Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

Whenever I end up at a really nice restaurant, I am amazed at the lengths rich people go to in order to separate themselves from the peons that can't afford $49 some-fish-you've-never-heard-of medallions over grilled melon with a side of some gross plant. The lighting is nice and everything, but really, I can pull out my own chair, and I don't need to feel like I'm destroying the Mona Lisa to enjoy my dinner.

When my girlfriend and I sat down at this really classy joint in Weston called Ireland's Steakhouse, I started picking apart the faults of our entrees to amuse myself. The bread was acceptable, except for a couple of slabs at the bottom of the basket that were stiff, almost bark-like. They brought us four kinds of salt that tasted exactly the same (salty.) The fish I got was wrapped in bacon that tasted like a fine cuban cigar, and I'm pretty sure I accidentally ate the garnish.
I'll eat at home from now on, thanks.      

It's not a Tumor!

I found this weird lump on the back of my head a couple days ago, and just now I found a second one. Is it a cyst? Google says probably. I don’t know, but washing my hair will never be the same with this foreign bastard on the back of my head. I have another one on my ear that showed up uninvited a couple of months ago. I thought it was a zit or something, but it’s still just hanging out there like a bar fly, throwing off the once perfect symmetry of my right ear.

I feel like my head being taken over by cysts. Am I going to turn into a cyst face, lumpy and deformed, the kind of thing that kids point at in the grocery store so that their parents have to apologize? Are these lumps going to keep mutating and getting bigger and then hatch spiders? Am I going to start having all these health complications now that I’m in my late twenties? What’s next? I already get the same kind of lectures my mom used to give me about wearing sunscreen from coworkers because my nose is basically about to peel off from being sunburned over and over. I do wear sunscreen. I can’t help that my nose sticks out like the hand of a sun-dial, absorbing every bit of radiation.

I remember seeing this lady on TV years ago that had some kind of disorder, probably the kind I’m going to get with a nose like this. Her regular nose had been destroyed, so the doctors had given her a detachable one that would adhere to her face using a powerful magnet. I always thought that would be kind of cool to have. I could have a nose for every season. I could slap it up on the fridge when I got home from work. I could be a real life Mr. Potato head for my nieces and nephews.

If they get any bigger I will probably get these lumps checked out before they form an alliance and overthrow the government. Maybe I can get them surgically removed and donate them to science.

Until then, you can call me lumpy.

Plumb Crazy

I live in my brother's condo, and he has a warranty contract with this company called ECM, which, judging by their customer service reps, stands for Extremely Crotchety and Menopausal. They offer a call before service so that anytime you install the wrong type of fluorescent bulb in your kitchen so that it flickers like a strobe light that makes you feel like you're going to have a seizure every time you cook dinner, they can notify you thirty minutes prior to sending a rep out to make you feel stupid.

I had to call them last week because my light was flickering, my brother thought the hot water heater was about to rupture and flood the house, and the toilet in the guest bathroom was rendered useless after the coat hanger jerry-rig my brother put together rusted out and I found the float ball bobbing around in the toilet tank like a dead body.

When I called to make an appointment, I used my work-phone voice, which means I projected a mirage of enthusiasm about making the call, as if I were calling to make an appointment with an old friend. The woman on the other end of the line sounded like her cat (and only friend) had died that morning, and didn't even attempt to feign interest in helping me, which I kind of respect her for. She said to make myself available for a four hour window between 8 and 12 on Monday morning, a time that I'm sure no normal person that works a 9-5 would ever agree to. I accepted so as not to make her day any worse.

This morning, I got out of the shower and checked my voicemail. A woman who sounded like she was calling from a boiler room in hell had left me a message saying that if I didn't call back within five minutes they were going to cancel my appointment. Frantically, I called customer service. It had been three minutes since she called, but I was waiting on hold due to high call volume. Did she include hold time in the five minutes, or was that five minutes gross? My mind raced with these thoughts, and just then, and old troll named Marla, with a gravelly voice that made it sound like she had been gargling martinis and smoking capris all night, answered the phone and asked how she could help me. "They told me that if I don't call within five minutes they are canceling my appointment!" I heard my phone beep, and put Marla on hold.

