This Is No Such Thing As a Free Lunch. Just Free Everything Else.

As everyone doesn't know I'm infatuated with Slate Magazine. How could you not be with headlines such as, "I Wore a 'Man Bun' and Waxed My Pubic Hair Because of the New York Times," and "When Did People Start Calling Each Other “Poopy Head'?" It is articles like these that get America back in line to where it should be: finding out about defecation faces and following others because we can't think for ourselves.

WE LIVE IN A NEW AMERICA.

I peruse Slate on a twice daily basis. Besides being the leftist equivalent of Fox News of internet magazines without the hot blondes and raving lunatic Karl Rove, it does have some things which I find absolutely fascinating. Such as their advice column which I hate love daily. We could all sit here and surmise that I'm saying nice things about Slate because my dream is to have an article there and they've turned me down more than 30 times, but that would be absolutely correct and in today's day and age we have no room for the truth. You can't handle blah blah.

So while in the midst of this love fest that can only rival Paris Hilton and everyone with a penis, I saw an article that mildly intrigued me on this site of the Gods.

"What Is It Like to Date or Marry a Fashion Model?"

Slate has another offshoot website, Quora, which lets readers ask questions that hopefully someone else has the answer to. It's just like peppering your parents with cockamamie questions that they don't feel like answering. Except in this case important people or people that want to be important or "insiders" answer the questions in a somewhat intelligent way and not with a "Ask your mother."

One of the dreams of a red blooded heterosexual male is to date a model. Some men may say they don't think about it, but I'll cut to the chase. They are all liars. If one of your friends says he won't go out with a model because his non model wife is hotter then kick him in the testes. (Fine print: Your Beard is Good is not liable for any injuries or reactions this may cause. Please consult a lawyer.) On the dream list of men, dating a model has to be somewhere in the top ten. A top ten that includes among others: 3somes, dunking a basketball, reenacting a scene you saw in a porno, owning a car that makes people look, and pantsing your boss in a budget meeting.

Pants off, Finance Off

I started reading the article and my emotions went from intrigue, to anger, to more anger, to lying down angry. It was exactly like the 12 step process if the 12 steps were in reference to your best friend sleeping with your girlfriend while simultaneously punching you in the face. From the article:

Almost every model in her late 20s (including the woman I dated) begins to worry incessantly (when she isn't worrying about nonexistent eye wrinkles) about how to make herself into a "brand" and transition into being a supermodel, which is pretty much the only postmodeling career available to you in this line of work.

That nugget right there is pretty interesting. I never knew that the retirement home for being a regular model was the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue or a horrendous daytime talk show. But now it does make sense why crazy Tyra Banks is still around. Please continue model dating impresario.

As a couple and as a man, you are immediately accorded utterly absurd amounts of social consideration. Any time we were out, we'd get special treatment. Not just from service people but just regular people. People would regularly offer to let us cut in front of them in lines at restaurants, grocery stores, even once at the DMV(!) when we happened to go together.

This seems pretty self explanatory. When you date someone that's A) super hot and B) a model, people like giving you free stuff. It's just like when I go to a gas station or 7-11 and the cashier will let me take a lighter for free. I hear you Hot Girlfriend Guy.

Of course we could get into clubs, although this is not as great as it seems because every two-bit wannabe pickup artist would try to chat "us" (really just her) up when we were just there to dance and have a good time with friends.

Oh. Boo-Hoo. Your hot girlfriend that was getting you all this free stuff was getting hit on by the hoi polloi. How sad for you? I mean it's not like you were GETTING FREE STUFF ALL THE TIME or anything. I wish there was some way this would balance out in the karma of life.

We were a pretty good-looking couple (well, she was—I was a chump in a nice suit), and we would always get offered the first-class upgrades.

F-You. But I see what you did there trying to tone down your looks in competition with hers. Note: The self deprecating bit doesn't work when people are legitimately making it rain on you through an airport.

