The long boring summer is finally over and the first week of my 11^th year as a college senior was amazing. I attended the auditions for the main stage play productions in the Theatre Department because I was honorably discharged from my post as Secretary of Buns at The Colin Powell Potato Base across from campus, so now I have enough free time to participate in the bigger plays. Well, luckily I was cast in one of the major league plays and I wanted to go out drinking afterwards to celebrate. Unbeknownst to me, the people that auditioned tend to split up into two different groups after the casting is finished, a group of the people that made it and a group of the ones that did not. I was all like, “why?” and then I was all like, “whatever.” So I and three other people that were cast went out to get lightly hammered at the bar.

 

I was riding in Jimmy Beamer’s truck with Marvin Goose and Clancy Rammerson to go to Thunderstorm Brewery downtown. We were happily chatting about various topics when Marvin began a conversation about things that shouldn’t be considered funny, but are. We rambled off a bunch of random pieces and then Marvin said it, he said ‘rape’. Everyone in the car gasped and Clancy said, “Hey Marv, rape ain’t funny in no shape or no how! You take it back!!!”

 

I felt that Clancy was about to jump over the double wide Chevy console and beat the living shit out of Marvin so I tried to shine a light on the brighter side of his statement by saying, “Well you have to remember that in every one on one rape, 50% of the people involved really enjoyed themselves. And if it was a gang rape then the percentage of people that had fun is even higher.”

 

Jimmy and Clancy took a slow puff off of their cigars and stared at me with a critical eye. Then Jimmy closed one eye and slowly said to me, “You don’t know what rape is, little boy.” I was scared shitless. I still consider myself as being a total plebe in this whole college theatre thing, but I’ve already figured out that these theatre people are unusually hardcore. So I explained to Jim and Marv and Clancy that yes, I do know what rape is. And here’s how I know.

 

So when I first moved into my current basement apartment there were two lesbians in hiding living upstairs. They were great face to face, but evil while I was alone in the basement. You see, I have no control over the heating and air conditioning in my apartment. It is controlled entirely by whoever is living upstairs. These devil dykes would turn the air conditioning off at night and whenever they left their apartment for extended amounts of time. I would fry down in my apartment while they were upstairs giggling and nibbling on their fur burgers or munching their whisker biscuits, just knowing that they finally had total control over a man’s well being. Then when they moved out, three very attractive young girls moved in and the air conditioning flowed like wine. It was amazing down here all day, everyday.

 

Now there is some newbie freshman or sophomore guy that is completely schizophrenic with his controlling of the air conditioner. He’s drunk at the wheel. There is literally no consistency with the temperature of my apartment ever since he moved in upstairs a little over a week ago. It was okay for the first few days as he kept it around 72 degrees during the day but then he would shut it off around 7:00 PM. By the time I woke up in the morning I was so covered with sweat that my hacky sack was completely pasted to one of my thighs and my sheets were glued to my back. It’s disgusting. Then this past weekend he turned it off on Thursday and by Friday night I was writing a suicide note because the heat was unbearable. I sat outside on the porch to cool off and it was 80 degrees outside. The temperature on my super expensive indoor clock said that it was 86 degrees… inside my apartment. Then when he came back on Monday he cranked the loving shit out of the AC and the temperature thingy on my clock read 67 degrees. The young man is crazy!

 

He drives a crappy-ass maroon Grand Prix from the late nineties and he puts up a sun shade thing in his windshield while it’s parked in the driveway. God knows he doesn’t want the sun to fade his seats and drive down the resale value of his car another $12. Not only that, but I can hear him get out of bed at like six in the morning. Combine that with the fact that he’s probably turning the AC off when he goes to bed at 7:00 PM, the guy is a fucking dork or he’s flat out fucking nutty. Only five year olds and the elderly go to bed and rise at those times. He’s like Cohaagen in “Total Recall”. I can hear him pacing back and forth upstairs, staring at the air conditioning control thing while he snickers and rubs his hands, gloating over the control he has to give or take away my air supply. That sinister little shit. He is raping me with the air conditioner against my will.

