Good morning.
I know a lot of people have not been wondering where I have been. I’ll go ahead and tell you all. Nowhere. I haven’t done anything fantastic other than nurture my complacency. I don’t have a great tale about how I single handedly battled ninjas and saved the orphanage that was being persecuted by said ninjas. Nope. No orphan persecuting ninja battles at all. You people think you deserve more than what I give but imagine what it’s like to actually be me. It’s pretty uneventful and boring.
So it being the day after Christmas it looks like the war on Christmas failed. Thank Allah. Turns out Christmas went off without a hitch. Huh. That’s odd. I really thought it might have been in trouble what with all the press that FOX news was giving to the war. Never mind the real war, we have a war on a holiday to worry about! In your face Christmas battlers that I’ve never met or seen! We had Christmas despite your efforts to destroy it! I dunno who you are or where you’re from or where you’re based out of or what you believe because no one has ever seen you but thanks to folks like Pat Robertson and Bill O’Reilly we trust you exist! However we didn’t let you win your war! All of our futile efforts to defend Christmas against, I’m not sure, proved successful. Well about as successful as waging a defense against an imaginary force could possibly be.
Just to play Devil’s advocate, literally, just ask yourself this Christmas defenders. If you think the war on Christmas is some sort of act of Satan, wouldn’t you think Satan has better things to do than wage a war on Christmas? I mean he is a busy guy too. We all work with someone who doesn’t like us and that can be draining but Satan’s arch enemy is God, not Steve from accounting. Satan has a lot on his plate what with terrorism, death, hurricanes, crime and pretty much every evil thing ever. You don’t get to be God’s biggest enemy without earning that position. I mean the last thing Satan wants to do is make God look bad by wrecking his birthday party. He already made God look bad by getting Bush elected and giving Ashley Simpson a recording contract.
Little known fact, Satan’s birthday is August 12th so be thinking about what to get him! I heard he is a big fan of the Gilmore Girls so save up!
“Enough of this Joel! You’ve already talked about the president , the devil and Jesus. Have you no couth? It’s the day after Christmas for crying out loud!” You’re right. I apologize. I’ll go ahead and tell you about my Christmas since none of you care anyway.
Saturday night, in true single guy fashion, my friends Adam and Deacon came over and we hung out and talked about the ills of the world. By ‘talked about the ills of the world’ I mean drank way too much alcohol. About three in the morning Adam and I started wrestling, because we’re stupid, and I took his shoe off and threw it out on the front lawn. Ha ha. What a good idea that wasn’t. He ran back into the house and tackled me. I landed on my left arm and immediately knew something bad had happened. After an hour and some severe swelling, I made my way to the Norman ER. Merry Christmas here’s a swollen arm and some x-rays Joel! Turns out that I suffered a ‘deep bone contusion’. Oddly enough that’s the name of one of my favorite adult films. Yahtzee! Anyway I got fitted with a brace I have to wear for a week and take Ibuprofen. So I’m less money I didn’t have to begin with and on top of that I got no good drugs. Thanks for nothing Santa! I guess it’s back to breaking into the old folks home and stealing their pills again. Like anyone would believe them when they claim some guy stole their pills anyway. They’re old and make no sense as it is! Ha! Take that old people!
The arm brace is this weird looking color of brown. I think that I am going to go to a bowling alley and tell people I am a bowling pro and get a hot bowling lady girlfriend. The problem is that there are no hot bowling ladies and I’m right handed so a brace on the left kind of makes this a bad ploy altogether. There goes that idea down the drain. Besides, if it hasn’t worked the first three times I tried it what makes me think it will work now.
For Christmas my brother JP and I have this thing where we try to make it as difficult as possible to open each other’s gifts. Last year I built a 3′ x 3′ x 3′ box and than wrapped it in four rolls of duct tape. It looked like that weird, cube, Borg ship from Star Trek. Yeah, I’m a nerd for knowing that but you’re a bigger nerd for knowing what I’m talking about. It was so big it didn’t fit into my car, something I should have checked before executing the idea. He spent quite a bit of time prying that thing open but no where near as long as I’d hoped.
