Pantapalooza

Unless you’ve been living under a rock as the fashion world has been spinning around these last few years, you know that girls’ pants are all the rage on male legs. These tight little excuses for clothing are apparently all the rage amongst the emo crowd, and yesterday at lunch I tried to be society’s slave. I traded pants with Taryn. I fully expect a line of parental questioning regarding this event; the “last time”:http://sociallyconsciousbird.com/wordpress/?p=29 I traded garments with Taryn, the folks wouldn’t let it go for a while.

Upon slipping into the ultra-long, ultra-tight jeans, I’ve noticed a few things about girls’ pants that were quite interesting:

# There is excess butt room. I thought I had some junk in the proverbial trunk, but compared to girl, they have got it going on. I originally disliked this feature, but as the hours wore on, the butt grew on me. I think its main selling point is the room for growth: you know, prospective butt room that all of the sistas will be jealous of whence I fill the void.
# Thanks to the constriction of the jeans, I have a newly formed schema of just how luxurious my thighs really are. I know you’re jealous. Go on, eat your heart out.
# The (obvious) shortcoming of girls’ pants on a man’s figure is the constriction of the nether regions. I found myself readjusting myself with every beat of my tiny little uncomfortable heart, much to the dismay of my female compatriots who, in their wincing at my fiddling, expressed noticeable discomfort.
# Girls have the greatest clothes ever, primarily because they are stretchy.

Overall, wearing Taryn’s pants was a worthwhile experience. I think, however, it went on just a few hours too long. This extended period of discomfort in low-riding pants scarred me for life. No, I don’t think that acquiescing to the demands of the new style of society is for me. For the time being, I’m content to wear my Wranglers.

One town that won't let you down

Lately, my parents have been talking about going up to Chicago to visit some family friends who are graduating from college. I’ll have to figure out my exam schedule (as we’re going in the middle of May). Though I’ve only been once, I liked it very much.

What first struck me about Chicago was the fact that in the restrooms at Midway International, the walls of the stalls went all the way down to the floor and the doors lacked those gaping cracks where the hinges secured them to the vertical sections of the cubicle.

I knew right then that Chicago was, indeed, my kind of town.

Beads!

Last night I walked alongside a float full of kids from my church in the Clearwater Fun n Sun Holiday Parade. As we trudged through downtown among the bourgeois huddled alongside Cleveland Avenue, I realized that I never again want to be a spectator at a parade.

Starting at Crest Lake Park and moving west toward the heart of Downtown, the types of people along the parade route were clearly discernible. First we started with a high population of Mexicans to either side. This minority gradient soon developed into a large African-American crowd screaming for the candies and beads we were so graciously tossing to the side. When our float approached the true bounds of downtown, most people were Caucasians who had reached their Mecca of candy and plastic jewelry from the ground following their long pilgrimage from the local trailer park. Please make note that I’ve nothing major against any of the aforementioned minorities, it’s just that their division clearly denotes the division in the parade route.

One aspect of parading that is a commonality between all areas of Clearwater is the hostility that everyone holds for stupid strings with little plastic balls on them. After greeting ninety-nine percent of the folks whom we passed with a holly jolly “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays,” we were assaulted with the same rude, one-word response: “Beads!”

I don’t fault most kids for this; they’re young and don’t know better. But when 30 year old Juanita or Shaprice can only eek out one word in response to our generosity, I take it personally. You’re not getting my beads.

That is, of course, unless you’re a hot chick.

You got pwned

When I was at the store today with my mother (because she was the only one who would play with me because Homecoming took it out of all my friends), I was thinking.

When I’m a man of independent resources and a steady income, I’m going to exclusively buy store-brand items. Meat, cheese, milk, soda, aspirin; it’s all the same in every respect except pictures on the box and price.

However, there is one product that I will not skimp on. If you dare bring me the store brand ultra thin and sandpaper-esque toilet paper, I will disown you.

And if I don’t own you, I’ll push an amendment through Congress with my charm and good looks to reinstate slavery, purchase you as my slave as to make me your proprietor, then push through Congress with the aforementioned charm and good looks an amendment that again abolishes slavery just to say that, because of your ill-fated decision to pursue savings over quality, I disowned you. And don’t think I’m bluffing; I hold a great influence over Congress. I can’t tell you why though – you know, classified CIA inspector stuff.

In any case, it’s only Charmin Ultra Double Roll for me. Nothing else can satisfy, even if it’s on sale.

Say yes to crack

Some people are down-pushers. Others are yankers. Me? I’m a side-cracker.

If ever I realize that I indeed have feet, and protruding from their central mass are these little appendages called toes, I have the urge to do it. First, though, one must tenderize the muscle by way of backward stretching against a hard floor. Then, to get the little buggers in the mood, one has to massage the mutual skin shared in the trenches between each individual podiatric battlefield. Only then, my friends, can the cracking commence.

