One Dance

When I was 11 my parents shipped me off to sleepaway camp for the first time. I didn't want to go and fought like a bastard about it.

Well, I went.

They sent me during the second half of camp. You used to get a choice if you were a parent. The first four weeks or the second four. The worst thing for a kid was to get dumped into the second four weeks. This was when all the friendships were already made and clicks formed. To enter this world in week five was like being the new kid in school. In other words, it sucked.

But there I was, an 11 year old fat kid in a cabin with five other guys who hated me on first site.

Yes, I said fat kid. I was a bit of a porker in those days. My mother used to drag me down to Sears and buy me Levis in the "Husky" size. Any kid who ever had a slight weight problem will appreciate this size reminder.

"Husky"

They may as well but a bullseye on your ass with a target and a sign that said "pin the tail on lard ass" There was nothing worse than that walk to the young men's section when I was in 5th and 6th grade.

Until.... That summer!

These bastards tortured me from the minute I walked in and didn't let up until I got on the bus to come home. Four weeks of "loser", "homo" and "fag."

I used to lay awake nights thinking of ways to kill these guys. Friday the 13th became a documentary in my mind. The only thing I'd look forward to was the sport sections my father would send me in the mail. However, my father, God love him, is one cheap bastard! He used to send them "3rd class mail" to save a few cents. I'd get sports "updates" weeks after the games happened.

Summer camp is usually a giant hook up! For me it was a giant wet dream. Girls didn't want to talk to, let alone be seen with the fat fag.... You know, the homo loser from cabin six...

But something amazing happened that summer. Because of the "no seconds" policy and general shit menu the camp offered I dropped 20 pounds. I was actually skinny by the end of camp. Right in time for the big end of the year "Camp Formal." A big dance where all the guys stood on one wall and the all the girls stood on the other. You remember those!

Anyway, there was this one girl, Randi, that all the guys wanted and all the girls hated. She was a piece of ass! At least, the best piece of ass I'd seen in my 11 years on earth. The dance was in full swing and the first hour was spent with all the guys having this conversation:

GUY 1: You ask her!

GUY 2: No way, you ask her!

GUY 3: You guys are pussies!

Guy 1: Then you ask her!

GUY 3: No way!

This went on and on and on.... Then, in a moment of clarity, I think to myself... "I'm gonna do it. I'm asking this girl to dance!"

I figured if I could pull this off it would TOTALLY redeem my summer. Me! The fat, homo, loser was going to show these assholes who's got balls! I just needed to pick my spot.... Then it happened, the fast dance songs ended and the slow number came on... "The Flame" by Cheap Trick.... I can still hear it!

I marched right by those three guys, right up to Randi, and asked her to dance.

She said yes!

Now there I am, her hands on my shoulders, my hands on her hips. The junior high slow-dance in full glory. I'm taking the time to look around at all the guys and even the girls watching me in my all my glory. I'm sporting my 11 year old boner proudly as I turn back towards Randi who actually smiles at me!

With a fade to black and title card that says "Produced By: Bob Brush" it was a episode of "The Wonder Years"

"I FUCKING RULE!" I think to myself when all of a sudden it gets very breezy.

I'd been pantsed!

My fucking pants are around my ankles. My 11 year old boner is putting a serious dent in my tightie whiteys and the entire gym is laughing at me! Randi is gone before I can even look up.

Cheap Trick is still playing with cruel, cruel irony

"Watching shadows move across the wall,
I feel so frightened.
I wanna run to you, I wanna call,
But I've been hit by lightening.
Just cant stand up for fallin apart."


Seems with all my weight loss it made me very easy to de-pants!

Randi never came back to the dance and I never saw her again. The next morning we all went home.

Looking back I take pride that the only one who had the balls to ask her to dance was me!

ME!

The fat, gay, tightie whitey wearing, pantless loser!

For about two minutes of that entire miserable summer it was all worth it!

For those two minutes....

Annoyed's Guide To Women Pt. 2

Just some general things I've learned over the years.

1. Playing the "nice guy" never works out! More than once I have had drunk girls want to fuck me and I passed. Every time because I like the girl and figured she would respect me the next day for respecting her and I will have the chance to bang her multiple times.

WRONG!

When a girl drives to your house drunk, fuck her!

