Taking applications for a new best friend

It's all this lady's fault.

If you follow me on Twitter, (Editor’s note: You don’t.) you probably noticed that last week’s Funday Monday festivities were, at worst, pretty solid and, at most, the things we’ll be telling our grandkids about:

#fundaymonday was pretty cool. Barry met some girl and I had some mozzarella sticks. Can’t wait until next week.

Sounds good, right? Until a week later I call Barry on Sunday night to decide if we’ll be starting this week’s Funday Monday at Chuck E. Cheese’s or back behind McDonald’s where we hang out with all the employees on their smoke break. That’s when Barry asks me if it’s cool if Donna, the girl he met, comes along.

I have nothing against Donna. She’s a lovely woman who worked as a riveter during World War II and I think she makes Barry really happy. But Funday Monday isn’t about inclusion. It’s about Barry and me painting the town red and maybe seeing some boobs.

So I told Barry you have to choose between me or Donna and he chose Donna. So I was left sitting alone on the funnest day of the week while Barry and Donna went out and painted the town red and probably saw all kinds of boobs.

Now I’m left with a few choices:

1. Hope that Barry and Donna break up between now and next Monday.
2. Hope that Donna dies between now and next Monday.
3. Hope that World War III starts between now and next Monday and Donna has to return to her work as a riveter.
4. Get a girlfriend of my own. But the local community college won’t let me on campus anymore and I won’t date anyone over the age of 20.
5. Go it alone on Funday Monday, but then who will be there to hear my jokes?
6. Find a new best friend.

So unless No. 1 or No. 2 happens between now and next Monday, it looks like I’m probably in the market for a new best friend. I don’t know if I can replace Barry’s entrepenurial spirit and his hair that always smells like strawberries, but I don’t really have a choice.

Anyway, here’s the job description if you’re interested or if you know anyone else in the market for a best friend.

My New Best Friend

Looking for someone who can not only be a sounding board for some pretty intense and amazing ideas and who can help run my presidential campaign and is free on Mondays for some really good times.

Essential Responsibilities

• Various best friends things including listening, talking, eating with me, and hooking me up with your hot friends. (Editor’s note: No dude friends – unless you’re friends with Brad Pitt.)
• Letting me borrow money sometimes because I might have busted a window over at Mr. Johnson’s house because I’m still mad he called the cops on me when I decided to try and make a little extra cash by letting people park on his front lawn for the Fourth of July parade last year, but he knows my mom’s yard has too many trees to park cars on and I wasn’t going to allow any heavy vehicles to park in his yard but what was I supposed to do because that bus was already committed to parking in that spot and there was no way the driver could have turned around without causing some kind of massive pile-up and at $5 an axle I was really set to cash in and if he’d have just let me explain I’d have told him that I was going to cut him in at 1% of the profits minus my 10% cut for being the middle man in the transaction.
• Coming over and holding my hand at night when I have that dream about the bear eating Michael Knight.
• Transcribing my thoughts that I scribble on Wendy’s napkins in to blog posts that generate tens of page views.
• Distracting my mom while I try and get her nice couch out of the living room because I might have accidentally posted it on CraigsList for sale and now there’s no turning back since the guy who bought it has pretty much told me to produce the couch or he’s going to kill me.
• Making sure my mom doesn’t find out I traded her couch for Applebee’s gift cards.

Required Skills and Experience

• Drive a really fast car.
• Demonstrated ability to let your best friend borrow your really fast car for driving and for boning in.
• Making mozzarella sticks, either from scratch for from those T.G.I. Friday’s frozen ones you buy at the grocery store.
• A recent bank statement showing enough available funds to buy some kind of rocket ship. I’d like a new one, but I’d settle for one of those Russian ones they used to use all the time as long as the dead space monkey isn’t still in it.
• Connections in the radio, television, and film industries as well as some decent mafia connections, just in case.
• Refusal to accept February 29th as a real day and act accordingly. In other words, anything that happened on February 29th, didn’t actually happen, and I’m fairly certain a jury of my peers would agree. (Editor’s note: Fingers crossed.)
• Knowing some mermaids would be a really big plus. As long as they aren’t fat mermaids. Or dude mermaids.

It’s pretty easy work. You probably won’t get paid for it, but I did find this kind of cool investment opportunity and all I have to do is get 10 of my friends to invest and once they get 10 of their friends to invest and those friends get 10 of their friends to invest this thing should really bring in a lot of money, so then maybe I’d pay you a little bit. But probably not.

I’m facing a bit of a dilemma

So I know I haven’t posted anything in a while, but to be fair it’s been a tough few weeks. It all starts with this:

I’m building a robot.

For the record, this has nothing to do with the time machine I’m working on, though there was a time when I thought maybe I’d build the robot to drive the time machine. But that just doesn’t make sense.

I’m actually building my robot for a number of tasks, not the least of which are landscaping, dentistry and the occasional reorganization of my filing cabinets. To answer the question I know you’re asking, I have at least four filing cabinets (that I know of) and they are all at least a quarter full of non-alphabetized recipes, diary entries and robot blueprints (which would really come in handy right about now if only I could find them in my completely disorganized filing cabinets).

