Poo Wars

There is an inter-species war occurring in our apartment, a war between the upright humans and a four legged tortie that goes by the name of Sasha. Sasha was a part of the package when Rachel and I moved in together. In the beginning, Sasha and I got along fantastically. She snuggled above my head at night, followed me around the apartment like a lost puppy dog when Rachel wasn't home, and relaxed in her kitty sauna when I took a hot shower.

Lately, Sasha and I have not been seeing eye to eye. The problem started as a strange behavior, when Rachel and I realized that she liked to pee in the tub. She would position her little pee-hole over the drain and a perfect stream of pee-pee would go straight down the shower drain. I was repulsed at first, but then realized that it was better that she pee-peed (how the hell do you spell that?) in our tub than in other places, such as my shoes or in the bottom of my backpack.

Eventually, Sasha either got bored of simply pee-peeing in the tub or has been intending to tinkle but gets caught off guard with the surprise/accidental poop. At first, this shit fiasco occurred in bursts every few months. She would shit in the tub two or three days in a row, then abruptly stop. Rachel and I tried to solve the problems in a variety of ways: new litter boxes, new litter, rearranging the apartment to perfectly place the litter boxes, and even allowing Sasha to drink from the bathroom tap.

Nothing seemed to work. In fact, the poo wars only got worse, instead of being every few months, Sasha began pooing in the tub on a monthly basis, then a weekly basis, and then a daily basis. We went from cleaning up three piles of shit in a month to cleaning up two, sometimes three, piles of Sasha poo on a daily basis.

Not only are we cleaning up cat poop on a daily basis, but it's not just any cat poo, it's the Sasha poo. A poo that is a weapon of mass destruction. Her poop has the odor of cat feces (obviously), raw meat, and rancid potatoes and has the texture of baby food. Cleaning up her poop is a nauseating and gagging experience, to be honest, I have delegated the poop cleanup to Rachel. I only clean up her poo when it's an emergency situation, such as needing to shower and Rachel isn't home to clean it up. I know it sounds evil, but to make cleaning up cat messes even, I am responsible for cleaning up any cat puke.

Recently, Rachel and I have been keeping the bathroom closed off, specifically at night, since Rachel has been waking up on a daily basis to a pile of toxin poo. Having the bathroom closed off has been a wonderful solution for the last week. Sasha poos in her litter box at night and Rachel doesn't have to clean up poop before her shower. Though, Sasha does poo in the tub while we are at work, so by the time I get home, there is a guaranteed pile of poo with venomous odor in the bathroom.

Last night was no different, Rachel closed off the bathroom as I tuckered into bed. In the wee hours of the morning, Rachel wakes me up in a panic because she can hear Sasha scratching and attempting to cover something up under the bed. Wifey wakes me up in a frantic, upset, panic and explains what Sasha was doing. As soon as she has finished explaining her fear I get an overwhelming scent of cat shit. I get out of bed, get on all fours, and take a peek under the bed. What do I find?

Sasha attempting to cover up a giant pile of poo with a Puffs tissue box. Poor tissues never had a chance. Rachel and I had to move the entire bed so that we could clean up Sasha's disgusting mess. After moving the bed and getting a nose full of toxins, I immediately went into gag mode. I stumbled out of the room to get fresh air, almost tromping through another cat mess, this time a giant pile of cat puke.

Sasha and I are at a stalemate. I'm not quite sure what to do about this problem, though I'm beginning to think I should start pooing in her shower...aka her mouth.

Chipotle

After Christmas, Rachel and I went shopping for a new television and headed to Deptford. While in Deptford, we needed to go to the T-Mobile store to have my phone reset, and while we were in the parking lot, Rachel noticed a Chipotle in the parking lot. Her eyes got huge and she started to get really excited, so we decided to go there for dinner. I had never heard of the place until she started raving about the one in Baltimore, so I figured I would give it a try.

Chipotle reminded me of Moe's Southwest Grill, only cleaner. I ordered a steak burrito with cheese, sour cream, pinto beans, white rice, and tomatoes. There is an entire assembly line of people making the food, one person is in charge of the protein, another the rice and veggies, and finally there is someone to take care of the condiments. There must have been 10 people behind the counter, they looked like a pack of sardines. I pay for our meals and then we have to find a seat.

I had failed to take note when we walked in, that every table had someone eating at it. We wound up sharing a table with another family. After eating a 1/3 of my burrito, I finally found some meat in my food. I'm assuming that since it's an assembly line, nobody cares how the inside of the burrito looks, so my food was thrown into clumps rather than being spread out. I get to the halfway point, and chomp down into something as hard as a rock.

I immediately spit out the hard substance to take a closer look at it. My mouth is now overcome with the taste of dirt. This was no bone that I bit into, not even a piece of grizzle. There was a small rock in my meal.

That's right, a rock!

I look at Rachel in disbelief that I was given a rock to munch on. She starts looking through her fiesta bowl, making sure there were not inedible objects in her food. I bring my meal to the front counter and start to complain about the rock to the first employee in the assembly line. He looks at me in disbelief and starts staring at the ceiling to see if something had fallen down. He then hands me off to the next person in the assembly line. After talking to five people, the manager finally comes out.

Honestly, the guy was an ass. He tries to blame the rock in my sandwich on the building being new and a piece of concrete must have fallen from the ceiling into my sandwich. I had to laugh and asked him, where he saw a portion of ceiling that was crumbling and falling into people's food. At that point, he took a new attitude and started offering me a new item off the menu. I was not planning on eating anything else off the menu and expressed this to him. Finally, he gave me a refund for my food (and even included Rachel's cup of guacamole).

I plan to never eat there again.

Trifecta

I just finished Night by Elie Wiesel for our book club, which was a very big mistake to read before going to bed, especially when I actually have to set an alarm clock and be up early in the morning. Instead of lying awake for any longer, I figured I would do a little bit of writing and watch some Jersey Shore before trying to rest my eyelids again.

Random grocery store somewhere on the East Coast...

For those who have been living under a rock for the last week, the east coast has been rocked with an earthquake, a hurricane, and a few tornadoes over the last few days. First came the earthquake, which occurred on Tuesday afternoon, and pretty much scared the shit out of anyone who had never experienced a quake. I was actually at my friend Pat's house, during the quake, where the language arts department was having a meeting of the minds. While sitting at the table discussing UbD, the entire house started to shake, which resulted in Pat hollering at her daughter for running around in the basement. After her daughter came upstairs and the house was still shaking, everyone in the room quickly realized that something wasn't right and we all ran outside to investigate. We quickly realized that we weren't the only one's on the street whose house vibrated. All of the adults in the house immediately began using our cell phones to try to reach our loved ones, out of curiosity as to whether they had felt the rumbling from below.

Cell phones were not operational for about an hour, since all lines were jammed with people trying to reach their loved ones. Diddy finally sent me a text telling me that an earthquake had occurred in Voorhees (where I was presently at), completely unaware that I was actually in Voorhees. I chuckled at the thought that she actually thought the earthquake was in Jersey, let alone in Voorhees. After several texts back and forth, she finally realized that the quake actually occurred in another state, but we both agreed that it was a scary, yet exciting experience.