Granted, it can’t be done too regularly. And most of the time I don’t manage to even consider it. But when the urge comes and I am in a position inclined to crackage, it remains one of the few joys left in this world for me.

Therefore, like the radicals that have cultivated the human paradigm in the past, I propose that all persons wishing to live happy, healthy lives crack their toes. By whatever means possible, if people hear the joyous little snap of the socket a few times per week, I believe that the human experience in this world can be made more bearable, if not enjoyable for those in dire, crackless states.

My spoon is too big

In pondering what the greatest eating utensil is (barring the spork, which isn’t a true instrument of consumption in that it is a hybrid first created in a laboratory), I’ve considered them all. I thought about forks, knives, and chop sticks; but I’ve decided that the MVP of the dinner table is most decidedly the spoon.

They’re useful for most any purpose under the sun: scooping, stirring, and even the occasional cutting of especially tender delights.

Most mashed and soft foods that I consider to be in the “mounded” category are perfect for the spoon. From ice cream to mashed potatoes, the spoon shows them who’s boss by shoveling them from their temporary housing on the good china to the acidic realm of your mouth.

Lemonade and iced tea which lack the cavity fuel necessary to make our human bodies go can be stirred with a healthy dosage of sugar by the spoon. There are even spoons with long handles for that sort of thing. How thoughtful of the spoon manufacturers to make such entities as to not force moist stirring hands.

And when spoons can be use din unconventional ways, they truly show their necessity. Cheesecake is no match for the edge of a spoon, which can act as a replacement knife if it was accidentally taken away with your entree plate. Spoons can oft times be used in the place of forks, as well. When there is no fork readily available, the spoon comes to the rescue and, while not poking to grasp (which, by the way, can be an impediment to retaining the natural juice and flavor in some meats), the spoon shovels the food to the warm recesses of within your pie hole. Yes, spoons truly shine when given seemingly impossible eating situations that otherwise would not be achieved without them.

In conclusion, I salute you, spoon. You are this year’s recipient of the Most Valuable Eating Utensil Award. May your days from now on be long and prosperous, and may you keep up the good work concerning all things food. Thank you.

I'm only sleeping

This summer, I’ve started to take naps in the afternoon. After a day of watching a bunch of kids, I can be quite tuckered.

If someone’s home with me at the time, I tell them I’m going to be napping as to reduce inadvertent sequences of awakening. Usually I say, “Good night,” but now I realize this goodbye is potentially inaccurate.

I take my naps from (roughly) 3:30PM EST to 5:00-6:00PM EST. Therefore, it’s not nighttime when I retire to my quarters.

What am I supposed to say, then? “Goodnight” doesn’t suit the situation, and “good afternoon” is typically associated with a greeting, not a declaration of absence.

You know it’s summer when I fret over silly things like this.

Won't you be mine?

I live in a house on the corner of a two street intersection on the south side of town. My family has never been overly friendly with our neighbor-types, but after a few years in this home, I’ve gotten to know a few of them.

First, there’s Steve. He lives across the smaller of the two streets from me. He’s a drug burnout that the seventies left behind, stuttering and drinking the day away. Day by day, he sits at the old wooden picnic table under his old oak tree next to his family’s 1978 Chevy pickup drinking can after can of some cheap domestic beer. Usually around 3:00 PM, he runs out of his brewskies and walks the two blocks to Walgreens for more of his Old Milwaukee. Whenever I see him, he’s already downed a case or two. This, coupled with his old partying days causes him to slur his speech and results in a certain incoherency between his brain and his mouth. So, whenever you see him coming, you’d best get in the house to avoid uninteresting, nowhere-bound conversation.

Next to him lives Gary, Steve’s brother. Gary is a 50-something year-old bachelor, aside from the fact that he lives with their mother. Gary is a mailman who owns a nice Harley. However, he only rides the cycle on Saturdays for about an hour. All the other time he carts around in his mail truck or Steve’s old, clanky pickup. Gary does most of the yardwork for his family and when he does so, he wears the same 30-year-old white shorts that come to about eight inches above his knee. It’s not a pretty picture.

Next door to my house lives the ancient Mrs. Elsie Grecko. When my mom was a kid, any balls accidentally thrown into her yard were gone. Forever. After her husband died, she took to tilling the land in her yard with a rake. Every day of the year, the old leather-like sack of skin would sag outside, rake in hand, and start beating. And beat the land, she would, until evening falls. She still does this every day, every so often stepping back to eye her work. At times, she can achieve a nice criss-cross effect in the dirt that used to be her yard with her rake marks, but that’s only if she’s pounding the land. Sometimes you can spot her whacking her driveway with the rake, but that’s only if she gets bored with her daily land cultivating campaign.