Her finances were always a mess. I've heard this is often an issue with people who work in industries where you get irregular lump-sum payments for your work.... I made the wise decision to keep our finances completely separate even when we started living together and "splitting" the rent, which more often than not turned out to be me footing all of the rent for that month and her paying me back months later when she got paid.

"Damn, dating a supermodel is the worst." - No one.

Ultimately though, the most frustrating thing about the whole experience is that despite being absolutely drop-dead gorgeous (some models look "strange," while others are more conventionally beautiful, and she was one of the conventionally beautiful ones), she became increasingly insecure and worried about her "declining" looks.

Pretty frustrating to date someone really hot. I can see that. I mean I would totally get annoyed of their hotness and be annoyed when she did other things other than look hot. Stop looking so hot I would say. Oh wait, I would never say that.

At one point, I thought maybe we could make it work as a joint venture, with her doing the modeling and speaking and industry relationships, and I would handle the finance and "business" pieces, but her negativity and insecurity about everything had totally poisoned things between us so much by then that I just couldn't handle it anymore.

F-You.

Finally, I met someone when I was home for Christmas when my mom, before I could stop her, introduced me as "my son, who is dating the supermodel" to a girl I'd been friends with in high school, which of course got her to talk to me. She now says she was impressed not because I was dating a supermodel, but because I was helping her with her finances and "good with business," and now she is my fiancée.

The lesson here. Never date someone so attractive because they will throw money at Jimmy Choos and never get you anything for free unless that is everything. Always go for the average girls. They like finance.

Maybe that guy should go pants his boss now.

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Sorry About Your Boyfriend. I Think You Need A New One

Nickelback is the Internet’s boyfriend.


You know the one. The boyfriend that everyone hates including your own parents. The boyfriend that was nice that one time, but then everyone found out he makes meth in the basement of his grandma's rental home. The boyfriend that no one in the holy world cares about especially when you say, "Nickelback bought me coffee today. It was sooooo cute." Let's be honest. No one gives a damn about anyone's boyfriend. Anytime a woman starts a sentence with "My boyfriend" I glare at them like Superman lasering through a safe. To be gender neutral the same does go for men when they mention their girlfriends, but the difference is that if a man says that we can all punch him in the balls repeatedly. No homo. (Not sure if we're still using that, but it seems like a valid thing to say.) When a woman says it, it not only makes our penises hurt because we can't sleep with them, but, well, that's it really.

Boyfriend talk = no sex. Math.

We've all been around the person that constantly talks about their significant other. Aside from it being annoying, unattractive, uncouth, exasperating, agitating, tactless, and all around awful, it's the best thing ever. This is the point we have gotten to with Nickelback. See in 2010 I wrote something about how we had already gotten to that point. Let's roll the videotape.

"Everyone hates Nickelback.

We get it. Please stop. The past 3 or 4 years it has become “in” to hate Nickelback. Everywhere you go people talk about how Nickelback is terrible and how much they dislike them. At first, it was pretty funny. Nickelback had become the hate band of our generation that many people thought “sold out” or put out bad music that became popular. It was a good running gag IN 2007! Seriously, why? Why are we still beating this drum about Nickelback? In the past couple of months some new groups have come out on Facebook.

Can this pickle get more fans than Nickelback?
or

I bet I can find 169,000 people that hate Nickelback.
or

I bet that…YOU ARE A DUMBASS.

That last one has a group of one. Me."

Give it up for self sourcing. Suck on that one time Wikipedia.

But you see I was sorely mistaken. I assumed in 2010 that we had saturated ourselves with enough Nickelback hate that we would move on. We would grow up and leave all of our emotional outbursts in the past. Then something happened that brought us back to where we were. After the announcement that Avril Lavigne and Chad Kroeger, lead singer of Nickelback, were engaged, we were all struck with a collective bout of NTSD (Nickelback Trauma Stress Disorder). The memories came rushing back. Waking up in cold sweats, we knew that now was the time to hit the Internet with some snark that the web was founded on.

Let's party like it's 2007!

