The Ballad of Samad Hoshweebeeweebeeweebeeweebee...

A couple of weeks ago, I celebrated the first 100 followers to this blog with a rather long, drawn-out, and frankly sycophantic post wherein I thanked everyone and let them know that I either was a regular reader, remembered their pithy comments, or just generally gave them a thumbs up. I started the train with Gwen, who was my first blog follower.

Speaking off...is anyone else's blog following add-on malfunctioning, or is it just mine?

Anyway, I differentiate between Gwen being my first blog follower and, well, followers in general because, long before I started puking words onto a screen in some semblance of cohesion and story, I had a follower. Well...follower seems kind of a light term to apply to the chap. Imagine, if you would, that the foot fungus you picked up on the floor of your gym was a follower, and that might quantify the meaning a bit better for you.

As a senior in college, I had it all: easy class schedule, ability to drink, living next door to Big Willy Style, single room, hot on-again-off-again girlfriend with loose morals and big tits. Apparently, this hedonistic lifestyle was enough to attract the attention of this freshman named Samad Hoshweebeeweebeeweebeeweebee...

Samad's last name is kind of messed up because his dad was Iranian and his mom was German (or something else Teutonic), and the pronunciation was kind of confusing. I'm pretty sure there's a K in there somewhere. Anyway, saying it is kind of like when I'm drunk and trying to spell "banana", I don't remember where the "weebee"s are supposed to end.

Anyway, Sam (as he liked to be called) was a solid 350 pounds on a 5'5" frame and his features were strikingly like a blond Rupert Grint. Everywhere that Sam went, he wore a cream-colored sweater that might have--at one point--been white, but prolongued exposure to dorm life and Sam quickly turned it ecru and worse. And, when I say "everywhere", I mean everywhere. Given Sam's bulkiness, this meant that he sweat profusely everywhere he went. Sunny day in spring? Sam's sweating. Sitting in the cafeteria, wasting the evening? Sam's sweating. Walking to the pisser? Sam's sweating.

Not only did Sam wear the sweater everywhere and sweat everywhere, he followed me everywhere. It was like I had summoned some sweaty, foul-smelling, portly familar from the very bowels of Hell to constantly be at my side and a step behind. Creepy, yes, but also flattering in a megalomaniacal sort of way.

And he would appear at some rather inopportune times. Once, I went down to the toilets to toss a whiz. I left my door open a crack. I came back to find Sam sitting on my couch, unannounced (though the yellowish tinge to the air should have clued me in that he was in the building). One time, I was having a rather naughty conversation with the aforementioned on-again-off-again hot girlfriend and we were galloping toward the phone sex route. My door was closed, but not locked. Just as I unzipped, there was a bang at the door, like someone had kicked it as they were shuffling toward it. A fraction of a second later, the door swung in and there was Sam, hulking in the doorway. I frantically pulled a jacket over my lap and told the Ex- I had to go and hung up the phone as Sam came in and sat on my couch. He just wanted to chat. About nothing.

Sam was good at putting the cockblock on me.

There was even a night when Sam caused me to break up with another girlfriend, whom I've dubbed Carrie Nation. You'll learn more about her tomorrow. Carrie Nation worked at Wal-Mart across the street and lived in the dorm next to mine. She loved football. On Monday nights, after I get done helping Dr. Awesome teach the freshman general chemistry lab, I would come home, unwind, and Carrie Nation would come over after work and we'd watch football together. What a fucking sexy couple we made.

Anyway, Sam came busting into my room about ten minutes before Carrie Nation arrived, plunked himself down in my chair, and proceeded to sweat copious amounts of funky Sam sweat everywhere. The mephitic cloud pulsed around him, getting slightly larger with each dollop of sweat that ran down his temples. So, I'm chatting Sam up, and it puts me in a weird mood. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen in the room, maybe I just woke up on the goofy side of the bed that day, or maybe I just remembered to take my meds that day, but I was in rare form when Carrie Nation showed up. I was, like, extra flirty. I was grabby. I was all sorts of weird.

This, coupled with the fact that I was flipping over to a NASCAR race on ESPN2, really pissed Carrie Nation off. Two days later, we were through. I blamed Sam, because he stayed with us until halftime of the game. Then he and part of his funk left; the rest of the funk stayed behind, lingering in the air like the greasy residue clinging to the grill in a short-order kitchen.

Retrospectively, I should have thanked Sam for rescuing me from the evil clutches of Carrie Nation.

This was not the only night that Sam put the cockblock on me. No, there was also Halloween of the same year, when I filled up on rum and went ashore a-lookin' fer some booty...and not the kind you find in a chest. Well, maybe ON a chest, IN a bra. You get the idea. There was this girl, Ann-Marie Vidal, whom I had a touch of a crush on. It was one of those kinds of crushes where, if we were better friends, maybe I would have followed up on, but it was borne mostly of youthful lusting. Which, for college, was good.