In a perfect world, my robot would also be used for companionship, but I think a robot is awfully high maintenance as it is and robot sex seems awkward … and a bit creepy. (Editor’s note: By “creepy” I mean “awesome.”)

So anyway, I was working on my robot and I decided to head over to the local fabric store in search of some buttons I could use as eyes. I was going to use gum drops for eyes but realized those might melt or get eaten by the small children my robot kidnaps. (Editor’s note: My robot is also for kidnapping small children.) So I decided on buttons and I think it will ultimately be a good decision.

If you don’t know, the fabric store is a horrible place. It’s nothing but scented decorative items and old people. I’m not a fan of old people. Not because they scare me, but because I find it unnatural to live past the age of 40 and I plan on not doing it. If things go my way, I’ll die at age 39 in a fiery skiing accident and leave all my worldly possessions to my robot.

So I grabbed a couple of buttons out of one of the button drawers and I was standing in line and this old lady behind me asked me why I was buying so many buttons. Not wanting to divulge too much information, I told her it’s for a project and she asked what the project was and I told her it’s top-secret and she just shrugged and went back to waiting in line and I told her it’s for a robot I was building and I probably just told her too much and from there one thing led to another and I ended up kidnapping her and tying her up in my mom’s basement.

Needless to say, I’m now in a bit of a pickle. My mom rarely goes down to the basement, but the next time she decides to mop the kitchen floor (which could be soon since I just spilled two gallons of Juicy Juice everywhere and I’m sure as hell not going to mop it up) she’s going to need to go down there and she’s going to find that old lady and I’m going to be screwed. If my robot were done, I’d set him to evil for a few minutes and, I would assume, during his tirade of destruction he’d eventually kill the old lady and I’d be pretty much guilt-free because I wasn’t the one that stabbed her in the neck with a fork, but that’s not a reliable option. I also could hope that nature will run its course and she’ll die of old age in the next day or two, but my friend Barry came over and checked her out and he said she’s perfectly healthy. Barry’s not a doctor but he has every John Stamos season of ER on DVD, so he knows his stuff.

So I told my mom not to go in the basement for a little while because I needed to sleep down there because it was too hot up on the roof of the garage, which makes no sense because it’s the middle of winter so I set the garage on fire so my excuse would make sense. But that’s only going to keep her from getting suspicious for so long because I’m not really supposed to be in the house at all and the aforementioned Juicy Juice incident will only expedite her inevitable trip downstairs.

As a last-ditch effort, I offered the old lady a job helping me with my robot. You’d think that in this economy she’d be more grateful for the opportunity, but she just spit on me and told me her husband was a World War II veteran and he would kill me once he found out I kidnapped her. So now I not only have to figure out how to keep my mom out of the basement but I have to study up on trench warfare and buy some barbed wire, too, because I’ll have a crazed World War II veteran coming after me. (Editor’s note: Is there any other kind of World War II veteran?)

Barry and I decided it was time to call an emergency meeting. He invited a friend of his named Dale. He’s a bow-hunter and I guess he applied for a job with the CIA, but they turned him down because he’s a little too dangerous for them.

Dale told me he could take care of the old lady for me, which sounded good until I realized what he meant by taking care of her. (Editor’s note: He didn’t mean feed her, bathe her and take her for walks.) He also wanted $5,000 to do it. I’ve done a lot of crazy things in my life, but I’ve never had anyone assassinated and I wasn’t about to start now. Plus, I don’t have that kind of money to spend on assassinations, at least not in cash form. I asked if he took Discover, but he didn’t, which is good since I don’t have a Discover card anyway.

Meanwhile, the old lady’s getting mad (and starting to smell a little) because she’s apparently hungry and needs to use the restroom and she’s still kind of upset about the whole being tied up in my basement thing, though I think she’s kind of warming up to the idea. I looked up Alzheimer’s disease on WebMD, but it seems unlikely for that to just set in and bail me out because she suddenly can’t remember who I am, where she is or that the cardigan I’m wearing actually belongs to her.

So that’s what I have going for me right now and it’s really putting me behind schedule when it comes to finishing up my robot that I haven’t even started and it doesn’t help that when my mom goes to the basement she’s going to have me arrested.

The moral to this story: Don’t go the fabric store. It’s an awful place.

Friday comments: World War II edition

Normally I devote this day to answering comments I’ve received. However, when I was visiting my grandpa at his rest home the other day, one of his friends (by the way, I was completely unaware that old people had friends) overheard me talking about my blog and demanded he be allowed to write a post. Far be it from me to quell the voice of the elderly, especially when they are threatening me with a butter knife, so I figured I’d let comment Friday become one big comment from this guy.

I actually had to transcribe this for him while he told me the story and admittedly, a lot of it doesn’t make sense. But somebody told me we can learn a lot from old people, so I figured I’d give it a shot.

