For many of us, today is a day to breathe a sigh of relief and profess solemnly to one another, “We made it, gentlemen. We’ve survived another Valentine’s Day successfully, all of our men are in tact, and a few of us even managed to get laid. Of course, now’s not the time to get cocky – remember, we’re only 364 days away from next year’s excursion and that doesn’t leave as much time for preparation as we would prefer…”

And mind you, if you didn’t know until reading this column that Valentine’s Day was yesterday, either you don’t have a girlfriend or you don’t have a girlfriend anymore.

You’re giving me that look like you just learned that your girlfriend’s cat can’t swim. Oh boy…

Frankly I think you’ve got a better chance of surviving after missing a woman’s birthday than you do after missing the sacred holiday, and I would’ve liked to think that none of us would’ve forgotten the utmost of important days on the dating calendar because, well, we can’t afford to make mistakes like this, guys! We’ve worked too long and too hard to overcome stereotypes of geeks and nerds just because we watch Battlestar Galactica and know the IP addresses of all of our favorite websites by heart, only to flush it all down the toilet like a “sleeping” goldfish by carelessly forgetting game day in the land of relationship have-ers!

Ok – just take a deep breath. Scolding isn’t going to get us anymore … man, would growing up have been a little easier if they’d followed that mantra! Now let’s just take a moment to think and certainly we can come up with some sort of sure-fire way to save the day and win back the affection that you’ll likely otherwise never know again…

Hmmm…

Eh…

No, that won’t work, either. And besides, where are we going to find that many chickens on a Saturday night, anyways?!

But you know what might work? And actually, I’m even going to give you three different options just in case you need a runner up to fall back on because, well, I feel your pain. We’ve all been there before, and we can all certainly vouch that hell hath no fury like a woman who didn’t get her box of gourmet chocolates on Valentine’s Day! Now mind you, these have all been ranked in order from probably your best bet to nearly all hope is lost, so just be sure to work your way down from the top, if applicable, and for God sakes keep your fingers crossed…

Saving Throw #1: Time Travel
In all reality, the ultimate best way to reconcile this situation has got to be by preventing it from ever happening in the first place, so just build yourself a time machine, hop back a day or three, and whatever you do, don’t forget Valentine’s Day twice!

What’s that? You don’t know how to build a time machine?! And you call yourself a geek…

Saving Throw #2: Play Dumb
Actually, apparently this should be a rather fitting option if you don’t know how to build a time machine, or perhaps you did build it right and then just got so caught up with watching American Idol that you plumb forgot all over again…

To pull off this technique, dash off to the store and buy everything that you would normally purchase for Valentine’s Day – you’ve actually got an advantage here because everything should be at least 50% off at this point! Then you make your dinner reservations for tomorrow, dress yourself up real nice, and do your very best acting to convince her that you’ve just been so busy at work that you actually thought that Sunday was Valentine’s Day. Granted, even with a stellar performance, you won’t get the full points that you may have been rewarded had you actually pulled it off on the right day, but it certainly beats sleeping on the couch … or worse yet, back at your own apartment!

Saving Throw #3: Beg, Grovel, and Plead.
Believe me, none of us wanted it to come to this, but at this point we’re kinda running out of options and you certainly don’t want to have to go back to the single life, now do you?! Just take a brief trip down memory lane with regards to what you used to eat as a single guy and then let me know when you’ve come to your senses…

This one’s not gonna be easy – in fact, if you’ve still got any parts leftover from that time machine, you may want to give it another go before resorting to option #3. Be prepared for lots of shoe shopping, hanging out with her friends, and you can just forget about seeing any action flicks at the theater for a while. If you’ve already become more domesticated, so to speak, you can certainly count on plenty of laundry and dishes and vacuuming and pretty much anything else that she can think of for you to do around the house at least until Memorial Day! You’ll be making romantic dinners, watching all of her crap on TV, and maybe if you’re lucky, there will be a random instance of pity sex in there for you every now and then.

It sounds like an awful lot – maybe too much for forgetting one lousy, stinking holiday, but remember, back when you were single, there wasn’t even any pity sex. Well, it was pitiful, but there was only one of you, so that doesn’t really count! Just suck it up, do whatever you have to do to stop this train from derailing altogether in a horrific accident that will burn for days to come, and then in addition, start planning just how you’re going to make sure that you don’t forget come next year.

That’s right – only 364 days. A man’s job never ends…if we’re lucky, anyways…

It’s 2:35am and I’m so bloody tired.

