August 2009
- Chris Zell
- Dec 29, 2017
- 6 min read
Lighten Up, Francis.
Posted on August 30, 2009 | 4 comments
That brilliant quote, from the good half of the movie Stripes, was brought to mind today while waiting to come to work.
I’m leaning on the bus post like I always do thinking back on this horrific fucking week. Trust me when I say, if something could go wrong every day this week at least one of them was ready and willing.
Trust me when I say, every fucking day some new hell reared it’s ugly head. I’m not even saying something like the truck broke down and it turns out this is wrong with it and this and this and, oh yeah, that.
To me, that’s a single event.
Nah, this week shit was coming out of left, right, and left center field. I sat in dread of the phone; the door; a creak in the floor.
Seriously, the Zevon song, ‘Something Bad Happened To A Clown’, popped into my head more than once this week.
I’m waiting for the bus on a dark and stormy day (natch), feeling pretty bad for myself while trying to figure out ways to align the ship (‘How many lungs do I need?’ ‘If I only use ten percent of my brain, does that mean I can auction off the other ninety?’) when I feel a very large item, wet, hit me in the ear and shoulder.
‘That seems heavy and pretty singular for rain,’ I think. I look to my left shoulder and, wouldn’t you know it, bird shit.
“Lighten up, Francis.” Sargent Hulka barked in my ear.
‘Cause, no matter what, no matter how bleak, there’s always someone else willing to shit on ya.
4 Comments
Posted in Comedy
They asked!
Posted on August 28, 2009 | 1 comment
I was sitting there minding my own business (which means I was thinking of Ted Kennedy jokes) when I got an email from someone asking if I had any ideas for a viral video (why they call it that is beyond me. It’s just a video). I asked the subject and they said weight loss.
So I wrote this:
Bumper: See How A Mom Drops 47 Pounds!
Video: Mother walks to the camera, smiles, bends over, picks up kid and drops him (doesn’t have to be on his head but it would be funnier).
They were very unhappy with me.
Guess I shouldn’t send them my Kennedy jokes.
1 Comment
Posted in Comedy
When Will They. . .
Posted on August 26, 2009 | 5 comments
. . .understand that I am not a joiner?
I hope you all believe in something higher than yourself. I don’t care if it’s a gawd or a tree or a six foot French-Canadian mallard named Griff who lives under your bed.
But, please, don’t ask me to join in with your flock.
It’s not that I may not get a kick out of attending it’s just that I barely have time enough to fit in my higher power (drinking). But, some people never learn.
This gentleperson is allowing me unfettered access to the beauty and light that is their chosen spiritual focus. Which ends up annoying me.
Not that I won’t give them the time of day but I’m not much of a joiner (even though Griff sounds like a hell of a trip) of many things organized.
Again, I don’t snipe at them right away. It takes a few passes before I hit the fed up button and eject all illusions of politeness.
“So this Jesus guy,” I begin my end game. “He was Jewish, right?”
“Yes.”
“And he was a carpenter, right?”
“Yes.”
“So what synagogue did he attend? Shalom Depot?”
People should learn to leave after two declines. They really should.
If only so there would be fewer people in the world bugging their gawd with all that praying for me. No wonder so much in the world is fucked up. He’s spending a huge chunk of his time talking calls about me.
A Good Stretch
Posted on August 19, 2009 | 15 comments
I admit I do not work in the most desirable locale in the world. It’s not at bad as places Bob The Man has worked but it did cause a friend in federal law enforcement who Google Mapped my location say,
“Holy shit! What a fucking pit.”
Thanks for the official assessment, sir. Can hook me up with some federal funds to embezzle? I mean, no, I mean embezzle.
You’ve, no doubt, become quite accustomed to my tales and, frankly, may even be bored with them. I mean, how many times can you hear a story about, for instance, this woman:
I knew she was going to be a problem the moment I noticed one of her eyes twitched like a plastic player on an electronic vibrating football field.
