Submission to the Vent 4

I looked forward to the county fair this year because I had finally arranged to box with a kangaroo at the Friday Night Fights. I couldn't believe it, but when the fight began most of the crowd was cheering for the kangaroo! Whose side are they on, the humans or the animals? I also thought it was unfair that the kangaroo was allowed to use its hind legs, which is technically kicking and not punching at all. He should have been disqualified.

I don't Usually Litter but...

Here's the thing about officer discretion. Officer discretion is what they call the choice that a police officer has to make when faced with a violation. Officers cannot stop every car on the road for every law violation that happens. It would ruin traffic flow and everything. They have to use sound discretion.

One thing that you will almost certainly get pulled over and cited for is littering. People hate litterbugs and most cops were raised as humans from the time they were young so, those feelings run deep. Anyway, I pull people over for littering when I see it. The worst kind of litterbug is the lit cigarette litterbug. That guy will usually end up with the dreaded Lecture and Citation. (The Lecture and Citation is a police tactic reserved for only the most serious offenses. 95% of the time, a cop will either give you a lecture or a citation but not both. The other 5% involve either jerk cops or jerk drivers or both.)

People usually have a pretty good excuse when they get pulled over for littering. I would love to hear someone say, “I just hate the planet.” but I never have... Anyway, the excuses always start off with, “I don't usually litter but...” from there it gets good. I've seen grown men and women chuck their children right under the litterbus. I love it when the kids say, “Dad, you told me to throw it out.”

As of last Saturday I have my own litter story. Here it goes:

We were hip deep in Saturday morning chores with the kids and it was my eight-year-old daughter's turn to pick up the dog poop in the backyard. Kids think that when they have to do chores they end up doing the work instead of the parents. Untrue. It is a test of wills that lasts for like 90 minutes while we stay on top of four kids trying to wriggle out of four different jobs. Anyway, I was brushing my teeth when my daughter knocked on the door and said she was finished with the dog poop job. I knew that this was the beginning of a negotiation process where I counter her statement with a review of the yard and point out all of the poop she missed. I decided to continue brushing my teeth while making a quick circuit of the backyard.

I reached the backyard and button-hooked left to an area that the dogs call, “the stomping ground.” Always plenty of poop there... I started pointing stuff out and continued brushing. My daughter came over with the pooper-scooper and grocery bag and started fumbling around. After a few minutes, I said “Here, let me give you a hand.” I grabbed the handle of the pooper-scooper and, in so doing, brushed the bristles of my toothbrush against the handle of the pooper-scooper. I recoiled in revulsion and disgust and chucked my toothbrush right over the back fence into the vacant lot beside my house.

So, I don't usually litter but...

Stephanie re: Stevie last night after I went to bed. August 28th, 2011

“He said, 'I'm just going to tear this place down from the ground up. I'm gonna tear it down!' He said that, I could see it in his eyes and he went crazy!”

The Autopsy of a Bumper Sticker

I have conflicted feelings about bumper stickers. I am against them on principle because I don't like to be visually force fed someone's political or religious beliefs while I am driving to work. I also think that funny bumper stickers aren't really that funny and, even if they are, do you really want the same joke broadcast to everyone on the road with you? The worst bumper stickers are the ones with small writing, where you have to get pretty close to the car if you want to read what it says. Those are just plain dangerous...

Having said all that, sometimes, I love a bumper sticker. For example, I love to find a car with a bumper sticker or license plate holder that says something like “Daddy's little princess” and has a dude driving it. I also think that there is nothing classier than silhouettes of two naked chicks where one is a devil and the other is an angel. They make a poignant statement about the duality of the human state, you know, how you can only experience joy after sorrow and you can only reach for the divine after foregoing baseness. I'm sure that was what the trucker was trying to convey when he bought those mud flaps...