"Avril Lavigne is engaged to Nickelback front man Chad Kroeger, who is 10 years older and also terrible." - Gawker

“There are absolutely no good Nickelback songs, but at least there are hilarious, sleazily ham-fisted ones like 'Something in Your Mouth.'" - Molly Lambert, Grantland.

"I wouldn’t even acknowledge being in the same room with them. You’d have to put a burning tire around me to confess to dating one." - What Would Tyler Durden Do

"Yes. we know that many consider Nickelback one of Canada's more reviled musical exports and Lavigne isn't exactly a critical darling" - Huffington Post Canada

"Yes, congratulations to Avril Lavigne, who managed to find someone that is more of a non-person than Brody Jenner. And congratulations to our ears, which will no longer be Nickelback's dedicated wang holster. " - B. Caplan, Miami New Times Blog

"Though a date has yet to be set, the bride and groom are no doubt already looking forward to taking a honeymoon from doing awful work and relaxing by looking over the photos from their wedding album, which is expected to be the first album by either of them to not be mercilessly drubbed by critics." - The A.V. Club.

Oh, there's a more. A LOT MORE. If I included Twitter, this would be the first infinity word post in history. But in the interest of space I decided to only use quotes I found from people paid to write. In most of the articles I found, the authors went out of their way to at least give Avril one compliment on her music while making Chad Kroeger look he was William Hung. The narrative has already been written for Nickelback. They suck. They will always suck and there's nothing anyone can do to convince us they will never ever suck.

The problem I have with this narrative is that it's low hanging fruit. It's easy to paint Avril Lavigne as the cute skateboard chick who wore ties, put out some pop hits, and tried to diversify with some slow ballads while bludgeoning Kroeger over the head with a two by four and telling him to get a haircut. Nickelback and Kroeger have taken a dump in everyone's bed and then blamed it on our dads. If someone comes out in favor of them you're in favor of a serial crapist.

Dumps like a truck. What.

 We can have our own opinions. I happen to like Nickelback’s first album no matter what the Internet and Mark Zuckerberg tells me to like and not like. When the Nickelback sponsored cafeteria comes out I know I’ll be eating my tater tots alone. That’s fine. As is hating them. But we don’t need to hear about it anymore. Your hate for Nickelback is repetitive and not a good look. I already know how you feel about your boyfriend, there’s no need to keep jamming him into the conversation. Let’s all break up with Nickelback. They’re going to try really hard to get back into our lives, but let’s change our number, lose some weight, and have meaningless sex with the next person that comes along.

That Bieber is looking good.

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You Can't Care About The Things You Don't Care About

There comes a time in people's lives when they must admit to things they are not particularly proud of. Many of these depravities happen under the extreme duress of alcoholic consumption or after having fully ingested an entire "peep." The time and place of admitting all these transgressions usually happens in one of two ways. It is either at your therapist's office after he berates you for 10th time to come clean about something your parents did that you despise and end up blurting out random factoids like "I always root for the minorities on Jeopardy," or it happens after a stupidly excessive amount of alcoholic consumption. (See above.)


There were so many secrets during Prohibition.

At a recent housewarming party I was making myself comfortable with the kitchen area of the home. According to Facebook all the best parties end up in the kitchen so I wanted to be sure to stake my claim to where all the action was going to be. As I'm getting a delicious cocktail and being introduced to someone my friend comes into the kitchen and asks an important question which she already knows the answer to.

"Are you watching The Real World?"

Watching The Real World in 2012 is like getting a girlfriend for the first time, being dumped, then checking her AOL Instant Messenger away status for clues where she could be while constantly driving by her house to make sure she isn't seeing anyone else. It was great when it started, by now you're ashamed to still doing it, but you can't help yourself. The only difference is that the Real World does not slap you with a restraining order and your parents don't take away your car privileges. As I responded to the question with me head facing the floor and a barely audible "yes" I realized we both had admitted as 30 somethings to watching something that not only does not matter in the social consciousness anymore, but is the worst thing ever created in the history of man.

