (::sigh:: female swedish oil wrestlers) but I was actually just recently asked if I could do a review of some cough medicine. I told you it was strange. I mean I don’t really consider myself a cough medicine connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination, although Nyquil does have an almost piquant after dinner texture. (‘Course, after enough Nyquil, you would probably enjoy the taste of just about anything, or at least not care about most things in general…this is an effective way of dealing with in laws..by the way)
Have I ever mentioned that I tend to ramble and get off-topic sometimes? If I haven’t then…well..I guess I just did. I tell my wife that this is one of the myriad of things that makes me just irresistible, and that it also appeals to her feminine libido. I sleep on the couch a lot.
Ahem…cough medicine. So my good friend Karie has had a cough for like 7 years now, and suspects that maybe she had it pre-utero, but I tell her that if she’d stop swallowing sand it just might do the trick. Apparently she is addicted, because she would just like the coughing to stop and be free to indulge in her deepest, wildest sand consuming fantasies. I figure she’s an adult and she says she can stop anytime, so I won’t go any further on that subject. Plus I can’t think of anything witty to add to that.
I’ve also had a cough. Actually I just got over a really bad viral thing that made my doctor look at me funny when he looked down my throat and told me to say “ahhhhh”. But that might be because I told him it felt like I’d recently stuck a toilet snake down my esophagus. So I was given some prescription meds that did nothing but probably helped put a down payment on someone else’s vacation home. I was also told that I wasn’t supposed to take any kind of cough medicine. Remember when I said that the meds didn’t do anything? I figured pfffft, what the hell do doctors know anyway??? So after the third night of staring bleary eyed at the tv all night long because my throat hurt too bad to sleep (for awhile I thought I was ON “Girls Gone Wild”) I decided to try the Nyquil…
Nothing. Nada. Not even a nice dextromethorphan buzz. Needless to say I was desperate. Before I got sick I’d been told about this stuff called Buckley’s cough Mixture, that apparently tastes awful but works. I remembered this and decided to give it a try.
So, at three in the morning I hopped in the car and drove to the nearest Wal-Mart to look for it. I didn’t find it, and Juan (who was buffing the floor) wasn’t much help either. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t any help because he spoke less english than a dead person, but then again I hadn’t slept for several nights and maybe my brain wouldn’t allow me to understand him. It’s actually entirely possible I didn’t even meet someone named Juan who was buffing the floor at 3 AM. Hell, it’s entirely possible that I actually spent that entire night pulling lint out of my belly button and trying to sew a sweater with it using a pair of tweezers.
I eventually got my hands on some Buckley’s Cough Mixture. I was excited. Only one store in the city carries it and I felt like I had joined some super secret club that dealt in underground substances that weren’t illegal. Sort of like being a member of a speak easy during prohibition, only it wasn’t alcohol and I didn’t have to hide. Plus it’s not the 20’s.
I got home and decided to try some right away. Now as you may recall, (unless all this cough syrup talk has given you a major Nyquil jones that you have given into, in which case you’re probably not even aware of your surroundings, or the fact that you are no longer wearing any clothes) I was previously warned that this stuff tastes awful. This, as you no doubt expect, will come in to play later.
So the directions say that only one teaspoon is needed. I wasn’t sure what to think of this. Does that mean it’s super strong and therefore only a small amount is needed to work, or is that the most that the average human being can endure? I decided to play it safe and stand with my feet shoulder width apart, leaning up against the kitchen sink with one hand on the counter to steady me. This way if I were to get wobbly from the shock I would have some support, and if I were to get the heaves, I could hork into the sink.
Thinking all my bases were covered, I warned my wife that I was about to ingest something that I wasn’t sure was quite safe, and to have the automatic defibrillator handy just in case. I then poured a teaspoonful and looked at it for a second to make sure it wasn’t going to move on it’s own, let alone emit a high pitched squeal and leap for my eyes. I watch a lot of science fiction movies.
The time had come, if I was going to do it, then now was the time. I took a deep breath and upended the spoon into my mouth and shotgunned that sucker down as fast as I could. For a split second there was nothing and I thought, “Pffft…big deal…I thought there was supposed to..”
It was at about this point that there was a slight stabbing behind my left eye, and I also noticed a slight burny type taste. That’s about the best I can describe it.
Then it hit me.
Have you ever sucked on some of those awful menthol chloroseptic cough drops? Have you ever blended 40 boxes together with mint toothpaste in a blender and passed it around at parties?
I became momentarily blind and suddenly someone loaded a shotgun with menthol and put the barrel down my throat and pulled the trigger. I gasped for air and wobbled a bit. Luckily I was still tethered to the kitchen counter. I started seeing weird shapes behind my eyelids and I swear to the Great Ninja that I heard Oompa Loompas singing and dancing all around me. I reached to make sure that I still had ahold of the kitchen counter and found that I was wearing pink fuzzy mittens that had eyes on the top that were staring at me. I then exhaled quite forcefully as I had been holding my breath, and I exited my apartment via the north wall. I thought it somewhat strange but even stranger than that, I really wasn’t too concerned. My mittens were crying “WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
I floated up and up and noticed the earth getting smaller and smaller. Suddenly I was standing on a vast desert and I was looking at my head which was floating in front of me. It had wings on either side so it could fly. I asked, “What are you?” That is I tried to ask that, but instead I clucked like a chicken. My head looked at me and said, “I’m your subconscious….I’ve taken over for awhile.”
I then tried to ask why he seemed to be so distant lately and he replied, “Well…I DO get distracted easily. And sometimes in the morning when you’re getting ready for work I like to….OOOO! LOOK! SOMETHING SHINY!!” And he flew away off into the distance, leaving me there.
I heard a noise behind me and turned around to look. I beheld an incredibly huge snake. He quickly wrapped all the way around me and faced me with giant fangs. His head got closer and closer and when we were nose to nose he quit hissing and said in a voice that sounded like Bea Arthur , “You don’t….date much do ya?”
I tried to say “I’m married, I don’t need to date!” but then everything sort of melted away and I came to with my wife looking down on me and holding defibrillator pads. She asked if I was ok and I told her I was married.
BUT….I wasn’t coughing!! It had worked! At least I don’t think I was. I was sort of spacey for the next little while.
I tried cooking my dinner in the dryer, but a little febreeze was all that was needed there, so no harm done.
All in all I would say that after my experience with Buckley’s cough mixture, I felt as though I had traveled a vast distance, and peered into places most people shouldn’t be allowed to peer into. I felt older, wiser, and maybe even a little more spiritual, having come out the other end of some kind of space\time\subconscious warp where just about anything is possible, and the impossible is more likely to be the norm.
Sort of like some really kickass cheesecake.