It's been some time ago but, I bought a bumper sticker once as a gift for a friend of mine. I had to go up to Salt Lake for an autopsy. When you work where I do, going to an autopsy makes for a long night. You have to leave at about 3:00 AM in order to be at the medical examiner's office by 8:00 AM. If you

aren't there on time, you risk having the doctors start on someone else before your case. Each autopsy takes several hours so, if you have to wait then you are just stuck for hours. Anyway, I had been up all night after working on the case locally, then following the body up north. By the time the autopsy was over and all the evidence was collected and packaged for transport back home, it was early afternoon.

I drove about 100 miles from Salt Lake before stopping at a truck stop to stretch out and get gas. Coming out of the restrooms, I saw a rack of bumper stickers including one that said, “I go from zero to horny in 3.2 beers.” On impulse, I bought the sticker and hatched a scheme.

I have a friend who is an attorney here locally. He is a pretty straight laced guy and pillar of the community. He goes to church on Sundays and only rarely swears out loud. I decided that this bumper sticker would go perfectly on the bumper of his car, hopefully somewhere that he wouldn't notice it for quite a while. I spent the remaining 200 miles of my drive home tired but happy at the idea of this poor guy driving his modest sedan back and forth to work and home and church and little league all the while, proclaiming that he drinks beer and becomes amorous as a result. When you're tired like that, these sorts of things just seem funny.

I gave up on my idea as soon as I got home and slept for a while. I did give him the bumper sticker and told him about my plan, which, for the record, he opposed. I told him he could have the sticker and put it on someone else's car, if he wanted. He didn't. That was the one time that I succumbed to the influence of the Big Bumper Sticker lobby. We should close the tax loopholes for those fat cats!

Just so my friend knew that I still liked him, even though he shot me down on the bumper sticker idea, I waited until he and his family were out of town on vacation and then put a “Ron Paul for President” sign in his front yard.

 

The Cemetery Bus Stop

I like to drive by the bus stop at the cemetery when I'm in town. I bet that it is a nice stop because there are plenty of trees to wait under and there is a lot of room for people to spread out and wait, before everyone has to pile onto the bus. I do have a few questions though...

Is it embarrassing if you make it to the funeral but miss the graveside service because the bus had to stop at Albertson's and the library before it dropped you off at the cemetery? Maybe you thought that everyone at the funeral would be taking the bus to the cemetery. The bus must hold like fifty people after all... Does it weird out the other passengers on the bus if fifty people all dressed in church clothes load onto the bus and ride it to the cemetery? Do you ever get mistaken for a flash mob? That's what I would think was happening if I were the bus driver.

I think that it would be hard to load a casket onto the bus regardless of how close it dropped you off to the actual graveside. Trying to get the casket around that first corner at the top of the stairs must be a nightmare; especially if someone is sitting in that front seat. How do you ever make that turn with all of the pall bearers? You're probably better off strapping the casket to the front of the bus but then, where are people supposed to put their bikes? I'm sure the casket hogs the whole front rack...

What about grave robbers? Is the bus driver trained to recognize when people are legally hauling bodies out of the cemetery onto the bus and when people are stealing the bodies? I think the best indicator that someone is loading a stolen body onto the bus is the hump-back. If a guy with a hump-back gets onto the bus at the cemetery stop with a big burlap sack and sits all the way at the back, I would call my manager.

Some Basic Household Tips

I don't usually watch Saturday morning handyman shows like “This Old House” because they assume a baseline of comprehension and ability on the part of the home owner, that many of us do not have. So, I created a list of handy household tips for the truly unhandy man.

• Your front yard is like the haircut for your house. It doesn't matter if your house is nice or not, you can still make the most out of it by taking care of the yard. Your backyard is more like a pair of cargo shorts. It is less important for it to look nice because it is more useful than beautiful.

• When you refill your hummingbird feeder, make sure you check it for bees before you bring it inside. A hummingbird feeder can hide about twelve bees inside of it. They won't come out until you try to run the feeder under the kitchen sink.

• Shooting a lock, or shooting a deadbolt, does not guarantee that you will be able to open the door.

• You can kill a spider with aerosol hairspray and a lighter, but it is harder than you'd think.

