First of all, if you don't know who The Bloggess is, none of this will make any sense to you, so you should probably go over there and check her out before you read any further. Actually, first of all, if you don't know who The Bloggess is, how the hell have you even heard of me? Go and check her out. Faster! Done? Good. OK, second of all—actually, you know what? I just made my original "first of all" irrelevant since now you already know who she is, so everything I say will totally make sense to you, by which I mostly mean you have the background to understand things that happened yesterday and references that were made. I can't really make any guarantees regarding your reading comprehension. Or my ability to express anything coherently, especially given the fact that I don't even know what this paragraph is about anymore. Let's just start over.
So, yesterday I went to the Let's Pretend This Never Happened World Tour Of Mostly Texas So Far, even though they say you're not supposed to meet your heroes. Or your heroines. Or do heroin. Apparently it can "ruin the mystery" or something. Meeting your heroes/heroines does, not doing heroin. Maybe doing heroin does, too. I don't know. I've never done heroin. After this paragraph, you probably don't believe that.
Don't do heroin. It ruins the mystery.
Anyway, those people are full of shit, and possibly heroin, so you really shouldn't listen to them. Meet your heroes. And if one of those heroes happens to be Nathan Fillion, bring some twine and a friend with a camera so you can throw the twine at Nater Tater in a "think fast!" sort of way and your friend can take a picture of him just as he catches it. Send it to Jenny@thebloggess.com. It was her idea, anyway. If you had been there yesterday, you would have known that already. If you want to recreate the experience, you can try listening to the audiobook while looking at a picture of her. Then imagine she's also adding extra commentary that makes it even funnier. See? It's like you were totally there!
Of course, I forgot my twine at home because I'm terrible at planning ahead, so then I had to ask around at work, but nobody had any because who the fuck brings twine to the library? So then I just had to make this sign out of a Star Wars fruit snacks box like I was some kind of twine beggar.
I tried taking some pictures while she was reading, but the camera on my phone is lazy or needs glasses or something, so they could all just as well have been of Bigfoot or Nessie or maybe a unicorn. Apparently the strain of all the mythological creatures was so great that my phone died of exhaustion.
I swear, she's totally in this picture. Probably.
AND THEN I HIGH-FIVED THE BLOGGESS! But I don't have any pictures of it because it's almost impossible to take a picture of yourself spontaneously high-fiving someone as they're walking by. Also, my phone was still dead from exhaustion, so really I would have been randomly waving it around with one hand while high-fiving a moving target with the other. Awkward. Even for me, who saw David Sedaris in Austin and told him this story about...I don't even fucking know, but it was like 5 minutes long and didn't even make any sense because it was like 2 in the morning and I'd been standing in line for like 7 hours. He actually signed my book "OK, then."
I only had to stand in line for like 2 hours this time, which didn't make me completely incoherent, but did give me time to read a chapter of Mockingjay and also to try to figure out what the fuck these events were even about.
Also, we didn't so much follow the rules of Story Time. It was still fun for everyone.
And then I actually met her (as well as Juanita and Copernicus). The whole thing was seriously awesome. Also, it's been noted that I'm almost Nathan Fillion.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew to Glasgow for a friend's wedding, and also "accidentally" stopped in Dublin for a few days on the way there because my wife is actually made out of awesome incarnate. And probably also because we paid the airline to bring us there. But mostly the first one. Anyway, we went and it was fantastic and we both found amazing jobs and never came back because we live there now. Except for the parts of that that didn't happen.
ADVICE FOR PEOPLE RETURNING FROM AWESOME TRIPS:
Nobody wants to hear about your trip actually, even if they directly ask you "how was your trip?" because it always sounds like you're being a braggadouche, and they just start talking about jelly for some reason and then I have to go make some toast. Nobody wins here. Except me, because now I have toast.
Anyway, the whole trip was seriously full of win, but I'll skip a lot of it because I know that your inverse schadenfreude doesn't want to hear about it, and this isn't Lonely fucking Planet. This is a way more fucked-up kind of guidebook. With chapters.