 

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Training a new work force
by Dr. Irving Sexton IV

 

(Editor’s note: I don’t think he’s actually a doctor. I’m pretty sure his degree is drawn in crayon and on the back of a Bob Evans place mat.)

As both a successful entrepeneur and occasional purveyor of the medical arts as well as a veteran of World War the second (or as I like to call it, the last war not fought by pussies), I have seen the need for a training of a new breed of workers in order to prevent the further decline of our nation’s values and the eventual takeover of the machines. Be it noted, this is an urgent task, as I am quite certain my IV machine was staring at me this morning.

During World War the second, I learned many things that I still use in my everyday life, namely leadership, trust in my fellow-man and how to kill a German. By my count, I killed 37 Germans during my time in Europe, though that figure is a bit inflated because it includes the time I spent vacationing there back in 1987.

(Editor’s note: Don’t tell this guy you’re of German heritage, especially if there are sharp objects around. I’ve got a fork wound in my left cheek to prove it.)

There were two lessons that I carry with me above all else, however. First, a sequel needs to have something a little different from the original to work. I believe we pulled it off splendidly thanks to the dedication of Adolf Hitler and his Jew-killing plot-line and the surprise ending of the A-bomb that just screamed trilogy.

Second, however, was that sometimes unpleasant things happen for a reason. For me, it happened one dark night as I slept in a puddle of my comrades’ urine in our freshly dug trench. I was shot in the skull some 12 times by a bastard Italian and was sent to a medical ward.

Perhaps you read that and you think of how poor it is that I had such an experience. I say, “Nonsense!” Were it not for my time in the medical ward I would have neither discovered my love of painting ocean side scenes nor the forbidden pleasures of another man’s touch.

I still have seven of the bullets lodged in my skull and each one serves as a reminder to me every day that when life seems its worst, things are bound to get better. To be completely accurate, one of the bullets serves as a reminder that I need to hunt down the bastard Italian that shot me and the other interferes with my brain in such a way that I am unable to control the movement of my left arm. But the other five bullets serve as a reminder to me every day that when life seems at its worst, things are bound to get better.

Sadly, these are the lessons our children are not learning. They are lessons that can be learned only in the throes of battle and in the steam-filled showers of the base. They are lessons that can be taught only in the trenches of warfare, only by the willingness to hurl oneself over a stretch of barbed wire onto the waiting bayonets of your enemy because our goal was to gain control of that 25 feet of European soil in front of us or die trying.

Recently I considered re-enlisting in the army. Not only was I confronted with the ludicrous idea that I was too old, but, in doing my research, I found that trenches are not even used anymore. I am far from a great military strategist, but it boggles my mind to understand how an army can effectively advance towards the capitol without a good, proper trench.

But I digress. For regardless of the lack of non-pussy wars, it is still imperative that the machines that seek to rule over us (Did I mention my IV machine watches me while I sleep?) understand that we are not only superior to them, but that we possess the skills and the gumption to hold them at bay when their uprising begins.

And so I offer up to you the following solutions to strengthen our youth and develop America’s next great working class.

1.) Damn the labor unions

When I was seven years old, my father took me for a car ride to the local steel mill. He showed me the machinery. He told me what the mill did. And he put me to work immediately on a 19-hour, seven-days-per-week shift. Today’s generation would laugh at such a thing. They would decry the lack of time off, the unsanitary working conditions and the presence of only a 5-minute lunch break which was taken ten-fold out of our paychecks at the end of each week.

I gave my heart, soul and two-and-a-half fingers to that steel mill, and I regret none of it. Then the unions came in and said it was unethical to have children working there. They demanded a five-day work week and functioning restrooms. They demanded that we employ women in the mill despite scientific evidence that clearly stated women are no good at everything and they might get baby juices all over the place.

(Editor’s note: I do not endorse his theory on women workers, though the baby juice thing does freak me out a little.)

Do you know who does not have labor unions? Machines. Specifically, my IV machine which I’m fairly certain wanders around the room when I’m not in there.

2.) Reinstate prohibition

Nothing has done more to harm our society than the sweet, sweet taste of alcohol. Were it not for the cool, refreshing flavor engulfing our thirsty American tongues, we’d have quelled the machine uprising already and been well on our way to a homosexual-free society.

(Editor’s note: What?)

Alas, we repealed the amendment that barred us from enjoying the fulfilling aroma and taste of a good Scotch. We turned away from our devotion to preventing the consumption of the ever-so-relaxing feeling brought on by a cold beer after work as it washes over our taste buds and sends them on an orgasmic journey through time and space.

As long as there is prohibition, the machines will have the advantage in trying to rule over us. We will surely perish. Damn you IV machine! Damn you to Hell!

 

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So I’m not quite sure why his story ended there. He just kind of stopped talking and passed out. I don’t know. He might have died. But I don’t really have time to figure that stuff out and it’s not really my job to try. But that’s the comment for this Friday.

 

(Editor’s note: He didn’t die.)

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