So tired, in fact, that the delirium has me talking like a British dude, apparently, which is never a good sign! As previously mentioned in our last episode of The Humor Column, I am currently in the process of changing residences to one that’s a bit cleaner than our previous home … and also just a tad bit more spacious, mind you. Of course, the unfortunate side effect of this decision is that unlike my speculation last week that we could simply move to another address to avoid getting all chummy with Mr. Clean, instead we’re actually finding ourselves faced with double cleaning duties, as we not only are required to clean up our old place on the way out, but additionally unless we feel like living amongst all of the dust and dead insects and other assorted nonsense that we found within our new home upon move-in, we’re going to have to go all spick-n-span on that place as well! Apparently it seems that the only true way to avoid cleaning up after oneself is to adopt the lifestyle of the hermit and I’m sorry, but I just don’t look nearly good enough in tattered robes and a gnarly beard to be able to pull off that look…

That said, after I can’t even count how many hours of packing and hauling and scrubbing and annoyed grunting, like it or not, hermit is about how I look and feel. Needless to say, if you felt so inclined to get all dressed up and take me out for a fancy dinner, tonight is not the night in which your high-class friends would be impressed.

In fact, I might actually end up getting us kicked out of the restaurant, but that’s neither here nor there because if you hadn’t yet caught on, I’m a little preoccupied at the moment!

I don’t think I have to tell anybody that moving really sucks, and it sucks even worse when you find yourself like I currently am – that being with an insanely short timeframe to do it all in and virtually no help other than me and my girlfriend. You see, some friends would gladly dedicate any nights and weekends necessary to helping a buddy move, with the only costs being a few cases of beer and a couple of pizzas, but my friends are smarter than that! Having been around the block a few times and even helped me move in the past, they’ve definitely caught on to the idea that I’m not necessarily the cleanest duck in the pond, or at least I don’t keep the cleanest pond, anyways, so whereas anyone else might be able to volunteer their help, knowing that they’ll be showing up to piles upon piles of neatly stacked boxes containing all of the victim’s, err, I mean mover’s worldly belongings, it’s no doubt quite clear to my friends that upon showing up that evening to start hauling boxes, it’s very likely that they could walk into my apartment just as it looks any other day, with a stack of empty boxes in the corner waiting patiently to be filled and me sitting at the computer playing Battle Chess.

Like some famous, yet incredibly lazy guy once said, “There’s nothing like procrastination for putting off what you should’ve done yesterday…”

And thus, due to horrible a work ethic, at least as far as moving is concerned, here I am at 2:47am, covered in dust and sweat and dusty sweat, with only another three trips up to the new place before I can get maybe four hours of sleep before rising and starting up all over again! Of course, with any luck by the end of the weekend, despite sore bones, raw hands, and a weakened spirit, I may still very well be able to announce to the world that the move is complete – a boast that, at 2:48am, seems very much out of reach.

That said, at least this will be the last time we have to clean this new house until it comes time for us to move again…

It’s been raining a lot lately.

I know that’s how the poem goes and everything, but in the meantime it can sure be a pain in the butt for the rest of us who don’t even like flowers! They didn’t really think about that when they wrote the poem, now did they? They were so focused on their flowers that they never stopped to think that maybe there were some of us who don’t really care for flowers all that much, or maybe we’re kind of indifferent to flowers, but if given the choice between having a few flowers to look at in May and not getting completely drenched in April, well I think it’s safe to say that you can guess where my vote would be cast…

Nonetheless, I kind of just have to suck it up not because I have little or no control over the rain itself (…although I am still a little bitter about that…), but more so because even after these so-called “April Showers” have come and gone, we’ve still got “The Rainy Season” here in lovely Florida which means that between the months of May and October, you can pretty much set your watch on the fact that it will rain between three and four o’clock each day. Of course, also during this timeframe is the slightly worse possibility that a hurricane could happen on any given day, so I suppose if given the option between the two I should lean more towards water falling from the sky as opposed to water falling from the sky, then sideways, then thrown back up at the sky, all the while accompanied by palm trees and Buicks and so on and so forth.

It may be the lesser of two totally incomparable evils, but it doesn’t mean that I have to like it!

So this year in preparation for this ghastly season, I went out and did something that I haven’t done in a long time – I cohersed somebody into buying a raincoat for me. Well, in all reality the somebody was my girlfriend and if you were to ask her, she would probably tell you that she wasn’t as much cohersed into buying me the raincoat as she offered to buy me the raincoat so she wouldn’t have to listen to me whine all night about being cold and wet. You know, how I got the raincoat is actually pretty inconsequential anyways – what’s important is that now I have it and already I’m wondering how I managed to survive three previous rainy seasons without such a gift.

Actually, I’m really wondering how stupid I was to endure three previous rainy seasons without said raincoat, but … well, errr … let’s move on!