"ECM this is your call before," the demonic voice on the other end said.

"Yes I'm here. Is this for the plumber or the electrician?" They had told me they needed to send two people.

"Yes, this is for the water heater, the light, and the toilet," it said.

"Great, yes, I am here. Send them over," I said.

"You should let us know when you get a home phone number so that we don't have to keep calling you long distance," said the voice.

"Um, ok," I said, thinking for a moment that I should explain that I kept my Beverly Hills number because it makes me feel like a movie star.

Then it hung up. I switched lines and thanked Marla for her patience, assuring her that I was all set, so she could sleep tonight.

To their credit, ECM had one of the friendliest techs I've ever met. Or maybe he was just cheerful because he didn't really have to do anything except tell me things weren't broken. He told me I used the wrong bulb, the water heater wasn't actually leaking. He fixed my toilet within five minutes, afterward telling me that I "had my throne back."

At least I'm the king of something.

Frigid Old Ladies Melt for Me

I love making old ladies smile. I'll claim it. There's nothing that puts me in a better mood than finding an elderly woman that looks like she just got to the grocery store after burying her last surviving friend and smiling at her as I round the corner of the cereal aisle so enthusiastically that she can't help but return the favor.

Sometimes I'll even purposely make them almost run into me just so I can make it seem like we avoided a near collision. It creates a kind of bonding moment. You know that move where you start to roll your shopping cart to the right, only to have the shopper coming toward you veer to their left, making you wonder whether they are from Europe? Well, I do that on purpose so I can say "Oopsy" to these grannies and watch as they flash me their pearly dentures. You'd think they would catch on to me, but they don't!

I had an especially nice time the other day when there happened to be a bird fluttering around in one of the aisles. It had managed to peck it's way into a bag of pancake batter, and was probably well on it's way to eating itself into a coma.

"That can't be very sanitary," I said to the 70-something lady searching for Metamucil.

"You're telling me," she said. I'd made a friend!

"I hope that nobody catches bird flu, that would be tragic!" I said. "They're going to have a heck of a time catching that thing!"

I don't know why old ladies like me so much, but I think it has to do with my hair color. Before redheads were hated all over the planet and exiled to Scotland, when these old ladies were young girls, lochs of copper hair were considered to be a sign of royalty. I'm not making this up, just ask any old lady with a shoddy dye job and she'll tell you. She'll say, "Well my my, that boy has such NICE RED HAIR. He must be the descendent of royalty. Can you IMAGINE??"

So yes, it is my hair that polarizes these gentle geriatrics to me, and it is only appropriate that I should respond by making them smile. So that's what I'll keep doing.

The Gas Chamber

My coworkers like to smoke inside. I realize that it's not the 50's anymore, but apparently some people are a little behind the times and still think it's perfectly acceptable to spark up during conference calls and company luncheons.

I tell them I quit smoking so I wouldn't die of lung cancer, and they blow smoke at me. I tell them I'll light their cigarettes for them in 40 years when they're in an iron lung. Then when I sit down after checking the mail I find cigarette butts floating in my water bottle. They say the irony is that I worry about cancer, but I'll probably get hit by a truck.

I've thought about taping together a giant plastic bubble with an exhaust fan attached that will guard me from their noxious fumes, but I don't want the UPS guy to think I have leprosy.

Our Ops Manager smokes Black and Milds, our Bookkeeper smokes Marlboro Menthols, and our President smokes Parliaments. Our Executive Assistant used to smoke Newports, but had a moment of clarity recently after being hospitalized for food poisoning and quit. I've heard at different times that all of these brands are worse for you than the others, but I'm glad they have varied tastes so that I can be sure to get the full range of carcinogens

Through all of my bitching, I've gotten them to limit smoking to the times that I'm not in the office. That means I'll go pick up lunch for everybody, and I'll come back, my arms so full of sandwiches or Thai food that I can barely open the door. When I do open it, billows of smoke come out that make me wonder whether they have been holding witch trials while I was gone. It seems that they are making up for lost time, chain-smoking like they're on death row during the twenty minutes it takes me to get their food.

