* Over 40 years old: Open bar plus catering staff. Prime time, baby.
But those are his rules.
My rules are: If you're coming over, bring a chair. See, because we rarely provide people with anything. No drinks, no seating, no toilet paper in the bathroom, and definitely no old butler with a pencil mustache walking around in tails asking if you'd like an endive covered in swan liver and truffle oil.
Instead we stick a piece of paper on the front door telling you to meet us in the back, and then help you get started on the two six-packs you brought over. If you're lucky, we might have a leftover bag of stale nachos kicking around or maybe some puddings in the cupboard. If not, we'll need your credit card to order a pizza.
I am an extremely cheap person, so I get a kick out of the random assortment of drinks left over in the fridge the morning after a party. You can basically play detective to figure out who came the night before: buzzy energy drink with vodka (night-shift worker trying to stay up), cans of domestic beer (grad student on a budget), oversized brown bottles with flip-top stoppers and lots of consonants on the label (yuppie couple or Europeans), sugary vodka coolers (college girls), craft beers with names like Old Flag or Rocky Tundra (hipsters), fancy bottles of port (British Conservative Party).
Man, I love that random mishmash of assorted beers and drinks in the fridge. Mostly because it makes me feel like a better host next time people come over.
AWESOME!
Staring out at calm water
AWESOME!
Blowing out all the candles on your first try
Keep the spit to yourself and just let it fly. It's time to get windy.
AWESOME!
Sneaking McDonald's and hiding the evidence
Trouble bubbled at my friend Scott's house one night.
See, earlier in the week Scott found a used McDonald's Chicken McNugget sauce container wedged between the car seat and the door in the Honda Civic he shares with his wife. He dropped his keys in there, and when he slipped his hand down to fish them out, he came up with a sticky, crusty barbecue sauce container instead.
His wife Molly was caught grease-handed. In Scott's mind their sturdy New Year's pact to eat healthy suddenly dissolved into a dimly lit puddle of lies and deception.
Lucky for me, Scott decided to raise the issue one Monday night while we were all watching TV.
Here's how it went down.
Scott: "Oh hey, I dropped my keys in that annoying spot between the car seat and the car door earlier today."
Molly: (curious as to where this is going ) "Okay . . ."
Scott: "Yeah, but when I went to pull them out, I found something else instead."
Molly: (slightly confused) "O-kay . . . ?"
Scott: (raises eyebrows slowly and smiles)
Molly: (scrunches eyebrow and turns head in confusion)
Scott: "A McDonald's barbecue sauce container!"
Molly: (guiltily) "Oh! Nooo . . ."
Then there was a short, silent pause.
And then we all just burst out laughing.
Because, seriously, we've all been there, man. Sneaking in those secret McDonald's Drive-Thru trips and ditching the evidence. Yup, gotta make sure you've scooped all the fries off the bottom of the bag, wiped the salt off your lips, checked your shirt for ketchup spillage, and safely filed the excess napkins away in the glove compartment. It's a delicious guilty pleasure and your secret is safe with us.
Just remember to roll down the windows, pay with cash, and play it safe out there.
And never ever order the nuggets.
AWESOME!
Your family car growing up
Hanging out with friends late, late, late one night, dim music playing in the background, splayed haphazardly on a fat, squishy couch, my brother-in-law Dee started waxing nostalgic about his family's big, old 1991 white Chevy Suburban.
He just broke into it too.
"That monster seated nine people, I swear to you. Honestly, nine! There was a bench in the back, a bench in the middle, and a bench in the front. I remember when my parents bought it, I said, 'Why not get the captain's chairs in the front?' and they were like, 'No, that's just not practical.' But I guess the benches did come in handy. My dad drove our entire baseball team around. Fourteen twelve-year-olds wedged in tight and twisted. We called it The Team Tank. Ha ha, honestly man, I miss that old beast."
And then he just smiled softly, shook his head, and stared absently at the remote control on the coffee table for a minute.