Now that I think of it, I probably just carried around an umbrella and figured that that would be good enough to ward off God’s tears for a few measly months each year, but we all know just how effective umbrellas can be when a healthy gust of wind sprouts up! One minute you’re walking around downtown, looking all cool and dry, and the next thing you know you’re in a completely different part of town with frazzled hair and an inside-out umbrella – it’s kind of like Mary Poppins’ taxi service, except that Mary Poppins never had a taxi service and even if she did, you really had no reason for her to take you to the other side of town at this time of day! Not to mention she’s probably going to want a tip and you don’t have any singles on you – talk about a real mess…

In all seriousness, though, I would guess the reason for the umbrella rather than the raincoat in the past may have had something to do with, dare I say it – looking cool. And I know, I’m not exactly the first person who you think of when you’re defining the word cool (Tom Cruise is, right?), but that’s just all the more reason why the last thing I needed to be doing was further reducing my coolness factor with a big, bulky raincoat. Nope – instead it was just me and my umbrella, and although I may have been half wet from the knees down, man did I almost look cool!

Nowadays, though, I’ve more or less come to terms with the fact that I’ll never truly be cool, which is why I have no problems breaking down and donning my new raincoat when there’s the slightest look of rain in the clouds. Because the way I see it, I may not be able to look cool in my new raincoat when standing alongside someone not wearing a raincoat, but the difference is this – when we get inside and I take off my raincoat, I’m dry, whereas the cool guy, as cool as he may be, is now actually at right for hypothermia because he’s quickly changing from cool to just plain cold!

So while I may not be cool, let us not forget that I can still gloat like it’s nobody’s business, so I say bring on the rainy season, and the thunderstorm season, and pretty much any other season that calls for precipitation falling out of the sky – with my new raincoat, I can take them all on, or at least the minimal amount that I need to take them on between my house and the car! From there it officially becomes the car’s problem, but that’s a story for another day…

Don’t worry – I know what you’re thinking, so before you get all excited and mount that high-horse of yours, I want to assure you that this isn’t going to be another one of those columns where I rub in how great it is to live in Florida because the weather’s so nice that I can go to the beach in the middle of March.

But just for the record and consistency’s sake, “Ha ha!”

Anyways, the other night my girlfriend thought it would be nice for us to go out for the evening since we’ve rarely been seeing each other lately due to our crazy and completely opposite work schedules, so a pleasant evening was planned with dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, to be followed by a nice and relaxing walk on the beach. You know, sort of like your average date, only without all the worry about whether or not you’re going to get any sex out of it! Nope, in my world the woman has no troubles picking up the check every now and then, we normally couldn’t care less about dressing up because we’re just thrilled to be in the same room as one another for a few minutes, and the sex … well, that’s pretty much mandatory after a night like this, but you know me – I never kiss and tell…

I might kiss and brag, but that’s an entirely different column altogether!

Regardless, after finishing up a delicious Chinese meal that will likely leave me feeling guilty about my diet for days, we made our way over to the beach where we had intended on burning off a few of those newly-acquired calories in a leisurely jaunt along the shoreline. Of course, even at the end of March the water is still a little to cold to swim in, unless you happen to be a polar bear or something, but since neither of us are, in fact, polar bears, we opted to stay a few feet from the water itself so as to better enjoy its beauty without actually being frozen by it.

You meet some funny people at the beach during the daytime, so it only goes without saying that you usually have a tendency to meet some really funny people at the beach at eleven o’clock at night! Young teenagers trying to have sex, older couples trying to remember how to have sex, single folks jealous of all the other people and the sex they may or may not actually be engaging in – I know, I’m sure you’d like to think that there are other sorts of things to do on the beach at night other than have sex, but really, there’s just not. I mean, I guess you could just sit there and look up at the sky or something, but can’t you already do that pretty much anywhere?! Then again, I suppose you could say the same about sex, at least if you’re fairly creative and/or flexible, but I’m not so let’s not kid ourselves, ok?

But all in all it was a beautiful night for “walking” and “stargazing” and anything else you might care to put in “italicized quotation marks” in order to incite innuendo, even as unlikely as it might have been, and the evening proved to be a great escape from the normal drudgery that has lately become of our mundane lives. We knocked down many a deserted sandcastle, and left one intact because we were somehow able to agree that it resembled a mermaid with unusually large breasts, so ultimately the night was a huge success. Of course, then my girlfriend proceeded to fall asleep in the car on the ride home, leaving me alone in my thoughts to sing along with the sounds of the ‘80s on the radio, dedicating several to that well-endowed mermaid because hey, that’s just the kind of thing that I do to amuse myself when the rest of the world has gone to sleep…

Don’t worry, though – for those of you who were still wondering, I did wake her up when we got home if not so much as to let her move from the cramped car back into our comfy bed, but to remind her of that other part of the date that had still yet to be fulfilled, wink, wink! And if she hadn’t been only half-asleep and heard me singing to the imaginary, well-endowed mermaid, then maybe things would’ve went a little better than I had planned, but hey – at least I got to go to the beach!