After getting home and reading the humorous status updates about the quake on Facebook, I soon realized that a hurricane was quickly approaching the east coast. "Are you fucking kidding me," was my first reaction, followed by rationally trying to prepare my brain for how to prepare for a hurricane. The idea of a major storm faded from my brain until Thursday night, when Rachel's daddy called her about the mandatory evacuation of her Aunt Pepper from the Jersey shore. Aunt Pepper is Rachel's 76 year old great aunt, who loves the casinos and cigarettes.

Rachel and I decide that Aunt Pepper would stay with us for the weekend, and developed a game plan that involved picking up her brother Paul on Friday morning, then head to Longport to pack up her house and prepare it for the storm. Aunt Pepper lives less than a block away from the ocean, in a beautiful shore house, where she lives all year round. After arriving at her house, the three of us pack all of her patio furniture from the front and back porch into her living room and outdoor shower. Out of fear of losing power for an extended amount of time and losing some of her frozen food, Aunt Pepper packed some very tasty foods for her weekend in the Langmore, such as filet migon, shrimp, hamburgers, eggs, cheese, breakfast sausage, and butter. After loading up her bags and food into the car, we then made the trip back to Mullica Hill, with Paul driving her car back.

On the way home, Rachel and I witnessed a Wawa cyphon gas from the pumps, in preparation for the hurricane. Even with the mandatory evacuation of Aunt Pepper, the severity of the storm had not actually fully hit me until witnessing the gas being cyphon at Wawa. After getting home, Rachel, Paul, and I began to prepare our building for the storm, removing the community patio furniture and rubber mat from the first floor porch, removing an extremely loose plank of wood from the outside of the building, and helping the Mullica Hill Flower Shop put away some of their flowers. Rachel and I then dropped Paul off at his house, and ran out the store to attempt to find water and fuses. Of course, water by this point was a rare commodity, but we eventually found some at Big Lots. Nobody had emergency candles in Jersey, so we had to settle with cheap, stinky candles from Big Lots also.

The following morning, Paul met us for breakfast at the Harrison House. After a hearty breakfast, the ladies headed back to the Langmore once again, where we planned to brace the storm. The rain started around noon, and Rachel and I both realized that our garage was bound to flood during the storm. After moving our cars to the safest location in the parking lot, the two of us tackled the garage, creating a barricade using Rubbermaid containers. We also had some empty crates in the garage, which we flipped over to create a platform to keep a wooden bed frame, a window fan unit, a box fan, and two of my kitchen chairs off the ground, in the hopes that they wouldn't become water logged. We also brought in a few important things from the garage, such as two containers of old video game systems, a box of dolls that Rachel's mom had been holding onto from Rachel's childhood, and a box of childhood books that her father had recently given to Rachel.

Moments after we finished our project, the rain began to get extremely heavy, and within 90 minutes, we noticed the puddle in front of the garage was turning into a lake. I headed back to the garage to try to barricade the door with logs, but couldn't find any that were suitable. Rachel then came up with the ingenious idea of using the wooden planks from the make shift garden surrounding the large tree in the parking lot. We used the wooden planks to create a make shift damn instead.

For the remainder of the evening, the three of us watched as the rain increased and the winds began to get heavier and heavier. Around 8 pm, we briefly lost power, so when it flickered back on, Rachel and Aunt Pepper jumped at the opportunity to start making dinner. As we were eating a delicious meal of filet migon, apple and grape salad, and pea soup, Diddy texts me about a tornado that's heading right for Mullica Hill.

Shit gets fucking scary from here.

Rachel goes into panic mode, turning on the television where the television goes crazy with this annoying, piercing noise and the tornado warning scrolling across the bottom of the screen. The tornado was heading for Mullica Hill, then Glassboro and Pitman afterwards. Rachel makes us stop eating and head for the basement, where we regain our composure and start to make phone calls again. Diddy, at this point, is chuckling because the tornado warning had been lifted, while Rachel is on the other phone with her mom, whose telling her that the tornado warning was lasting for another 20 minutes. After giving the tornado a few minutes, I decide to be brave and check to see whether there is actually anything even going on in the neighborhood. I expected to see an empty street (or at least a flooded street).

Instead, I witness a the tunneling winds of a tornado coming down our street. My feet are like bricks, as I watch the winds circle, picking up leaves and water off the road into its funnel. I finally regain my composure and make a sprinting run for the basement, almost falling down the wet stairs to tell Rachel and Aunt Pepper about the tornado. I immediately call my sister to tell her that "a mother fucking cyclone is coming down the fucking road...what the fuck!"

Moments later, the power goes out, so now we're sitting in a dark basement, which is freaking me the fuck out. After roughly ten minutes, I noticed the winds have died down. We decide it is safe to go back into the apartment, and try to head back upstairs only to be soaked by the water pouring out of the porch above us. The already weak boards on our porch had given way, cracking under the pressure of the downpour of rain. After getting inside, Rachel and I start checking the apartment for damage, realizing that both the bathroom and kitchen windows are leaking, along with both windows with air conditioners in them. While searching for water leaks and damage, we also notice several spots damaged from the earthquake, such as a previously small crack in the ceiling becoming bigger.

I'm not sure whether it was the actual site of the tornado or the hype of the storm, but after checking for damage my brain went into a rational yet panic feeling. I immediately went into a calm overdrive, in which I grabbed everything I could that was important to me, and shoved it in a backpack, this way if we were forced to suddenly evacuate I would feel more prepared. Rachel, began to do the same thing, yet in a more frenzied state. After packing her bag, the two of us rearranged the entire apartment, so that the couch was in the hallway, away from all of the windows.

Later in the night, Rachel and I both shared what was in our "emergency bag," which was actually an amusing exercise. My backpack consisted of my jewelry box, my GPS, a phone charger, my safety deposit box (which contains my teaching certification and SS card), a phone charger for the car, and my wallet. Rachel's bag was much more practical, with three bottles of water, a change of clothes, and other necessities. It was actually amusing to see that I packed more sentimental items, while Rachel packed practical items.

East Lake Road
Woodstown, NJ

The aftermath in Jersey depended on the location. The shore was barely hit during the storm, while most of the inland was flooded. The bridge near our home was flooded and closed for several days, while East Lake Road, in Woodstown was completely destroyed. Every river in the state flooded, due mainly to the amount of rain fall. Additionally, flash floods occurred throughout the state, that resulted in the death of a young woman in Salem County, when a flash flood swept her car away.

The power outage at our house only lasted for several hours, but several people were stuck without power for several days. On Sunday night, Berman's family still did not have power. Rachel and I had assessed our apartment to see how we could arrange furniture so they could sleep in our apartment. Berman wound up having power in the morning, so there was no amazing sleep over for us (frowny face).

Aunt Pepper went home on Monday to a damage free house. There was absolutely no water in the house, nor any debris scattered across her porch. It was as if a storm never even occurred in Longport.

After all of the hype and talk of the storm, Rachel and I have decided we will never name our child Irene, because our daughter would wind up being a giant disappointment...