The pogo stick a close second.

(Aside: Why is the pogo stick even a thing? You can't really move great distances with it. It doesn't get that high off the ground. If you do a flip on it you will end up maiming yourself. Did no one look at the pogo stick prototype and think, "Nah?" Or did Mr. Pogogorgio just silence the room with his argument that people will love jumping with the use of a stick? "We have this stick and it makes us fly." SOLD. How do we have pogo sticks and not sneakers with springs on the bottom? This is exactly why the Asians are kicking our ass in education.)

Every year that passes by there are two things that I will definitely do that year. Become one year closer to death and watch another crappy year of the Real World. (I would say pay taxes, but who pays those anymore? Raise that debt ceiling!) As ashamed as I am to still be watching The Real World dreck they put on my television, I am more ashamed at the way the franchise has been run. Then I'm even more ashamed that I wrote the previous sentence.

The Shame Spiral has reached the bottom.

At one point in this fine country the Real World was a cultural phenomenon. People would gather around TV's to watch Eric Nies' abs flex in New York. Now when someone brings up the Real World the first response from the peanut gallery is, "That's still on?" Yet other crap reality shows (ahem, The Kardashians) continually get pumped up. The show has lost its naive footprint in the world, but there is a way to save it. So for the 8 people still reading this I pronounce 5 ways to get The Real World back into the public consciousness.

1. Give these mother f’ers cell phones. Listen it’s 2012. I don’t know in what part of the “real world” people aren’t using technology. There have been stories about a massive sexting scandal in Uganda*, people in Japan having chips implemented in them to tell them the best way to avoid traffic **, and the other day I googled “will eating too many bananas make me blind” at the optometrist office when I could have just asked him in 2 minutes. *** Listen, I understand if you don’t want them watching TV because no one wants to see 7 people watching Game of Thrones and getting pissed that Winter has not yet come even though that was promised. But give them a phone. What’s the worst that could happen? Dong pics end up online? That’s free publicity.

2. Always cast more straight girls than straight guys. This may be seen as a personal preference, but it’s for the greater good. If you cast 4 guys and 3 girls then two of the guys invariably fight over one girl, but since dudes have this bro code thing going on it’s boring when they give fist pounds, one bro drops out and say “Go get yours player.” Chill bros do not make good TV. If two girls fight over one guy then the backstabbing and name calling shall begin. Girls cannot be cool bros. Science.

3. If the show is in America don’t cast anyone under 21. If it’s in a foreign country don’t cast anyone OVER 21. This is self explanatory.

4. Don’t give these idiots any money. That’s right. Once they get wherever they are strip them of their cash and don’t set up jobs for them. Make them earn it. Who doesn’t want to see some 22 year old trying to make beer money by pulling a Magic Mike act at some Orlando male revue? (note: no one, but everyone)

5. There is no #5, but this list would have been pathetic as a top 4 list.

So there it is. A completely useless and arbitrary list to spice up a show that no one cares about. If that’s not my finest work then I don’t know anything about how to relate to no one.

Off to buy a pogo stick.

*unconfirmed
**you probably believed it
***yes I did that.

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When The Supreme Court Speaks, We All Can't Listen

The last few weeks have been really important for the world we live in and have affected a lot of us individually. From a new government being elected in Greece, to the wildfires in Colorado, to Penn State being torn down limb from limb, to the Supreme Court of the United States making rulings on Arizona immigration and Obamacare, this past month has been chock full of things that no one else understands. Does the Supreme Court realize they don't have to use every gigantic word in the Oxford Dictionary? Just because you are called "Supreme" doesn't actually make you a higher being. You're still humans. The fact that the only people that can understand a Supreme Court ruling are Mensa members, the makers of dictionaries, and Aaron Sorkin is not a good look. This is a passage from the Supreme Court ruling about Arizona's immigration law.


"From the existence of two sovereigns follows the possibility that laws can be in conflict or at cross-purposes. The Supremacy Clause provides a clear rule that federal law "shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

Rosetta Stone hasn't made their "Highfalutin Douchebag" translation kit yet.