…in March, because I live in Florida…

Now I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I think you should all know that I almost died over the weekend.

Don’t worry – I did manage to make it through, but they’re telling me to stay away from spinning around in circles and flying through the air upside-down for a while. Allow me to explain…

This weekend my girlfriend and I spent an afternoon at Busch Gardens, our local theme park known for beer, a handful of absolutely terrifying roller-coasters for those who prefer their internal organs turned inside out, and of course, more beer. There are also a few animals scattered throughout the park here and there, but let’s be honest – people go to the zoo down the street if they’re hoping to see baby giraffes or hippopotamuses. At Busch Gardens, it’s all about the thrill!

Which is an important point to consider in our story because as a general rule, I myself am not all about the “thrill” in any way, shape or form. I toss cartons of milk out a day or two before getting to the expiration date, I always wait more than an hour after eating before I jump into the pool for a swim, and I can’t even bring myself to watch the hit primetime game show Deal or No Deal. Ok, so that last one isn’t as much because of the thrills and suspense as it is because I just can’t stand Howie Mandel’s character on that show – “He. Just. Talks. With. Way. Too. Much. Emphasis. In. His. Voice.”

…and that explanation doesn’t have nearly as much impact in a written medium, but I know that I’m not the only one out there who’s bothered by this!

But anyways, so it pretty much goes without saying that if given the options of either spending the afternoon taking a brisk, refreshing walk through that aforementioned zoo or hurtling through the air at a hundred miles an hour, upside-down and inside-down, defying all the conventional laws of physics and even some new ones that probably won’t be discovered for another twenty or thirty years, needless to say if I had my way I’d be going with the giraffes and zebras. So why, you then ask, did I find myself on that fateful afternoon amidst a plethora of spine-tingling, rickety death-traps with names likes The Punisher and I Hope You’ve Notified Your Next of Kin… (note: actual coaster names have been changed to help my story sound scarier than it normally would be to someone who isn’t a wuss)?

Of course, it was one of those girlfriend-induced adventures because it’s really no secret that with the right member of the fairer sex around, we’ll commit to pretty much anything, be it taking her to Yanni on Ice or shopping for a new blouse because there’s still three vacant inches of space left in the closet or even plummeting to your untimely death voluntarily because, well, she likes that sort of stuff! And the truly twisted side of it is that somehow I’d probably even end up going back again if she so desired because that’s just what a messed up gender we are, guys. Tell me, is it better or worse the second time when you know exactly when to let out your blood-curdling screams for each dip and turn?!

Oddly enough, it wasn’t Sheikra in the end that was the worst of the bunch – Sheikra being the park’s newest torture device that proclaims dropping its victims 200 feet straight down at 70 mph without even offering them a free change of pants upon their return to Earth. There was the Congo River Rapids that although appearing to be nothing more than a children’s ride down the river, ended up soaking me to the bone worse than had we actually just gone swimming down at the pool instead! But the real culprit of the day, and consequently our last “ride” of the afternoon, was Gwazi, which I believe is African for “roller coasters should never be made out of wood unless you’re insane.” Gwazi is actually two roller coasters in one, meaning that at times riders are actually offered the unique view of watching other riders throwing up on a nearby track at the same time! Mind you, I can’t vouch for this myself because I was too busy closing my eyes as tightly as I possibly could and making up new Gods to pray for my safety to throughout the duration of the ride…

All in all it was an “interesting” day because really, how many people can boast that they saw their life flash before their eyes seven times in the course of merely a few hours? Afterwards some suggested that a few beers would’ve made the trip more bearable, although I don’t think the people sitting around me would agree, seeing that as much as it hated me throughout, my stomach did thank me on the way out for not trying to fill it in between rides! Now that would’ve been something to see…

But I’m back at home now, safely and firmly planted on my couch where I belong. I’ve got three hundred channels of digital cable and Internet access if I’m feeling up for some thrills, and some meatloaf from last week still in the fridge if I’m looking to recreate that other feeling, so I’m good for now. As for my girlfriend, she’s happy that I gave chasing death a chance and rode some of her favorite rides with her that afternoon. And she also knows that it probably won’t be happening again anytime soon, so if you could refrain from hinting her in on that power of hers that is making me do whatever she wants … at least for a little while, my stomach would certainly appreciate it!

Chasing Death – now that would be a good name for a roller coaster!