Oh and you’re supposed to repeat the dosage every 4 hours. I believe at the end of this week, I should be able to bend a spoon with my thoughts.

Creatures of habit, or plain stupidity?

            My day job
isn’t all that exciting, which leaves me with quite a bit of time to observe
the people around me. For various reasons I can’t really come right out and
tell you what I do, or where I work, but suffice to say that I work in a
government facility and I’m in the minority when it comes to my job
description.

            Over the
years I have experienced some truly spectacular examples of people’s ignorance,
or just plain stupidity. Were this a scientific study, I’m sure the fact that
the subjects described herein are government employees would be of particular
interest, though I’m sure, not very surprising.

            The first
experience that comes to mind happened maybe a year or two ago. I was sitting
at my desk, doing what I do, when a rather large lady waddles up to me. I
wasn’t surprised that she was largish as pretty much all the women here are of
such rotund stature. I don’t normally associate lack of cranial capacity with
excess amounts of blubber, but most of these cases have made me rethink things
a time or two. Anyway Shamu says to me, “How do I get to the second floor of
that building?”

(My desk is situated inside of an enclosure that connects
two separate buildings.) I had never seen this person before, so I assumed that
she was a visitor and was asking where the elevators were. If only it was that
innocent…

I swiveled in my chair and pointed down the hall and said,
“Go straight down the hall and there are elevators on your left.” Simple,
clear, concise instructions wouldn’t you say? Remember my growing theory on
cranial capacity? Yup, here it comes:

This lady looks at me and says, referring to the elevators,
“And they go up?”

