March 29, 2004
Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.
My apologies for the time gap with the sham/shares. I got a little bit tipply last night whilst watching Matrix:Reloaded and Second Hand Lions. Both were good movies. I don't see what everybody was bitching about with Matrix2 there. It's an action movie, y'all. Don't be looking for a Tom Clancy plot in a Keenu vehicle. Anyway, I'm not tipply tonight but I am big time sleepy. I didn't want to put y'all off for another day but I was going to anyway until I thought of a great short anecdote and a great way to sham it. A short check with my pseudo-random number generator to find out which version to record for posterity and here it is for your guessing pleasure.
Is this anecdote a sham or a share?
In my crazy youth I worked at Wegman's grocery store. Just about all of the people I hung out with (and/or moved in with) also worked there. Thursday's were paydays so every Thursday we'd all go down to a local bar/restaurant to drink pitchers of beer and throw darts. And eat chicken wings - this was Buffalo, after all. This particular establishment was our place of choice because the Weggie's crew had established itself there and they didn't bother to card anybody in the group. I and my underage coworkers appreciated and exploited this trust.Anyway, my step-mom had been on me for a while about drinking too much and basically challenged me to go a night with the crew without drinking anything. She did it in an obvious and pathetic reverse psychological way (You couldn't go out with those people a single time without drinking!) but I was ornery enough to want to prove her wrong anyway. I might have just needed to prove that to myself as well.
I had my teetotaler evening with my pitcher of Coke sticking out like a lone sentinel in a forest of amber beers. I was the first out when we broke for the evening since I didn't have to pony up for the tab (non-alcoholic beverages were free - designated driver program or some such). As I pulled out of the parking lot I noticed a car pull after me from a parking lot on the other side of the street. Yup, coppers. They followed me for about a quarter mile until I'd turned onto the Boulevard (the first big thoroughfare from the bar). They seemed a bit pissed when I told them I'd had only soda to drink and they quickly realized I wasn't bullshitting.
Fortunately for a couple of my friends it was only the one cruiser working that bar. The ones who might have had a problem with the police were spared due to my red herring.
Current Standings:
Four Correct
jim
Two Correct
Helen
Mike the Marine
mitzi
One Correct
Brian Jones
Jeremy
Lovely Wife
Mutinousdoug
Rob
Simon
Susie
Tiffani
Zero Correct
Everybody else
more...
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March 19, 2004
Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.
Is this anecdote a sham or a share?
At one time I was living with 3 girls. No, it was not all panty dances and blow jobs. Sad to say there were no panty dances or blow jobs at all. From my housemates that is - I was doing fine in that department from other sources. Damn, where was I going with this? I'm sure I had a point here...oh, yeah - background info. All three gals were friends from work. I had previously enjoyed one of them on occasion until we figured that we worked a lot better just as friends. When we all decided to get a place together we made a partially joking rule that there wouldn't be any intra-roomie shennanigans unless it was all four of us at the same time.Now, on to the story: The Road Trip. At the time I was dating a girl who made up with exuberance what she might have lacked in brainpower. We ended up on a road trip with one of my roomies and her boyfriend. We drove down to roomie's parents' house in Pittsburg to go see a Steelers/Bengals game. No, I don't remember why I'd bother to go on a road trip to see either of those teams, much less both of them together. Must have been the promise of beer and companionship. The plan was to drive down on Saturday, sleep overnight, see the game on Sunday then drive back to Buffalo.
Roomie's parents were under the mistaken impression that she was a gal of demure behavior so three separate sleeping areas were made up in the den for me, my gal and her guy and she was (of course) going to sleep in her bed. After several hours of drinking Iron City Beer we all decided to hit the hay. My gal and I stuck our couches together and made quite a nice little nest. Roomie and her guy piled a bunch of sleeping bags and blankets on them to disguise themselves as well as possible and we all "went to sleep". Unfortunately for me my girl actually did pass out, leaving me a tad frustrated. From the sounds on the other side of the room that wasn't a problem for my compatriots.