The only question to ask here is "why?" Why are people the way they are? Here's what I would like to know. What your rulings or findings actually are without having to ask a human verbiage decoder. The Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare was so convoluted that Fox News and CNN both got the ruling wrong initially. These are networks that employ lawyers. The same lawyers who still use Latin. The same lawyers whose everyday job is to read things in a language that has not been used by anyone outside of governance since dinosaurs ruled the Earth.* If they plus hot Megan Kelly, dreamboat Anderson Cooper, and alien spawn** Wolf Blitzer can't get it right then what chance do us mere mortals have?

*unconfirmed.

** No rightful homo sapien would name their kid "Wolf Blitzer." I rest my case.

Just tell me what the ruling is. Can't we do that in a concise manner with words that everyday people use such as "like," "um," "Nohedidunt," and the increasingly popular "You cray?" I propose that instead of having the Supreme Court put their findings in a hugely inconvenient 300 page plus document, they just tell a You Tube commenter what their decision is so we can get something in layman's terms. For the role of You Tube consulate to the Supreme Court I nominate one, Otukuaho1 from the YouTube video "Supreme Court Declares Obamacare Constitutional as a Tax." Exhibit A (there’s only one exhibit).

"your telling me PEOPLE! are going to FUCKING STARVE in AMERICA if you STOP feeding them foodstamps.cause the TRUTH the TRUTH is people CANT AFFORD the fucking food alonge with all the other bills.do you know how much food we thow away in america?oh well i guess youd have to thow it all away in order to give people MORE fucking money for MORE FOOD.so they can keep gettin paid and THINK NOTHING OF HOW MUCH IT IS FUCKS UP THE PRICES.THEY RELLY CANT AFFORD IT.

followed by

"sry 4 the language i get so pissed.but dout no 1 will care.and im copletely off topic"

Sure, sure, making fun of YouTube comments is easy, but this is A plus work. That is what I want in a spokesperson for Congress. Otukaho1 is America! They have passion, horrible grammar, unnecessary obscenities, misplace rants, regrets, and apologies. If I didn't want this person to be spokesperson for Congress I would send them to the Olympics to be the flag bearer for the United States. I'm positive this person's real identity is Brad Thompson from Des Moines Iowa who owns a farm during the day, but firefights at night. He devotes all his profit to charity and has taken in 5 orphans a year since 1998. But more important than the baby saving is the fact I understand what he/she is saying. We can't get rid of food stamps. Easy. Also they took time out of their day to post a comment on You Tube that no one except other commenters care about it. That is dedication.

That is Brad Thompson.

In this day and age of Internetting everyone and not their grandma is a wannabe writer. The best articles and blogs on the Internet relate to the person reading it. It's why writers that write conversationally have bigger followings nowadays. There are exceptions and some writers are very good at writing things that appeals to the masses using larger words, but they are few and far between. No one likes reading the old days of polysyllabic words and unbeknownst phrases. In fact, everyone on the Internet immediately hatred that last sentence. We can portray our intelligence in a way that doesn't alienate everyone else. It seems like everyone has caught onto that except the Supreme Court. We get it. You guys are smart. You don't have to show off.

That’s just cray.

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My Name Is My Name

I am infatuated by names.

When I say names I don't mean company names or any ballad by the Goo Goo Dolls (even though it is a lovely song to have on in the background to cry to after you get dumped. I've heard). I mean legitimate Homo Sapien names. Ever since I was little I've been intrigued by the way we're all named. First names. Last names. Nicknames. Middle Names. Pseudo Names. Pen Names. Pencil Names. Penis Names. No homo?

When I was a kid I've had a love/hate relationship with my own name. Mostly hate. Well, really I should amend that to always hate. Growing up my name was pronounced many a different way that was 100 percent of the time unflattering to me. First name or last name it didn’t matter. Any way you can think of it's been mangled. Ra-hall. Rule. Raz Al Gool. Subterranean. Submarine. Subaru. Do I look like a person that would be named after a Japanese auto manufacturer that specializes in environmental policy? Or a watercraft that explores things UNDER THE WATER? My parents hate swimming.

