Odds and Ends

Try Not to Breathe: Remember that little story I told you last Thursday? You know, the one where I puked almost on a girl I was having a wonderful first date with?

Well, last Thursday night, I re-enacted what happened to my wife. Apparently, everyone who told me that I should have called her back didn't get the full feel for what I had just done to this poor girl.

So, let me re-describe it. Imagine, someone has puckered up and has moved in to kiss you. Your lips touch. Just as they touch, you hear a horrible noise like a backed-up sink gurgling, and then the person whose lips are touching yours has his cheeks inflate like a pufferfish as vomit pours into his mouth. That's what it was like.

My wife screamed. She visibly shuddered. "Oh my God," she said, "that poor girl. No wonder she was so traumatized. That was awful."

And she had this reaction even without me actually puking into my mouth and then bringing it up in a wastebasket.

The One I Love: Everyone who told me that I should have called her back when we got back to school for the spring semester...we can only say what if.

If I had called her back...maybe we would have gone out again. I mean, yeah, she was really nice and seemed to really like me. I mean, she was kissing on me and holding my hand and snuggling up and all, right? Maybe we would have felt a spark, dated for the remainder of her undergraduate career, and then after she graduated, we could have gotten married. I don't know where she went to law school, but maybe it was ND. We could have finished our respective degrees at the same time, and then moved off to some fabulous location.

If that would have happened, maybe we'd have a couple of kids. Maybe I wouldn't have my evenings free. Maybe I wouldn't have started blogging. Maybe you would have no idea who the fuck I was. You'd walk down the street and think "Was that Tom Green? He's put on some weight."

If all of that had happened, I wouldn't have met my wife three months later. I wouldn't have gotten married. I wouldn't have moved to North By God Carolina and I wouldn't have worked for that biotech wherein I started my blogging career. By telling me that I should have called Margaret back up and asked her out again, you would be denying yourselves this little slice o' the internet and all the shit good times we've had together.

If I had done all those things, I wouldn't be married to the woman I am now, with the two wonderful kids that we've had together and the happy, if humble, abode in which we dwell. Besides, if I had called her back and we had dated, fallen in love, and married, I wouldn't get to have the sex with a redhead with fabulously large breasts.

Unless, of course, she dyed her hair and got implants.

Crush with Eyeliner: Possibly the most amusing footnote to that whole story about me nearly puking on Margaret was that, I'm certain, my students would have gotten back to campus and asked her how things went. And, I'm certain, that Margaret told them that I puked and probably the other gory details. So, they would have heard about everything that happened that night.

Despite all this, Sheridan, the girl who lured me into tutoring her and her room mates, wanted to set me up with another one of her room mates. This girl's name was Kristine (if I remember correctly). She was tall, had red hair, and had a decent rack. Problem was, she wore a lot of eyeliner, so I wasn't really all that interested.

In a bit of an ironic twist, the night I met my wife, Kristine was there, too. They were working together on something for a campus charity. Apparently, Kristine was kind of interested in me (despite my pukiness on my date with Margaret), because she recognized me at the event and told her room mates that I was there. Much later, after I had married my wife, she saw me again and reported back to Sheridan et. al. that I was now wearing a ring, and what was up with that?

My question: you know I almost puked in your friend's face and still you wanted to date me? What was up with that?

What if We Give It Away?: My wife has found this site called Zazzle.com, and she fucking loves it.

The Lord of the Rings movies came out while we were still at Notre Dame, and we, of course, went to go and see all three of them in the theatres because we love us some Lord of the Rings. We also both love us some Notre Dame.

What do these two things have in common? Sean Astin. In case you need your memory jogged, Sean Astin was the titular Rudy in the movie of the same name. Naturally, this is a must watch for anyone who went to or is a fan of Notre Dame. In fact, in the old bookstore on campus, Rudy was on a continual 24-hour loop. That's a lot of Sean Astin and the dude who played Roc from the ill-fated Fox show from the early 90s (Charles S. Dutton, in case you care).