He had wrapped my gift in a small box made from random boards. He had screwed the thing shut and I could not use a screwdriver, per his rule. After I had spent about half an hour using a butter knife as a screwdriver, I had to pry it open because he used some sort of super strength wood putty in addition to the screws. He won last year.
This year I thought I would have him beat. I took a Converse shoe box and filled it with dead leaves then used aerosol epoxy to spray them all into place. Within the leaves was a Ziploc bag with a clue in it. I wrapped the box in a roll of duct tape then put four cans of tuna and a can of spinach on the outside followed by more and more tape. I then taped two decks worth of playing cards all over the thing. A lot of effort went into this. If I were pretentious I could have passed it off as some sort of modern art piece that was a statement of my thought on commercialism and the oppression of the world’s people. I’m not pretentious though. I’m just some dope with tape and too much time on my hands.
The clue was to go look in the trunk of my car, where he found the next clue set in strawberry Jell-O. That clue led him to the following website
www.geocities.com/jd658666/jpxmasclue.html
I had baked a double layer chocolate cake slathered in chocolate icing. He dug around, face first in that cake for about ten minutes before finding the clue. It looked like some sort of Christmas physical challenge from Double Dare only not on Nickelodeon and with way more chocolate icing. The funny thing is, unbeknownst to me, he hates chocolate. HA!
After digging he finally found the toy rhino head and the toy gorilla head. He seemed a bit confused as to what the clue was and I told him there wasn’t a clue that I just wanted to see if he’d really get face down in a chocolate cake. I told him his gift was actually in my car the whole time. He went out to the car to find the two quart pitcher of frozen strawberry Jell-O. I had wrapped his DVD and than put it in a Ziploc bag and then put it in Jell-O and froze it. I thought I had won this year. I thought perhaps I had gotten the best of him. Nay I tell you. I was mistaken.
He had constructed a huge box only within the box was a small package. This package was wrapped in a layer of wrapping paper, followed by duct tape, followed by more wrapping paper and then more duct tape. It turned out to be a CD case with a note in it. The note advised me to say a ridiculous phrase to one of my sisters and in turn they would give me the next package. I did this and each time it turned out that the package was another CD case wrapped in duct tape and wrapping paper with another phrase to recite. The final one was the worst because I ended up having to sing ‘I’m A Little Tea Pot’ with all the moves that accompany the song. In return for that display of my lack of singing and dancing skills, I got the real gift. This time it was wrapped as follows - wrapping paper, towel, wrapping paper, towel, wrapping paper, pillow case, wrapping paper and seven layers of duct tape. Due to the recent wrist injury not only was I in physical pain but the unwrapping of things wrapped in duct tape caused me incredible mental pain because tedium is not my friend. I hate things that are tedious. Weeding a garden or standing in line or being in a relationship are all tedious and have very little pay off. At least my experience dictates that.
So JP has won this round. I have 364 days to plan for next year. Let’s just say that I am going to do something so fantastically tedious and time consuming he’ll wish he hadn’t brought the duct tape hell that was unwrapping my gift. What was the gift you ask that I spent so much time on? A Jerry Lewis movie I didn’t own so it was worth it. I’m telling you right now though that next year is gonna be something. Ya hear me JP?! It’s on like Donkey Kong now sucka!
So aside from myself and my brother I’m sure none of you enjoyed reading that last part. I’ll go ahead and amuse you all with something else now. “Your own suicide?” No. You’re not that lucky!