Of course, that only hits on some of the crimes of mispronunciation. There are literally thousands, ok, hundreds, ok fives. There are at least 5 more ways my name has been destroyed. My favorite one was by my high school Physics teacher who instead of learning my first or last name called me Supermania for the entire year. Not even Superman. Supermania. My name had been relegated to a fake disorder where people go crazy over awesome things.

Suck on it, Oprah.

I despised going into a new class or having a substitute teacher do roll call. "Rahale Sub...Soob...Sabma...” "Yes, that's me." I would bellow like Droopy Dog before the teacher could even finish making a sham mockery of my surname. All that was missing was someone firing me from homeroom. Why couldn't I just be named Steve?!?! It was at this point I started taking an interest in everyone else's name. Some may say infatuation, but if you can't rank your classmates in reverse order of worst name to awesome name on a computer document without being seen as some kind of sociopath capable of lashing out against societal inconsistencies and atrocities then we live in the wrong world people.

I only wanted a name that was easy to say. That was pretty much the only requirement. It didn't even have to be cool. John Tree would have been nice. As I get into my 30s I look around and notice some of my friends having children and see that they have a pretty big burden when it comes to names. When I ask them about names they make sure to say they don't want the name to be easily made fun of by other kids. Why? Because other people's kids suck. It's true. It was in Good Housekeeping. So the names Mike Hunt, Hugh Jass and Pi Ahnmi are all out, which is heart breaking for the Ahnmi family.

They love math.

All of them have done very good jobs naming their child which is tough in its own right. I'm already thinking about my unformed humans with my DNA. I already feel bad that my future wife will be saddled with an 11 letter pronunciation destroying last name, but the pressure to knock the first name out of the park is key. I want something easy-ish to say so my experience growing up isn’t repeated. What if this woman I've tricked into bearing my unborn children wants something difficult (like Nyeka, Sinead or LeNyekaSinead?) or something easy spelled in a kooky way? WHAT THE F IS JAYCESON?!!? (Apologies to anyone named this way. I love your ability to add letters to Jason.) If I'm already bestowing this kid a horrific last name I might as well make the first name simple. It's why my go to names are Elizabeth and James. You can't mess that up. I also have 20 other back up choices just in case.

The reason I started thinking about names again was brought on by an article I read on CNN. A 17 year old boy lost his arm to an alligator, but saved his life by using a maneuver he saw on the show Swamp Men. All of that is well and good, but I had a hard time concentrating after reading this in the second paragraph.

“Kaleb "Fred" Langdale was swimming with friends in the Caloosahatchee River in Moore Haven…”

His nickname was Fred?!!? WHAT. I read that entire article wholly uncaring about this boy’s plight of losing an arm, but defeating a gator. Why were there no follow-ups on why his nickname is Fred? Not only that he is referred to as Fred throughout the article. It made no sense. As a former beer bong record holder journalism school student I am appalled there was no massive interrogation into this. Is Kaleb uncool? It seems easy to say. And he’s called Fred. Is this because of his love for Sanford and Son? Or does his love fried chicken and they misspelled “fried”? So many questions so few answers, but it did make me realize something.

Even people with easy to say names make not like their name.

That makes it even more difficult in naming someone else. Even doing my best will not guarantee my future me likes his/her name. I have no control which can be quite scary. However,I haven’t thought about my own name in a while. As I got older and through college my name uniqueness started paying off. I could go off one name like Sinbad or that Madonna person. When someone said Jeff, 10 heads turned around. The rarity of my name helped me stand out so I slowly got over it. But after reading that article I finally realized that maybe I wasn’t alone. Maybe a lot of kids hate their name just because they hate it. Not because it’s hard for other people to say. After 20 something years I learned to love my name. It’s perfect. If this is what my parents had in mind when they named my brother and I after Indira Gandhi's son and grandson then it eventually worked.

