What fun, Pygmalion starts today and even my old lazy ass is going to see a couple of shows. If you’d like to really, really have fun this weekend, here’s what you do. Go to all the venues sites and try to find Seth Fein. Once you find him, attempt to lure him into a long conversation. You might even have to hold on to his arm, but try to make him stay by you and talk about something unimportant for as long as possible. He’ll pretend he’s really busy, but that’s really none of your concern. Throw him to the ground if you have to. If you can’t find him, feel free to text or call him almost constantly.
There’s no greater joy than seeing another person working very hard and dealing with a shit ton of crap, so let’s give ourselves a little treat and bug the piss out of Seth, just so we can see where his actual breaking point is. In the meantime, let’s not enjoy this column.
MR AND MISS UNDERSTANDING
I’m often a very misunderstood kind of guy. Usually when people say this, they mean to say they are complicated or tortured or something, but I don’t mean it that way at all. I simply mean that people often really don’t understand what I’m saying. A big reason for this is because I don’t really say what I actually mean.
Lately, every time I say something is “fine,” people assume I’m not happy with it, when in fact, I’m not being a dick, it is just that, fine. I’m not thrilled and I’m not pissed, I’m just fine. When you consider that when I actually like something I say, “I don’t hate that,” fine is somewhat of a thrilled statement for me. Since it’s often worse than that, I figure we should clear up a few things that I say and then translate them so there are no longer any complications.
When I say, “I’m going to have a couple of beers,” that means I am going to get drunk. If I say, “I am going to get drunk,” that means I am going to get totally drunk. If I say, “I’m going to get really drunk,” that means you probably don’t want to be around me for a couple of days.
It turns out I can also be fairly vague when it comes to making plans. If I say, “I need to check my schedule,” that probably means I’m not going to do whatever it is you’ve asked me to do. If I say, “I’m on my way,” it means that I will leave the house within the next thirty minutes. If I say, “I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” there’s a good chance I’ll get there in an hour. If I say, “I may be out later,” there is virtually no chance I’m leaving the house. If I say, “I’m taking a quick shower, so it will be a little bit,” it generally means I’m playing Xbox and will arrive two hours from then having not showered or groomed in any fashion.
It sort of gets worse. “Do you want to grab something to eat?” actually means “Do you want to grab a few beers and then talk about eating but never actually do it and then eventually go home at last call without having ingested so much as a peanut?” If I say, “I’ll meet you at Brass Rail about five,” there’s a good chance I’ll just go ahead and get there about three and be totally cranked by the time you get there, thusly ruining your good time. If I say, “We should totally go to Silver Bullet,” it essentially means that if we don’t go there I will mention it every three minutes and bitch about it until I get my way.
As you can see, it’s not easy being misunderstood. In this case, the only thing harder than being misunderstood is being the person trying to do the understanding in the first place.
A LONG WAY TO GET THERE
I bought a cheap assed football for the dogs to play with on Saturday, but it needed some air and I couldn’t find one of those air pump needles anywhere in the garage. I know I’ve bought at least fifty of those freaking things in the course of my life, but none were to be found. They’re only about fifty cents, so I really believe it may be in my best interest to just buy about 100 of them and completely eliminate this problem from my world for the rest of my life.
Anyhow, I finally made it to the True Value store in Country Fair when they opened at 10 a.m. on Sunday and got a pump needle there. I had to wait until ten o’clock for them to open, even though the dogs and I were ready to air the ball up at about six, but it was totally worth it. I just couldn’t bring myself to go to North Prospect and wade through a super store for 45 minutes just to find a needle.
Anyway, because I’m an idiot, I ran into Big Lots while I was driving around waiting for the hardware store to open. They didn’t have needles that I could see, or even employees, for that matter, but I did find something pretty great. It was a toy kit that had everything children would need to pretend they’re a police officer. There was a toy gun to pretend to shoot people with, toy handcuffs to pretend to arrest people with, and wonderfully, a toy hand grenade to pretend to … um, blow up the fuck out of people with maybe?
I’m not 100 percent sure, but I don’t think the hand grenade is standard issue for policemen; at least I hope not. I just think it’s great that the Chinese person who designed it for his factory thinks that Americans are throwing hand grenades around all the time. Actually, it might be sort of cool.
VIDEO OF THE WEEK
This is not really visually appealing at all, but I think it’s sort of funny. It was one of those things that got passed around by cassette tape back when I was in college, you know, right after the Battle of Bull Run.
EXTRAS
- I have a feeling this is going to be a fantastic baseball postseason.
- I won’t be too long until it’s cold and the trunk of your car will actually work as a refrigerator to keep your beer perfectly cold. This is in no way an endorsement to combine the two things. I’m just saying.
- The new season of Dancing with the Stars is on. Looks like I picked a bad week to try and convince people I’m not all gay and shit.
Buona Sera, Senorina, kiss me goodnight.