Jerry Springer

About two weeks ago, my sister called to ask if Rachel and I wanted to take a trip to Connecticut to be a part of the audience of Jerry Springer. The tickets were free, in fact by signing up via email, you actually receive four tickets for the show. Kelly and Johnny didn't realize this when the decided to go, so they wound up with eight tickets. Rachel and I decided that it sounded like an amazing idea, because how many people can say they had the chance to see Jerry Springer live. Diddy, Kelly, Johnny, and our Aunt Kath decided to spend the night in Connecticut and left last night for their hotel. What should have been a three hour trip for them, turned out to be a six hour debacle, thanks mainly from the torrential rain we received in Jersey. A majority of the roads in South Jersey became rivers, along with dozens of roads throughout the state, Rt. 73 also was closed for a majority of the evening. Completely unaware of the highway becoming a river, and the necessity of the road to reach the Turnpike, the four of them were stranded at Mr. Bill's for quite some time.

Around 10 last night, Diddy called me to forewarn her of the difficulties they had with their journey, and advised us to leave much earlier than we had originally planned. As a result, Rachel and I left around 7:30 this morning but didn't face much traffic at all. In fact, the only hiccup we had during our trip was the thunderstorm and heavy rain on the Turnpike, which resulted in me pulling off at a rest stop and handing over the driving to Rachel, since I absolutely hate driving in the rain (mainly due to my two major accidents occurring in rain storms).

We arrived in Stamford at 10:15, but the show we were seeing didn't start until 1 pm. The six of us walked around Stamford for about a half-hour, and then decided to just stand in line for the remainder of the time. Around an hour into the wait, I had the sudden urge to use the bathroom, but we were pretty much stuck because there were no nearby bathrooms, nor could we leave the line because we would probably lose our place in line and our tickets. Instead, I did the pee-pee dance for the next hour, until they finally let us into the theater.

At this point, we had already been waiting for about two hours to even enter the studio building. Apparently the previous show had run late, which I actually found to be a bogus excuse. Luckily, the rain finally stopped while we were waiting outside in line, so we weren't completely drenched before the taping. Eventually, we were led into one of two small audience waiting areas, where we had to wait some more. I was finally able to use the bathroom, though I was starting to get quite hungry. Of course, the tiny little waiting area only had two vending machines, both of which only excepted singles, which we only had two of. Therefore, Rachel and I split a bag of M&M's, while Johnny and Kelly shared something between the two of them.

During our wait in the room, we were able to watch a clip show, from the Springer's 20th anniversary (I know, I can't believe they have been doing the same thing for the last 20 years either). After watching the DVD once, someone came into the room to hit play, which means we watched two hours of the same DVD. Eventually the DVD ended a second time, and a different employee came to press play, but everyone revolted. She eventually changed the DVD to another Springer clip show.

The show was supposed to start at 1, but at 1:45 they finally brought us into the studio. The studio was actually quite tiny, and we were packed into the back of the studio. There was the usual Springer moments, he enters the show by sliding down a stripper poll, plenty of fights, which the audience was told to cheer on, and the usual completely bizarre story lines.

The moment of enlightenment, that made me feel have 100% more self-confidence in myself, was witnessing the "Human Pizza" segment. I don't want to go into too much of the story line, but let's just end this blog with the following scene:

A large woman, about the size of John Candy, stripped down to her bra and panties and proceeded to pour pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, anchovies, pepperoni, green peppers, and olives all over her body. Then, John Candy's husband, who was also the size of John Candy, then put his nasty, dry lips all over her body and sucked up the pizza contents.

Cravings

The average human being has experienced the temptation of a craving at least once in their lifetime, whether it was the tempting idea of snacking on the last piece of cake in the office or when and where the next alcohol beverage will be consumed. A majority of the time, people don't even realize they are craving something since they aren't trying to control the urge. Why would one realize they are craving a piece of chocolate when they weren't on a diet?

During an extremely stressful point in my life, I started smoking and haven't been able to quit since. I've tried numerous ways to quit, the patch, the electronic cigarette, cold turkey; but each method ultimately failed. I would set goals up for myself, such as 'if I don't smoke any cigarettes this week I can purchase a video game for myself' but something would always come up that resulted in me purchasing another pack of Camels.

My amazing fiance has been hounding me to quit for months now, since she's concerned for my health. This past year, I have come down with several nasty colds, bronchitis, and developed a nasty, painful cough that lasted for months. I kept reassuring her that I wanted to quit but it wasn't the best time in my life to do so. I promised that as soon as summer vacation started, I would be done with smoking permanently.

Obviously the school year has ended, which ultimately means that I have to quit smoking. Saturday marked the first day using the patch again. For those not familiar, the patch is an adhesive patch that contains a certain amount of nicotine to help quit smoking. There are three stages to the process which gradually reduce the amount of nicotine needed in your system. Stage 1 is a 21 mg patch, Stage 2 is a 14 mg patch, and Stage 3 is a 7 mg patch. Stage 1 is also the longest stage, with six weeks of wearing the patch, with stages 2 and 3 each having a two week period.

As in prior experiences, I'm having two major problems with the patch. The patch is attached to the skin using an adhesive that I'm apparently allergic too. At the end of each day, I pull of the patch before going to bed to find a rash in the perfect shape of a square. Today is the fourth day of the patch, so you can only imagine how my thighs are looking with square rashes on them. Not only have my legs become not so attractive, but they also itch like there is no tomorrow.

To add insult to injury, while the patch does help control the cravings, it does absolutely nothing for actually breaking the habit of actually lighting a cigarette. Which brings me back to what I was originally discussing: cravings.

There are certain triggers for me that cause the cravings, which then result in me fighting against myself to control the cravings. I have yet to find a successful distraction, especially since I have numerous triggers that can set me off at any moment. My worst trigger would be the morning cigarette, which I usually would have when I first woke up in the morning. I know, what a way to start off my day, but it became habitual. I consider this to be the worse of the triggers, because I am now finding myself waking up in the morning with the craving and it sets the entire day off.

I could easily sleep with the patch on and change it in the morning, however one of the side effects of doing so is vivid nightmares. I went through the last attempt with the patch and quickly realized I would take a good night of sleep over cravings any day of the week. Additionally, without a good night of rest, I easily succumbed to the cravings.

As a result, I'm becoming restless and agitated without something to fill the space of having a cigarette. In the last few days, I have updated all of information and photos on Facebook, bathed Zonks, watched every episode of Hoarders, Master Chef, Bones, and CSI on OnDemand, and have become addicted to Free Cell. I also plan to start to exercise, with the full intention of paying for a gym membership at Rowan this week (if I can my ass off the couch that is). Not sure where to go from there though. Any suggestions?

Father's Day

My parents separated when I was in fourth grade, the result of his night of drinking and wrapping my mom's car around a telephone pole. I only visited him once in the hospital, but once was enough considering he had bolts coming out of his knee and a gory, nasty wound on his forehead.

After the separation, the man who was my father disappeared and was replaced by a cold, sadistic human being. The same person who wanted to take my sister and I with him everywhere we went, suddenly lost interest in his children. We became luggage in his new life of revolving women, alcohol, and drugs. Eventually, he settled with Dawn, a friend from his years of high school. Dawn had three children, Chris, Karen, and Jenn, who became the replacement children. In fact, Jenn and I not only share the same name (though spelled differently), we also share the same age.