CHAPTER 1
ADVICE FOR AMERICANS TRAVELING TO NOT AMERICA:
You don't have to learn the whole fucking language every time you go to another country, but you should at the very least learn one fucking phrase: "Do you speak English?" This will get you much farther than either slaughtering foreign verbs or shouting things in English will. However, you will also find it extremely useful to know what the primary language is in the first fucking place. Otherwise, you'll probably end up being the dipshit who says this:
Bartender With Mild Dublin Accent: What'll it be? Dipshit At The Table Next To Us: Uh, English, please. Incredulous Bartender (louder, and very slowly): Do. You. Want. Anything. To. Eat?
We were actually embarrassed for this douchetard. Actually, that's not true. What we were really embarrassed by was the possibility that we might somehow accidentally be associated with him. Although, on the plane to Dublin, a flight attendant mistook us for Dubliners because we saved our coffee cups and reused them the next time they came around with the beverages. Implications abound. Us: 1. Other Americans: 0.
When you are in Dublin, mostly you will drink a lot of Guinness and see a lot of castles and libraries and Oscar Wilde and other things that are awesome. Also, this:
This place was everyfuckingwhere. It's like the Starbucks of Dublin. No, seriously:
For people in America, Burma/Myanmar, and Liberia, 1 km = roughly half a mile. Also, learn the fucking metric system. You're embarrassing yourselves.
In a wonderful stroke of irony, they all close at like 7 PM. Insomnia: You're doing it wrong.
Also, you know how, in America, all the soda companies are always giving shit away "under the cap?" Apparently they do that in Ireland and the UK, too, except instead of an Xbox or something, you can win pants. I kind of love them for this:
In UK English, "pants" = "underwear."
CHAPTER 2
Aer Lingus kind of sounds like another way to join the Mile High Club, but actually it's the national airline of Ireland. It's really cheap to fly Aer Lingus from Dublin to Glasgow, so people use them all the time if they can't find a trebuchet and don't have time to swim there.
When you take a flight like this, you don't do the whole walk-down-a-ramp-directly-onto-the-plane thing. You get in a fucking bus, and you sit there for like ten minutes before they tell you that they had accidentally scheduled you on a giant bottle rocket instead of a plane, so you'll have to wait inside for half an hour while they see if they can find something that won't kill everyone inside once it gets into the sky. Eventually, you get back on the bus,which takes all nine of you directly up to the plane, and you just get on. Then you wait another half an hour while they call somebody with a fucking screwdriver an engineer to come and fix the "dodgy locker" that won't close. Once that's done, you drive in a big circle all the way around the airport at about two miles an hour and park in the exact spot you started from while the captain explains that he's just noticed that the engine is full of explode and you'll have to get on a different plane. Once that happens, it's really just another forty-five minutes or so before you take off.
It's pretty much exactly like this:
CHAPTER 3
In America, almost everyone who reads my name for the first time calls me Mr. Glasgow. In Scotland, this did not happen even one time, but they must have known I was coming, because when we got there, THEY THREW US A FUCKING PARADE.
Somehow, they misspelled our names as "H.M. Queen Elizabeth II."
And then I put on a kilt, which is possibly the greatest piece of clothing ever designed. You're probably not familiar with all the parts required to transform yourself into a walking representation of awesome, so I've compiled a guide to help you.
INSERT: GUIDE TO KILTS FOR AMERICANS
1. Kilt
Known to Americans as a "plaid skirt," but better described as "30 pounds of awesome." Actually, it weighs as much as a suit of armor, and wraps around you FOUR HUNDRED TIMES! FACT: It is physically impossible for a man not to look good while wearing a kilt.
2. Kiltpin
This is just a giant safety pin that holds the flappy part of your kilt in place. It's also awesome because plaid + safety pin = punk rock, which was kind of born in the UK. (Everyone with a comment on this: shut up. Bitching about who was first just makes you a hipster-ass hipster.) Also, it's shaped like a sword because of The Highlander, probably.
3. Jacket and Waistcoat
This is really just a regular dress jacket and a vest, but they give every style a name like "Sherrifmuir" or "Prince Charlie" to make it sound more authentic and awesome.
4. Ruche Tie
=CRAVAT. Kind of boring, actually, but awesome by association.
5. Sporran
This is a pouch which hangs from your waist and holds stuff in exactly the same way a purse does, but which the man in the shop repeatedly referred to rather emphatically as a "pocket." It's made of material that feels like fuzzy awesome. Everyone around you will come up to you and stroke your sporran. You'll probably even stroke it a little yourself.