But I would have still settled for Steve.

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The Electric Water Slide Would Be Dangerous

"It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up magazine." Christopher Wallace wrote those words down and then used it in a song. I always assumed that it was a dream because he forgot how to read in real life, but maybe it was because he hadn't seen a Word Up magazine in a really long time. Regardless, Christopher Wallace had dreams and whether in his lame  dreams he was laying back and reading an outdated magazine or becoming famous he had them. We all do.
 
Growing up I had the same dreams that many kids my age had. I wanted to be a professional athlete. I wanted to be rich. I wanted to fit 5 wadded up fruit rollups in my mouth at one time. Only got to 3. That dream died. Almost in an emergency room. My parents are affable people. When their kids wanted something they usually gave it to us within reason. We got a Nintendo. We celebrated Christmas even though no one in our family believes in Jesus. When people ask me why we celebrate Christmas I answer in one way.

"Our family REALLY loves birthdays."

There weren't many things that they didn't get for us. We were extremely lucky kids. But my parents did draw the line at certain things. We didn't get a Super Nintendo. I didn't get a car on my 17th birthday. We never got Showtime. All those things were ok, though. Well, maybe not Showtime. I really wanted to see Red Shoe Diaries, ok? For the cinematography. But out off all those things that we wanted and never got only one thing has ever bothered me to this day.

A Slip 'N Slide.

We all know the Slip 'N Slide. For those of you that don't know what that is, get the hell out right now. I'm serious. Get out. Now that we've reduced the riff raff around here I wanted that Slip 'N Slide so bad when I was a kid. We had all the amenities necessary for a great experience. We had a pretty good sized yard, a hose, and... I guess that's all you need for the Slip 'N Slide. Except we never got the slide part. For various reasons unbeknownst to me my parents never bought it for us. Maybe they never saw how fun it was.

It wasn’t just an activity, it was a gun show. (10 sec mark)

I would have even taken one of those generic Slip ‘N Slides like Trip ‘N Dive or the short lived Chip ‘N Cry. Instead they put up a pool in the back yard. I was the only kid growing up that would have rather had a piece of plastic with water on it than a full sized pool to play Marco Polo and drown neighborhood undesirables underwater for just enough time that you were 5 seconds away from being on the 10 o’clock news for the rest of your life with a caption that read, “DROWNTOWN JULIE BROWN.”

I don’t remember anyone else in my neighborhood having a Slip ‘N Slide either, but I wasn’t for certain. And if they did have one and never invited me to use it? Well, I couldn’t blame them. I was a chubby kid with coke bottle glassed that looked like I stepped out of a failed Urkel audition after he ate 7,291 too many ho ho’s. So instead of getting to use that elusive Slip ‘N Slide we played pool games and had general debauchery. It was fine. But I never got to have that dream.

As I got older I had forgotten about that dream. It was placed in a bin with professional athlete and chick magnet. But this past weekend a group of us were lounging by the pool when one of my friends unrolled something in the lawn. At first I looked without much of a glance, but then I saw it. A Slip ‘N Slide. It wasn't official, but it was good enough. All the memories of dreams unfulfilled came back. The times my parents said no. All the days my dad yelled, “Why are you digging holes in the yard to play golf?”

Then it happened.

I went down that slide 7 times if it wasn’t, well, 7. I only went down it 7 times. By god damn if it wasn’t the best 7 slides of my life. For one glorious day a dream had been realized.

Time to order Showtime.

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When You Lie With Dogs, You Should Probably Get Some Help

Humans lie all the time. When I mean lie I don't mean in the "go to bed" way, but more in the "dishonest" sense. In either case both statements are right. Humans are lying down all the time and telling people falsitudes to their face or, since this is 2012, their eyes when they read it on their phone. If you ever told a lie while lying in bed then I guess you're the Michael Jordan of lying. Or Michael Jordan is the you of basketball.