 

Well, he doesn’t know who he’s messing with. I take pride in my understanding of the passive-aggressive arts. I am a master of ruining someone’s life without ever becoming a suspect. Here’s a few of the possible revenge tactics that I may or may not use. First, I will let out roughly half of the air from one of his tires. He will fill it back up and then a few days later I’ll deflate the same tire again, but only about half way. Then after I have done this a few times I will deflate it half way and superglue the cap back on. This will cause him to think that he has a leaky tire, and then he’ll have it checked, and they’ll say it isn’t leaking, and then he’ll be like, “good”. After a while he becomes perplexed by this mysteriously leaking tire and then one day when he goes to inflate it, bam! The fucking cap won’t come off. I can repeat this act for years if need be. Then when Halloween time arrives in a few weeks, I’ll buy some pumpkins and make jack-o-lanterns. I’ll set them out in front of the house and he’ll think that I’m a huge homobutt nerd. Then when he goes to sleep I’ll go outside and smash the living shit out of those jack-o-lanterns right in front of his door. I live in a college neighborhood where immature and misguided acts of violence are pretty common. I will say that I’m sorry and stuff but I will not offer to clean up the mess. He will angrily clean up the mess himself and then I will buy more pumpkins, make more jack-o-lanterns, set them out front as if I’m a homobutt, and what do you know? They get smashed all over his fucking door again. I can repeat this for a solid two weeks and it will convince him that I am an idiot, which is good because once someone has written you off as being a moron you are no longer a suspect to the cause of his or her problems. Oh and guess what, Thanksgiving is right around the corner and wild herds of feral cats happen to live in the neighborhood. I wonder what those cats would do if I left bits of turkey in the trashcan every night? They might wreck the shit out of it and leave trash all over the front lawn… every night. And then I love decorating the house with Christmas lights for the holidays! I can put up lights so bright that Jesus flinches when he looks at them and focus a good portion of those lights right around the side window where this upstairs maniac sleeps. I’ll plug them into the socket inside my door so I have full control over the lights. I don’t give a fuck about how bright they are because I live in the basement. I can leave those lights up until February when Valentine’s Day rolls around. During that lovey-dovey time I will find a random girl on campus and get her name and number. She will either have to be way out of his league in terms of being hyper attractive or she should resemble a wild land animal that Sasquatch wouldn’t even offer a ride home from the bar. I will leave love notes and maybe create a fake email and/or Facebook page to express a colossal make believe crush she has on him. He will either fall in love with her, be disgusted by her, if he has a current girlfriend then that could get ruined, and no matter which scenario occurs… I win. And I forgot to mention that the fuse box to the entire house is in my bathroom. I can make a habit of resetting the switch that says, “upstairs bedroom” every night before bed just to make sure that his alarm clock doesn’t go off at the ass crack of dawn when he normally awakens. This little son of a bitch will regret ever touching the dial on that air conditioner controller box thingy that’s in his upstairs apartment!

 

More than likely, I won’t do any of that stuff because I am a big pussy. Speaking of pussy, I auditioned for more plays today which are called “One Acts”. After the auditions I was walking back to my den of insanity when I neared a young woman walking along the same sidewalk as me. Okay, so if you have ever walked across the UNK campus or driven a car through the Kearney Wal-Mart parking lot then you have most likely nearly run over an Asian student because they are everywhere. This young woman that I was approaching was a petite Asian angel and I decided to say hello. I said hello and she smiled back at me and said, “Speekiddy Eeegrish” in a soft voice. I responded with a sly grin and gave her the butterfly eyes. Then out of fucking nowhere it sounded as if a tribe of laughing Ewoks were over taking us. However, they were not Ewoks but were more Asian students that began talking to the Asian angel and she quickly walked away with them without even looking back at me. I felt rejected. I love accents and I thought that I understood her when she spoke, but apparently “Speekiddy Eeegrish” means “Fuck Off” in Ewokian. So now I’m drinking my vodka tonic alone again, without my little concubine to watch Jimmy Fallon and cuddle with. I’m beginning to realize how much my life resembles that of Cosmo Kramer, and that most of the people I currently go to school with probably have no idea who Cosmo Kramer is. Oh well, the older I get the more I know, and the less I care… unless it concerns my air conditioning.

I want to talk about getting old. Today is my birthday and I have now been alive for thirty-two years. If the light that burns twice as bright only burns half as long, then it is safe to say that the light that burns half as bright burns twice as long. Based on that logic, I should be looking at a lifespan of about 200 years because I still feel as if I haven’t done much living as of yet. Thirty-two sounds old but I definitely don’t feel old. In fact, I am in a constant battle of self-improvement and I must say that if time travel were possible then I would be able to beat the living shit out of my twenty-two year old self in both physical and mental tests. However, traveling backwards in time is not possible and never will be; otherwise we would already know about it even if we haven’t invented it yet. I hope that the upcoming movie “Looper” will dive into that deep thought.