Between my own frustration and the rather arousing noises from my neighbors things were quickly working up to a difficult point for me. I crept to the bathroom to take matters in my own hand (is that the worst pun you've ever encountered or what?). I was in there with the lights out doing my business when the door suddenly opened and the light came on. There was my roomie, nude and flushed. There I was, crank in hand and redfaced. There was just a few moments (hours?) of stunned silence until she smiled and then I smiled and she giggled and I laughed. She said "Don't be embarassed. I just finished myself and came in to clean up a bit." Turns out her guy passed out just as fast as my girl did and the noises I had been hearing were a solo performance.
We were both a little tipsy and both horny as hell and it was quite difficult not to let old habits take over at that point. We ended up in the shower and did a bit of wash me wash you but she left before anybody (meaning me) lost control and I finished things up by myself. It was one of those situations that would have made a great Letter to Penthouse if it had gone just a little differently but she made the right move - neither one of us would have been happy about it the next day if we'd cheated on our partners.
Current Standings:
Three Correct
jim
Two Correct
Mike the Marine
mitzi
MojoMark
Sue
One Correct
Brian Jones
Helen
Jeremy
Mutinousdoug
Rob
Simon
Susie
Tiffani
Zero Correct
Everybody else
more...
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March 15, 2004
Update: Results are in the extended entry.Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.
Is this anecdote a sham or a share?
I wasn't always the sober and responsible person y'all know today. In my foolish youth I was quite a bit...wilder. No, that doesn't quite gather the feeling I'm looking for. I was more...reckless. No, that's not it either. Stupid! That's it! I was remarkably stupid.For example, one evening out on the icy streets of Buffalo I lost control of my vehicle (it was a Chevette!) and crashed into a guard rail. That's not the stupid part - this sort of thing is an accepted part of living in Buffalo. I crushed my front left quarterpanel and snapped my front left spring in half. I took my tire iron out and pounded the folded metal out of the way, enlisted some friendly neighborhood types to get out of the snowbank and went on my merry way. That's not the stupid part either. You don't spend money to tow a winter beater car when you don't have to and half a front spring is still more than enough anyway. I drove it like that for the rest of the winter.
Very early that spring my step bro and I spent two entire days rebuilding that front end. I got a new panel from a junkyard, he found the spring really cheap somewhere, I got new rotors and calipers on sale (those weren't related to the crash damage) and we went to town. It was a bitch and a half. We didn't quite have the correct tools so we were doing crazy things like using a rope pulley for the wheel pulley (they're both pulley's, right?) and hammers and wedges where hammers and wedges have no business being and some rigged up contraption to compress the spring. This wasn't the stupid part either, though it probably would have qualified if that spring had let go.
The stupid part came about a week after that monumental effort of car fixing. After a night out with the lads I had a drop or fifty too much beverage in me and I spun out on the bridge near our house ("bridge surface may freeze before road" - those signs tell the truth). As the laws of karma demanded, the corner of the car that smashed into the guardrail was of course the same corner we had so recently spent pain, blood and tears fixing.
Current Standings:
Two Correct
jim
Mike the Marine
One Correct
Brian Jones
Helen
Jeremy
mitzi
MojoMark
Mutinousdoug
Rob
Simon
Sue
Susie
Tiffani
Zero Correct
Everybody else
more...
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03:16 PM
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March 11, 2004
Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.
Is this anecdote a share or a sham?
I did a certain amount of experimenting with drugs in my youth. Well, okay - a very limited amount of experimenting. I smoked weed a handful of times. Maybe two handfuls. That's not what this anecdote is about though. What I'm getting at is that I dropped acid too. Twice.The first time was while drinking and smoking weed and either I was too messed up already from the other stuff or it was exceptionally weak stuff and I didn't notice any effect.
The second time was stupid. It was a Sunday. My previous experience made me discount the effects of acid. I had a hugemassivefantasticterrifyingunbelievable trip. It lasted through Monday. I was in Operating Tech School. I was performing surgeries on Monday. Scheduled ceasarian sections. I saw ants crawling out of a uterus and almost cut my own thumb off.
I never dropped acid again. Ever.
Current Standings:
One Correct
Helen
jim
Mike the Marine
Simon
Tiffani
Zero Correct
Everybody else
more...