Anyway, as I was staggering about the darkened campus, I came upon Ann-Marie and a couple of other people. I started talking to her, noticing that she wore a tiny Christmas tree upon her head. Halloween does provide for some easy conversation starters. Things progressed nicely with Ann-Marie, and suddenly, I'm thinking, "Holy shit, this might actually come to fruition!" Yes, I am strangely verbose when I'm drunk and having conversations in my mind.

Suddenly, as if he rose up from the ground, Sam hove into view.

And Ann-Marie recoiled in horror. It's one thing to suddenly have a very large, very sweaty, very stinky person appear out of nowhere; it's apparently quite another thing to have a very large, very sweaty, very stinky person appear out of nowhere and do nothing but stare at your tits. As quickly as she could, Ann-Marie sped away. I tried to follow, asking her if I could escort her home. Sam was nipping at my heels like an eager puppy. I don't know if he had designs on my sloppy seconds or what, but he was not to be dissuaded.

Finally, I did the chivalrous thing: I let Ann-Marie escape. As I stood there, watching my lustful desires bounce away into the night, I wanted to gut Sam. But, I was too nice. I started toward my dorm, but Sam was to follow. Finally, at the last second, I diverted my course and turned toward the on-campus bar, where--being only 18--Sam could not go. I eluded him and spent the remainder of the night drowning my sorrows with my friends Susan and Julia and some dude wearing a Yoda mask.

You would think that my story would end here...but, alas, it doesn't. Every spring, my school hosts a go-kart race for students. Alumni tend to gather because it's a weak excuse to drink heavily. My wife and I had been dating for about a month and a half when the race rolled around in 2000, and I made plans to take her there and show her off to my friends. Along with us came my grad school buddy, Dr. Assy. It wasn't difficult to get him to come; I said, "There'll be a beer and brat tent." He perked right up and came along for the ride.

In the 23 months since I had gotten my sheepskin and joined the ranks of alumni, I had forgotten about Sam. Apparently, for the 23 months I was not there, Sam had been doing the 350-pound upright walking version of a puppy pining for its master. I arrived, girlfriend in tow, and within five minutes, there was Sam. Still wearing the white sweater (which was now a sort of dingy gray), still sweating, still looking to clean up my sloppy seconds. Holy fuck.

I tried every diversion in the book I could think of. Nothing worked to try and escape his predatious clinging and licentious staring at my girlfriend's chest and ass. I knew I should have gutted him long ago.

Suddenly, it dawned on me: Sam is young. He graduated from high school young. Sam can't go in the beer and brat tent.

I immediately bee-line for the beer and brat tent, my girlfriend in tow, Dr. Assy not far behind. Sam is halted at the door by the cop watching the tent and making sure the underaged crowd doesn't sneak in. My girlfriend gets in because she's with me and she's not drinking. We leave Sam to rot.

Finally, served our lukewarm beer and tepid brats, we sit down for lunch. Sam has abandoned all hope and has shuffled off somewhere else. We dine in a relative stench-free environment.

"Who was that?" the Comely and Buxom and As-Yet-Unwed Bouddica asked me, an involuntary shiver tingling her spine as she spoke.

"Jesus Christ," I said, after sitting down and smearing ketchup on my brat, "that fucker was like that when I was in undergrad, too. Guy followed me everywhere."

"Yeah," Dr. Assy added, "I can see that guy being like a disease."

No truer assessment of an individual's personality and demeanor has ever been uttered in the annals of human history, because Dr. Assy got it right in his very first shot. To avoid further conflict, we spent the rest of the day in beer and brat tent, only coming out to go to dinner with a bunch of my friends and then returning to campus to drink in the bar and enjoy a gloriously Sam-free environment.

TMI Thursday: It Tastes Like...Victory!

If this does not sate your thirst for awesome TMI stories, then check out all the other glorious tales of things we probably shouldn't tell at LiLu's home for the staunchy raunchy, TMI Thursdays!

When I was in grad school, my chemist buddies and I tended to hang out with the physics guys a lot. It made some sort of sense, really, since the physics department was in the building adjacent to the chemistry building. In fact, our library was in their building, so we'd see them a lot in the halls.

It was this passing in the hallways that got us invited to their parties. And you know what? This is going to be counter-intuitive, but the physics guys threw some good parties. I guess they had to. If there's one department in the graduate school that has a worse male:female ratio than chemistry, it's physics. I know, shocking, huh? Anyway, in order to lower that male:female ratio, the physics guys would invite pretty much every warm-blooded, breathing female they could find to their parties. And then they'd ply everyone with alcohol. So, yes, physics is exactly like a douchebag frat. And they would have parties all the fucking time! I guess when your life revolves around numbers and Greek letters, all you have to look forward to is the sweet relief that booze offers.

This particular story takes place at a physics party.