In the past couple years I've been attempting to be more honest in my personal life. I would include professional life in that, but since I work in a division of sales being honest here would only get me fired and/or homeless. The last thing I really need is to be holding up a sign on the 405 that says "Will work for truth." Honest. The reality is that when I feel something I tend to just tell the person rather than holding it in. According to Christian Science Monitor* the main reason people lie is so that they do not hurt anyone else's feelings. An entire Happy Endings episode was based on this and it ended. I don't remember how it ended, but after 30 minutes it was definitely over.

*unconfirmed

When it comes to dating or "wooing" as the hit game show the Newlywed game called it (aside: what year did it become acceptable to just say sex on TV? I, for one, miss the days when we had to come up with these awkward euphemisms for people having sex. Hanky Panky, Doing the Forbidden Dance, and everyone's personal favorite Making Whoopi. Little known fact that the phrase was coined by Whoopi Goldberg's parents immediately after they had sex. "Hey what were you guys doing last night?" "Just Making Whoopi. *giggle*") there are a lot of lies that are told in order to make sure the other person's feelings aren't hurt. Society deems this acceptable. "We're letting them down easy by pretending that we like them and then ripping their heart out because we led them on for 3 weeks."

Bitter, table of everyone.

Why do we have to lie about it? Why can't we just say "Hey, I liked you once, now I don’t? See ya in Dumpsville, Crestfallen McGee." I'm 31 years old. The lengths women have gone to not see me again are vast and unnecessary. I know if you don’t like me after a first or second date. You don't have to come up with a lie that says " Sorry, 4th generation guinea pig died. Burying him tonight. Family needs a game night to cope. Can we reschedule?" I get it. If you feel the need to respond you can just say you weren't feeling it. Sure, some people think when they say that the other person will turn into a bath salt eating killing machine, but 99 percent of the time that won't happen.

Sucks for you, the 1 percent.

My favorite scenario of not telling the truth is when people are being hit on at a bar or public place by an undesirable. How easy is it in this scenario to just tell the person you are not interested? It is probably the easiest place in the world to tell the truth outside of someone’s funeral. The dead are really good listeners. You don’t even know the person hitting on you so you can say many things including “Sorry, I’m not interested,” “I’m not feeling it,” and “Step off, jerk bag.” The responses are endless. Yet in this case people feel the need to blatantly lie by saying they have a boyfriend/girlfriend, that they need to go to the bathroom, or by feigning a stroke. Tip: If you have a stroke that does not mean you order another drink. But my favorite response to the being hit on conundrum is…

NOT SAYING ANYTHING AT ALL.

In my vast experiences of getting wasted socializing at bars I notice that when most people are being hit on by someone they don’t like they just take it. They don’t say anything and then they do that weird look to their friends to go “save” them. Well, I’ve started doing this. Not saving them. That’s right. I stand there and pretend nothing else is happening. I understand they didn’t bring this upon themselves, but it only takes 4 or less words (see above for examples) to get out of this situation. I drink and drink laugh and laugh at their misfortune while the other friends in our group call me things like “mean,” “not nice,” and “strikingly handsome.” Why do people need saving? Just be honest. When I asked one of my friends why she didn’t tell the truth to this guy she said “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.” WHAT. YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HIM. It then dawned on me.

Abe Lincoln was a dick.

He was. He told the truth all the time. He’s obviously hurting everyone’s feelings whenever he speaks. What did all those slave owners think? They went through so much therapy because good ole Honest Abraham was putting them down all the time. Oh to be Dr. Jebediah Brainfixer and his clinic. He raked in all the wheat in the land!

Telling the truth can be hard, but it’s easy in certain places.* Let’s just do it. Sorry Nike. Don’t sue me. Today, let’s tell that girl we’re dating that we don’t like the way she doesn’t shut up about True Blood. Let’s tell that guy that no not everyone drinks out of a cup by only using their tongue. We’ll feel a lot better.

*Not responsible for any possible tragic outcomes.

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