I went to my friend Jason and Aeron’s last night as every year they have a Christmas party. It got to be after midnight and my friend Jason had run out of cigarettes. This may not seem like a big deal but there was a lot of drinking going on and cigarettes go together with drinking like peanut butter and jam or the LAPD and beatings or me and bad analogies. We left the house to try to find somewhere that was open and the only place open was Walgreens. The parking lot was packed. I know it was after midnight on Christmas night but please. There is nothing you need that bad I’m sure of it. Well aside from cigarettes.
Jason and I walk in and there was a line of thirty people already at the check out counter. We begrudgingly make our way to the end of the line. The person in line in front of us was a gorgeous girl. She was way too hot to be at a Walgreen’s at 12:30 on Christmas night. That was a nice Christmas treat.
We stood in line for a few minutes and this really unhappy guy walked up to the girl in front of us and said something to her. She motioned towards some aisle and he made his way to where she pointed. He was obviously unhappy with her. I couldn’t understand how someone who looked like him could be unhappy with someone that looked like her. I mean aside from being lucky to even have a girlfriend that looked like her, he was acting kind of rude.
After ten minutes of waiting in a non-moving line we decide to leave. As we’re in the parking lot I mention to Jason how hot I thought the girl was and how the guy who appeared to be her boyfriend was kind of rude. I told him I wondered why she was in a Walgreens after midnight on Christmas anyway. He asked if I had noticed what she was buying, and I said I saw she had some puppy snacks but that was it. I couldn’t see what else she had. He said she had a People magazine wrapped around a box of Kotex. That explained everything such as the guy’s poorly masked annoyance and the unhappy look on her face.
This hot girl was in a Walgreens with her boyfriend on Christmas night because of a couple of the unwritten relationship rules. As a guy, you are bound by relationship law to accompany your girlfriend anywhere she has to go after midnight. Just do it. There’s no getting out of it. She thinks she’ll get attacked, which isn’t likely, but she counts on you to be her protector. She’s probably the only one who thinks you’re a bad ass so just go. Besides that’s one of the things you have to do.
The other relationship thing you have to do, no matter what, is you have to be willing to either buy tampons or go with your girlfriend when she does. It’s part of the deal guys. My last girlfriend actually made me go to the store once and buy some as a test. I didn’t know it was a test at the time. I didn’t care though because when a guy buys tampons it is an indication that he has someone to buy tampons for. If you guys break up you’ll start crying when you walk past the pink aisle because you’re now alone. Trust me, it’s embarrassing to have to tell the guy who works at Target why you’re staring at Kotex crying like a little girl.
Congratulations to Oklahoma’s Carrie Underwood! She was voted Oklahoman of the Year by Oklahoma magazine. She was voted Oklahoman of the year because she ‘encompasses all that makes the state great’. So the best we have is a contest winner. That’s super. The best we have to offer as a state is a glorified Karaoke contest winner. I can think of quite a few soldiers who should have been Oklahomans of the year. Contest winning is not encompassing anything that makes a state great. Sacrifice beyond all compare beats contest winning hands down.
I don’t mean to downplay Ms. Underwood’s accomplishment. Perhaps I’m just bitter because I won the ‘Funniest Person in Oklahoma’ contest but I didn’t get a deal with a chocolate company or a magazine cover. I didn’t get a sweet record deal out of winning or an E! True Hollywood Story about me. Aside from my not being deserving of any of that, I’m actually kind of a boring dude as well so there’s that. Also, I’m not hot.
Now that I’m done wasting all of your time, I’ll go ahead and wrap this one up.
RIGHT NOW
SONG - Unanswered Prayers by Garth Brooks off of his double live album. I can only imagine what it would be like to have something that you’ve written sung back to you by thousands and thousands of people. It would be nice to know that what you do is beloved by so many people.
MOVIE - Murderball - This is a documentary about quadriplegic rugby players. At the end of this movie I felt like such a useless piece of crap. These guys have great lives and they can’t even move most of their bodies. I am perfectly capable but really need to look at doing way more with my life than I already haven’t.
Happy Kwanzaa honkies.
- Joel