Custody was arranged through the court system, Wednesdays after school, every other weekend, and one Sunday a month. In the beginning, it was a strange adjustment but went smoothly. Wednesdays consisted of a trip to the library and dinner, with an occasional trip to his parents house. The more involved in his relationship with Dawn, the more he ignored his children though. Eventually, our Wednesday library trips were replaced with him not picking us up. Then the Sunday visits abruptly ended.

He still wanted us every other weekend, though why I'm not completely sure. Every weekend became the same, Friday nights consisted of buffalo wings or Chinese food, both made my sister extremely sick. I lost track of the number of times I had to call Momma Dukes at three in the morning to ask what I should do for her. Of course, my mom felt trapped seeing that our car was smashed into a telephone pole and she had no money to replace it.

Saturday and Sunday consisted of Diddy and I caring for ourselves, occasionally stealing the change from his truck to walk to Wawa to purchase food for the weekend. There was food in Dawn's house, but it consisted of stale cereal, leftovers from Friday night, flat soda, and chunky milk. We would live off of candy bars and soda during the weekend. We couldn't even shower at his house, since there was a hole in the bathroom door the size of the door and no clean towels. Eventually, it would be Sunday evening and we could finally go home to our loving mother who always had a huge meal cooked for us, clean towels, and our own beds to sleep in. Diddy and I would often make it a race to see who could get to the shower first. Momma Dukes always made sure that everything in the house was perfect for our return, because she knew the horrors we had to endure.

Nobody listened to her complaints about the environment she had to send her children to for the weekend, time after time, judges would favor Dave's side in court. As time passed, I got more and more frustrated and depressed at the thought of going to his house for the weekend. We watched him snort drugs on the side of the house, become annihilated with alcohol to the point where he couldn't even say his own name right, and even practically having sex with Dawn on the couch. Countless times, he would have a beer while driving us to or from his house.

After three years of painful weekends, I was on the verge of a breakdown. Of course, I held all of my emotions in because I was a conflicted, naive teenager who didn't know what to do. Going into seventh grade, he planned a vacation to Maryland with us. It was supposed to be a week of vacation on the beach in Ocean City, Maryland. My mom made sure we had everything we would need, including plenty of food and snacks (just in case). The night before the trip, she realized she had forgotten to purchase sunscreen for us, so she asked me to call Dave to ask him to pick some up for the trip.

What was supposed to be an easy phone call, turned into a four hour screaming match between the two of us. At barely 13 years old, I had to listen to the man who was supposed to be my father scream at me that my mother was a whore, I was unwelcome to come on vacation, he always loved my sister more, I was a mistake, etc. Nobody wants to hear this from their father, especially a teenager.

Instead of going on the trip, we stayed home. It was the best vacation of my life. Momma Dukes made sure that we had the best time at home, making everyday that week as special as the previous day. At that moment, Momma Dukes took on the permanent responsibility of mother and father.

Over the course of the next few years, he came in and out of our lives. The straw that broke the camel's back was my sixteenth birthday. After being separated for almost six years, my mother was not financially at a point to file for divorce. A few days before my birthday, I went to Dave's parents house (they insisted on taking us for his visitation weekends) where the delinquent showed up. He sat down with me for dinner, filled my head with thoughts of fixing our relationship, and asked what I wanted for my birthday. Seeing that the man hadn't bought me a gift in years, I was actually caught off guard. I told him that I didn't know what I wanted, which he told me was okay because he found the perfect gift. He was going to have it mailed to my house, but it would probably arrive a few days after my birthday.

My gift? On my sixteenth birthday, he filed for divorce. What a gift!

I was crushed. Not at the thought that they were finally going through with the divorce, but at the thought that it was so malicious and calculated. Was this his plan all along? How much effort and planning had he put into this "thoughtful" gift?

We stopped speaking for years, which really didn't change anything. It wasn't until I graduated from Rowan, had my own apartment, and began working my fantastic job at my district that I actually began speaking to him. He hadn't changed much, he was still the coward that I always new him to be. Dave talked a big game, how much he missed me, his regrets on losing so much time in my life, missing my graduations from high school and college, how he was so proud of me. The typical stuff you would expect to hear from a man who had vanished from your life for over a decade.

After almost two years of building on a relationship, putting in all of the effort and getting nothing in return, I had enough. I would call him only to get his voicemail with no return call from him. I would show up at his house occasionally when I was in the neighborhood and he wouldn't answer the door, even though I could hear him in the other room. We would go to his parents house and he wouldn't show up, even after his parents and siblings would call to tell him that we were around.

This past April, I had enough. I wrote a very long, nasty letter expressing everything to him, I even had the Bermanator edit the letter for me. At the very last moment, I decided to not send it. Instead, my sister called him and laid into him about how I was feeling. It resulted in him calling moments after their phone call, once again with his typical reaction of how much he loved and missed me. The phone call resulted on a positive note, we made plans for lunch and arrangements for phone calls in which we would take turns calling each other. He reaffirmed for me that he would call me later in the week with plans for lunch.

The phone call never came. There was no lunch later that week. Dave has not called me once since our conversation. Instead, I would call him every couple of days, for a five minute conversation. He would spend most of the conversation talking about Dawn, "their" children, and his grandchildren. I haven't called him in over a month, since his birthday. I'm waiting to see how long it takes for him to actually pick up the phone to call.

So here I am, once again, in the same exact predicament as I was for countless years, spending Father's Day with no "father." Though this year is a little different, at least I have not one but two future father-in-laws who actually treat me like family. Instead of spending the day with my own father, I will be having dinner with Rachel's father, who adores me...which definitely makes me smile.

Rancid Garbage and Swamp Ass

When we moved into our apartment, we quickly realized that we were going to have a long and difficult struggle with our neighbor below us, who isn't the most sanitary man. The man is a serious hoarder and slob, leaving garbage all over his apartment. Of course, when you fill your home with garbage it's going to begin to stink. You know where I'm going with this...right?

Minus the rancid apartment, John was a friendly guy who would frequently accompany me during our nightly Tenants Association Meetings in the back of the parking lot. We would joke around about our theories of why Mark disappeared, the Harrison House, and movies. When he said he was moving I was a little disappointed, though I secretly was extremely excited. By John moving out, it meant that my apartment wouldn't smell anymore due to the odors creeping into my place.

A few weeks ago, John and his girlfriend began to move their shit out of their apartment and into their new place. Of course he didn't move everything at once, instead he left a bulk of what can only be described as garbage and his four cats in the apartment while he moved himself in to his new place. John didn't return for almost a week to finally retrieve his cats. Everything else has staid, including the car filled with trash that I complained about a couple of months ago.

John and Amanda have been gone for about three weeks. The apartment has not had electric since they moved, all of the windows are shut tight, and there is trash on the floor that spreads wall to wall. The trash includes everything from McDonald's bags and wrappers to empty water bottles.