Dee's wistful late-night rambles got me thinking.
For my sister Nina and me, nothing beat sitting in the backseat of our 1984 Pontiac Station Wagon with brown paint, brown interior, and classy fake wood trim on the outside. The backseat in this Logmobile was about eight feet away from the driver but a world apart, really. You could talk and play games out of earshot, all the while looking and laughing straight out the back window, distracting people behind you on the highway.
In the summer the metal belt buckles would grow red-hot and scald your skin when you buckled up. The cup holders were full of sticky remains from the half-dozen spilled Cokes that didn't get sponged up by the handful of McDonald's napkins stuffed in there. The air conditioning was temperamental, the windows wouldn't roll down all the way, and there were no entertainment systems or talking maps. You invented your own fun and sat patiently on the dark fabric seats, deeply stained from the time somebody sat on a hot banana.
So what was your car? Was it a '69 Dodge Dart? A Chevette in Classic Dull Gray or '95 Chevy Lumina van? Was it a monstrous '68 Impala, a '54 DeSoto, or a bright teal '91 Ford Taurus?
Whatever it was, I bet it sure does give you a trip down memory lane when you see that car, the same color, the same style, just driving around town like nobody's business. Or maybe fixed up real nice at the antique car show.
Or maybe coasting calmly on cruise through your brain every so often.
Steering up some memories.
AWESOME!
Eating a free sample of something you have no intention of buying
Why hello, little cup of strawberry-kiwi punch. How you doing, pepper-dill crackers? Don't mind if I do, tiny salami wrapped around a piece of melon.
Yes, eating a free sample of something you have no intention of buying is a great way to stay on top of what's happening in the grocery store. You swish the new drink, chew the new gum, toss back a tiny cup of the new pasta dinner, and introduce your tastebuds to a little surprise.
Assuming you don't actually like the product, maybe you do what I do and pretend you're going to buy it anyway so you don't hurt the sweet, heavily lipsticked Sample Lady's feelings. So you pick up the box of dry crackers, salty salami, or all-noodle-no-cheese lasagna and say, "Hmmm. $4.29? Not bad, not bad. And I get a fifty-cents-off coupon too? Hmmm." Then you smile back at her, toss it in your cart, and say, "Why not! Thank you very much!"
Then you roll out of sight and guiltily drop it in another aisle.
AWESOME!
Sneaking under someone else's umbrella
Okay, who's the smart one who brought an umbrella? Because I know it's not me.
No, when the sky cracks up and the rain smacks down, I'm the one wearing heavy jeans and a thick, spongy sweater that soaks up everything and turns me into a swampy slab of peat bog. I'm drenched, I'm dripping, I'm ice-chilled to the bone.
But that's what makes it so great when it starts coming down and out pops a giant umbrella from a friend who offers to gimme shelter for a few minutes. Yes, if your special someone is packing some giant nylon heat, then I think it's fair to say you're smiling high, your clothes are dry, and you're rocking the streets under a tiny little patch of
AWESOME!
Finally remembering a word that's been on the tip of your tongue for so long
It's like throwing a pail of cold water on all your smoking inner head parts. Gears unjam, lines start rolling, and you settle back in the restaurant booth with a satisfied smile on your
face and just blurt it out.
"Parcheesi, that's what it was called."
AWESOME!
When someone offers to toss your dirty clothes in with their load of laundry
While flipping channels mindlessly one day, I ended up at the Fast Money round of Family Feud just as the host said to the contestant, "Name a household chore you don't mind doing."
The contestant flashed a split-second look of massive confusion before reluctantly spitting out an answer. When it was the second guy's turn to answer it, he flashed the same look. One ended up saying vacuuming and the other went with washing the dishes. Neither got the top answer, which was doing laundry, so they unfortunately went home with empty pockets flipped inside out with flies buzzing out of them.