There was this cat named Doran who was a physics grad student at the same time I was there for chemistry. Doran was older, with a real stocky, husky build and salt-and-pepper hair that trended more toward salt than pepper. Rumor had it that he had once been a physics teacher for a high school, but he got fired or retired or something. The details were a little fuzzy, but he was at ND to get a higher degree so that he could teach college or something.

More than anything in the world, I think Doran just wanted a friend. Well, and he wanted to get laid. Doran had this dating policy that we called "Flood the Market." He would ask out every female he met. And his pick up lines, while not extraordinarily lame, were pretty white bread: "Hi, my name is Doran. Would you like to go out Friday night." I guess it worked because he eventually got someone to say yes. How that panned out, I'll never know.

Anyway, Doran would also wander around the student center, asking everyone at a table if they'd like some company for lunch. And finally some poor sap would agree and Doran would sit down and chat this guy up like they were the oldest buddies. It was odd, and slightly creepy, and somewhat desperate, but he seemed happy. Except for that whole not getting laid part, which is pretty much how I knew him throughout most of my ND experience.

So, anyway, we're at a physics party, and there's Doran over in the corner, looking as shady as ever. The apartment wasn't exceedingly large, and there was one bathroom near the kitchen/laundry room that pretty much everyone used. So, I was standing there chatting with the ringleader of the physics parties, this guy named Hoop. We were discussing something male-oriented--Tia Carrere admitting in an interview to Maxim that she was hairless from the neckline down--when Doran passed by to use the bathroom.

I know you're having your doubts, but the events of that five minutes are pretty much indelibly chiseled across my memory for eternity. Plus, at the time, I thought Tia Carrere was pretty hot.

Anyway, Doran finishes up in the restroom, comes out, nods to us, picks up his half-finished beer and heads back to whatever corner he had crawled from in order to Flood the Market some more. That's when this other guy, whose name was Mark, walked into the restroom.

"Ah, Jesus!" Mark yelled. "Who pissed all over the floor?"

Hoop and I knew exactly who had been in there. Hoop (the owner of the apartment and the host of the party) called Doran on it immediately.

"Doran, you asshole, you pissed all over the floor!" Hoop yells.

"No, I didn't!" Doran exclaims.

"Look, there's piss all over the floor. It wasn't there a minute ago, and you're the only one who has been in there! You pissed all over my floor!"

"That's not piss. It's probably from where I washed my hands!" Doran saunters back across the apartment, steps into the bathroom, and looks down at the puddle on the floor beside the toilet.

That's when he set his beer on the vanity and knelt down on one knee as if he was about to propose to the toilet. He dipped a finger in the puddle...and then he tasted it.

...

Still with me?

"Yep! That's piss, alright!" Doran exclaimed. He got back up, picked up his beer, went and got a handful of paper towels, and cleaned it up. He flushed and was back in the corner.

The whole time, I stood there with a look of Oh my fucking God, he just tasted pissed off the floor written on my face, as did Hoop and Mark. And pretty much everyone else in the apartment.

And then it dawned on me.

I turned to Hoop and said, "In order for him to know that that was piss--"

"He would have to have tasted piss before!" Hoop finished my thought.

Then we shared an audible shudder.

"Jesus," I said, "Let's hope his next trick isn't to drop a turd on the ground."

"Regardless," Hoop offered, "I think this is the last party I invite Doran to."

As far as I know, it was.

Things I Learned This Weekend

I learned a couple of things this weekend. I thought I would share them with you.

• Trying to remove a tick from your body with Vicks VapoRub doesn't really work. Last week, I told you about how I forever forsook the possession of Vaseline. Without a viable petroleum-jelly-based product in the house, I had to opt for the second best thing I could find. I thought VapoRub would work, though. I mean, it's basically petroleum jelly infused with some menthol. Not only would it suffocate the little fucker, but the vapors should irritate and annoy it so that it would want to leave my body. No dice.


• The idea that you can cause the little bloodsucking bastard to back out of the hole he's pierced in your flesh by touching his ass with a hot match is a lie. I lit a match, blew it out, and managed to burn myself while trying to lightly touch the tick's ass with the blackened end of the match. My wife ended up heating up a pair of tweezers and singeing my flesh trying to induce the little cocksucker vampire to leave. Again, no dice. She ended up pulling it out.


• My son is a fucking man. In case there were doubts after he dressed up in his sister's clothes, he put those fears to rest this weekend. I saw the offending spot on my ankle yesterday morning and as he was playing near my feet, I asked him to brush it off. He said he couldn't. He then informed me that he had "a spot like that", but he pulled it off. "Where was this spot?" I asked. He then proceeded to pull up his shorts and show me where the tick had lodged itself into his flesh. It was in his groin. In that sort, tender area where his left leg joins with the trunk of his body.

Now that's a fucking man for you. Next, I can only assume that he'll be felling trees with on swing of his mighty axe. And then he'll shave with a knife that he sharpened on the sun-bleached bones of his fallen enemies. Or maybe he'll just do the ultimate in manliness, and kick a cat.