Saturday, January 20, 2007

Compass

As a kid, I liked compasses, and they were everywhere. They came with my meals, they were sold for a quarter in great big tubs, and sometimes there was a great big one stuck on the back of my favorite action figure. Why on his back, I would always wonder. I mean, wouldn't his chest make more sense? Maybe he knew he would only ever be lost with a buddy.
As I grew older, the compasses in my life slowly dissapeared. I no longer at the kid's meals, I spent my quarter on candy and treats, and lost the action figure. Now it seems you can't find a cheap, plastic compass anywhere. The shelves are devoid of them. Wal-Mart CSRs look at you like you're crazy when you ask for them.
It seems like my whole life is like that. At one point there was something good and simple that made me happy, but I took it for granted, and lost it. Not only did I lose it, but I forgot how to find it again. It seems that without the plastic compasses that broke in my pocket, that sometimes didn't point North, that were emblazzened with Beatleborg decals, I'm lost.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

What the Fuck, dumbass?

Seriously. "Dumbass " is the name I'm giving one of my co-workers to protect his identity.

There was this bum sleeping by the dumpsters. "Dumbass" points him out to me, then makes a joke about throwing a chunk of cement at the bum. Then, he actually does! It hit the large, metal door of the dumptser before falling harmlessly tothe ground. At this point, I'm fairly pissed off, mostly because that bum is just a guy trying to survive, and along comes Dumbass, throwing cement and making dumb jokes about how dumpsters are "Not a Hotel 6."

Not, his logic was that a bum pulled a knife on a mutual friend, which is true, however the details as I know them are ketchy at best, and if Dumbass was really that worried about the bum (who was sleeping and minding his own goddamn business) then he hould have called the cops.

Dumb mother fucker.

Then, as we leave, Dumbass LOCK THE BUM IN THE DUMPSTER. WHAT THE FUCK, MAN?

So I waited until Dumbass left, gave the bum some leftovers, and a note saying that if he slept there again we would call the police. Also, I unlocked the dumpster.

Dumb mother fucker.

Thoughts?

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Septic Tank

Growing up in the suburbs leaves you unprepared for a lot of things in life. It leaves you sheltered from things that other experience daily. I've never milked a cow. I've never been mugged. It forces you to come up with your own little adventures. For example: One time me and Nick went and explored a manhole near the back of my high school. We went inside and made jokes about finding bodies and rats for about 10 minutes before it got old, and we went home.

Here in Washington I've encountered several things that are different from my life at home. For instance, a septic system. I've never lived in a house with a septic tank. Never seen one, never smelled one. Hell, I'm not even sure how the things work, until now.

"Mom!" Shouted my neice, Emma, "There's water rising in the shower!"

Her father, Warren, rolled his eyes in a kinda "Oh, fuck." kinda way. Oh fuck was right.

You see, Warren had been living in his home for about 15 years at this point, knowing full well that a septic tank was just a dozen yards fromt he back of his house. Did he check it in those fifteen years? Maybe. I don't know. Did he ever get the damned thing pumped?

No.

When does it overflow? The 2 weeks that I'm here. Yippee!

I knew I was fucked when I heard Warren and Lisa discussing this turn of events in the kitchen. You see, Warren has a foot injury that keeps him from putting more that 25% of his wheight on his foot at any given time, his his children are 11 and 8 (boy girl respectively) and my sister Lisa is a women, meaning that all of them are useless when it comes to hard, manual labor. So, you guessed it: The responsibility of digging around in the backyard for the lids of these septic tanks fell to me. Best. Vacation. Ever.

I began digging. Luckily, they had recieved 30 inches of rain in the past three months (the normal rainfall for this area in a year is approx. 37 inches), so the ground was soft and easy to break. Unfortunatly, they had recieved 30 inches of rain in the past three months, so the water table had risen to about a foot below ground level.

And there I stood. Smelling of shit, covered in god-knows-what, wet from the constant drizzle, digging and digging and digging. And when I thought the digging was finished, it turns out thatI had dug the wrong spot, and had to dig some more.

The best part was when my 8 year old neice came out and promptly attemped to fall into the hole. The worse part was opening up the "solids" part of the septic tank. The smell alone nearly knocked me on my ass. 15 years of poo just kicking me right in the nose, as if to say "What? I'm smelly! What the fuck are you gonna do about it?!" The smell was so bad that the lid slipepd from my grasp, splashing the brown mucky water intot he air, and right into my mouth.

Woo-hoo.

The only good thing to come of this is the fact that my brother-in-law is going to buy me my favorite meal: Hookers and blow.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

A Real True Story

So here I am in Washington, right? Well, my brother-in-law, Warren, he's a pretty avid hunter.

So he says to me, he says "Tyler, would you like to go hunting with me?"

And I, well I says to him, "Sure, O'Brother-in-law o'mine! Sounds like a grand time!"

And off into the woods we went.

As we crept farther into the woodlands of the pacific northwest, I turned to Warren and asked, "Hey, there, buddy! Doesn't that big hairy fella, Sasquatch, live up round here?"

And Warren, he gets really serious, and he says "Yes. Yes he does. And he is a terrible danger, and a menace to society! If you see him, kill him for he is an embodiment of all that is evil in this land!"