Over the last few days, I have noticed an influx of flies in our apartment, which have obviously been traveling from his apartment into ours. Additionally, the nauseating smells of rancid garbage, cat shit, and swamp ass have been traveling through the walls and floor into our apartment. It's fucking horrible.

No matter how much I clean my apartment, I can't get rid of the smell. The smell can only be described as something died in his apartment and the corpse became reanimated, traveled into our apartment, and died a second time.

The final straw came today when I walked into my apartment and smelled cat shit. I checked all the usual places for shit (the tub, behind the toilet, under the bed) and found no shit. As nasty as it sounds, I even shoved my face near each of the three litter boxes, but smelled absolutely nothing. I originally chalked it up as Sasha being Sasha and making her extremely stinky poos, but when Rachel came home an 1.5 hours later, she immediately noticed the smell. As we griped about the smell, she checked the usual places as well the litter boxes, but smelled nothing.

I was going to contact Mark's accountant, who has become the temporary supervisor of the building, but decided to be an adult and write John a message on Facebook telling him that his apartment smelled like soot and poo. It went something like this:

John,

I don't think there is anyway polite to say this, so I'm just going to be extremely blunt. I'm not sure what you have left behind in your apartment, but the smell is extremely nauseating and has permeated my apartment. Additionally, you seem to have amassed a collection of flies that have now found their way to our apartment. Finally, your car out back is full of rats and is beginning to smell. Nobody wants to take the garbage out, out of fear of encountering a creature from your car.

I don't know when you planned on finishing your move, but what has been left behind smells and it needs to be taken care of promptly. Each day, the smell is getting worse and worse, and I will soon have no choice but to contact Philip (Mark's accountant), who is currently managing the building or the Department of Health. Ultimately, if it isn't take care of promptly, I will have no choice to contact these individuals who would be more willing to take care of it and you way wind up facing fines.

We have been friendly in the past and I really don't want to take it to those extremes. However, i can't really stand dealing with the smell, flies, and rats that you have left behind.

Hopefully, he will get the message and clean up his apartment in the next day or so, or else he shall feel my wrath.

Save the Date

Rachel wouldn't let me use this as our Save the Date for our wedding:

Disappointing since it took so long to compile...

Dragons Have Sucked the Blog out of Me

After finishing Extended School Year (aka summer school for babies) and finding that I had employment in September, I did what comes naturally to me, purchase a video game. Not just any video game, Dragon Age: Origins, a game I can only explain as the "Star Wars of video games."

• Epic Story - Check
• Fantastic characters - Check
• Ultimate villain - Check
• Dragons - Check
• Sword fights - Check

The remainder of my summer consisted of Dragon Age. After beating the game three times, I purchased three of the expansion packs for the game and played through the entire game a fourth time. Hours after beating the game, I headed to my local Gamestop to purchase Awakening, another expansion pack for the game. Of course, this meant that I had to beat the game a fifth time.

Fast forward eight months, and I haven't played it since. Everything changed when Dragon Age II was released. The sequel to my favorite game was not as thrilling to play, however the actions you take in the first effect the missions and outcome of the second game. After beating Dragon Age II twice, I decided to return Dragon Age: Origins, with two goals in mind, play the game completely differently from my original experiences and to finally complete the Blight Queller Achievement.

Rachel has been quite patient through my game addictions; forgoing the television just for me. In fact, she finds most of the games I play quite fascinating, though most of the time she misses most of the storyline to Dragon Age because I'm usually in the middle of running around aimlessly completing side quests that have nothing to do with the actual story.

Rest assured, I haven't disappeared from the blogging world. I took a temporary hiatus, mainly from writer's block and the resurrection of the dragon obsession. 

The Hospital

As I was saying last week, Rachel and I spent last Monday in the hospital together. During her battle with Death of the Chest aka Bronchitis, she fainted in the hallway and twisted her ankle pretty badly. After helping her to the bedroom, we noticed the melon sized lump in her foot that was the color of grape flavored Gatorade. Obviously, walking became a huge issue for her seeing that anytime she bent her foot she winced in pain. Her fainting spell occurred in the wee hours of the morning which meant I was extremely exhausted and half asleep, making driving impossible for me. As much as I think she needed to go to the hospital, there was no possible way that I would be able to get us there safely and she refused to get an ambulance. In fact, she repeatedly said "no ambulance" for about 5 minutes when we were still in the hallway together. Instead, I forced her to call out of work and we set our alarm for butt fucking early to call her doctor to make her an appointment.

The next morning, Rachel calls at 8 to make an appointment and the receptionist tells her that they are understaffed and she'll have to leave a message for the nurse. The nurse calls back two hours later to reiterate what the receptionist just told Rachel, though reassures her that the doctor wants to squeeze her in since she fainted. After another two hours of waiting for another phone call from the office, the receptionist finally calls back to tell her that she has to go to the hospital since she fainted. Why she couldn't just say that in the first place at 8 makes no sense to me, but that's the way her doctor office rolls.

Rachel and I head to the hospital around 2, check in with the Triage nurse and then at the Registration department and then sit for the next two hours in the waiting area. While waiting, we played Scrabble on her phone, as usual she handed my ass to me, defeating me by about 70 points. She's evil when it comes to playing Scrabble.

After waiting for two hours, a nurse comes to fetch her to take her to the hospital area. Of course, Mr. Nurse Man is walking  sprinting as if he's a marathon, while Rachel is hobbling behind him. Really dude! Apparently the nursing staff spend their days as hospital staff and their evenings as triathlon runners.

They give Rachel a gurney right next to the ambulance entrance, which meant that for the next four hours I got to witness every patient who arrived from ambulance come into the hospital. This included a young guy with tattoos up to his neck on a breathing apparatus, a guy who's arm was wrapped up under his coat, several elderly people, a pregnant woman, a woman who wouldn't stop shaking, a guy with a head wound, and a few other assorted patients whose injuries/ailments I can't even remember.

Rachel was taken away several times for a random assortment of tests, including X-Rays and a CAT scan. During these long trips, I got to people watch in the hospital, which was the equivalent of watching a horror movie. While Rachel was away, I got to witness:

• They wheeled a man out of a room who was under some heavy duty drugs. He was very unconscious with a hospital bracelet on his wrist that read "Limp Amputation." When he was rolled by me, he had all of his limbs so I think it's safe to assume that he was on his way to have an arm or leg hacked off.
• Another patient was wheeled by with an IV in her neck. That's right! In her neck. Ew!
• Two gurneys away from Rachel were two police officers from the sheriffs department chatting with a few of the nurses. The two officers were there for several hours, and it wasn't until Rachel left for her X-Ray that I realized that they were guarding a prisoner. About an hour before we were finally discharged, there was a changing of the guard. Two new officers arrived with a new pair of chained cuffs for the prisoner to be cuffed to his bed. The original set of officers walked by with their pair of cuffs. It was a very bizarre scene.
• The woman next to me had no idea what medications she takes, which I guess is common with the elderly. Her son was with her, who I think I recognized as a Stop and Shop customer, and had no idea what the hell she was on either. Poor lady.
• At the opposite end of the hallway there was a woman who wouldn't stop shaking. I think her gurney was actually moving across the hallway due to her vibrating body.
• Directly in front of us in the hallway perpendicular to us, there was a man hooked up to an IV. He got up once to use the bathroom and I made the mistake of going in after him (same sex bathrooms suck ass). Not only did he pee on the seat, but he also left a bloody piece of gauze on the ground which I almost slipped on. Later in the evening, a doctor wearing surgery scrubs, the surgery hair wrap thingy, and carrying gloves and surgical tools. Before I can fully prepare myself, she whips out her surgical tools and starts operating on the guys side in the hallway. Ugh.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am not a fan of horror movies or blood. Hospitals are obviously not a pleasant experience for me, though I have never encountered anything quite like this hospital trip. Then again, a majority of the hospital trips I've been on, I'm usually the patient. I think this is the first hospital trip where I was the support rather than the sickly one. 

