Now that I am no longer working at Time for Gravy across from campus, I am pursuing my theatrical studies and have fallen into a steady routine. I managed to break away from that routine this past weekend though. My friend Ross’s wedding took place in Parker Colorado, right outside of Denver this past Friday and at the last minute I decided that would skip my classes and go. Not only was my friend’s wedding on Friday but also my older brother’s 25^th birthday was on that following Saturday, and I’d be a monkey’s uncle if my brother doesn’t just so happen to live in Denver as well. I figured that I would be killing two birds with one stone by going to Denver for the weekend and so I went.

Ron and Connie, my parents, insisted that I drive their car to Denver instead of my own. I tried to argue otherwise because I love my precious Malibu almost as much as I love pornography and it is equally hard to pull me away from it. I agreed and reluctantly swapped my gorgeous and finely tuned 2005 Chevy Malibu with my parents’ rickety and less visually appealing 2012 Chevy Malibu for my drive to Denver.

I put tire to the pavement at around 10:30AM and was feeling relaxed and comfortable as I switched between NPR and Rush Limbaugh on the radio by 11:00AM. NPR was playing classical music and I cannot listen to that shit, and Rush Limbaugh is a cock smuggling fat ass but it was the only political talk show on the radio at that time so I listened to it anyway. Now, I lived in Denver for four years so I never need a map or anything to get there and back and it’s normally a five hour drive unless I get pulled over for speeding.

By the time that I hit North Platte in Western Nebraska I was feeling groggy and my head felt weighed down with poop from all of the bullshit coming out of Rush Limbaugh’s mouth. So I pulled over at The Flying J for some coffee and gas. I bought a 32oz cup/ sand bucket of The Flying J’s special blend coffee along with some ridiculously overpriced beef jerky. I got back onto the interstate and took my first sip of coffee. This coffee was horrible. It tasted like alcohol-free Jack Daniels or maybe piss with an electric current run through it because of the shocking nip it had after every sip. However, The Flying J’s special blend is a mix of coffee beans, methamphetamine, and bath salts and that makes up for the evil flavor. Also, I had and entire 32oz of this shit to drink! If my parents’ rusted out 2012 Malibu were to break down on the interstate then I would have the strength to carry it the rest of the way to Denver.

I was just outside of Denver near Keenesburg when the coffee hit my bladder something fierce. I pulled over at a small gas station near a creepy motel called the Baron Motel. I ran inside the gas station and as I was entering an old man went inside the bathroom and locked the door. I paced around the gas station and looked at all of the weird Chinese toys and gas station food to take my mind off of my struggle to not piss my pants. There was a little Asian lady working at the counter. My guess is that she was in her late thirties but with Asian people it is impossible to guess their age unless they are toddlers or very elderly. This lady could have been anywhere between the ages of 20 and 65 and I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear any of those numbers if I had asked her age. She smiled at me and I smiled back and then a very unusual and awesome conversation took place, which ultimately ended with me purchasing an ancient weapon of death. Here is the conversation that took place. I will refer to myself as Me and refer to the Asian lady as 亚洲母狗.

亚洲母狗:  “Herro.”

Me:  “Oh, uh, hello. How are you today?”

亚洲母狗:  “Oohh, vaywy good, vaywy good. You fwom Denvow?”

Me:  “No, I’m just going to Denver for my brother’s birthday.”

亚洲母狗:  “Good, good. Have you bawh him pwesent?”

Me:  “No I haven’t. I’m not sure what to get him so I figured I would just buy him

something when I get there.”

亚洲母狗:  “Whaw do he rike?”

Me:  “He designs websites and he likes computer stuff, but I’ll probably just get him some

clothes or something.”

亚洲母狗:  “Do he correct sword?” (Conversation just got interesting)

Me:  “You know what? It’s funny you asked that because yes, he does collect swords.”

(A light goes on in 亚洲母狗’s eyes and she reaches under the counter and comes back up with two samurai swords and sets them on the counter. These swords are amazing but the cheapest one is $200 and I’m not spending that kind of money at a gas station unless a hooker is involved.)

Me: “Whoa! These are great! But I can’t spend $200 on him. Sorry.”

(I hold one of the swords in my hand and look at the blade. It feels sort of cheap but although it’s no Hattori Hanzo sword, I want it bad. 亚洲母狗 puts the swords back under the counter and comes back up with a very large cardboard box. On the side of the box in big red letters it reads, 哟口大迪克斯NINJA DAGGERS? 哟健康是不好的. She pulls out a few smaller boxes from the big box and opens them in front of me. Despite the lack of certainty printed on the box, they are in fact ninja daggers.)

亚洲母狗:  “Maybe you rike dees instay.”

Me:  “Oh my God. These are awesome!” (The cheapest one is $85. It has a dragonhead for the handle and the curvy blade is supposed to be the tail. But it’s 85 fucking dollars.)

Me:  “I like this one but I really can’t pay that much.”

亚洲母狗:  “I giff it you fow sisty dowra.”

Me:  “Fifty.”

亚洲母狗:  “Okay, I giff it you fo fitty dowra.”

Me: “Forty.”

亚洲母狗:  “Oooohh, buh you say fitty dowra. I no go cheapa.”

Me:  “Thirty dollars and I’m sold.”

亚洲母狗:  “You robby me! You robby me! I no can serr for tirty dowra! …Okay… Okay. I giff it you fo tirty dowra.”

I happily paid for the ninja dagger and left it at the counter while I made dick water in the men’s room. She handed me my newly purchased weapon and asked:

亚洲母狗:  “You tink yow brutta rike?”

Me:  “Are you kidding me, he’s going to love it! This will be the best deadly weapon in his entire collection.”