• You should not try to kill a spider in the cabinet under the  kitchen sink by using the above mentioned home-made flame thrower because you may create a very startling “back draft” effect.  Not the awesome Kurt Russell style back draft but the scary burn-your-eyebrows-off kind.

• Spiders can jump really far.

• If someone lends you a casserole dish, write your name on it in Sharpie before you give it back to help them remember their good deed.

• There is always a little more toothpaste in the toothpaste tube. ~Bill Bryson

• If the TV gets messed up, do not, under any circumstances, unplug everything back there and try to “start from scratch.”

• Do not agree that a piano, any piano, would look nice upstairs.

• When you put together a basketball hoop, the base should extend out on the opposite side from the basketball rim. If you don't set it up this way, you will trip over the base every time you try to get a rebound. Also, your hoop will fall over the first time it gets really windy.

• 

Words and Phrases I would Like All of Us to Start Using (Again.)

Rigamaroar: The noise that a rigamaroll makes.

Slobberchops: A really messy eater. I didn't make this word up. I read in a book one time that it was a word, once popular, that just fell out of usage over time. I think we should bring it back.

Doy: DOY!!! I have been a long time proponent of Doy. It left us too soon and never reached the true zenith of its potential. Doy is like the Pluto of exclamations. It just chills out there and then gets vilified and dismissed for no good reason. (Also includes variations: Adoy, No doy, duh, d'oh, etc.)

Abadibad: When you lose something and then find it in a really obvious place. “I couldn't find my keys for 10 minutes and then, Abadibad! They were right on the counter!”

Ball-headed: A person with a tiny shaved head. Many police officers are ball-headed.

Coolio: It's handled and we don't have to discuss it anymore. “Don't forget Kory has a soccer game at eleven on Saturday.” “Coolio.”

Go downtown to hire a clown: When you pay a hobo to conduct man-on-the-street interviews with strangers while using a corndog for a pretend microphone. (Very popular in Japan.)

How to Offend a British Person

Memorize this script and repeat it verbatim to a British person:

“You can quit it with that accent anytime you're ready... Seriously, cut it out... Listen, I don't care alright? You can tell whatever story you want but I know it's a fake accent... Just quit it. I know it's a fake accent because I heard you! When you thought I was out of earshot, I listened and you were talking to yourself, alright? So, cut it out... Look, you didn't have an accent when you were talking to yourself. I heard you... Where are you really from anyway, Vernal?”

I have never tried this on a real live British person but I can guarantee that it will totally work.

The Cool Wave; Cops vs. Motorcyclists

I always like it when I see two motorcyclists pass each other on the highway and they give each other that low sort of wave where they extend their left arms out a little and keep their thumbs, pointers and birdies straight while bending their rings and pinkies to make a sort of inverted peace sign (except the thumb is out there too.) It's like the motorcyclists are saying to each other, “Yeah, we're pretty cool. All those fools in their air conditioned cars are just jealous.”

Cops have a cool wave too. We do it when we see other cops passing on the highway or pulled over somewhere. Ours consists of raising the pointer and birdie of whichever hand is on the top of the steering wheel and giving them a little flick. It's very subtle and cool. I believe we are conveying the same sort of message of camaraderie as the motorcyclists. Unfortunately, I have a real aversion to coolness, or at least to attempting to be cool so, I have come up with my own police wave which I call the spaz wave. It consists of raising all five fingers and splaying them out as far as they will stretch. Then, I frantically wave that hand back and forth as hard as I can. I also shake my head back and forth in the opposite direction that my hand is waving to further spaz it up and make it more ridiculous. Cops never know what to make of the spaz wave when they see it but, so far, they tolerate it. In fact, sometimes I'll get a spaz wave back from another officer after I have spaz waved them. I love it when that happens.