During our marathon day at the hospital and Rachel's gauntlet of ER tests, we tried to keep ourselves occupied. One of the games to keep myself preoccupied was the alphabet game, where you come up with something for each letter of the alphabet. Our game consisted of the following:

I'm going on a picnic and I'm going to bring: an apple, bamboo shoots, a Christmas tree, dalmatians, egg salad, Frodo Baggins, golf balls, a hamster wheel, ink, Jen, ketchup, Linkin Park CD, map, Nigeria, octopi, panasomic tv, Rachel in her hospital gurney, a stick, twelve twigs, an umbrella, Veruca Salt, a window washer, Xrays of Rachel's chest, foot, and ankle, a yellow sweatshirt, and a zoologist.

Tall Tales

As a teacher, I have often run into a situation where I have to hide a major portion of my life from my students, mainly that I'm gay. Can you picture how a class of adolescents would handle that situation? Exactly. In a perfect world, my sexuality would not be an issue but seeing that I'm living in a country that is still divided on the issue, I don't want to plunge into those murky waters just yet.

LIE: "I'm engaged to a muscular man named Riki who I met at Gamestop."
HOW IT STARTED: For about a month, Rachel and I had been texting and emailing each other before our first date at the Harrison House. Of course, I raved about the beautiful girl I had met and everyone at school (minus the students) knew that we were about to go on our first date. The day after our first date at the beginning of my last class, Matt, the teacher next to me, comes into class to ask me how my first date was. Of course the moment he left I had fifteen sets of eyes and ears on our conversation and every girl in the class wanted to know about my date. Obviously I'm not coming out of the closet to my class, so instead Riki was invented.

LIE: "I have a younger brother who's retarded."
HOW IT STARTED: Every year, I have a group of students who love to use the word "retarded." It doesn't matter how many times I tell them that I absolutely hate the word "retarded" they continue to use it. After warning my students on more than one occasion, I finally had enough and told them that I had a younger brother who is physically handicapped and I find it offensive when people of all ages use the word "retarded" because it's offensive to me. After telling the students about my imaginary younger brother, they miraculously never use the word "retarded" in front of me again.

LIE: "I'm allergic to alcohol."
HOW IT STARTED: Towards the end of college, I realized that my digestive system was having a serious problem with alcohol. It didn't matter how much I drank or what I drank, my stomach turned inside out within an hour of my first drink. After awhile, I got into the habit of telling people that I was allergic to alcohol.

LIE: "I have an ancestor who signed the Declaration of Independence."
HOW IT STARTED: I share the same last name as one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. When my class read the Declaration of Independence, they noticed that I shared the same last name as one of the signatures. Of course they had to ask if we were related, so I told them yes. I also explained to them that I didn't like to make a big deal about it since my ancestor died a couple hundred years ago and I wanted to make a different name for myself.

LIE: "I'm Jewish."
HOW IT STARTED: Earlier this year, one of my students became obsessed with calling everyone a Nazi, not realizing the implications of this word. On one particular day, he decided to call me a Nazi. Instead of getting angry or offended, I looked at him and told him that I was offended because I was Jewish. He looked at me with curiosity, not understanding why this would offend me. I then went into a very detailed miniature lesson about the Nazis and all the people persecuted. Needless to say, he never called me or anyone else a Nazi.

LIE: "My grandfather liberated a concentration camp."
HOW IT STARTED: During my student teaching, I had a student ask me what the point of learning about the Holocaust was went it happened a century ago. I wanted to chuckle, but realized that this was a "teachable moment." I could have easily stated that my grandfather fought in the war, but his responsibility was pretty lame. Think about, what would be a more interesting story to relate history to kids, that my grandfather rode on a boat during World War II or that he was involved in a liberation? I'm going with the liberation.

LIE: "My brother is a gay construction worker."
HOW IT STARTED: This one originally evolved during practicum, but I recently used it against my students. A group of boys in fifth grade (I kid you not) were going on and on about gay men are disgusting because they put "their pee-pees in other mens poo-poo holes" and "act like girls". I kid you not, that was their exact words. How the hell do fifth graders know these things? I make it a rule NOT to discuss homosexuality with my students, but I did want the conversation to end. I very politely told them that my brother was a very masculine construction worker. They dropped the subject.

Bronchitis

Last week, I came home from work with what can only be described as the onslaught of Death of the Chest. I could feel the fever emerging due to the amount of sweat pouring off my forehead and down my neck, yet was freezing cold with the shivers. My cough went from infancy to adolescence in about an hour and it was becoming very apparent that I was about to battle bronchitis. As much as I wanted to take off the following day, I knew I couldn't because it was the day before President's weekend and I didn't want to make myself look as if I wanted a five day weekend. Instead, I drugged myself with some NyQuil and went to bed.

The next morning I drug myself out of bed and took some more cold medicine and headed to work. Honestly, I'm not sure how I made it through the day. At the first opportunity, I called my doctor's office and made an appointment for later that night. I came home after work and took a nap, well at least laid down for a couple of hours before the appointment. At the appointment, the doctor prescribes me a Z-Pac and a cough medicine.

For the next 36-40 hours, I have a consistent fever that's over 100 degrees and can't seem to get myself out of bed. By Saturday night, I'm beginning to feel much better but now Rachel is sick. She's developing the Earthquake cough and has a fever that's already over 101 degrees. Within a few hours, she goes from feeling "a little under the weather" to having my nasty-ass bronchitis. She calls her doctor's office emergency number (since the office at this point is closed until Monday) and a doctor calls her back and tells her to get lots of rest.

Rachel has asked politely that I don't mention the name of the company, but I do have permission to attempt to explain the point system at her job. She has 6 call out points and when she reaches the maximum number she is automatically fired. They don't care if you have a death in the family, have a doctor's note, were in the hospital, etc. If you call out you get points. Some days are worth more than others.

• Friday to Monday is worth 1.5 points if you call out 4 hours before your shift or 2 points if you call out less than 4 hours before your shift.
• Tuesday to Thursday is worth 1 point.
• If you call out the day before or the day after your day off then you get more points.

Basically the system means that if Employee A and Employee B both come down with the same illness and Employee A calls out on Monday and Employee B calls out on Tuesday, then Employee A is punished more. 