Astin, of course, also played Samwise Gamgee, Frodo's love interest friend and moral support as he carried the Ring to the fires of Mount Doom. Whenever the camera focused on Sam, especially during The Fellowship of the Ring and his little soliloquy at the end of The Two Towers, I would giggle and then say to my wife "I want to play football at Notre Dame, Mr. Frodo!"

Well, my wife took this happy little sentence and made herself a button over at Zazzle.com. It is, appropriately, cheesy. It is, also, a must-have for the mixed Notre Dame/LotR fan on your Christmas list.

Let Me In: When I was a freshman in college, I lived alone my first semester. There's a back story there that I don't want to get into (it involved me dressing like a garden gnome because ours was stolen...like I said, I don't want to get into it).

My friend, the Brewing Optometrist, decided to come and visit me once when he was home on break and I was still slogging away doing that learning bullshit. The joy of the Brewing Optometrist was that his dad worked for a beer distributorship, so he brought some booze for us to enjoy while watching Bevis and Butthead. He decided we needed some 40s, and what better drink to enjoy in a 40 ounce bottle than malt liquor?

Really, this story has no point. I just wanted to repost the picture of the OE Girl. If it helps, the Brewing Optometrist brought me a 40 of Olde English 800.

Yeah, that totally justifies it.

Lucky I Got a Compass in the Stock

Growing up in Indiana, there's two things you need to know how to do: shoot a free throw and shoot a gun.

I'm hopeful, at this point, that you're familiar with my prowess when it comes to the hardwood. Well, at least you know that basketball courses through my veins and drips from my tongue. Ew. Basketball has suddenly taken a turn for the gross, and I'm not even talking about being posterized like Greg "Sweaty Balls on My Chin" Paulus.

In case anyone cares: bounce the ball three times, spin it in my right palm, bend knees, breathe out, shoot, swish.

Did you know that I'm a dead-eye with a rifle? Damn straight. See, my best friend, whom I mentioned in passing during the Decapitated Clown Incident of 1993, lived in the middle of farmin' country. He lived just outside of Majenica, IN, and if that doesn't smack of BFE, then I don't know what does (perhaps living outside of Bippus or Disko, IN...but I'm getting off topic again). Basically, my friend, the Brewing Optometrist, had a huge yard--good for all sorts of mischief--with a barn all the way at the back of the property. Everything else was fields. If it wasn't house, yard, driveway, garage, barn, or field, it was woods. And empty. Lots of space here.

Anyway, out behind my friend's barn was a trash pile. Mostly it was branches and stuff that fell off the trees and various and sundry other collections of yard refuse. It just so happened to be packed solid enough that it would slow a bullet, but not cause the bullet to ricochet. It was our de facto shooting range.

I was out there one day with my trusty .22 bolt-action rifle when my buddy and his brother were like, "Look what we got: lightbulbs!" They had collected about fifty burnt out light bulbs--how long they had horded this many is difficult to fathom, but they had them and I was giddy with desire and the unbridled ecstasy of avarice.

Selecting a particularly delectable 100 watt beauty from the pile, I set it halfway up on the brush pile and returned to the back side of the barn. I loaded the weapon, hearing the bullet slide into the chamber with the cool, steely promise of death. Raising the muzzle of the rifle, I peered down the length of the cold steel barrel.

"Ten bucks says he doesn't hit it," I heard the Brewing Optometrist call to his brother derisively behind me. I put my former best friend out of my mind, focused only on the offending bulb before me. Holding my breath, my thumb clicked off the safety and my finger slowly began to squeeze.

BANG!

There was no sound of shattering glass. I raised my cheek from the stock as I clicked the safety back on, raising the muzzle and popping the bolt action back, spewing a smoking, spent shell somewhere into the withered brown grass at my feet.

The light bulb still stood before me. A .22 caliber hole fired through it so cleanly that only the glass struck by the bullet was displaced. Otherwise, it was perfectly whole.

Not looking at my friend, staring at the trophy before me, I calmly and quietly stated, "I'll take that ten bucks now, bub."

That sonuvabitch never did pay up.