My Second Attempt at Starting an Urban Legend

I met Senator Orrin Hatch one time about 16 years ago at the Days of '47 Parade in Salt Lake City, Utah. In those days, the parade was a huge deal that everyone would get really hyped about. They televised it live, like it was the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade except on a much smaller scale and no applicant, seemingly, was ever turned away. Every yahoo with a tractor and a bag of Pixie Stix was waiting in line to be a part of the show. It started near the capital in Salt Lake City and ran right down State Street through downtown. I guess it wasn't as scary back then because entire families would camp along the side of State Street on July 23^rd, to reserve a good spot for the parade.

Anyway, early on the morning of Pioneer Day, I went downtown to hire a clown (as the saying goes). I happened to be walking on the sidewalk where all of the entries in the parade staged to wait for their turn. Senator Hatch was riding a horse next to Utah's other Republican Senator Bob Bennet (retired). By riding a horse, I really mean sitting on top of a horse being led by someone trusted not to allow the Senators to be injured or to injure anyone else. The point is, they were both sitting on top of horses.

I was able to get sort of close to Senator Hatch and speak to him briefly. I said, “Senator, I notice you have six fingers on your right hand. Someone was looking for you...” Suddenly, quick as a cat, Senator Hatch pulled out his sword and konked me on the top of my head with the hilt. I expected to wake up strapped to a torture device in the Pit of Despair but instead I just had a really bad bump on the top of my head.

 

Do you see what I mean? 

Add a goatee to that face...

Mambo Italiano

If you've ever eaten at an Olive Garden or Buca di Beppo (a much more delicious form of the Olive Garden...) then you know the song Mambo Italiano. It goes like this, “Hey Mambo, Mambo Italiano. Hey Mambo, Mambo Italiano...” I think there are other words, but that's the only part of the song that I know. It's a really catchy tune though, in fact, some of you may be singing it your heads right now. Who's to say.

Anyway, I get this song stuck in my head all the time. It sucks because it is just that one snippet over and over again. I don't know what the trigger is either, but there is definitely a play button in my head that gets pushed every week or so and on comes Mambo Italiano again. This only becomes a problem when someone is talking to me. It becomes a real problem when someone wants to discuss baby names with me...

So, this is the story of how we named our baby Luca Brasi. We are painting the nursery to look like an aquarium because “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.”

A Shameless Plug

Hi,

In an effort to allow people, other than my facebook friends, to read my blog, I have created a Twitter account. I couldn't fit “Jake's Divine Book of Consciousness” into the user name box when I set up the account so instead I used: JakesDBofC. If you would like to receive notifications when I post something onto my blog, please follow me on Twitter.

I'm not entirely sure how I should be using Twitter. Should I go through everything I've posted on my blog and re-post it, one or two things at a time, over the course of several days? Or, would I be better off to just post the link to my site with a 140 character message about how awesome it is? I guess the most important question is, can I somehow get rich by posting this stuff? If so, how? Do I have to make t-shirts and coffee mugs like The Onion? If any of you know how to get me rich, please let me know. I have been waiting a long time... I would like to get rich without doing any more work than what I am doing already, if it is at all possible.

I don't really care too much about getting rich, truth be told. I really just have a lot of this stuff rolling around in my head and I've wanted to write some of it down for a while.

So, here we go!

Jake

Submission to the Vent 3

Why does the big discount store sell shampoo and conditioner in different shaped bottles so we run out of conditioner and still have a quarter bottle of shampoo left over? Do they expect us to buy a whole other bottle of shampoo for just a little conditioner? Then, what are we supposed to do with all the excess? I tried to make my own conditioner using a 4:1 solution of mayonnaise and club soda. All it did was ruin my pillow cases and attract bees every time I went outside.

Steve and the Case of the Mistaken Identity

My wife and I take our two dogs, Abby and Steve, on walks out by our house. We live at the edge of a neighborhood but there are a bunch of finished roads that go out beyond our house, where no homes have been built yet. I like it because the dogs can just roam around without leashes out there and smell all of the smells. I think they get more wild scents out there away from the houses. This empty neighborhood ends with a cul-de-sac, or circle, or whatever you call it.