It’s been something of a trying time adjusting, and by “trying” I don’t mean to indicate that she snores like a buzz saw during the height of logging season or anything…not that I’d even dare to admit that if she did! No, in this instance we’re talking “trying” more along the lines of trying to find out where in the heck all of my closet space has gone … all you not-so-single men in the audience know what I’m talking about…

It comes out of nowhere, like a soccer Mom driving the family hummer on the way to pick-up little Jenny from archery practice before heading off to Johnny’s Bassoon recital, starting off small with a hanger here or maybe a change of pants there, but slowly it grows one blouse at a time until you accidentally come out one unusually groggy morning wearing a blouse yourself instead of the beige polo shirt that you’d originally ventured into the walk-in for in the first place! Boy, was that an awkward day at the office – I’m just glad that at least I was awake enough to grab the skirt to match…

And don’t get me wrong, I certainly wouldn’t want it any other way, but it’s rough for a guy to give up the personal space that he’s become so attached to, especially when the amount of space set aside for his clothing to occupy goes from, say five feet of closet rod space to roughly 4 centimeters of closet rod space – and please forgive my use of metric, but I just couldn’t think of the standard equivalent that ranks in as smaller than inches! Granted, it does make choosing what to wear in the morning infinitely easier, assuming you can find your own clothes as not so elegantly depicted in the tabloid above, but for the guy who’s indecisive to begin with, some might even suggest it to be a godsend that he’s only got to choose from two shirts in the morning when it’s time to get ready for work. Hint: go with the one that doesn’t have the huge pizza stain down the front – work is no place to show your undying love for the extra-marinara stuffed-crust special.

Now it’s taken me some time to adjust to giving up my coveted closet space to the fairer sex, but let me tell you guys, the secret lies in learning to live like a monk. Knowing that the closet space is going to be more limited than Lindsay Lohan’s chances of passing a breathalyzer test, being at one with your fashion sense and establishing a compact wardrobe is essential to your survival. I think you’ll find the robes themselves to be a lot more fashionable than you think in this day and age, and as a bonus, they’re pretty cheap, too, which helps because with a live-in girlfriend, you’re going to be purchasing hangers at least on a weekly basis, just to keep up with her normal shopping routines. I’d actually suggest getting in contact with a bulk distributor that sells hangers to companies like Wal-Mart and The GAP to see if it’s possible to buy the things by the case, but we’ll have to talk about that some other time…

It’s not going to be easy, guys – you’re facing a task that makes fashion designers giggle like schoolgirls and most men between the ages of two and one hundred and twenty-nine cringe like their favorite team just lost the World Series. The amount of clothing that your woman acquires is exponential to the amount of space available…in the world – that’s just the law of the jungle and there’s nothing short of losing it all in a mysterious, untraceable house fire that we can do about it. Your best bet is to throw up a white flag as soon as possible, then retreat out to the garage where you’ll spend the next several weeks building a new closet in hopes of actually being able to keep some of your own clothing in it. You won’t, but in the end that’s what love is all about – giving up every available inch of storage space in your house so that your “Honey Bumpkin” can get another little black dress that she’s probably only going to wear once.

You’d better get to work, though – lord knows she’s going to want the matching heels, too, and that last shoe rack that you tried to build didn’t exactly turn out, well, usable. Good luck…

]]> http://www.comedic-genius.com/writing/humor/2006/dude-where%e2%80%99s-my-closet-space/feed/ 0 http://www.comedic-genius.com/writing/humor/2005/fair-and-back-again%e2%80%a6/ http://www.comedic-genius.com/writing/humor/2005/fair-and-back-again%e2%80%a6/#comments Fri, 18 Feb 2005 12:00:07 +0000 Scott Sevener http://www.comedic-genius.com/wordpress/?p=208
If someone could kindly make the room stop spinning when you’ve got a free second, I’d certainly appreciate it… You see, this is exactly why I have a steadfast rule – no crazy, upside-down carnival rides! There are some experiences that the human body, and more specifically the human stomach, simply isn’t equipped to handle. Horrible [...]]]>

If someone could kindly make the room stop spinning when you’ve got a free second, I’d certainly appreciate it…

You see, this is exactly why I have a steadfast rule – no crazy, upside-down carnival rides! There are some experiences that the human body, and more specifically the human stomach, simply isn’t equipped to handle. Horrible experiences, in fact, that if you were to consult with God / Buddha / the Almighty Creator of your choice, they would be quick to explain how humanity was most certainly never intended to endure such twists and turns at inhuman velocities, and don’t even get me started on the loop-de-loops! Nope, call me stubborn, but over the years if I’ve learned anything at all, it’s that my own particular body is preferential to the standard, head-up / feet-down orientation and as far as I’m concerned, I’m ok with that!

So why did I do it, then?