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08:46 PM
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Did you just get back to your borrowed internet access?March 08, 2004
Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.
Is this anecdote something I'm sharing with you or something I'm shamming you with?
Before we leave Chicago I'll share with you two other specific (and much shorter *cough* *Simon* *cough*) memories I have of my time there.The first deals with a Snickers bar. Two brothers, one Snickers bar. The equitable way to split it? One would cut it in half and the other would pick which piece he wanted. My big brother was the knife man and he cut it as close to the center as he could possibly estimate (since he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if one piece was markedly larger than the other I would snake it in a heartbeat). To the naked eye these two halves of a candy bar were indeed perfect halves. Many children would have simply taken a random piece and been perfectly happy with it. Not me. I stared at that split Snickers for what seemed like hours as big bro got steadily more irritated. The one on the left is a smidge bigger...no, maybe it's the one on the right that's bigger...hmmm...left, definitely left...but that's probably just what he wants me to think...is that cut at an angle...hmmm... Eventually he lost patience and yelled for Mom so I grabbed one of the halves randomly. I'm sure that if I had just a little more time I would have figured out which one was a tiny bit bigger.
The second memory is about a massive field that was near our apartment complex. I walked across this thing just about every day going to friends' houses (back then little kids could walk around their neighborhoods) and would pretend it was different things. Sometimes it was the tundra and I was a reindeer racing across. One time it was the ocean and I was a shark swimming. Other times it might be the plains of the west and I'd be the Lone Ranger riding my horse across them. Well there was one time when I was coming home and it had rained that day. The field was squishy wet but not soaked. I pretended that it was a lake and I was Jesus walking on the water (side note: we were practicing Catholics at this time). I was having a grand old time until I got half-way across and I stepped into a groundhog hole or other such depression and was instantly chilled up the leg by the water. I freaked. I just knew that it was God punishing me for my blasphemy and now he had made the field like water so I was going to sink into it. I scrambled up to my feet and ran across that field at top speed screaming my head off the entire way. I was incredibly relieved when I made it to concrete and slowed down to catch my breath. Then I realized that God could do the same thing to the concrete so I ran again until reaching the safety of the apartment. At least I wasn't screaming for that final sprint.
Current Shamming/Sharing standings:
One Correct
Helen
jim
Mike the Marine
Simon
Zero Correct
Everybody else
more...
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March 04, 2004
Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.
This is the fifth offering overall and the first for March. To see how February ended up see the extended entry of Shamming/Sharing (#4).
Is this anecdote a sham or a share?
Memories are odd things. Sometimes you have perfect recollection of important things in your life, and other times you can't remember these critical times worth a damn. The same thing happens with seemingly innocuous items. Why do I remember that my little brother peed on my step-sister's carpet when we went up to Chicago for her wedding? Why do I remember that years before that we all lived in Chicago but I remember so little of that time?more...One of the few things I remember was a chopper pedal bike. You know what a pedal car is, right? It's got those idiotic pedals that you keep pushing forward 2 inches, instead of pedals on a rotor (like on a bike). This was a metal tricycle that used pedal car style propulsion and had a chopper style front wheel - looooong front fork and little wheel. It sucked because it was a pedal car and was useless on any kind of incline (couldn't pedal uphill and going downhill you just went with the flow - putting your feet on the pedals was a recipe for a mauling) and you couldn't race against anybody else or even keep up with anybody else. A BigWheel toasted my chopper. Any kind of normal tricycle toasted it. I was the slowest thing in the apartment complex.
But it was also freaking cool. It was a chopper! What could be cooler than having a chopper when you're a little kid (especially in the mid 70's). Nobody had anything like my bike. Not even close. When I was on that thing (disdaining racing and the keeping up with others, of course) I was the King. I loved that chopper.
One day I went to ride it and it wasn't there. I don't remember the particulars of how it was stolen. I probably left it out but for the sake of my young pride we'll say that somebody else forgot to lock the storage area. Whatever the method, my chopper was gone. I was devastated. I wouldn't be special anymore. My unique bike, my ultra-cool chopper that nobody except me in my entire known world had was gone. No, not just gone, it was being abused by somebody else!