Abby and Steve are two very different dogs. Abby is ten and has cataracts and arthritis. She is still really healthy and spry but if we don't take her for walks she just lays around all day. Steve is the exact opposite. We take him for walks to keep him from driving us crazy with his constant pacing and his loud clickety-clacking across the floor on his weirdly long toe-nails (they're super hard to keep trimmed...)

So, we went for a walk a few nights ago and as we rounded this gradual curve to the end of this uninhabited cul-de-sac, we saw a man and a woman having, what appeared to be, a very serious talk. Now, we came up on these people from a long way away and, of course, Stevie charged them.

Let me switch perspectives here for just one second so you can understand the thought process behind the most comically dirty look I have ever been given. Imagine that you are this guy and you are sitting at the end of what you believe is the most isolated cul-de-sac in America having some kind of serious talk with your girlfriend and you see a Bassett Hound in full gallop heading right at you. Then comes a guy waving a sandwich bag yelling, “Does Stevie want a treat? Does Stevie want a treat?” with a big Yellow Lab prancing at his side. Then you hear “Abby does! Abby does!” (Steph always takes care of her girl.)

Stevie ran up and gave their crotches some good sniffs. Then he did this snorting thing that isn't quite a sneeze but is still super gross on both of them. Then, he tried to steal food out of their backpacks. All of this has sucked monumentally for me until now. Luckily, I recognized the guy as my friend Josh. (This has happened before to me. I think anyone I see with a pony tail and sideburns is my friend Josh.) Anyway, I confidently stride all the way up to this couple. I bet I got to within 30 feet of them before I realized that this man was not my friend and the look that he was giving me couldn't have been cartooned onto Donald Duck with more accuracy, because he was so bugged. Whatever he had going was pretty much ruined by us. Stephanie hung back a ways because she knows Josh too, and could see that it wasn't him at all.

I felt an explanation was in order. I said, “Sorry, about Steve. He loves to smell stuff. Have you guys been hiking? I thought that you were my friend Josh. His parents live over there. But, you're not Josh so... anywho... Bye.”

Here's the thing about mistaking a stranger for someone that you know. The walk away from that person, once both of you have established and agreed upon the fact that you are a moron, is murder; but, when the walk away is along an empty road, it is worse.

Problems with the Letter “H” (an Haiku)

I don't understand

When to use an “an” with words

That start with an “H”

Things you Never want to Hear at Work

"Dude, I had the weirdest dream about you..."

“This really itches, does it look infected?”

“Do you have any prescription pain killers? I'm in so much pain...”

“I had school lunch, does my breath stink?”

"I made you a mix cd!"

“You have a truck right? Can you drive me to Vegas to pick up a fridge from my In-Law's on Saturday?  I'll buy you lunch...”

“Before I tell this story; Does anyone have a problem with the 'N' word?” (By the way, yes! Nobody wants to hear the joke your old racist grandpa told you when you were a kid.)

“Can I close your office door? I have been having some personal problems.”

“I'm going to need to see you in my office... go ahead, close the door.”

“Well guys, we could only get one room so, some of us are going to have to double up.”

“Do you have any Chapstick I can use?”

“You were the last person to use the printer, how did it break?”

“We're going to need to hold on to your employee ID until we get this all sorted out...”

"What did you think of the mix cd I made you?"

“Excuse me!!! I should NOT have had that Mongolian Barbecue this morning.”

"Sorry, I forgot my wallet again..."

“How would you like to earn $3,000 a week working from home for as little as four hours every month?” or “It's not a pyramid scheme, it's a honey comb.” or “If I can just get you and two other people to sign up, I will make diamond level!”

and finally,

"Did you read my blog?"

On Tortoises and Tattoos

We recently welcomed a tortoise into our home named Biggie Smalls, (He loves it when you call him 'Big Papa.') He is a Sulcata Tortoise from Africa, except he is really from Florida. We ordered him on the internet and the nice people of Florida sent us this guy via UPS overnight. I went to the UPS depot in that weird industrial park where none of the businesses have signs saying what they do. I was worried that he would be messed up after the shipping process but, aside from the UPS guy giving him a good shake and asking “Whatcha got here, huh?” Biggie seemed to be in good condition.