When a girl whispers in your ear "fuck me," fuck her!

When a girl pushes you up against the wall and says "fuck me" and "Even if I wasn't drunk I'd still want to," for Christ's sake, fuck her!

There was actually a point in my life where I had turned down more sex than I had.

That was a time called "many years ago"


2. It's easy to bullshit a girl's mother. Their father is a totally different story!

Every girl I have ever dated has had a mother that LOVED me! Some of them STILL do! And every girl's father fucking hated me!

I understand why... It's his little girl. As a friend of my girlfriend's with a daughter said... "With a boy its' easy. You worry about one dick. With a girl, you have to worry about every dick in the neighborhood"

Point taken!


3. Try and find a girl that doesn't get along with her dad or that has dad issues.

They are the best in bed! Don't know why really, but holy hell!


4. Girls that drive German Made automobiles are FUCKING NUTS!

I had a string of lunatics in my early 20's.

FOUR Jettas and One Mercedes.


5. Women CAN NOT be trusted to set you up with other women.

Their "beautiful" friend is single for a reason! Sometimes it's not an "on the surface" thing. Sometimes it takes a few months until you catch them in the bathroom shaving their ass. Look deep guys!


6. Spanish women are never on time!

Just like "white can't jump" "Spanish people time" is a TRUTH!

My last Spanish girlfriend's "be here at 7:00" was 9:15. It got to the point I was telling her we were having diner at 5:00 like some old retired fucks in Florida!

Even then we were always cutting it close.


7. "Opposites attract" is BULLSHIT!

While they may attract they do not maintain. Building a relationship on the fact you have nothing in common because "it's exciting" and "everything is new" is the death of the relationship before it ever gets going. You have to have things in common!

LOTS of them.


8. Women are much more jealous than guys.

Sure a guy may hide in your bushes and spy on you but he won't call a diner you're eating at, ask for you and then hang up when you say "hello" just to make sure your not out with some other woman.

Men also don't notice other guys on the street and try to catch their girlfriends looking at them! My Ex used to get mad at me when a good looking girl would walk past. Now, sometimes I did "glance" over. But it's not like I pointed and said "Honey, how come your tits aren't that big?"

Hell, sometimes I'd get in shit for looking at girls that I actually DIDN'T see! We'd have to double back so she could point them out and then get mad at me for not seeing them in the first place!

H
O
L
Y

S
H
I
T
!


9. If a girl is still "good friends" with her ex boyfriend... RUN!

That guy is hanging around for a reason.

This is also a fun rule because it doesn't work both ways. Men can not be friends with any girl they ever kissed, let alone dated! In fact, unless they are crippled, man can not be friends with any attractive woman.

Women just ASSUME we'll wind up cheating on them with these girls!

And so fucking what if it's true! It's still a double standard!


10. You don't have to spend every minute of free time with your spouse/partner

I'm "allowed" to go out with my friends and golf or play poker. Or go to a concert by myself without my current girlfriend feeling the relationship is threatened by me having a life outside of it!

It's fucking sad how rare that is!

It's also sad how people have become conditioned to thinking that's what a relationship is "supposed" to be like.

I'd rather be dead than live like that!

Here's To You, Mrs. Robinson

Think of that old Simon and Garfunkel song... Now think of the Lemonhead's version.

That's a good metaphor for this tale.

I was 21, living at home with my father. My neighbor, two doors down was this red headed woman. She used to come into the Video Store I worked at and would invite me over at the holidays to have drinks with her family. She still lived with her folks too.

One big difference... She was 36!

She'd hang around the store and pick my brain about different films. I was a film major in college. The amount of utterly useless movie information I possess is only surpassed by my useless amount of Music information.

Which is to say, it's a lot!

Anyway, video stores used to get these advances "screener" films in from time to time. A pre-release version of a film months before it would come to video in the hopes of retailers buying extra copies of the film for their shelves. Usually these were the latest Steven Siegel straight-to-video releases. However, sometimes we'd get some pretty good films.

This was one of those times and I was taking the video home. (I can't for the life of me remember what it was) She's hanging around the store and says she really wants to see it and asks if she can come over to watch it with me. I think nothing of it and say, yes.

She comes over that night with a six pack, which was welcomed, and we sit down and watch the movie on the big screen in the living room.