In an attempt to back up our story and fill you in on the details for those who didn’t happen to be privy to the incident, the day was Saturday, February 19^th – the place was the Florida State Fairgrounds, just outside of Tampa. My little sister just so happened to be in town for the weekend visiting and I’d somehow gotten the old, Northern Michigan standby tune stuck in my head, “Goin’ to the fair, goin’ to the fair…” so I’d concluded with the idea that it might be fun to go out and experience a few hours down at the fair while she was here. With my girlfriend at one side and sister at the other, we proceeded through that old, ruckety turnstile with mucho gusto…and that, my friends, was the last mistake that I’d have the chance to make…

It only takes a little further back story to explain that my sister and I had somewhat become accustomed to the fair scene up north, often frequenting the midway to check out the latest crazies and cast judgment with regards to which carnies a mother would most feel comfortable entrusting the safety of their children to – fun stuff, really, but no matter how enticing the year’s offerings might happen to appear, we always had one single ground rule…Scott’s feet never leave the ground. And while some may deem it to be old-fashioned and uninspired, I retort by simply stating that, “I don’t want to die.”

So fast-forward back to our scenario and what do we suddenly have before us? Why only what quite possibly appears to be the most intimidating and detrimental carnival ride ever conceived onto God’s green Earth. Simply gazing up at this towering deathtrap, one can only imagine how this mechanical monster ever came to be, as it’s quite clear to recognize that such torture could never be inflicted by my fellow man. Trembling uncontrollably as we approached the menace, I heard the most frightening phrase to anyone playing host to guests from out of town, “Ooh – that looks fun! Let’s do that!!!”

The ride in question was entitled “The Zipper” - maybe you’ve heard of it. For some reason unbeknownst to my mind, its creator decided that it would be quite some fun to take a whole slew of carnival-goers, pack them two-by-two into flimsy, slightly-padded steel cages, and then proceed to whip those cages around on a central axis, ignoring all previous laws of gravity, physics, and projectile vomiting. The experience was to cost about ten bucks a piece, my guess simply to distract patrons from the inevitable doom which they were about to endure, and amazingly, it worked because there I was – kissing my girlfriend goodbye as my sister and I boarded a “padded” cage aimed directly at the bowels of hell. As I heard those first bolts creak with the start of the dreaded machine, I began to wonder if it was too late to find religion…

Now I can’t honestly even describe the experience justly with words, but anyone else who’s been down this lane can vouch that at the very least, five minutes on “The Zipper” is enough to make your average rider denounce the last twenty years of their sins, reconcile any differences he or she might have with the person next to them, and explore a whirlwind debate over whether or not carnies as a whole are adequately compensated for their construction efforts of the deathtraps towering over our nation’s fairgrounds. I could also possibly mention that the trip somehow manages to empty your pockets of any coinage, car keys, and cellular phones that you might’ve forgotten to remove prior to boarding, but looking back on the situation, I think when it finally ended I was just happy to be on solid ground again.

The morale of today’s story, my friends, is don’t succumb to peer pressure, and even more so, don’t succumb to sibling pressure – it’ll get you every time unless you’re able to remain at the top of your game. Also, do your homework to examine the tourist possibilities a little more in advance and, if they exist, take whatever steps necessary to prevent all exposure to such promotional activities to prevent that dreaded, “Ooh – let’s go there!”

Besides, living here in Florida, there’s always the beach and until them sharks figure out how to mosey up on land, I think that I should be relatively safe there. Anything else, though, and you’re on your own…

Due to the overwhelming amounts of correspondence I get in regards to romantic escapades and how to score in general, I thought that it might be fitting to spread the love in a slightly larger forum and address some of your most popular questions to the masses. Ok, that and I thought it might be kind of entertaining to poke fun at the shortcomings of others…I’m like that from time to time! Anyways, I could go on and on, but instead let’s just jump right to our first e-mail…

Dear Scott,

I need your help – my girlfriend won’t have sex with me anymore, and it’s not like I haven’t been trying! It seems like every night when she gets home from her shift at the diner, it’s either “I’m too tired…” or “…seriously, I’m just too tired…” or “Damn it, John – I’m not screwing around this time!”

I mean, I understand that she works really hard putting in sixty hours a week and all, but I have needs, too. It took me nearly three weeks to get to the end of the fourth vortex in Pogo the Monkey IV: Pogo’s Revenge, so it’s not like I’ve just been sitting around all day doing nothing! All I can say is that I need some lovin’ really bad – what should I do?

Sincerely Not Getting Any,

John

Dear John,

Well brother, I know exactly how you feel – your girlfriend won’t have sex with me anymore, either! Just between you and me, I think it might be about time to start outsourcing those sexual relations, if you know what I mean… I’ve actually done the math and a moderately-priced lady of the night is, believe it or not, much cheaper than financing a girlfriend of your own on a long-term basis…as long as you don’t overdue her services, of course!