I can only pray the fire marshal will show up to make sure our extinguishers are up to date one of these days when I'm on lunch. Until then, I am practicing holding my breath for long periods of time. My next idea is to start stripping down and leaving my clothes at the door when I smell smoke. That way my coworkers can have that topless secretary they've always wanted, and my shirt won't smell like an ashtray anymore.

Just Because I'm Paranoid Doesn't Mean I Won't Spontaneously Combust

Sometimes when I'm driving, I'll visualize myself losing control of the car and smashing into a guard rail, or running over a curb and plunging into a holding pond. I'm not sure what triggers this latent paranoia, but after spending the last few days with my parents, I'm pretty sure I know where it came from.

It was getting late last night, and my parents and I were babysitting my nephews and neice so my sisters could go out and have fun for once in their lives.

My parents communicate primarily in sighs. Dozing on the couch between them, I wondered whether they have developed a kind of Morse code during their 40+ years of marriage that only they can interpret. Were they talking about me?

After ten minutes of sighs, coughs, and throat clearings, I heard my dad say "maybe you should ride home with Evan to make sure he doesn't fall asleep at the wheel." Now, just so you don't think I'm a narcoleptic in denial, during my cross country trek this summer, a friend and I took turns driving from Macon Missouri to West Palm Beach. We drove a 24 foot box truck for 25 hours straight. I drank two 16 oz red bulls in a row at 5 in the morning to fend off fatigue. I'm not recommending this to anyone, but driving the 0.75 miles to my house at midnight is a walk in that park after that trip.

Last year when I made the mistake of telling my mom I was going skydiving, she said "if God had wanted us to fly, he would have made us angels." When I told her I was statistically 40 times more likely to die in a car accident on the way there, she offered me $100 not to go.

I remember when I was 15 or 16, I came home from a party. My mom was sleeping in her recliner, her friends at Fox News singing her a lullaby. She has an interesting wardrobe. At night, she wore an African robe and matching headdress to mask her curlers. She lunged at the door when I opened it. It was terrifying, like being bum-rushed by Nelson Mandela. I screamed as she slammed the door on my shoulder that it was just me, Evan, her son. She returned to her La-Z-Boy, sat down, deployed the footrest and said "I thought you were a robber."

I can only imagine a world where all of the things my parents are nervous about come true. There would be an Amber Alert every three minutes. People wouldn't leave their houses without assault rifles, and would drive cars only when they wanted to attempt suicide.

I'm still relatively certain my car won't inadvertently go sailing off the PGA bridge any time soon, but after spending the last week with my folks, I'm starting to really wonder.

Man Arrested for Shoplifting Embarassing Products

Donald Jacobs was arrested Wednesday evening for shoplifting a number of decidedly embarrassing products from Wal-Mart.

Employees said they immediately suspected Jacobs, and surveillance footage confirmed their suspicions.

"I could tell he was up to something," said Marla Brown, a supervisor at the store. "He was anything but a smooth criminal. He had a hat pulled down over his eyes. I noticed him browsing the feminine hygiene products, and there was just something so strange about that."

When Jacobs was stopped by security, he was frisked and found to be harboring a box of Preparation H in his waist line. When they searched his messenger bag, they found a box of condoms, a bottle of KY liquid , a tube of Vagisil, a bottle of Imodium AD, a box of Ex-Lax, a box of tampons, and the bottom of a toilet plunger.

"I was preparing for the worst," said a sheepish Jacobs. "And besides, some of that was for my wife. I mean, what am I going to do with a box of tampons? Give them to my wife, that's what."

Employees said Jacobs was cooperative with security, but that it is Wal-Mart's policy to prosecute shoplifters to the full extent of the law.

"He probably thought he could sneak out of our store with all that stuff, but we're on top of our game here at Wal-Mart. You ain't getting out of my store with so much as a candy bar," said Brown. "If he was so smart he would have just ordered that stuff on the Internet."








Jacobs, thinking long and hard about what he has done.