No, I didn’t make that up.

            So after my
brain takes a second or two to decide if it really heard what my ears are
telling it, I slowly say, “Uhh yeah. They sure do…”

She says, “Thanks!” and rolls on down the hallway.

            Ever
experienced a time like this when you literally have to force yourself to be
nice, and not utter the first response that comes to mind? It was all I could
do to keep from blurting out, “Why no, dollface. Those elevators only go up for
important people. I’m pretty sure for you they’re only going to go sideways.
Tell me…who ties your shoes for you in the morning?”

Look I realize that this is going
to come off as a “Heeere’s yer sign” rip off, but it wouldn’t be very original
of me if I were to throw these morsels in with that  particular batch of redneck wit. Do the words
“redneck” and “wit” even belong in the same sentence? I don’t think so either.

Now for the “creatures of habit”
part of this entry. Again, same setting, same subjects.

The buildings in which I work have
these cleverly designed blocks of concrete or other material, arranged in
planes of 90 degree vertical angles which are met at regular intervals by
adjacent 0 degree horizontal angles, respectively, which together rise upwards
at a collective angle roughly 45 degrees, for the use of manual locomotion by
one or more persons at a time.

We call these modern marvels “stairs”. This explanation was
provided for those of you that may work for the government. (I kid! I kid!    Unless you work in the same buildings I
do.)

            Moving
along. In one of the buildings there are some of these “stairs” that terminate
into a narrow hallway. Well, for normal healthy people it’s not that narrow,
but for overweight people who will stop in the middle of it to hold long and
pointless conversations, i.e. the people I work with, it’s quite narrow.

            So the door
that opens from the stairwell into the hallway swings pretty far into the
hallway, at least for fat people. So inevitably people are going to be struck
by the door on the rare occasion someone decides to walk on the wild side and take
the stairs. “Why don’t the people coming from the stairwell watch out for
people in the hallway?” You may ask, and you would be commended for your
courtesy. The answer, of course, is that the door is solid and has no little
window. Or I should say, had no window.

            After many
complaints, and yes workplace injury claims (one lady actually filed a report
stating that it was not safe for her to walk down the hallway), a contractor
was called in to remove the doors on all stairwells, cut holes in them, place
glass in the holes, and replace said doors. This, I’m sure you can imagine, was
done with great expense to the American tax payer. Meaning YOUR money.

            But that
didn’t fix the problem, oh nooo. Because people in general are creatures of
habit and don’t like to change anything especially if it’s in consideration for
anybody else, (see my entry entitled “The Oblivious Collective”) people just
thought that the little windows in the door were for a semi pleasing aesthetic
effect and not to be actually used.

           So, after
more complaints and more injury filings, a contractor was brought in to…are you
ready for this? Install a red light on the ceiling above the door in the
hallway. This light is connected to a motion sensor in the stairwell, thereby
turning on the red light when anyone approaches and warning all to stay away
from the dangers of the door actually being opened. On top of that, at one
point they were considering installing a loud buzzer that would go off whenever
the door was opened. But I guess they decided that would be overkill. I have
yet to hear anyone say “Thank you so much for protecting us from ourselves!”,
by the way.

            While I’m
writing about being protected from one’s own stupidity (which should be
illegal) I need to put this one in: There was, once again, a walking donut,
that decided to step onto a declining curb out in front of the building. The
curb slopes down to level with the ground, and is painted red, as it terminates
next to the dock driveway. Oopsie! The lady took a fall and hurt her ample
bottom. Now there is a metal railing there that is about three feet long, in
case some other dumbass wants to come along and step onto the red painted curb
and can’t handle the sudden change in their own center of gravity.

            This brings
me to what happened yesterday, which is what prompted this admittedly mean
scrutiny of the people that occupy space around me at work.

            The
buildings I work at, being a government installation, have computer controlled
doors with magnetic locks on them. Not even Rosie O’Donnell’s immense stupidity
is enough to force these things to disengage. Although were she to fling
herself bodily against one of these doors, it might cause it to shudder in
disgust and therefore release, but I think the most that would happen would be
that I’d get a big kick out of seeing Rosie O’Donnell flung into something.