Getting a tortoise is a lot like getting a tattoo. They live for 80-100 years on average so you get the same “It's cool and it will last the rest of your life” vibe... Like a tattoo, tortoises just keep growing and growing. (Put some flames around that old tattoo, that will make it look better...) Biggie could be up to three feet long and weigh 200 lbs when he is an adult. They say that you can stop cutting your grass because the tortoise will graze on it all day long.

The comparisons don't stop there, though. I've found that my mom adopts the exact same tone of voice when she responds to “I got a new tattoo!” and “I got a new tortoise!” In both cases she says, “Ohhh... that's nice. Why did you do that?”

Also, both tattoos and tortoises, at least tortoises named after the Notorious B.I.G., allow for awkward conversations with your kids to occur. I have made both of these statements recently to one or more of my kids: “Well, I'm not saying it was the greatest idea I've ever had, I just got a tattoo. It happens...” and “You see kids, Biggie Smalls was a really talented rapper and he got killed and no, you can't listen to any of his music. You're five. And yes, I know that you're almost six.”

Here's what I'm the most worried about. Do you know how when you get a tattoo, you're all psyched because it means something to you that you never want to forget? Well, twenty years later you still have the tattoos and they still mean something to you, but it is hard to remember exactly what, or at least why it was so important that you wanted to tattoo it into your skin. I hope that Biggie Smalls isn't like that. I hope I don't find myself old with an enormous 200 lb tortoise ambling about my backyard and me asking myself, “How did I get here?” Talking Heads style.

The truth is, I don't think it will be like that at all. Biggie Smalls is the illest, and he is going to blend into the mix seamlessly. We made it through Steve trying to eat him and the kids fighting over who gets to inherit him in the unfortunate circumstance of mine and Steph's untimely death... So, that's been nice.

I think that my point can best be summarized by saying,

“Escargot, my car go, one sixty, swiftly.
Wreck it buy a new one,
Your crew run run run, your crew run run.”

Another Submission to the Vent

Does the ice-cream man who services Santa Clara really want our business? My wife and I have each gone out to buy a frozen treat from his van and he is either unable to hear us or unwilling to stop because we have both had to run several hundred yards down the street before finally catching him. The last time, I had to chase him for over two blocks and I’m sure he made me run on purpose because every time I quit, he would stop too. But as soon as I started running again he would drive away. He's about to lose two customers if he's not careful.

I hope the ice cream man is a good humor man...

How to Impress People and Make Friends

If you really want to impress someone, try claiming credit for things that you didn't do. I often claim credit for coming up with the lyrics to the song Happy Birthday (English version only.)

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear (insert name here.)

Happy birthday to you.

I don't claim to have invented the song, only to have come up with the lyrics independently after wanting to wish someone a happy birthday...

A Submission to The Vent

I live at the end of a long street and pay to have the local Scouts put out a flag for the national holidays. I appreciate the service but I’m frustrated because I always get the worst looking flag in the bunch. It is old and I think it is home-made because it doesn’t have the right number of stars on it and it isn’t even really a rectangle. One time last year they ran out of flags completely and I got stuck with their troop flag hung in front of my house. It had a dinosaur and a volcano on it, which I thought was inappropriate for Memorial Day.

How to get a Free Peach

This works better with girls for some reason...  Wait until she is about to take a bite then ask, "When you eat a peach, do you ever imagine that your biting into a mouse?  You know, a little furry mouse?"  And that's how you get a free peach.

The Best Police Report I Ever Wrote

The best police report I ever wrote only existed for about thirty minutes. It took me about three times that long to write it. I should warn you that this story contains graphic violence and is not for the faint of heart. Here's the whole true story:

Being a cop is a weird job sometimes. This bears repeating... it's a weird job. When I was a rookie officer, I was dispatched to one of the local campgrounds on a skunk problem. The caller was the campground host and he was distraught. A skunk had climbed into a dumpster full of old camping garbage through a small drain hole at the bottom and ate so much that when it tried to get back out it got stuck, Winnie the Pooh style, with only its head and two front paws sticking out of the drain hole. That skunk had sprayed and sprayed. These kinds of calls are terrible because there isn't really a playbook for what you do here. By the time I got there, even the camp host had fled. It was just me and the skunk...