 

Due to my ongoing quest for self-improvement I feel as if I am aging quite gracefully. This could also simply be an optical illusion because of the vast difference in body mass and wrinkles when I compare myself to other Midwesterners in my age group. Working at Skipper Skully and Captain Dwayne’s Hickory Dock across from campus probably plays a part in my personal views of Midwestern aging and obesity, as it is a common feeding lot for ham planets and earthquakes.

 

Just the other day while I was throwing chum to the landwhales during my shift on the Hickory Dock, a 300-pound ambulocetus ordered the famous Fatty Stuffed Tuberous Plant with extra butter and sour cream on it. When I placed the food before the purchaser’s blowhole she immediately belched out a complaining whale song because she could not actually see the extra butter and sour cream underneath the small hill of cheese, meat, and sugary sauce on top of the starch laden and calorie dense plant. I told her that the extra butter and sour cream was underneath all of the other shit but she continued to whine about not being able to see the extra crap that she spent a whopping dollar for. Apparently she found great stress over the fact that her food was not as visually fattening as it was calorically. This massive female mammal appeared to be in her early sixties but was most likely in her fifties or possibly even her late forties. Eating whale food makes people age quickly. So I gave her another scoop of butter and sour cream as a peace offering and she receded back into the water to regroup with her pod.

 

I have no qualms about making fun of the obese, maybe obese children but not obese adults. Ten years ago I would have agreed with the idea that being overweight is genetic but after studying nutrition and being a personal trainer for a few years, I know that the genetic excuse is bullshit. Neither fat nor muscle is made out of thin air; hence the saying that “you are what you eat”. That saying is very true and anyone can gain or lose weight by changing their diet and activities. Some people are more genetically prone to being thin and some gain weight easily, but those factors are both based on how much a person eats and how many calories they burn. You can’t bitch about your genetics because everyone has to play the cards they’ve been dealt and your cards are just as good and bad as anyone else’s. There comes a time in everybody’s life when they must face the facts and know that it is unhealthy for them to continue to eat like a ten-year-old while having the activity level of a quadriplegic. On a side note, I find it funny that the fatty-butts at Chick-fil-A consider obesity to be genetic and homosexuality to be a choice. Just a funny thought.

 

However, not all landwhales are created equal. On that same shift at the dock, a very large and interesting bull whale entered the quayside for feasting. He was wearing dark navy blue Champion sweat pants, a faded blue and red Hawaiian button up shirt, Pro-Wing soccer shoes, and a fucking cowboy hat to top it off. He looked like an overweight and mentally retarded Clint Eastwood. He looked like the kind of guy that pulls his pants down around his ankles and lifts up the front of his shirt while peeing in a urinal. Just saying, this guy looked like a genuine moron. Then he smiled at me and ordered a large bovine sandwich. His voice sounded just like Sam Elliot’s and he was the nicest son of a bitch in the world. We made small talk about the drought or some stupid shit and he was a cool guy and everything. He cleaned up after himself and even tipped me a dollar when he left. So maybe I can’t always judge a book by its cover, even if that cover is the size of a parking lot.

 

Anyway, it’s my birthday. I have no plans of celebrating it until Sunday when my parents will take me out to eat. We’ll have seafood because that’s my favorite. Yesterday I celebrated by lifting weights until I nearly passed out. I consider physical activity to be the best way for celebrating the fact that I’m still alive and able to be physical. I’ve always considered birthdays to be a bummer and have never been a big celebrator of my own day of birth. It’s another year gone, why have a party over that? Also, if I am the third coming of Christ then I’m sure that I’ll be discovering that over this next year. I say the third coming of Christ because Bruce Lee was the second coming of Christ. Jesus supposedly died when he was thirty-three and Bruce Lee died just before he turned thirty-three, so I hope that I’m not the third coming of Christ because I’d like to live a while longer. I have returned from the dead once and although I can’t turn water into wine I can make some unusually delicious alcoholic drinks out of common ingredients. My friend, and neighbor, and coworker, Gordon Smitherschwartz can attest to that.

 

I’m also fully realizing how much I prefer to be around young people or at least people that still think young. Whenever I’m around someone my own age and they start bitching about how they’re not young anymore and mortgages and all that other boring shit, I blank them out entirely. Being around young people and youthful thoughts is what keeps people young. I will try my hardest to never lose my ability to think with a young mind. Having a young mind allows me to wonder. I wonder if this next year will be the greatest year of my life. Maybe this will be the year that I make my first million or get involved with the making of a movie. Maybe this will be the year that a woman makes an honest man out of me and I will finally lose my virginity. Or maybe it’ll just be another ordinary year.

 

 

 

And thank you to everyone that has wished me a happy birthday.