            Anyway, as
is guaranteed by the Constitution or something, the computer systems that
control these buildings rarely work flawlessly. And as such, most of the
building went offline. So the Marx brothers, along with the Three Stooges, were
sent out to try and repair it, which consisted of reloading the entire system.
This process takes roughly six hours. Doors that have magnetic locks on them
had to be propped open during this process, and signs were printed and attached
to the doors clearly telling employees to use the propped open door for entry,
rather than the normal means of entering the building.

            I tried to
keep count of how many people, upon walking through the door, asked, “Are the
doors not working??” I really did try, but I lost count. Apparently it was just
too much for them to handle. “The doors are working fine, now get back out
there and try again! Who do you think you are just walking through an open
door, huh?!

            Another
large sign was placed on the door normally used for exiting the building. This
sign said: DOOR INOPERABLE. PLEASE USE HANDICAP DOOR. SHOW I.D. WHEN ENTERING
THE BUILDING.

Pretty straightforward, wouldn’t you say? Yes you would, but
then again, chances are you don’t work where I do.

            I again
lost track of how many people tried to show me their I.D. on their way OUT the
door. Apparently they couldn’t figure out that we don’t care who wants to leave the building.

            But it was
all summed up by a particular person who wanted to leave the building. Remember
the giant signs I was talking about? They were placed OVER the key card readers
on the inoperable doors so that they would be clearly visible. (A person would
normally hold their key card up to the reader, which would disable the lock on
the door) But here’s what I get for assuming that people are more intelligent
than they really are:

            This lady
walks up to the door and holds her keycard up to where the reader SHOULD be,
but where now is a large sign basically saying: DON’T USE THIS DOOR. What
happens? She stands there, waiting for the lock to disengage…looks at the
sign…tries to scan her card again…stands there waiting for the lock to
disengage.

            At this
point I just wanted to let her stand there all freakin’ day. Lucky for her that
particular door came online right then and let her go through, otherwise she
really might have stood there all day until she demanded someone come and
install a red light so that people could be warned of the door, and also a
railing in case the bags of pork rinds she consumed for lunch shifted and she
needed something to keep her from toppling over.

            I think it
goes without saying that, if you’re feeling badly about yourself, all you have
to do is take a minute and observe the people around you, and pretty soon
you’ll be feeling much much better about yourself.

Charlie Brown: How to keep adolescent humiliation alive well into adulthood.

Charlie Brown. We’ve all seen his sunday comics, and even worse, his cartoons on tv. You remember don’t you? Happy Halloween Charlie Brown! Or the famous “It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas”. Or the not so well known “You suck at everything and should go hang yourself Charlie Brown!” Ok so that last one was a little stretch, but not by much.
Now let’s take a look at Charlie Brown himself:The perfectly round, bald head. The nose that sits directly between the eyes. The dorky smile. Just screams preteen self worth!! Does it not? Of course it doesn’t, and that’s why you shouldn’t let your kids watch these awful shows. Look, I’ve got nothing against Charles Schultz, but let’s be fair here. Charlie Brown is a loser and can never do anything right. How depressing. And then we have Peppermint Patty and her “sidekick” Marcie. What sort of demented lesbian dominatrix couple is this??? Ever notice how Marcie always refers to Patty as “Sir”? Need I say more?? And then we have Linus. I pretty intelligent kid who can’t seem to let go of his baby blanket. Regressive therapy anyone? And then we have “Pigpen”. What the hell? This kid obviously never bathes. He’s probably scared of water and lives in a ramshackle hut with a family of possums who sit around and play the banjo all day. But you will notice that the other kids still treat him better than Charlie. And I’m not even gonna start with the schoolteacher. Last time I tried to talk to somebody ( as an experiment) using only the words “waa wa waaaa…wa-waa…waa” not only was i not understood, but I was asked for my driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance…followed by a set of rather humiliating set of tests that I will not go into here.
So be good to your kids. Give them love and support and encouragement. Do NOT give them Charlie Brown!
But I’ll tell ya one thing: If I were Charlie Brown…I’d walk up to Lucy and make that bitch EAT that football!!