Of course this means, that everyone comes to work whether they are sick or healthy, spreading their germs around as if they were baby rabbits. Even after the doctor has told Rachel to take the day off and having a 101 degree fever, Rachel continues to debate whether to call out or not. She finally (and reluctantly) agrees to calling out. Throughout the day on Sunday, she doesn't get out of bed. Rachel is not one to spend an entire day in bed, even on a lazy Sunday. Even at her "laziest" she moves to another room to watch television.

As we're about to go to bed on Sunday, Rachel once again becomes plagued with the dreaded dilemma of taking another day off. Her fever hasn't gone down and is showing no signs of letting up, she's got no color in her face, and barely had an appetite during the day, yet is seriously debating on whether or not to take the points and call out two days in a row. Instead of making an immediate decision, she falls asleep.

At 3:30 in the morning, I hear her get up to use the bathroom. Moments later, she starts screaming for me that she's not sure whether she was going to puke or pass out. I head to the bathroom to find her laying on the bathroom floor with her sweatshirt balled up under her head. I was relieved that she had the sense to lay down on the floor instead of passing out on her way to the bedroom. Moments after I sat down next to her, she decides she's ready to head back to the bedroom. We start to head to the bedroom when I see her fainting in slow motion.

I attempt to catch her, but fail miserably. She goes down hard on her ankle but luckily fails to hit her head on anything. I keep trying to get her to respond but she's not having it. The only thing she's managing to say is "No ambulance" and "I need water." After chugging a bottle of water, she looks me in the face and with a dead serious look on her face asks if I can drive her to work because she's not going to be able to drive her car with her mangled foot. I had to laugh, which made her laugh at the absurdity of this question. Instead of driving her to work, I convince her that if she doesn't call out I was going to do it for her.

Instead of going to the hospital that night, we set our alarms for 8, so that Rachel can call her doctor as soon as they open. Of course, her doctor's office is short staffed and gives her the run-around. There are only two doctor's on duty so she has to leave a message with the nurse, who will then see if her illness is serious enough  to fit an appointment in. After waiting two hours for the nurse to call back at 11, she tells Rachel that the doctor would like to see her and that the office will call back when there is an appointment available.

At 1, the doctor's office finally calls her back to tell her to head to the emergency room since she fainted in the hallway. Seriously! You couldn't have told us this information when we called this morning. For the next five hours, we sit in the hospital as she gets an EKG, X-Rays on her foot, ankle, and chest, a CAT scan to make sure are no whiskers growing under her skin, a blood-sugar test, a pregnancy test, a vision test, a hearing test, her temperature taken, and her skin prodded and poked. I lied about the pregnancy test, but they did make her pee in a cup so I'm sure they checked for babies. I would actually be shocked if they didn't check for babies.

Rachel wound up with a sprained ankle (the knot on her foot is the size of a small cantelope) and a nasty upper respiratory infection aka the dreaded bronchitis. The ankle has a lovely splint and a pair of fancy crutches to accessorize the splint with. Of course for me it means I'm now responsible for day to day upkeep of our home (laundry, dishes, vacuuming, feeding the cats, taking out the garbage, cleaning the chain mail room, checking the mail, making the bed, feeding the cats more food, changing the litter boxes, planting flowers, alphabetizing the types of pasta in the house, carrying the groceries into the house, eating all of the rice and beans, and of course cleaning the spare chain mail). Additionally, Rachel cannot drive her car seeing that it's a stick shift and requires two feet. I do not have the capability of driving her car due to a lack of knowledge of sticks in general, therefore we have one car for two people and three cats.

The trip to the hospital is a blog in itself...

Dave and Company

After two days of playing Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for the last 36 hours, I have finally given Rachel some much needed television time. I don't want to gloat too much, but I have found an amazing woman who doesn't complain (too much) when I become obsessed with video games for multiple hours. Though I do wonder when would be a good time to ask when I can start playing again.

On Friday, Diddy and I visited the grandparents on my father's side, which was amusing to say the least. Though, the word "amusing" refers to a day of what the fuckness. To begin with, moments after walking into their house, Pops tells me that I reek of cigarettes. Unbeknown to him, I quit smoking on Christmas, therefore was cigarette free for a week (minus the one I had on my way there). I'm pretty sure confident that he has been waiting to say that for weeks when he realized for the first time that I smoked.

Conversation between the Grans and I consisted mainly of them asking how school was (fine), how is Rachel (fine), how Momma Dukes was (fine), how was my Christmas (fine)...are you sensing a theme yet. I'm a fan of giving the one word answers with them. I have concluded that when I give them too much information, they find things to judge me on.

In a rare moment of retardness, during a conversation about weddings I mentioned my wedding. If you remember from a prior entry, I called the entire family to announce my engagement, so this wasn't giving too much information. However, my grandmother looked at me and in a dead serious tone of voice, asked me who was getting married. This is not a woman who has dementia, therefore asking me who was getting married was a tiny bit fucking irritating. 

The environment improved after Patrick and Aunt Dorie showed up (the only other sane people in the family...well Chris is sane too, but he wasn't there). Patrick and I went on multiple tangents for the remainder of the visit, which included:

• Recent laws against driving while talking/texting/sexting on the phone. Perhaps new laws should be created against people who eat while driving. These laws would need to be specific, it is one thing to eat a sandwich or some French fries while driving, but if the food involves utensils, such as spaghetti and meatballs or using nut crackers to eat snow crabs, then it would be illegal.
• Is it possible to purchase a car adapter for the George Foreman Grill? It would be an interesting Facebook status, to be grilling a delectable steak while driving down the highway.
• Pops mentioned being locked into many contracts with his cable, electric, gas, and water companies for the 2011 year. I am quite concerned that his key chain is not big enough for all the keys he will be receiving for all these locked contracts. 
• The way Dave's hair has turned white is in a rather unusual and peculiar pattern. I believe 7/8 of his hair is white, while Patrick believes that 9/11 of his hair has turned white. What makes his hair so odd, is the fact that he has a tiny patch of black hair at the base of his skull and a small circular patch at the back of his head. The rest is white. It's actually quite sad looking. I think for Christmas next year I shall buy him a bottle of hair dye to fix this strange hair pattern.

Dave...ew

• Dave apparently got a hernia from digging his house barn out from the snow. During the three hours of conversation, he sat on the floor the entire time. Towards the end of the three hour melee conversation, he finally got up and started to stretch his legs. Let me rephrase that, he got up and appeared to be preparing for a very long jog. If I didn't know any better, I would have put money on the fact that he was planning on leaving Colonel Mustard at his parent's house and sprint home in his new Eagles sweatshirt.

Memo to self, bypass the Lakes and head straight to my aunt's house next time I go visiting. 

Flashback: Adorable Staples Clerk

Date: November 2008 - January 2009


In November of 2008, I headed into Staples to pick up a few things I needed for my classroom. While perusing through the aisles, I spotted a woman like no other. Amazing eyes. Gorgeous smile. Buns of steal. (She's probably going to kill me for the last comment...but it was worth it). I attempted to talk to her, but suddenly found myself with a rare speech impediment that left my mouth paralyzed. I may have even grunted. In a moment of panic, I quickly picked up the first item I saw on the shelf (colored paper clips) and headed towards the register.