But you know what? I'm with them. Who knew people liked laundry? That can't be true. For me, laundry has two major strikes against it:
1. Time. Laundry requires a huge time investment. You can't just set it and forget it like our trusty old pal Dishwasher. No, washing clothes means an afternoon in and out of the laundry room or a night reading tabloids at the laundromat. And you have to be on the ball, ready to rebalance the washer, move clothes to the dryer, and fold shirts before they get wrinkled.
2. Effort. I am baffled by the laundry sorting process and have trouble interpreting that fancy hieroglyphic Triangle Square Circle language somebody invented to ruin my clothes.
For all these reasons it's great when you're lazily watching Family Feud on the couch and your spouse, roommate, or sibling trucks by carrying a basket full of clothes. If you're lucky enough to get that "Hey, need to throw anything in here?" then it's show time so get going!
You have maybe a minute or two before the washer starts filling up, so now's your chance to drop everything, run to your dirty clothes, and start flinging out the bare minimum you need to get by for a few days. Do it fast, run back to the laundry room, and thank them profusely as you toss your clothes in the pile.
Then it's back to the couch for the Triple Money round, where you can rest easy knowing you'll have some freshly rinsed undies for tomorrow morning.
AWESOME!
The moment at a restaurant after you see your food coming from the kitchen but before it lands on your table
Somebody shushes, conversation hushes, and all eyes flicker with delight as you watch your sizzling, glistening meals cruise out of the kitchen and slowly descend in front of you.
AWESOME!
Terrible businesses run by children
When I was about fourteen years old, I signed up for something called Junior Achievement. It was a happy-go-lucky nonprofit group that promoted business and entrepreneur-ship skills in children. Or basically, it was a bunch of kids in a room every Thursday night acting like middle managers with adult supervision.
My group came up with a business called Roc Creations. This was a clever play on our core product: cheap, homemade rock necklaces. We thought it was a brilliant, failsafe plan. After all, who likes necklaces? Everybody, of course. And how cheap are rocks? Pretty darn cheap, man. We spent one Thursday at the beach, the next one painting, and a final Thursday drilling holes and tying string through them. We figured it was a solid plan, well executed.
Sadly, after a few weeks we realized we'd made a huge mistake. We bet all our chips on a losing hand. The necklaces failed to generate enough buzz and excitement at the flea markets, despite our screaming rhyming chants at terrified housewives, and we quickly tumbled into the red, piles of dead inventory and drill bit invoices mocking our poor judgment.
But then, like any good business, we evolved. We quickly changed our name to Roc-Cal Creations and printed off a quickie run of cheapo laminated calendars. We tied on a dry-erase marker, slapped some magnets on the back, and went door-to-door, neighbor-to-neighbor, selling these reusable fridge calendars for four bucks a pop.
Well, we managed to sell enough to get back in gear. We started to make money and established a strong partnership with the lady in the markers aisle at Staples. Yes, it all ended well, but not without some late nights under a dim lamp with a dollar-store calculator, a stack of graph paper, and a pile of pencil crayons, trying desperately to finish the numbers for our annual report, which was actually printed on the inside of one of our folded-up calendars.
It was a great experience and it really got my buzz going for running a business. That's why I think it's always fun when you see children running some sort of strange, hilarious, or terrible business. Because really, you're just watching them learn things they don't learn in the classroom and have fun doing it. They're learning how to sell, picking up social skills, and jumping right into the whirring gears of the marketplace. And honestly, they're doing all this by just getting out there and giving it a shot.
How cute are the twins selling lemonade on the street corner? The gymnastics team running the barbecue outside the mall? Or the kid who takes your grocery cart back if he gets to keep the twenty-five-cent deposit?
Those kids are all playing the game. So we say: Go on, kids. Do it well. Next time you're selling some rock-hard cookies or salty date squares at a bake sale, sign us up. Because we're not just buying some mild indigestion, are we?
No, we're investing in the future.
AWESOME!