亚洲母狗:  “How ord is you brutta goink to be?”

Me: “Fourteen.”

(I smile and walk out the door.)

My brother has never worked at a county fair nor does he listen to Metallica, and he’s married with a career, so he has no interest in collecting swords and knives. He thought the knife was kind of cool but I don’t think he fully realized that the story behind it is what made the present so amazing.

In the end, after driving to my brother’s house and placing all of my belongings into my brother’s guest bedroom I decided not to attend the wedding. My one and a half year old nephew, Liam, pulled me outside to play with him and I chose to stay and spend time with my nephew rather than get drunk with my old friends at a wedding. I’ve already apologized to my friend Ross and he completely understands. I know that I will be able to go out drinking with my friends of yore in the future so that doesn’t bother me. I know for certain that will also be able to spend time with my nephew in the future, but in the future he will never be one and half again. So I chose family over friends and I have no regrets.

There’s also a whole shitload of other stuff that happened over the weekend but that’s another story.

Dear Facebook Diary,

 

Just the other day during one of my classes, I discussed methods of suicide with some of my fellow classmates. This would be a strange topic of discussion for most people but I consider it to be a normal conversation. I revealed the overly elaborate way in which I would off myself if I were to ever commit suicide and the reaction from most people is that they laugh, but I am completely serious.

 

Here is how I would commit suicide: First I would purchase a fifteen-foot strand of either piano string or cheese wire. Then I would fashion a noose with the string or wire.  I would scout out a tall bridge for me to jump off of and then climb to the tallest point; it would need to be elevated at least fifty feet above the ground. I would tie the end of the wire without the noose to the bridge. Then I would place the noose around my neck and tighten it. And here is the most important detail, I would put super glue on both of my hands and stick them to the sides of my head. Finally, I would jump off of the bridge, the wire would cut my head clean off, and my head would still be held between my super glued hands. This would create the appearance of me having killed myself by pulling my own head off once my body was discovered on the ground below. Of course the wire noose on the bridge would eventually be found and my heedlessness would be explained, but the first people to discover my body would be absolutely amazed by the sight of a man that had such hate for life that it enraged him to the point of removing his own head with his bare hands. I have no thoughts of suicide or inflicting any harm on myself but in the unlikely scenario in which I have been framed for rape and genocide, lost every cent of my money, had all of my belongings stolen, been diagnosed with full blown AIDS, and had my dog die all in the same day… this is how I would kill myself.

 

Suicide is not funny but that isn’t the reason why I brought it up. And if I ever were diagnosed with AIDS then the first thing that I would do is hunt down Magic Johnson and eat him because he obviously IS the cure for AIDS. What I am talking about is how to die in an awesome way. You see, for various reasons I have what is called a “living will”. While I was filling out this document called a “living will”, I came upon the question asking that if all probability of me regaining consciousness were lost, would I allow someone to remove life support and allow me to die. I marked the box next to the answer stating “sure, why not?” but I found it ridiculous that this was my only option. It seems so uninspired that I must march through life in pursuit of money to purchase shit that I don’t even need and then after decades of monotonous and meaningless work I should die by simply being unplugged. Average American men must suffer a completely unspectacular life only to finish it all off with an even more unspectacular death, aka being unplugged.

 

I would much rather put something much more awesome into my living will but apparently that is illegal. If I am a vegetable on life support with no chances of waking up and I have the mental power of a fucking peanut, then why can’t I be killed in a more dignified and exciting way? I want my surviving friends to use some of my money to buy a pickup truck, place me in my deathbed into the back of the truck, hire some crazy high school kids to drive the truck towards a tornado, and then they would jump out just before the tornado sucked the truck and I up into it. Then they would find my body mangled and hanging in a tree five miles away rather than unplugging me and waiting for me to stop breathing. It would be a much more awesome death. I want to start a business in which men pay me to keep a contract with them so that if they should ever be in a permanently vegetative state, my company will ensure that they be killed in the coolest way possible. They will pay a monthly or annual fee and the more they pay the more badass their death will be.

 

I already have several ideas for hardcore ways for how I would prefer to bite the big one rather than dying in a hospital bed. I could have someone inject me with a lethal dose of heroin using a needle infected with every STD known to man and then leave my body in an alley in St. Louis or some other random nightmare of a city. Someone could place my limp body on a bench press, put 600 pounds on the bar, and then drop the bar on my face to crush my head. Then next to the bench would be a little workout journal showing that I was performing my eighth set of twenty reps with 600 pounds when I apparently lost my grip and dropped it on my face. Or somebody could take me to the zoo, stuff a sardine sandwich in my mouth, and then drop me into a pit of hungry rampaging elephant seals. There are millions of ways that I would rather die that are better than fading away as an un-pluggable pussy in a bed.

 

And for an extra fee, men could keep a private record with my company showing where all of their porn and any other weird shit is hidden in their house or on their computer or wherever. Then, as soon as we found out that the client wasn’t going to survive we would send someone to erase all of their porn and private stuff so family members wouldn’t find it after they died and realize what a pervert they were. We could even plant things into their computers and houses for family members to find too. We could hide guns with silencers and a hit list under their bed to make family members believe that they were a hitman for the mafia. For a very expensive fee we could fly them to the Middle East and make it look as if they were killed during a secret CIA mission. And of course we would completely destroy all records of the client’s deal with us after they were deceased to ensure that their cause of death remained a legend for eternity.

 

That’s sort of what sucks about modern life and creating a living will. Instead of dying on the battlefield we must plan on dying in a hospital or a nursing home. It’s a means of cementing the internal belief that we will never lead a life so awesome that we’ll parish in the grandest of ways. We must live robotic money chasing lives and once we have reached the end of the race we are simply unplugged. What a bummer.