Let me set the stage for this epic showdown. The agency I work for does not have animal control officers. It is up to the guys, or gals P.C. Police, to figure out what to do when there is an animal problem. Did I mention that I was a rookie at the time? That plays a role here too, so does the fact that I carry a Colt .45 as my duty weapon. You see where this is headed right? You can still stop reading and look away... Anyway, it was early October, the weather was beautiful and I had just started my twelve hour shift.

As soon as I pulled into the campground I could smell the skunk and it was awful! I parked way away from the dumpsters, up on the road. Nobody likes a smelly police car. I took a deep breath and hustled in... I found the skunk right where the host said it would be, stuck fast in that little drain pipe. I surveyed the situation then tactically fled back to my truck to breathe. You see the rookie in me right away, huh?

Now, here's where it gets weird, but let me remind you that there was not a soul out there for miles around. I pray. I didn't want my uniform to smell like skunk right? I had my whole shift to work still and another twelve the next day. I was planning on milking that one shirt and not ironing, by ironing I mean spraying wrinkle release on the shirt before throwing it in the dryer for five minutes, until my days off. I did what any sane person would do, I stripped down to my underwear and t-shirt.

I knew that I had to kill the skunk and get it out of that dumpster. I took another deep breath and charged into the breach. Like a straight lunatic right? Creeping around a campground in my underwear in broad daylight with a gun... Let me just say that a .45 is a big bullet. It did the trick. I retreated again and caught my breath. It was while I was catching my breath that I came up with the brilliant idea that I just needed to push the now deceased skunk back into the dumpster with a stick. Sounds reasonable right? I found a long stick and headed back in.

The problem became apparent right away. Every time I tried to push one part of the skunk in another would goosh out. I retreated and breathed. I found another stick and put my gun in the truck with my clothes. I went back in. With two sticks it was even worse. Imagine trying to push spaghetti into a soda can using two pool cues. I retreated and breathed.

I realized there was only one thing to do. I took my lunch out of the Wal-Mart bag it was in and went back one last time, determined to end this thing once and for all! This time I threw caution to the wind. I put my hand in the bag and then used the bag to grab what was left of that spaghetti skunk and yank it out of the pipe. I tied the bag closed tight and put it in the furthest corner of the bed of my truck right by the tail gate. None of it helped at all. I still stunk like I had been sprayed all over. My uniform stunk, my truck stunk, even my lunch stunk after that. It was retarded.

So, I got rid of the skunk. Now, I can't even remember how. I went home and showered and put on a clean uniform. I went to the office and typed up essentially this story as I just told it. You have to fill out a report any time you fire your weapon on duty... My sergeant sat down and reviewed my report when I was done. She had a good laugh at it and then told me to delete it and write a real report.

So, there you have it. I bet you never saw that on Cops...

An Open Letter to America's Gang Bangers

To Whom It May Concern:

Let me at first thank you for taking time off from waxing chumps like candles and waving your hands in the air like you just don't care, in order to read this. I have a few concerns and suggestions that I hope you will be able to help me out with... First, I am disappointed by the lack of originality I have noticed in your nicknames. Really? You're name is Joker too? Awesome. What do you guys do when two or more of you are all vying for the same name? Does the head gang guy fill a mason jar full of jelly beans and whoever guesses closest gets to have the name? That's how I imagine it going down. Most deaf.

How do you get your nicknames anyway? (I know you would prefer the term moniker over nickname but this is my letter.) So, do you get to pick your own nicknames, or are you assigned one when you join your posse? If one is assigned to you, is there a list that the guy uses? Does he check that nickname off of the list after he assigns it to you? It would make sense if you did it that way. And what if you don't like your nickname? Can you change it midway through your thug-life? I bet the paperwork is a nightmare, am I right fellas?