6. Awesome Socks
Self-explanatory, even for Americans. If you hire a kilt, you get to keep these. If you actually buy one and you don't get to keep these, you're doing it wrong.
7. Sock Flashes
These are little flags that strap on at the top of your Awesome Socks to make them even more awesome. Also, they match your kilt, so you can remember that those are your legs because you're probably not used to seeing them look this awesome.
8. Ghillie Brogues
These are shoes with 18-foot (147-meter) laces, designed to allow you to use them as weapons/grappling hooks/jump ropes look fancy. Also, they give you +1 to Awesome.
9. Knifey Thing
This is called a Sgian Dhu by people who are not American. This is an ACTUAL KNIFE that you can use to stab less awesome, non-kilt-wearing people in the face. In your mind. If you stab someone in the actual face with your actual Knifey Thing, you will probably go to an actual Scottish prison.
10. Alcohol
This is not officially part of the kilt, but it might as well be. It makes you feel awesome (until it doesn't).
CHAPTER 4
Having received some dodgy directions from the kid at the hotel, we set out for the wedding that was the whole reason we were even here in the first place. Upon discovering that our directions were shit, we asked a series of increasingly clueless people how to get to the chapel at the big-ass-university-that-we-eventually-discovered-was-practically-around-the-fucking-corner. The penultimate time we asked somebody this, we were directed to an awesome-looking man nearby who was wearing a kilt and playing the bagpipes. "Ask the piper. He'll know." He did. We didn't get a picture of him because we had to get to the wedding and didn't want to be the Late-Ass Americans, but he still deserves to be mentioned because this is the exactly the kind of shit that happens to us all. The fucking. Time.
CHAPTERS 5-7
These chapters have gone missing due in large part to Item 10 in the Guide to Kilts for Americans.
Not practiced here.
CHAPTER 8
When we got up the next morning afternoon, we became very good friends with the local water supply, then went out to find some really strong coffee and, y'know, Glasgow.
We found a shop where the existence of children was called into question:
There's another shop down the road for people who think they're just a myth.
Also, these signs were everywhere, which really made me wonder how they don't get vandalized more.
I didn't actually do this because I didn't have any spray paint I'm a mature adult.
At the grocery store, we learned an important lesson:
They're just called "muffins" here.
AND THEN THIS HAPPENED:
ACTUAL TARDIS = SO. MUCH. WIN.
We spent several years traveling through time and space, and we probably saved the universe a few times, but I promised you I wouldn't tell any stories about awesome stuff, so we totally just took some pictures and left.
EPILOGUE, OR SOMETHING
This is the part where I reveal the SURPRISE TWIST ENDING! ZOMG, IT'S A FUCKING SLED, AND BRUCE WILLIS HAS BEEN DEAD THE WHOLE TIME! Also, we got on a plane and came home. After we took off, they announced that they would be serving beverages, etc., and that beer and wine would be COMPLIMENTARY! I thought that this was the most amazing thing I had ever heard, until I actually saw what they were giving away:
This isn't even box wine. This is wine from A FUCKING CARTON!
And then I spent the entire flight reading a real, made-of-paper book, and then had to use my Kindle to write because I didn't have any paper. Or a pen. Technology: You're doing it wrong.
Please don't take this as a reflection on the quality of the book. It's actually one of the greatest, most hilarious things I've ever read. It's really more of a reflection on the quantity of items on the plane that could reasonably function as a bookmark. (P.S. Apparently "bookmarks" is a word, but "bookmark" isn't. Thanks, autocorrect. Also, it does say "feel better," which is actually an important benefit of reading the book. But not through vomiting. Through laughter. Also also, I think I'm missing a parenthesis. Clearly, it was easier to keep typing than to go back and fix it. Also also also, this may be the longest caption in the history of ever. It could almost be its own chapter. I'm going to stop now before I waste my entire battery just writing about inappropriate bookmarks and whether or not "bookmark" is a real word. Oh, and laziness. OK, I'm done now. Probably. Fuck.