Frozen walls of air conditioning hitting you on hot days
Sometimes after a day of walking around in blistering summer heat, I come down with a bad case of Gross Face.
People, I'm not proud of it, but on those steamy days a nasty combination of shiny forehead sweat, downtown street air, and dried-up sunblock gives me a mask I can't shake. Yes, my otherwise flawless, milky-smooth complexion gets slathered with the drips, and suddenly I'm cruising around town with pit stains and a T-shirt sweat-glued to my back.
If you been there, you know it's a sticky, sweaty slog.
But there is good news.
Invisible, frozen walls of cranked air conditioning exist just beyond the front door of the nearest coffee shop, post office, or convenience store. Just pop in to experience a frigid slap of ice-cold air right in the kisser.
When you find these hidden gems of subzero bliss, it's like momentarily trading your slimy sweat mask for a new face. Glistening, wet necks get an ice-cold sponge down, stinging eyelids freeze to ice, and your disgusting hot-baked face gives a relaxing smile as it's shotgun-blasted with a chilly round of
AWESOME!
Catching somebody singing in their car and sharing a laugh with them
It's late, it's quiet, and you're stuck at a red light.
Casually, you glance to your left and notice a muted explosion of furious head bopping, furrowed eyebrows, and silent wailing inside, as the driver rocks out alone and in the zone.
And there's just something worth smiling about when you observe that passionate display of pure private pleasure only a few feet away. Suddenly you're the producer in the booth watching your struggling artist hit the high notes in their tight sound chamber on wheels. Yes, they've tried for years to get clean and make it off the streets, but now you're finally smelling a hit . . .
. . . and a future.
So maybe you bop along for a few beats, catch the same song on your radio, or lock eyes with them for a second and share a warm and heartfelt laugh. Maybe you feel a tiny flip in your heart as you connect with a total stranger for a few fleeting seconds. And maybe it makes you a tiny bit happier and maybe you smile a tiny bit more.
I say we salute all the highway rockers of the world. Thanks for brightening our day and making us laugh at the reds. Rock on and keep belting them out, because you make the world shine brighter and make our long drives home a lot more
AWESOME!
Snow stepping
Snow stepping is when you're trudging through the snow wearing shoes, but someone ahead of you wore boots so you get to step in all the nice Snow Holes they made for you.
AWESOME!
Taking off your shoes on a long car ride
Treat your f
eet.
Say you're enjoying the backseat of the car, your shaggy locks whipping in the wind, your hand sailing carelessly out the window, and your head lightly bopping to the faint Buddy Holly tune on the AM dial.
But your feet, they are not fine, they are not carefree, and they ain't bopping to no beat. No, they're slippery, salty, and sweaty, wrapped tightly in a hot pocket of suffocating socks and shoes. Yes, buried deep under dense layers of cotton, wool, and leather, your aching soles are itching for some sweet release and a breath of fresh air.
So just let them out, friend.
Yes, when the car slips onto the side roads, the bus hits the interstate, or the plane tips up for liftoff, it's time to tug those laces and pull your paws right out of the Sweatcave.
Sock removal is optional, but what's not optional is rubbing your feet against that little bar thing that hangs down from the seat in front of you on the bus or airplane to give your stiff, aching soles The Massage Of Their Life.
How good does that feel?
So next time, you're goin' to the grocer, goin' faster than a roller coaster, remember that breaks like this will, rarely come your way. A-hey, a-hey-hey.
'Cause every day, life seems a little faster, things slip up, plans turn into disaster, so ditch your kicks and find a little escape. A-hey, a-hey-hey.
AWESOME!
Getting the eyelash out of your eye
Eyeballs do not want to be touched.
Have you ever put fingers, algae-filled lake water, or shampoo in there? Yeah, that gets your eyes screaming in pain pretty quick, doesn't it? Unless you're using baby No More Tears shampoo, of course, in which case feel free to lather your eyeballs right on up, no worries.
The Book of Awesome Page 8