It ends, I'm ready for bed. She starts coming onto me! This was odd to say the least.

First off, she's 36 and not really "hot." She was sorta attractive but I never gave it a second thought. Second, we're in my family living room! My father and stepmother are asleep in the next room and my one year old sister is sleeping in her crib two rooms away. If that kid starts screaming my stepmother is gonna walk in on me and this "lady" going at it!

Then I do the math... She's 36! When do I usually get to hook up with with chicks who were sophomores in High School when I was born? Not often. Then I think of my friends and realize none of them could top this story.

I'm all for a little competition amongst friends...Especially when I know I can't be beat!

So, we start going at it! Just kissing and groping... Then I make a mistake. I take a GOOD look at her. She's really not that attractive. To quote Paul Simon, she was "all right in a sorta limited way for an off night"

This wasn't an off night.

Plus, there was a 50/50 chance my friends weren't going to be impressed. They were going to rip me for this! At this exact moment she says to me, "You want to go upstairs"

That's where my room was at the time.

I let out a huge yawn and tell her I think I'm gonna turn in... I have a BIG day at the video store the next day.

This may have been the worst excuse to turn down sex in the history of man! However, I stuck by my story and kicked her out.

The next day I'm at the video store laughing about this with one of my friends. Then the phone rings... It's her asking me what I'm doing that night. I blow her off and go about my life. Two days later, I'm home in my room and my phone rings. It's her! She's tricked one of the other kids at the store into giving her my home phone number. This conversation got odd fast!

ME: How'd you get this number?

HER: So, what? You think you can just hook up with me and blow me off?

ME: Huh?

HER: You think you can just USE me like that?

ME: Hey, lady, I kissed you! What the fuck are you talking about?

HER: You think cause your hot you can get away with this shit?

ME: First of all, I'm not "hot", but thanks! Second...

HER: You're an asshole.

ME: Are you insane?

HER: Maybe, I actually liked you!

ME: Goodbye.

I hang up... The phone rings again and I turn off the answering machine. The thing rang for about ten minutes straight! It finally stopped. I assumed she went to boil some rabbits at this point and went on with my life.

A few days later I realize she's driving by my house in her car over and over again. Slowly back and forth! I'm officially being stalked! By a lady!

Now this went on for weeks. She'd stop in the store and ask what I was doing? Being a smart ass I'd usually reply "working" and leave it at that. The drive by stalking continued for a few more weeks and finally sputtered out.

She was able to get the bartender at the town bar to start dating her. The relationship ended with her beating the shit out him for talking to some girl at the bar. A unusual occurrence for a bartender..

Anyway, I washed my hands of it. The following summer my stepmother decided to throw a neighborhood barbecue and guess who shows up? Yup, Glen Close, in the flesh. Her relationship with the bartender was now over because of a restraining order and she corners me and says...

HER: So, what do you to say for yourself these days?

ME: Coo coo ca-choo?

She looked sort of puzzled as I walked away....

All Aboard!

For Dim,

I don't like to fly. It's a very un-natural thing to do. I have flown and will fly again but I'd rather drive anywhere than take a plane. It's a control thing really. I have to trust that pilot with my life! I was in a math class when I was a sophomore in High School with all upper classmen. These were dumb upper classmen who couldn't keep up with their grade. One of these idiots became a pilot... Case closed.

Anyway, when I was 19 I had a chance to spend the summer in San Francisco living with my cousin and her husband. Living in New Jersey, that was going to be a long flight. After some discussion I decided the smart thing to do was take a train across country. I actually thought this would be cool for a few reasons..

1. I had just seen the movie "Before Sunrise" and figured I had a better than average chance of meeting a girl that looked like Julie Delpy. It was a three day trip and I assumed it would be enough time to sweep this girl off her feet and have a grand story to tell my friends when I got back to Jersey.

2. I had all these images of Bob Dylan songs in my head. Riding the rails would be cool!

3. It would be a great way to see the country.

4. It was much safer than flying.

As it turned out, I was a moron.

First off, the only women who ride these trains are scary looking. Look up any website dedicated to Meth abuse and you'll see a wide sampling of what they look like. Pale and bony and without a trace of personality. If Julie Delpy were a Meth Whore I would have been all set... As it was I spent the whole time avoiding any and all conversation with these girls.