Caddy corner to the Duchess of the Dirt lives the Alexander family, the nicest folks you’ll ever meet. The patriarch of the family is Jim Sr., an ice cream store proprietor. I can only suppose his business isn’t doing well, because of the perpetual lack of cars in the parking lot, but Jim doesn’t seem to mind. Along with every serving of ice cream, you get some soul food to boot. Free gospel teachings, that is. And even if you didn’t want to listen to Jim, you’d have to. The man speaks (although it’s a bit nasally) with an uncommon loud air about him. About anything. The other night I was trimming the hedges in my back yard and he, out of the blue, says, “If you ever need a good grill, I’ll tell you what, you’d best get it from Wal Mart. Oh, it’s great. $57.90, already assembled. Yeah, best grills in the world. Better, even, than Home Depot! Seriously, you should get one of these grills. Best in the world. $57.90, installed. Best grills in the world up there at Wal Mart. Yeah.”

And across the larger of the two streets is an older couple, and though I don’t quite know their names, I do know what kind of people they are. Dirty rotten scoundrels, they are. The whole lot of ‘em. Since they’re older and unemployed, they have a certain scheme for money. Most every Saturday, they have a garage sale. Not the sort where you have a bunch of crap you need to sell, but the kind where you have the same outrageously-priced stuff that nobody buys week after week. They’re bloodthirsty about what they do, too. They take advantage of your directional signs. They offer to take them down because they use them, and then they leave you high and dry. They suck away the competition whenever you try to clean out your garage and make a bit of a profit. Useless, I say. Out of all of my neighbors, they’re the ones I think I like the least. Harmless drunks, crazy elders, and talkative ice cream salesmen I can take. Cutthroat pack rats? Now that’s another story.

A shoe-in

I don’t get it. I mean, they’re always around, but no one knows why.

Not a day goes by when I don’t see a single shoe in the middle of the road. It’s not coupled with another, it just lies there alone and isolated, with no particular purpose.

Is it like the cruel kids used to do when they’d tie some poor kid’s shoes together and throw them on the power lines? Is it a secret code the Free Masons use to communicate with one another unbeknownst to us commoners? Or is the occurrence of a free-spirited shoe flying from the back of a Chevy Trail Blazer more common than I think?

God only knows.

Public Restrooms

By their very nature, public restrooms are very awkward places.

If you’re a guy, urinals have the capability to backfire on you. Sure, they’re convenient. Sure, they don’t require a lot of work on your part, but they have the potential of disaster. I’m not complaining about the fixtures themselves; running water is a commodity that we as a society could never teach ourselves to live without. However, the people who indulge in the porcelain handiness can make your experience a nightmare.

It never fails: Sometime in your life you’ll be standing there, minding your own business, when all of a sudden he comes in. Sure, there’s a row of twelve urinals and you’re the only one in the bathroom, but he takes it upon himself to come and do his business right next to you.

It’s not like a Boy Scout helping a little old lady across the street to earn his Merit Badge or anything, but this fellow apparently thinks you need help. You’re nervous and you want to empty yourself as quickly as possible to alleviate the tension between you and this overly friendly stranger who’s exposing himself just eight inches from you, but the stress that has just been created makes you stop. You can’t do it. Thus, the encounter is elongated.

The worst kind of neighbor is the talker.
“How about those Mets?”
“Some weather we’re having.”
I’m not at all an unsociable person; if someone talks to me on the street or in the local convenience store, I’ll converse with him, if only for a short time. But this is taking it too far. When a man is doing his thing in the only place he sees fit, when he’s gotten an iota of time to himself, it is simply deplorable for another to ruin that solitude.

But no matter, you stand there… waiting. Waiting for something to happen. You’re not quite sure what – for your newfound friend to leave, for you to get the courage to bolt, for a ton of bricks to fall on your neighbor’s head, something.

But then what? After you’re done, do you stick around to wash your hands? That would make the encounter even longer. But if you don’t you risk being thought less of by the others in the room. Either way you’ll have to make some sort of sacrifice, which makes bathrooms a social disaster for men.

But it’s not just for men, oh no. Women have it rough, too, sitting in those little stalls with so much to worry about:
What if someone peeks through the 1 inch crack between the door and the wall of the stall? Will you smile, ignore it, or make some quip about looking at your crack?
What if the lock fails and someone swings the door wide open? After that, will you have to hold the door closed with one leg as an added reinforcement?
What if you run out of toilet paper? Do you call to the person in the stall next to you and violate the unwritten law of no talking in bathrooms?

The woman’s restroom is a ticking time bomb for disaster, just like men’s. A hoard of strange people cramming into poorly kept, unclean rooms and emptying themselves is not my idea of fun. Potential confrontation with the unknown masses scares me, and that is why bathrooms are strange, weird places.