I bet it sucks if you move to a new town and find out that the gangster in the apartment above you is also named Pookie. By the way, if you do implement the list idea, just scratch Pookie off the list right now. That is a terrible nickname. On the flip side, try not to ever get into a fight with a guy named Pookie because I bet he can really fight, just like Johnny Cash in that “Boy Named Sue” song.

Here's another idea. Instead of beating up potential applicants, I think it would be fat of you to try using an interview process. This way, you could learn a little about your new homeboy's interests and hobbies. I bet it would help you pick better, more fitting nicknames too.

I've always assumed that you guys used nicknames to conceal your true identities, just like Maverick and Goose (pioneers of the homosexual gang lobby.) So, if you go to all of the trouble of coming up with a nickname and telling all of your friends and your parents and everyone not to call you Trent anymore because now your name is Shadow, why then, do you get your last name tattooed across your back like that? Don't you realize that totally defeats the purpose?

In conclusion, I think I could be a big help to you. I have tons of cool original gang nicknames ready to go right now, like “B-Nas” (short for Bananas. It could be applied to someone who goes crazy all of the time or to someone who just loves bananas.) Another one I would use is “2 Shooz” for the gang banger that always wears two shoes.

Keeping It Real,

Jake

My First Attempt at Starting an Urban Legend

Senator Orrin Hatch, the Senior Republican Senator from Utah, always takes great care to protect his hands. If you watch him when he is on tv, he either puts his hands behind his back or, more commonly, wears gloves. The reason behind this quirk is that Senator Hatch has six fingers on his right hand. You see, Orrin knows that somewhere, even as I write this... Somewhere a humble but determined Spaniard is sharpening his blade and rehearsing the line he has been waiting his whole life to speak; “Hello, you killed my father. Prepare to die!”

Right Hand Man

This morning while I was in the shower, I saw something I had never seen before...When I opened my eyes after rinsing the shampoo out of my hair, I saw out of the corner of my eye that my right hand had made a perfect shadow puppet of a lion on the wall. When I turned to look at it more closely, it was gone and no amount of trying could bring it back. Damn you hand, you've been holding out on me. How did you do that?

My Dog Steve

People often ask me why I named my dog Steve. Those people are never named Jake. People named Jake always get it. When I was a teen-ager my friend's dad had a dog named Jake (as do most people apparently.) My friend's dad gained no end of pleasure in shouting things like, “JAKE! Get off the couch!!!” or “JAKE! Stop humping!!!” The latter may have actually been directed at me, but I can't be sure.

So, I told myself, ever since those dark days of high school, that if I ever get to name a dog, I am picking the most common name that I can think of... Now, I secretly smile every time I yell at my bastard dog, “STEEEVE! Get back here!!!” And Steve really is a bastard, or at least he used to be. I am getting him trained up now, that's what I tell myself anyway.

So, to all you Steve's out there, welcome to my world, I hope to startle you soon. Anyway, I imagine you will hear about some of Steve's antics soon enough.  Steve is a three year old Bassett Hound.  This photo was taken after he somehow managed to pass an obedience course at Petco. 

A Brief Explanation

Hello Friends,

Thank you for reading my blog.  I am pretty excited to be doing it.  Just for clarification purposes, these posts are meant to be jokes.  I hope you know that I didn't really poop in my ex-wife's laundry hamper.  I will also be putting in some old submissions that I sent to "The Vent" in my local paper.  The Vent is a weekly anonymous forum that the paper publishes every Saturday, or at least they use to, I'm not sure if they still do.

Anyway, tons of people write in and "vent" their frustrations, most of which are pretty petty.  So, I used to send in stuff too but from various different made-up perspectives, usually older folks.  I apologize if this reveals a latent age bias...  Enjoy!

Oh yeah, also feel free to share this with your friends and/or post comments on any submissions you like or dislike.  I am refining as I go! :)