But seriously, though, it does sound like you have a real problem on your hands. In one corner, we find your girlfriend keeping her love nuggets bundled up like an Afghanistan beauty queen because she’s tired of working her ass off (figuratively speaking) while you just sit around all day. Opposite this sex denizen in disguise, we have you – a lazy, twenty-something who’s been enjoying a free ride for as long as anyone can remember, yet doesn’t understand why some of the more lucrative benefits of the adult life don’t fit into such a routine. The answer, however, is actually quite simple – get a job, you lazy bastard! I’d be pissed, too, if I were stuck serving luke-warm coffee to horny truckers all day while my partner sat at home stuffing his face and watching Judge Judy! Don’t worry – there are actually plenty of jobs where you can still sit around for the majority of the day and collect a paycheck – try your local shopping mall for starters.

You might want to consider bathing once in a while, too…

- Scott

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Yo Scott-man!

This is a little embarrassing…I don’t really know of a subtle way to start, so I’m just going to say it – I think my baby may actually be a man.

What should I do?

J-Funk

What-up, G?

Now before I begin, let me just get something out of the way first – hahahahahaha!!!

I’m sorry, but I just find it really funny that your girlfriend is packing heat…possibly even more than you are yourself! Somebody’s got shit for luck…

But I’m supposed to be helping with your problem, aren’t I? Well, for starters, before you make any drastic assumptions, you need to find yourself some definite proof that she’s a stud, and I don’t just mean that she sits around drinking beer all day and can still manage to bench-press more than you! Of course, I have no idea how you’re going to conduct this investigation – there’s definitely a limit as to just how involved I’m willing to get here – but I should also point out that it’s also kind of important that she doesn’t figure out what you’re investigating, that is if you ever want to be seen in public with her again! Nonetheless, it is quite obvious what you need to do if the results come up otherwise – run like hell and pray that she wasn’t on the track team in high school…

All in the same, though, having a masculine chick around the house doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, either! It’s always nice to have somebody who can help you move furniture, open the pickle jar, or rebuild the engine in that heap of junk outside that you refer to as a car. Just something to consider…

Although Still Not Completely Over the Fact That You’re Dating a Man,

- Scott

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Hey Baby,

Want to increase the size of your love tool by as much as 4500%?! Now you can with my all-new, completely natural miracle salve and for a very limited time, Herculean-size tube can be yours for the low, low price of only $99. That’s right – for less than a single C-note, your trouser snake can become the anaconda you’ve always dreamed of…so what are you waiting for?!?!?!?

Just send me your credit card number and I’ll be sure to rush your order right out! Hope to hear from you soon, Sugar!

XOXOXOXO,

Suzie Homemaker

Dear Suzie,

As great as your product sounds, I don’t mean to toot my own horn or anything but I’m already pretty endowed in that particular area. *wink* *wink* Yes, that’s right – it’s been said that my own Little Giant occasionally blocks out the sun on a crisp, autumn afternoon and has left dozens, if not hundreds of women with smiles like rainbows.

Wait a minute…4500%, eh? Errr, please rush three industrial-sized buckets to my office immediately – the check’s in the mail…

- Scott

Hopefully I’ve been able to help at least three or four thousand of you with your problems! If you’ve got something bothering you, however, that I haven’t addressed yet, feel free to send it my way and I’ll be sure to include it in the near future! In the meantime, keep your stick on the ice, your head out of your ass, and your web browser locked on your favorite humor site…

…hopefully this one!

Sometimes I wonder why us good guys even bother…

Take any situation and just look around you – rarely, if ever, will you see a truly equal relationship, and by that I mean one where the man and woman genuinely deserve each other. When was the last time you saw the sweet, attractive girl walking around with the nurturing, sensitive (and gorgeously handsome) man? Unless she just happened to be there collecting her child support, I’d guess not too many! Nope, instead this beautiful doll of a woman is roaming around with the scum from the bottom of the bucket – a guy who never listens to her, maybe even knocks her around every once in a while, and basically treats her like garbage…but she hangs around anyways.

If there were any justice in the world, he’d have ended up with the woman who rarely comes home before dawn more than three days a week, drinks herself to sleep those nights that she is home, and couldn’t hold a steady job to save her life, but no, no – guess who ends up with that one?! That’s right, while the good girl is off mopping up beer and chips after her boyfriend’s rowdy poker game, the good guy sits at home watching Leno, wondering which bars his girlfriend is hitting up tonight with her own drinking buddies. Two individuals whom anyone with half a brain would think were made for one another, yet they both chose their respective paths themselves – one probably out of sheer desperation and the other, well, we don’t actually know why the other chose her path, but damn it – that’s what we’re here to try to figure out in the first place!