This was the first total meltdown in my memory. In fact, except for deaths it's the only one I can think of at all at the moment. My older brother took pity on me and went everywhere looking for it. He eventually found it in a dumpster. Whoever had stolen it had smashed it up pretty good. I remember him taking me outside to see it and saying that maybe we could fix it. I remember that I stopped crying and just felt nothing at all. The frame was totally mangled. It was busted. Gone. Useless. Over.
We tossed it in our dumpster and went back in the house. Mom tried to cheer me up and even older bro was uncharacteristically attentive but I stayed in a funk for days. Eventually I got out of my depression and went back to being a little kid but even to this day I can remember that chopper and the feelings of hopelessness and despair I had when i saw it all busted up.
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March 02, 2004
Want to know what it's about? See the Shamming/Sharing intro post.
Our fourth offering. Is this anecdote the truth or am I pulling your leg (or other body part of your choice)?
What could be more fun than a circus? To me in my youth, just about anything. I didn't see my first circus until I was two weeks shy of 12. The only reason I remember that so precisely is because during most of the circus that's what I was thinking about to prevent yawning, plus right after the circus we went to Toys "backwards R" Us to look for presents for me (of course that's not what Mom said but you aren't fooling a 12 year old 2 weeks before his birthday - if we're in Toys "backwards R" Us it's 'cause you want to know what to buy for me) and this was the year that I got a guitar and a machete* so it sticks out in my young memory.Anyway, the circus wasn't a bad one by any stretch. I don't think it was Ringling Bros but it was another of the bigger ones. Huge midtop, lots of concessions, games, carnies all over the place, clowns, pony rides and such. We pretty much breezed past all of the outside attractions and into the big tent. The only specific memory I have from the rush into the show was a midget riding a gigantic red dog and my little brother (he would have been 4 then) yelling out "Clifford! Clifford!" No, I'm not saying the dog was the size of Clifford. He was a mastiff or great dane or something - just really, really big. And dyed red.
So we rushed into the big tent and got seats and we were all tense with excitement. You see, Mom had been building this up for us for months. Telling us about the lion tamers and the acrobats and the clowns in tiny cars and the Lipinzaner stallions (no idea if I spelled that anything close to correctly) and singing this circus/parade song every five minutes. How did that song go? Something like "seventy six trombones in the big parade / a hundredy five coronets came behind". And when the performance actually started we were on the very edge of our seats, just breathless with anticipation.
And it sucked. Big time. I couldn't understand a single thing that the ringmaster was saying. The gymnasts were just doing stuff I'd seen all the time on TV (and was bored of watching there). There was a highwire but the guy just casually walked across the wire. With a net underneath him. The clowns were okay but that just looked like so much chaos since we couldn't understand a thing the MC was saying. The lion tamer beat the hell out of some lions and made them do tricks. He pissed me off. I wanted the lions to just gang up on him and take him down. The stallions looked filthy and sad to me. Where were the bright white regal beasts I was expecting?
One disappointment after another was piled on my youthful shoulders until I gave up trying to be entertained and just started thinking about my upcoming birthday. Just two weeks, two weeks, two weeks to muh birfday! I sang that song in my head for what seemed like hours but was probably more like 30 minutes. But at least it helped me to remember the date that I first saw a circus.
I like circuses now. I guess my disappointing first experience was due partially to the hysterical hype level my mom gave it, partially because I really didnt' have a concept of just how freaking difficult a lot of the things I was seeing actually were and partially because I was functioning with half a brain as the other half was totally preoccupied with my upcoming birthday.
* No, my parents wouldn't give a real machete to a 12 year old. Well, okay, it was a real machete but it was a steel blank blade (no edge). The cool thing about the machete was the scabbard. Hand tooled leather. My dad had picked it up in Panama earlier in the year. It was hanging up on my various bedroom walls until I was in my late 20's.
Current Shamming/Sharing roster:
2 Correct
jim
Mike the Marine
Sue
Tiffani
0 Correct
Everybody else
more...
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