Second, Bob Dylan never took Amtrak. There's only two types of people that take Amtrak.

1. White Trash - Most television shows fly their guests into town. Apparently the Jerry Springer Show send their's by rail.

2. The Amish - The Amish ride these trains in droves. A bunch of inbred, smelly people. The Amish don't believe in shaving or deodorant. A nice sight and smell inside an airtight cabin... And their conversations are fascinating...

Jeb-a-high-a: Pa, What's that!
Pa: I have no idea, Jeb.


It was a fucking power line!


Third, you don't see much of the country from the inside of a train. Sure there were moments of sheer beauty like when you travel through the Rocky Mountains or when you FIRST get to Utah. I say "first" because the first hour of the salt plains is lovely but by hour six you start to feel like your want to kill yourself.

Fucking Mormons.

There was an "observation car" with big windows so you could get a better view of sights. However, it was just a bigger view....I decided the same, smaller view, from my seat in coach would do.

Yes, I said coach... I sat in coach for the entire trip. People will say: "Why didn't you get a sleeper car?" Well, because they are really expensive and I figured the seat would be comfortable enough. After all the Amtrak salesperson assured me the seat reclined! The exact quote, as I remember it, was.. "Our over-sized seat reclines for a comfortable nights sleep"

Now, there are THREE "flaws" in this statement...

1. "The over-sized seat": If I were a midget this part would be true. I'm over six feet tall. Imagine the back seat of a sports car... Now shrink it!

2. "Reclines" - Sit up straight and lean back two inches.... That's the "recline" in these seats.

3. "Comfortable night's sleep" - The first half of the trip I had the window seat and could lean my head against the wall of the train. The second half I had the inside, aisle seat. Once again, this is were Ms. Delpy could have helped out. I didn't have her next to me, I had some guy to my right. Now, you can't sleep on your side on one of these trains without touching the people next to you. It's impossible! You have to sleep straight up in you "reclined" seat! If your a guy in this situation, as I was, and decide to sleep on your side, you encounter the following two scenarios:

1. Your ass is touching their ass = Gay

2. You have to spoon with the person next to you meaning your dick is touching their ass= Much more gay!

I slept sitting straight up with my hands in my lap!

Lastly, after all of this, I still had the "safer than flying" thing going for me.

Right?

WRONG!

Remember those beautiful Rocky Mountains? Well, they are magnificent! However, the train tracks are built into these mountains very tightly. At numerous points during the hours you spend going through them the trip takes on the look of "Big Thunder Railroad" at Disney World! Half the time you travel through there is a ledge about five yards from the side of the train. Over that ledge is a 1500 foot drop onto jagged rocks! If this train jumps the tracks your dead! I assure you, no less scary than looking out the window of the plane . In fact, it's scarier when you realize you may actually survive this fall! You'll be laying there with two broken legs, bleeding to death, with some guy's ass right on top of your face! At least with the plane crash you'll just be dead!

The "highlight" of the trip happened in Nebraska. After seven hours of fucking cornfields, night finally fell and it began to rain. I had been talking to this 82 year old man who had lived in this area of the country his entire life. He was taking his yearly trip out to Reno to gamble and bang whores! This was Lozo's kind of guy! Anyway, it starts to rain harder and harder and now the lightning starts. I look out the window and see this:





Holy Shit!

This is about 150 yards from us!

Then the train just stops! It just fucking stops and doesn't move for six hours. Now I'm sitting in the middle of a cornfield, inside a metal car staring at this:





I try and tell myself "this isn't so bad, I'm sure it's no big deal"

As I'm thinking this the old whore-fucker behind me pipes up with this:

"I've never seen lightning this bad"

Of which, I think to myself:

"Your FROM here! You've lived here your entire life.... 82 fucking years! I'm gonna die... I should have flown!"

Well, I survived to tell the tale and all told it only took 84 HOURS to get there!

I get off the train in California and my cousin just laughs at me. I deserved that... 84 hours of train food, no showers, man ass, "reclining" seats, Rocky-Mountain-impending-death, salt plains, Amish people, Meth girls, Springer guests, Whore-Fuckers and lightning!

All because I hated flying.

And I realize, as we're driving to my cousin's house, I get to do it all over again in seven weeks!