I've never exactly given enough fuck to be bothered to spend copious
amounts of time trying to make my hair look all perfect. If it takes longer than about thirty seconds, I'm probably going to give up and just go out with it looking however it did when I lost interest often much to the chagrin of my wife. And I can't even remember the
last time I actually paid somebody to cut it. The closest thing I've ever had to a stylist was my friend Jess, who used to cut my hair into mohawks and dye it green or blue or whatever sometimes until she moved to Far The Fuck Away, and I started just doing it myself. Mostly, I use the four-year-old method, which is where you just sort of grab and cut until it's generally shorter. Except most four-year-olds probably don't ask their wife to fix the spots they can't see so that it doesn't end up looking entirely ridiculous when they're done.
Pretty much, this is how I decide when it's time to cut my hair: I wake up, shamble over to the mirror, and look at my reflection. If I look like me, it's OK, but if I look like someone famous, it's probably time to cut it. Eventually.
In other news, this is still not a travel update. That's tomorrow.
You'd think I would have accomplished more in that time.
Anyway, I don't have a real post for today, but here's the first thing I ever posted here, two years ago today (P.S. It's funnier if you imagine Lewis Black's voice when you read it):
Someone told me today that the Census Bureau has a PSA featuring Dora the Explorer. The first coherent thought I was able to have was “what the fuck?” I think that, first of all, if I were trying to decide whether or not to fill out my census form, and I saw a commercial in which a cartoon character from a children’s network tried to convince me to do so, I would throw it the fuck away. Then I would move to a country that took itself seriously.
I have to admit that I haven’t seen it yet–hence my ability still to type coherently–but I’ve discovered so far that it’s part of a campaign called “Children Count, Too,” which attempts to counteract the apparently common problem of parents who forget to count their young children when filling out the census form. Fair enough–maybe–but who are they marketing this to? Are there children filling out the census form? If so, this could help to eliminate the error of not counting oneself, a common mistake among children, especially those under the age of five, who HAVE NO BUSINESS FILLING OUT A FUCKING CENSUS FORM.
Or do they expect these children to take on the responsibility of reminding their parents to count them? If you can’t remember how many children you have, the answer should be zero, because you are a shitty parent.
Last Christmas, my wife and I put our names in one of those "you-could-totally-win-stuff-if-you-just-give-us-more-personal-information-than-you're-comfortable-with-and-let-us-harass-you-about-super-special-deals-until-the-zombie-apocalypse-happens-but-actually-even-after-that-because-then-a-zombie-shambles-up-to-your-door-and-instead-of-being-all-'bra-a-a-a-ains'-it's-like-'de-e-e-e-als'" things because we're fucking stupid why not? (Just keep reading; I'll answer that. Also, that's way too damn many hyphens.) Anyway, after that, we pretty much forgot about it, which probably would have been the best possible ending for the story, but when you're the kind of person who gets picked up by the short bus while hitchhiking (no, seriously), that ending is never a real option anyway.
It should be a sign when you get a letter that tells you that you have to call a phone number that tells you that you have to drive to the Happy Dipshit Resort in fucking Flint, Texas and sit through a 90-minute presentation in order to claim your prize. It was, but we chose to ignore it because who doesn't want a free trip to Vegas? Us, ever again.
Chapter One: "Mistakes Were Made."
At first, it kind of sounds like fun: you pack some snacks and drinks and take a few-hour road trip. And at the end, FREE TRIP TO VEGAS! Since no one has ever been to Flint on purpose, I drew you a map:
On your way there, you will pass:
A rather seriously misnamed "mobile home" on blocks, with about 15 equally immobile cars in the yard.
A restaurant called Maggie's with a sign out front that says "COED." (Don't try to tell me East Texas isn't progressive.)
Some cows and trees, spaced very far apart.
Trust me, all this will come in useful later when you suggest that there's nothing to do in Satan's Asshole Flint, and your Vacation Ownership Representative gets all pissy and spits back "do you even know this area?" Yes, we drove through THREE FUCKING HOURS of it on the way here.
Immediately upon entering the building, two things become apparent to us:
This "resort" is exclusively for people who will never be invited to a country club.
We have made a huge fucking mistake in coming here.