So that’s the question at hand – Why do perfectly decent women choose to be with jerks? I’m sure that better men have psychoanalyzed this very same question, although maybe not after as many drinks as I’ve had, so just hear me out for the next few minutes. Unfortunately, this Buddhist-like question, very similar to “Why is the Earth round?” or “Why do hotdogs come in packages of ten, while hotdog buns come in packages of eight???” simply doesn’t have one definite answer, so I’ve taken the liberty of dividing my time amongst the following three theories, each just a little bit zanier than the one before…

1. Women are Idiots

Now don’t get me wrong, men are most certainly idiots, too (Wiener-Mobile, anyone?), but for the purposes of this theory, let’s just forget everything we already know about the ignorance of the human population as a whole and focus on the fairer sex for just a moment. How does that old saying go again? “Never trust anything that shops for three days and doesn’t die…” or something like that!

From the perspective of a nice, wholesome guy looking in, the entire scenario just doesn’t make any sense:

Woman wakes up and proceeds to spend countless hours primping and preparing for another night on the town.

Woman arrives at bar where she is immediately considered as prey by ever drunk and horny man within 6.2 miles.

Man approaches woman, buys her several drinks, “dances” with her and ends up taking her home at the end of the night.

Man has sex with woman…twice!

Woman, realizing that man is a complete and total scumbag, hails a cab home and cries herself to sleep that night.

Woman wakes up and proceeds to spend countless hours primping and preparing for another night on the town…

So basically the only take on this that I can manage to figure out is that in order to find a woman, one must reduce his own level down to that of a pedophilistic, drunken tree slug, and since the majority of guys that are already at this level, the ladies aren’t bright enough to keep looking until they find something a little higher up the evolutionary ladder and simply default to sleeping with whatever slithers her way. You might say that it’s not the woman’s fault if the guy’s a jerk, but if he’s a jerk, then why does she sleep with him in the first place?! I suppose it could be any combination of denial, sexual deprivation, or ever-thriving hope that there might really be an angel somewhere underneath the cutoffs and tattoos, but frankly I ain’t buying it. When all is said and done, if you can’t tell the difference between a sadistic coke-head looking for a quick screw and the man you slept with last night, you’re an idiot.

They say that ignorance is bliss? Touche.

2. The Gripes of Wrath

I think that if I had to do the math, I could honestly say that out of all of the women whom I have ever known, probably all but three have taken some sort of personal joy out of complaining…bitching and moaning…playing the role as the belligerent shrew-beast…feel free to choose whichever terms strike your fancy the most. (…wait, make that four – there was that one girl back in ’98…but I somehow managed to lose her phone number…idiot!) I used to simply blame it on PMS, but after still leaving the other twenty-eight days unaccountable, I knew that there had to be another explanation…

I have yet to actually find this explanation, but nevertheless it does help to lead us towards a solution for the task at hand – if a woman were to simply date a decent guy that’s right for her, she wouldn’t have anything to complain about! Yeah, I’m sure the occasional dishes or garbage or drop-dead gorgeous secretary with the dynamite ass that’s everything she’ll never be would come up, but those alone couldn’t possibly be enough to fill her daily quota so instead of risking the need to outsource the leftover reticule, it’s just easier for her to date a man whose bound to give her plenty to complain about! I know, it sounds a bit odd, but I never said that this was going to make any sense, now did I?

3. Fuck It – Who Wants Pie?

There are some mysteries of the universe that we’re just better off not knowing the answers to and as much as I hate to admit it, my friends, I think that this may very well be one of them! Sure, I could rack my brains day and night in search of the solution to eternal happiness; I could even establish monthly focus groups, gathering hundreds and hundreds of people in hopes of collectively uncovering the truth…and you thought that the Million Man March looked impressive! Nevertheless, when it’s all over we’ll still no doubt come up a day late or a dollar short, so maybe we’re simply better off skipping the small talk and jumping straight to dessert.

It would be safe to say that we could probably file this one away with the legend of the Bermuda Triangle, the secret ingredient in that cheesy-garlic bread at Red Lobster, and how The Anna Nicole Show ever made it on the air in the first place as yet another perpetually-unsolved mystery of modern society. I guess the only advice I can truly give to my fellow men on this Valentine’s Day would be that if somehow you have managed to find a woman who completely contradicts everything I’ve just covered, for God’s sake hold on to her and don’t let her out of your sight! Seriously, use ropes or chains if you have to because I’ll guarantee you that there’s a line of decent guys waiting a mile long to take advantage of the first time you drop the ball…

I know this because I’m one of them and I’m getting damn close to the front of the line by now! Just something to keep in mind…Happy Valentine’s Day!!!