The realities of ribs, Rosie, and poo-flinging

I’ve decided that there is something rather feral about eating ribs.

My father-in-law gave us some pork ribs and my wife cooked them the other night. They were very good because my wife is a Kitchen Ninja (we tend to stick to our own kind, you see.)

So a day later I was looking for something to take to work for lunch and I see that there is some ribs left. I rejoice at my discovery and quickly pack it up. I didn’t take any utensils because hey, you just don’t eat ribs with a fork and spoon. Did I mention that these ribs were swimming in barbecue sauce, topped off with more barbecue sauce? Can you see where this is going?

Fast forward to lunch time at work. I heat the ribs up in the microwave, take the paper towel off the top of the container and look at them. This is when I realize that I hadn’t thought far enough ahead.

Now, some of you are thinking, “What’s the big deal, Ninja? Just pick ‘em up and eat ‘em.” And still more of you are thinking about Jessica Simpson’s ta-ta’s. Well if I can’t touch them neither can you so let’s just follow along with the rest of the class, ok?

You need to understand that because of where I work I don’t really get a lunch break. I pretty much have to race off if someone decides they need to bother me for any reason, so me running around trying to take care of business with barbecue sauced hands, while amusing, would also probably be a bad career move. Much like showing up to work naked and telling people that I had just started taking a liking to clear clothing.

Before I go any farther, let’s talk about the origins of man, or rather the basic animal instincts that exist within us all. Come on it’ll be fun…and I promise it’ll almost be relevant.

When man suddenly decided that he didn’t want to be a monkey anymore and stood up straight and began figuring out how to make beer, there were certain animal-like urges and needs that didn’t go away like the poo-flinging did. (This is why Ninja Monkeys have been terrorizing whole cities for decades. Imagine combining the power of the Ninja with a poo-flinging primate. It’s just too terrifying to discuss any further. Or at least for now.)

So anyway, Man evolved beyond poo-flinging (some of us anyway…I’m looking at YOU Rosie O’Donnell) and went to beer. Now despite the beer, Man still wanted and needed to have an occasional roll in the hay, something Important to do (no more poo-flinging remember) and the very thing I’m trying to get to now: Food. Man must satisfy the hunger because beer only makes you forget about it. And when Man is hungry, there is a certain feeling or emotion that turns off the non-poo-flinging, evolved part of our brain (except for Rosie, of course, notice how fat she is?) and animal instinct takes over, usually in the form of some sort of pre-historic grunt occasioned by intermittent flatulence. (Hmm…more allusions to Rosie. I might be on to something here.)

Such was the case when I stood there deciding how to proceed. Some sort of prehistoric switch was flipped and I no longer cared how I was going to eat the ribs. And I think the fact that I was going to be eating meat somehow compounded the evolutionary backslide that took place in my brain. I would eat those friggin’ ribs and neatness and tact be damned!

Before my brain could start trying to figure out how to make beer (which is odd because I don’t drink) I sat down and just grabbed the ribs with my hands and began to satisfy my inner monkey. (Now there’s a loaded phrase.)

I soon found myself making small grunting noises as I tried to get every little bit of meat off of the bone. My hands were covered in sauce and I think I had some smeared on my face as well, but I didn’t care. I looked forward to each bone that still had meat on it and derived some sort of perverse pleasure in thoroughly cleaning it off.

In the midst of my rib revelry, people were passing by the break room. Some slowed down to witness the carnage and I think at one point I even growled at someone. Had I been there much longer I’m sure I probably would have jumped up onto the table and jumped up and down on all fours while making high pitched screeching noises and flung discarded bones at the onlookers. I’m not sure what it would have taken to reach the poo-flinging stage, and I’m not sure I want to know. Although I guess if I wanted to find out I could ask Rosie O’Donnell. (Zing!)

At some point, thank goodness, I regained control and was able to reverse whatever switch had been thrown. I cleaned myself up and put the chairs right side up and even threw away the bones, though I felt somewhat guilty, like I was cleaning up a crime scene before the cops arrived.

As I walked out of the break room I reflected upon my experience. I had been transported, nay, transformed into the dark center that exists within us all. And, much like country music, no matter how hard we try to ignore it, or deny its existence, it is there, waiting, lurking, and sometimes just itching to claw its way through our social barriers and present itself, open and disgustingly naked, to those unfortunate enough to witness it.