There are screaming children all.The fuck. Over. We find the area that seems to have to fewest unsupervised banshee spawn and sit down by a table, except it's not actually a real table; it's a carpeted checkerboard with legs. A child comes running up, pushes past me, jumps one piece all around the board, then runs off again. In one corner of the room, there is a TV that cost more than most of the people here make in a month playing America's Funniest Home Videos on an endless loop. THE BOB SAGET VERSION. Next to me is Jake from Evil Dead II. Across the checkerboard from us is a skinny, bearded old man who looks like he would be more comfortable playing a banjo shirtless on the front porch. It's like a Cracker Barrel threw up in here. Jake asks me if we got VIP tickets, as though this were not asshat wankery, but a real thing that conferred some type of privileged status. This is most people's version of hell.
Forty-five minutes after being told we'd be going in right away, we're sitting in the Bullshit Lounge waiting for our Vacation Ownership Representative to show up so we can get this the fuck over with. We were expecting some Slick McDouche wearing a Rolex, so you can imagine our surprise when instead he turns out to be the self-proclaimed "best skateboarder in East Texas. No, seriously, just mention his name in Dallas and you'll see." What we'll actually see in a few minutes is that he should probably wear a helmet more often.
Chapter Two: "Something Witless This Way Comes."
Roughly the first ten minutes of our 90-minute* presentation involved rolling up every socially awkward sitcom character in television history into some kind of Mega Wank with logorrhea and a tenuous grasp of geography, and allowing him to ramble endlessly in the kind of way that would have given Miss Manners a seizure. The proper response to finding out that someone you're talking to has lost the relative you just asked about—no matter how far in the past—is to feel slightly embarrassed and say "I'm so sorry for your loss." Somewhat less acceptable is pontificating for FIVE FUCKING MINUTES on the deeper meaning of death. Seriously, he would not. Stop. Talking. About it. Twice we thought he was done, but then he started up again on some new tangent about "a better place," or some other clichéd bullshit. Then he asked us about past vacations and used some really sketchy match to show us how much money we would waste over the next 20 years. Also, he asked us where the Mediterranean was. "Um, it's between Europe and Africa. Unless we're playing Carmen Sandiego. Then it could be anywhere."
*Individual experience may vary.
A skeptical Jake appears!
Timeshare Salesman uses SKETCHY MATH!
Other things you don't do when you're trying to sell someone something (sadly, an abridged list):
Use the phrase "man cave." Especially when describing the bathroom, and in conjunction with the phrase "do some paperwork."
Proceed to shut your prospective customers in said bathroom together, then jump out from behind a wall with the "Surprise!" face and jazz hands when they come out.
Use any of the following words or phrases: "jizz," "shitting bricks," "fuck."
Smell like pot. Or try to blame it on the maintenance staff.
Get defensive and try to argue with your prospective customer about how much they'll enjoy whatever the hell it is you're selling.
Fuck around for so long that you take FOUR FUCKING HOURS to get through a 90-minute presentation, especially when another salesperson laps you more than once.
I tried to keep an open mind. I really did...ish. Unfortunately, even my patience runs out after the first couple of hours, so I just gave up and started fucking with him.
After making us list "five places you absolutely want to go sometime" for about the sixth time:
VOR: "Are you ready for this?" [He opens the door onto a tiny patio.] "Behold, your view of the beach in Fiji!" [It's a fucking parking lot.]
Me: "You've got a lot of cars parked in your ocean. All that salt water can't be good for them."
While showing us the camping area:
VOR: "You can even stay in a Lincoln log cabin!"
Me: "Is it made of real Lincoln Logs?"
VOR: "It's a Lincoln log cabin."
Chapter Three: "You Will Deny Me Three Times."
Finally, we return to the Bullshit Lounge for the coup de grâce (we fucking hope)—twenty more minutes about some three-letter company whose name I can't remember because my brain had actually shut off at this point, but which represents THE ULTIMATE INTERNATIONAL VACATION OWNERSHIP EXCHANGE PROGRAM! He flips through his encyclopedia of resorts, apparently intent on showing us every single one of the 5000 fucking places in the world we could stay for just $199 a month (not including meals or airfare) and circles his sketchy math a few more times, conclusively proving how fantastic it is. Meanwhile, my wife has turned into a Salvador Dalí painting on my shoulder. I actually say "yeah, circles don't impress me all that much." And anyway, we all know the steps to this particular dance.
Skate or Die makes us a terrible offer, in the hopes that we're absolute fucktards who actually bought any of the bullshit he just fed us interested. We're not.