Just then we heard somethin' rattlin' the bushes, right? So I yank out my blunderbuss and take aim on none other than Big Foot himself! Well, the beast stared at me, his big dark eyes seeming to speak to me, as if Big Foot and I were kindred spirits of some kind. Well, I just couldn't shoot down my soul brother! And so I gave Big Foot a nod, and he retreated into the forest quietly.

As I turn back to Warren, I see that he has spotted a bear! It was 12 feet tall and 1,200 pounds of raw, angry bear, charging right for us! Warren shot his .50 right into its eye, but the bear's eye was made of unbreakable metal, like stainless steel or cement or something! But was Warren scared? Heck no!

Warren activated his jet pack and flew into the bear at full speed. I stood, dumbfounded, holding my blunderbuss like a drunken sailor. In moments Warren and the bear were grappling. The bear had Warren in size, being 1000 pounds heavier and six feet taller that him. But like my dad always says, "Its not the size of the dog in the fight, but the amount of angel dust each dog snorted beforehand."

But did Warren give up? Heck no! He punched that bear in the face! Right in the freakin' face! But then the bear was all like "Jerk wad!" So it punched him back, hard! And yeah, Warren was hurt and stuff, but he kept going.

Right about now is when I started getting nervous, so I pulled out the Mr. T hotline, and dialed really super fast! Mr. T said "Warren is fighting a bear?" And I was like "Totally, T-man!" And he said "Dude, I'll be over there double super mega ultra lightning fast!"

And he was.

And when he got there, Warren was all like, "Dude, thanks Mr. T!" But Mr. T totally punch Warren in the kidneys! Turns out this was an evil Robot T that had captured the real Mr. T in a hidden fortress!

So I was all like "Time for action!" And I ran over and started doing a combination of kung-fu, karate, hibachi, and DDR on Mr. T so intense that his robo-afro-mohawk melted and all his circuits started exploding and there was this big BOOM and he was dead. But it also knocked Warren over. But not the bear.

And Warren was all like "Its so over! I'm gonna die!"

And the bear was all like "Dude, you are SO eaten!"

And I was all like "Ah! I'm covered in melted plastic and all blind and stuff from the Robot T explosion!"

And that was when the most awesome thing in the world happened. The bear was about to eat Warren, and I was totally helpless. But I heard a helicopter, and thought maybe the Army or the Peace Corps were there so something, but no, it was a helicopter piloted by the Loch Ness Monster, carrying The Yeti, Big Foot, and the real Mr. T who they had just rescued!

They all jumped down out of the helicopter, which launched a missle and blew itself up right as they did so there was this mega-cool explosion as they fell. The bear ate Nessy in one gulp! And that pissed Mr. T off, because he loves Nessy so much, so he kicked that bear so hard that its arm fell off! Then Mr. T flew away using the power from his golden chains, because he can do that. I saw it on TV once.

But the bear was still all like "Rawr!" So the Yeti pulled out this wicked samurai sword and cut out the bears stomach, and like a thousand orphans ran out all thankful and stuff.

But the bear got even angrier and wasn't even hurt that bad! While Warren was standing up, the bear sprouted a robot arm with a lazer on it! Then Big Foot stepped up and was all like, I can handle this!" And he gets this really intense face on, and head butts the bear realy, really hard! It made kind of "Gnk!" noise.

The bear staggered back, and Warren, thinking fast, got on all fours, and the bear tripped backwards over him. Then the bear died. Then the Yeti peed on it and took its robot arm.

After everyone got rid of all their adrenaline by chopping down trees with their 39 foot long erections, we all stood in a circle and shook hands. And Warren was like, "Dude, Sasquatch, I said some pretty uncool things." But Sasquatch was like, "Naw, dude, Buddies for life." Then they high-fived and drove me to the hospital so I could be treated for my severe burns. Also, the Yeti was there and he blew up some doctors with his lazer arm that he took fromt he bear but it was an accident because the yeti is good and would never blow up doctors on purpose.

The End.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

The Bible 2: The Return of Jesus

"The Return of Jesus" is the real title of a short book my mother bought my stepfather on christmas. I added "The Bible 2" because, c'mon, thats funny as hell

I'm still in Washington, using a decent mouse and a decent keyboard, however, the amount of typos per line will nto change because I'm lazy as hell.

I'm on the west coast(ish) part of the state. Its raining pretty constantly, and they just got their power back on. Apparently they lost all thier power in a 100mph wind storm that I heard nothing about because it was national news. I don't watch TV outside of G4 and [Adult Swim].

It is really amazingly green and wet all the time here. I love it. Compared to the dryed out, spray-painted, smelly, hypodermic needle encrusted palm trees of my homeland, the trees here actually seem healthy. Add to the mix a fully grown rottwieler and a pure-bred boxer, a great brother-in-law, my favorite sister, and a great neice and nephew, and Tyler's having a damn good time.

It seems everything here makes me happy. From the green shag carpet to the fact that Warren(brother-in-law)'s wood shop is on his property, this place just feels good. Everything, that is, except the fact that I wno't be having drinks with Warren and Lisa, because they are on a wagon ride. This place is as dry as a bone.

So it looks like I might be forced into going booze-free for a few more days. I know, however, that I will be home on/around the 15th, which is good, because, too much longer and I might actually get over being a booze hound.

This place is so good that maybe I'll move up here in '08.

Yeah, and maybe a chinese jet pilot will fly out of my butt singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" and doing loop-de-loops.