Not the lid. The actual eye.
She began telling me what she wanted followed immediately by a question/statement that had nothing to do with what she wanted.
“I would like to purchase one of those.” “What’s that smell?” “I agree, that is a very reasonable price.” “I bet it gets hot in here in the summer.” “Yes, I think I would be interested in buying.” “It’s so cold in here!” “I think this would be a very good investment for me.” “What is that smell? Do you smell that? Oh, you can’t smell that you live in it all the time. How come it’s so cold? I think the bats have escaped from my belfry. What IS that smell?????”
Turns out it was the charred remains of the last shred of my dignity.
Seriously, I work in a location deemed ‘Holy shit!’ worthy by a respected member of the United States government and spend hours of my adult life having nonsensical conversations with disconnected life forms.
Just when I’m about to sweep my ashes into the dustbin of shattered dreams I feel the strain to hold it dear until I hear,
“I can’t believe you can’t smell that. It’s horrible.”
Followed by this.
The woman lifts up her shirt exposing her tits. No, not bra. Tits. They looked like two blue veined jelly fish who’d recently gorged on marshmallow fluff. She lifts the twins to her face. Breathes in deeply of the aroma. Allows the jelly fish to drop and, while adjusting herself back to her previous decorum, states,
“It’s me.”
Anyone need memory? Used but in a working state with room for expansion. After what I just witnessed, I don’t want it anymore.
You know something, I can’t say I was surprised. I knew my day was going to surf shit sea before I place the key in the lock. It began while I was waiting for a break in traffic to cross the street to deal with that woman.
A 5′ 11″, white male with light brown hair, wild blue eyes, yellow windbreaker, charcoal gray slacks, and flip flops (I’ve been around here so long I’m an eyewitness savant) approaches.
“Got any money?”
“No.”
I turn from the gentleman having eye witnessed the traffic clearing.
“I know you have money.”
Damn! He’s a fucking genius!
“That’s right, shitwad. I lied to you. What a fucking shock.”
Usually, in situations like this, that’s the end. But there was this panhandler in downtown Boston with a hook for a hand who’d chase people if they didn’t give him money.
I’m about to step into the street when I feel a finger in the chest. I thought,
‘Why did I poke my chest? That’s a highly unusual action.”
I’m such a joker! I knew it was the guy.
“Do you want me to force feed you your flip flops?”
I’m pretty sure he knew that was an empty threat. Come on! Even I knew I wasn’t going to touch his feet.
But there must have been something about my tone that projected the fact I did not cotton to his physicality.
“What? It wasn’t hardly a touch.”
I guess, in the second it took to recite the sentence I’m sure his uncle said after their special afternoons together, he gathered a little bravado and attempted a new tactic.
“You want me to touch you, asshole?” He took a step forward. “I’ll fucking touch the shit out of you.”
I may not have been able to stomach the idea of touching his feet (or, truly, him touching the shit out of me) but I didn’t have the same queasiness with popping him, open palmed, in the chest.
The shock that registered was exactly what I was looking for. He looked at me wide-eyed as the hollow sound reverberated through his body.
“As a matter of fact, I prefer you don’t even talk to me because I never want to have to touch you again.”
The traffic has receded so, before I go, I lean in, smile, and say,
“Are we in agreement?”
He stumbles back a step or six, flip flops bending under his feet giving his step a spring.
“You’re fucking mental.”
I turn and finally start to actually begin my day.
“Nope, just doing a little pre-game stretching.”
And you thought jelly tits was going to mar my day.
Please! To me it’s just another day in parasite.
15 Comments
Posted in Comedy
Tagged bound and gags, Comedy, funny, humor
Inquiring Minds
Posted on August 16, 2009 | 1 comment
A guy comes up and unhappily tells me his 19 year old daughter is pregnant.
Again.
To which I responded,
“Holy shit! What the fucks she going to be like when she’s old enough to drink?”
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