And what this all comes down to is this:

Ladies! When you take your man out to eat, be cautious and wary should he choose ribs. For therein lies the key to the door that is triple locked in men’s subconscious: The door that just barely holds back the inner beast….

 

…and Rosie O’Donnell.

You were warned…

   Mr. Tumnus has run away. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about see my post titled “Ninjas with burnt thumbs”.  Having never (intentionally) trained a cat in the art of Ninjitsu I can’t really comment on the effects this might have on the world at large. But you should know that Mr. Tumnus was very attentive. He never actually made off with my thumb, but not because he didn’t try. You should also know that he is a master of pretending to be cute. A ninjas best weapon is the weapon of surprise. Keep this in mind next time you approach a seemingly helpless black cat with a little white tuft of fur on his chest, especially if he appears to be hungry or in other such dire need.

So if you run across a cat that resembles him, here is how you can expose him and hopefully save you and your family’s life. Do not approach him, but stay back. Point your finger at the cat and say as loud as you can: “HEY!! YOU’RE THAT NINJA CAT AREN’T YOU?! WELL YOU DON’T FOOL ME!! I WON’T LET YOU KILL ME OR MY FAMILY! I KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU!! NOW STOP FOLLOWING ME!!”

Remember, you must scream this so that others around can hear you! Thereby warning them as well. Now, this will only confuse him for just a moment, as he will curse my name for blowing his cover. This is your chance to run. And run you must! Also, if you scream while running, it may further confuse him. The key is to be as loud as possible, as we Ninjas enjoy silence…unless we’re shaking our groove thing at the local club with the local Ninja honeys…..

oh! Time fer more meds!

It’s a girl! No wait! I mean…It’s a boy!

Hey I was surprised too. 3 weeks before my wife gave birth we found out that our little girl was in fact a little boy. So much for the dresses my mom bought.

Anyway so I saw my wife’s intestines. I told her that after the c-section. “Dear…I saw yer intestines.” She didn’t seem bothered by it, but I don’t know, I might feel a little violated if someone other than a doctor told me that they had seen my intestines. It’s a very private matter.

Halfway through the delivery I decided that, since I hadn’t passed out yet, I might as well up the odds and stand up and look behind the little curtain. My first impression was: That’s a ……whooole lot of blood. The doctor had a pink balloon in her hands that she was sewing up. She looked at me and said, “I’m just sewing up your wife’s uteris because I like to put it back the way I found it, you know, in case you want to use it again.” I also heard various other utterances from her throughout the procedure:

“Contact!”

“It’s game time!”

“Here’s yer little boy!” — This one she said after holding up a grey quivering mass that she claimed was my son. I also saw the attendant pulling what looked like surgical tubing out of her. I’ll never eat sausage again.

Props to my wife tho. She was so incredibly drugged out of her  mind that I was actually jealous…sorta. Her blood pressure was so high that they gave her some anti-seizure medication because they feared she’d seize right there on the table. Well the medication made her sick, as they told her it would, and so she was throwing up throughout the last half of the delivery. Having had a spinal block, she couldn’t really contract her stomach to throw up, but just turn her head to the side and let it come out. Nice visual huh? One of the many many times I’ve thanked the Powers That Be that I’m not a girl. I may be a Ninja, but I couldn’t put up with the crap that girls have to put up with. I’ll take a shot to the crotch over PMS any day.

We named my son Cameron, which is Scottish for “mischevious”. We probably shot ourselves in the foot on that one. He was 6 pounds 11 ounces and, to be perfectly frank, quite a cute little kid. I may be a little bias, but come on, we’ve all seen ugly babies. I know I have. And then you have to lie to the parents and say, “Oh what an adorable little…..baby!” No lying for us tho. Maybe if things continue the way they are and nobody else on the entire planet reads this or gives two craps in a hat about my existence, I’ll find a way to post some pics…being that I’m poor and have to resort to typing this at work. Maybe I’ll even write down a serious record of the birth and everything! But you all have to deserve it. So you can start sending the money now…