He calls his "supervisor" over to see if she can offer us a better deal because she "has more authority to make a deal" than he does. She turns out to be a reanimated version of my Grandma Leone, with Flo-Jo nails. She tells me I have a "good Bible name" and makes an offer that cuts out about 75% of the "benefits" and about 15% of the price, and we suggest 5000 places she can stick it.
Zombie Grandma Flo-Jo sighs at us and goes to have a cigarette talk to her supervisor to see if she can get us an EVEN BETTER deal, which is "really not very likely," but "it can't hurt to try." Meanwhile, Stoney Hawk asks "do you guys know what you just said no to?" Yes, in fact, we do, and it's not unlike syphilis.
Magically, all of the benefits are restored, and the price drops to half of the original offer. This is presumably meant to be a fucking steal, so I carefully look at all the numbers, count on my fingers while mumbling to myself, and say that I think it sounds like a great deal. Then I look Grandma Pall Mall right in the eye and say "no" LIKE A MOTHERFUCKING CHAMP. Everyone walks away without even thanking us, and I tell Captain Cannabis "thanks for playing."
The Regional Supervisor, who is totally real and has nothing fucking better to do on an entire Saturday than frown at strangers who don't want syphilis, sends us to another building where we have to wait another hour to be treated with full-on dickery for insisting that there will actually be room for both of us to come back to the prize room, even if one of us has to stand. Also, you can only take the free Vegas trip in the middle of the fucking week, in the hopes that you just won't go and then they won't have to pay for it.
Timeshare Salesman uses CIRCLES! It's not very effective.
But then, on the way home, we decided to stop at this tiny Mexican restaurant that had a little trouble with signs, but also gave out free margaritas on Saturdays. Apparently the moral of the story is that I will give away ten hours of my life for free booze and a trip to Las Vegas.
Good thing I brought my ASIA card.
FREE. Also, I didn't have to wait four fucking hours to find out I could only drink it on a Tuesday.
So, today is Easter, which is all about chocolate and jellybeansone of two days a year you go to church not Christmas.
To help you understand some of the differences between these two holidays, I've put together this half-assed handy guide.
AWARENESS
We spend months and months preparing for Christmas, but Easter sneaks up on us every fucking year.
This is how you find out it's Christmas:
October 31:
While staggering walking down the street dressed as a Slutty Sexy Something-or-Other, you glance in a store window and see a fiber-optic tree and some fake snow, which you promptly forget about once you black out.
November 1:
The faint memory of an unnamed horror gnaws at the back of your mind until you recover from your hangover and venture out, only to hear Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer playing in the mall.
Thanksgiving Day:
FOOD COMA. Today is the official beginning of the winter wealthfest holiday season. Probably, you put up your huge fuckoff cat toy Christmas tree this evening. Also, the Führer of the Socialist Liberals for Satan Party declares the War on Christmas (again).
The Day After Thanksgiving:
Today is the biggest fucking spend-orgy in the world. It's called Black Friday because you wake up in total darkness to savesaveSAVE on GREAT DEALS! and because of the black coffee you need to drink to drag your ass out of bed early enough to win at materialism. For the entire rest of the fucking year, you will hear so much Christmas music that you will actually begin to resent joy.
December 1:
You get an Advent calendar—one of those things with 25 little doors that's supposed to teach you Patience and help you count down to Christmas through cheap, shitty chocolate—and you open the door labeled "1."
December 2:
You tell Patience to go fuck itself and open doors 2-25 and gorge yourself on cheap, shitty chocolate. You don't need help counting down to Christmas because from here on out, your TV will tell you how many shopping days you've got left. Every. Fucking. Day.
December 24:
All regular TV programming is cancelled and replaced with a million last-minute shopping reminders that say ZOMGWALMARTAMAZONBESTBUYMACY'SFORTHELOVEOFGODBUYMORESHIT! At 6pm, you switch to TBS and watch A Christmas Story TWELVE TIMES IN A ROW!!!
December 25:
You wake up and distribute an entire The Price Is Right showcase to everyone in your house, just to prove you totally care more about them than other people do celebrate the birth of the Savior. YOU WIN AT CHRISTMAS! Probably, somebody mentions Jesus, and the name sounds vaguely familiar.
Usually, you find out it's Easter when you have this phone conversation on a Saturday evening:
Relative: So we'll be over after church tomorrow, probably around twelve-thirty, one o'clock. You: ...the fuck for? Relative: Easter. You know, ham. Chocolate eggs. You: Um, shit.
Then you spend the next twelve hours frantically cleaning your house, because you haven't done it since they came over for Christmas.
THE PARTY
Unless I misunderstood, the whole point of Christianity was that Jesus came here as a human, tried to teach us not to be selfish douchetards, and then sacrificed himself to save our sorry asses. Without Easter, Christmas means exactly nothing. It's like if Superman ended as soon as he reached Earth. Nobody gets saved from anything, he just fucking shows up and then the credits roll. There's a guaranteed fucking Oscar winner.
It's like football fans having a huge party to kick off the season, with like 30 kegs of beer and celebrities and all that food that Jesus told us to share with the poor. Everybody's screaming and cheering and spraying champagne all over. Somebody throws Gatorade on the Pope. And your team hasn't even played one fucking game yet. It's the beginning of the season; nothing's happened yet. You're not even in the stadium. You're still tailgating. That's Christmas in America, every year.
Then, a few months later, it's the Super Bowl. You've played you ass off and fought your way through the playoffs. In the first quarter of the game, it's that scene with Lawrence Taylor and Joe Theisman, and you know it's fucking over. Your star quarterback will never even walk again. But then, somehow, right at the two-minute warning, he strides back onto the field and plows through everyone by himself to win the Super Bowl. This is what the whole season was for, and you were in the kitchen getting another beer. You're like "what happened? I only watch this for the commercials. We won? Whatever, yeah, that's great, I guess. Man, did you see that one with the Vader kid? That was awesome!" That's how we celebrate Easter.
YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG
The only thing that makes sense about this is that you can market the shit out of Christmas. We've latched onto this one throwaway line in the story about gifts, and it's exploded completely out of control. We've got advertisements like "Where did the Wise Men get their gifts? Well, if they were really wise men, they came to Macy's After Thanksgiving Sale for our fantastic Doorbuster specials! First hundred customers get a bag of myrrh and an MP3 player! Doors open 3 B.C. Don't forget, if you don't buy, Jesus will cry."
But you can't market Easter, because it's a botched assassination attempt. It's like celebrating John Wilkes Booth Day or Lee Harvey Oswald Day. So instead, we've just got pastel eggs and chocolate rabbits, because that was the best sales pitch anyone could come up with.
Anyway, happy Easter. Or if you don't celebrate Easter, then at least maybe you don't have to work today.
A few weeks ago, I had to do a factory reset on my phone because it suddenly decided to get half-my-media Alzheimer's and also to change all my alarm sounds from loudasfuck.mp3 to a quarter-second of a sound that may actually have been called "Pin Drop."
Of course, the conversation in the Verizon store went something like this:
Me: About a week ago, my phone started acting like a douche. Verizon: Have you tried rebooting it? Me: About four times a day. Verizon: Have you tried the other reboot where you take the battery off? Me:See previous comment. Verizon: Have you installed any third-party apps? Because it's totally always their fault. Me: It started exactly when I installed the software upgrade following your exact directions. Verizon: Yeah, that's also somehow not our fault. We're going to do a factory reset, which will erase all your shit. Then you won't have to worry about your phone finding it! Me: Yeah, I know. That's why I backed up all my shit before I came in here.
[Side note: factory reset fixed the alarm, but it still can't find half my pictures and shit without having to reboot. Each time. The HTC CrapShoot™, only at Verizon.]
Pretty much every day of my life, I'm trying to type completely normal stuff like "snark" and my phone is all "you must've meant SmarTone-Vodafone. I'll go ahead and fix that for you" (true story. Also: what the fuck?). But if I type something like "i'm" and expect autocorrect to capitalize it for me, it goes "wow, what a fascinating new word that's completely unlike the exact thing I suggested when you typed it! Let me add that to your user dictionary!" Autocorrect is a dick.
Although, sometimes it does get me.
Of course, the factory reset wiped out my user dictionary, too, but in the couple of weeks since then, these are all the words that I've taught it:
Based just on this list, you'd think that I was some kind of vegetarian roller derby nerd who spends all his time watching Doctor Who while eating Indian food and cursing. And you'd be pretty much exactly right. Way to go, my integrity.