Over the course of the next two months, I would work up the courage to go and speak to Adorable Staples Clerk but the courage quickly faded the moment I walked through the doors. Instead, I wound up purchasing many unneeded school supplies and spending the rest of my night building up the courage to talk to this amazing person. The major problem was that my Gadar was completely off, which I blame on the fact that Adorable Staples Clerk was wearing a uniform. The uniform was throwing me off since everyone was wearing the same exact outfit. How was I supposed to figure out if she was gay or straight when everyone in the building was wearing their regulation Staples shirt with black pants.

Since I couldn't figure out the sexual orientation of this lovely lady, it caused great difficulty in starting a conversation. What happens if I struck up a conversation with her and she turned out to be straight? Or worse...married?

By the middle of January, I had began texting and emailing a very cute girl named Rachel. During one of the conversations, Rachel told me that she worked at the Staples. The same Staples where Adorable Staples Clerk worked. Upon further inspection, I realized that these two ladies were in fact...THE SAME PERSON!

It took months for me to finally come clean to Rachel about basically stalking the shit out of her while she was at work. Though, I didn't phrase it like that. More like: "How would you feel if I was dating two people at once, only that the two people were actually one person and I never got around to asking the other girl out?"

Flashback: The Pajama Pants

Since this blog was started in May of 2010, there are countless stories that would have made great blog posts, but would have never seen the light of day since the occurred prior to May 2010. Therefore, I've created a new segment: Flashback. Similar to what I have done with Seven, I'm going to try to post a new Flashback about once a week (perhaps more if I run out of things to write about).

Without further ado, I would like to present the first Flashback installment: Christmas 2009.
Date: December 2009

As many of you may know, I have a thing for black and red plaid designs, which does have a specific name, though I can't actually find it. A world of information at my fingertips and I can't seem to find the type of plaid I like. Go figure.

While I was Christmas shopping for the fam, I came across an amazing pair of flannel pajama pants at Old Navy, that I simply fell in love with. It took a lot out of me, but I restrained myself from buying them for myself, knowing full well that Diddy and Momma Dukes have a habit of buying items for me that aren't on the Christmas list but are perfect for me. Plus, a majority of my clothes come from Old Navy, so I knew the probability of one of them buying them for me was pretty high.

On Christmas morning, one of the first gifts I opened was the flannel pajama pants. Like I said, the probability was high and Diddy pulled through. I was quite ecstatic about my new pajama pants and when I got home that night, I had to wash them so that I could immediately wear them. (I have to wash all Old Navy clothes before I wear them. There factory contains something that I am allergic too, and if I fail to wash them I break out in hives all over my body.)

Rachel and I had a lazy day after Christmas, though I did need to do laundry. Since I was feeling productive, I decided that I was finally going to get around to bleaching a stain out of one of my favorite white sweatshirts. While in the laundry facility downstairs, I managed to spill bleach on my black Vans sneakers, which happened to be the first gift that my Sperm Donner of a father actually bought for me in years. I was pretty disappointed, but was relieved that I didn't spill any on my new pants.

I headed upstairs to lament to Rachel, who just stared at me, with a look on her face that read "oh my god, she doesn't know." I sat down on the couch and continued to watch television and noticed a very tiny spot of bleach on my knee. I wanted to cry but kept it together. Leave it to me to ruin something that I just received.

After ten more minutes of lamenting about destroying everything great in my world I finally calmed down. Within moments of calming down, I finally went to take off my sneakers when I realized the huge mistake I made. I not only bleached my somewhat new sneakers, I had also bleached the entire ankle of my pants.

What...the...fuck...

Now I understood the expression on Rachel's face. She had already realized my Epic Fail of a mistake, but didn't have the heart to tell me. I think she was really hoping that I wouldn't realize the huge mistake until the very last moment. After literally having a temper tantrum, Rachel forced me to go shower and get ready for the day. Instead of having a lazy day, she was determined to take me to every Old Navy in New Jersey to find a new pair of pants.

During our all day marathon of Old Navy shopping, we never found the pants. When we got home that night, out of sheer guilt, I called Diddy to tell her about the pants. I thought she would reach through the phone and try to strangle me, but instead she actually started to laugh. First at the fact that I called her and practically scared the pants off of her by starting the conversation with "there's something I need to tell you." Then, she went into hysterics that I had actually cried most of the morning for bleaching my new pants.

To make me feel a little better, she tried to find the pants online but had no luck. For the last year, I've been wearing my bleached pajama pants. Rachel even offered to take black and red Sharpie markers to my pants to fill in the missing spots.

This past Christmas, Diddy made me forget about the whole ordeal by buying me a new pair of flannel, black and red plaid pajama pants. Rachel went all out with the black and red plaid by giving me a new wallet, hat, and shirt with the same pattern. I am now in black and red plaid heaven.

Cell Phone Debacle

When we moved to Mullica Hill, I no longer had any cell phone reception inside my apartment. At first, I didn't think this was going to be a huge problem since we moved in the summer time, so it was easy enough to step outside to call Momma Dukes or Diddy Eisenhower. I quickly realized after the umpteenth winter storm, that it was freaking freezing cold outside! Phone calls couldn't last very long, since I could no longer feel my fingers. I had to wear multiple layers of clothes, feeling like Randy from A Christmas Story, because I couldn't move my arms.

Rachel and I decided that I would eventually switch my cell phone plan to T-Mobile, since she didn't have any problems with reception in our apartment. The plan was to port my cell phone number off of my Mom's plan and change her cell phone plan to a family share plan. To prevent myself from repeating myself, I've broken this blog into "Exhibits," as if this were a court case and I'm providing evidence.

Exhibit A

On Monday, Rachel and I headed to the Deptford Mall to finish up some Christmas shopping. While we were there, we stopped into T-Mobile to ask about their Family Plans and browser their phones. I immediately fell in love with the Samsung Gravity T, which has a flip out keyboard and a touch screen. After falling in love with an inanimate object, Rachel started to talk to the T-Mobile employee about the plans without contracts. Jenny, the T-Mobile employee, explained to the both of us that the entire process was quite simple to complete, and there would be no need to contact Sprint to end my contract, since the porting process would automatically take care of that part.

Jenny, first activated Rachel's new phone, then began the porting process onto my new phone. The only thing she asked for was the account number for my Sprint plan, which my sister gave me over the phone. She entered all of the proper information, activated my phone, and we were about to be on our way when I realized that the wrong phone number had been ported. Instead of porting my phone number, they ported Diddy's phone number.

I had to quickly call my sister to fix the problem, which I couldn't do since I have no authorization on the account. At first she thought I was joking, but her laughter quickly turned into a stream of profanity a mile long as she expressed her anger. After talking with Sprint and T-Mobile, the three of us were all told that the process could not be fixed until the porting was complete. Around 11 PM, the porting was complete, so I now had two working phones while my sister had none. Rachel contacted T-Mobile, who explained to her that over the course of the night, they would port my sister's number back to Sprint and would port the correct phone number to my phone.

Exhibit B

Tuesday morning I wake up with a working phone with my number on it, however Diddy wasn't so lucky. When Sprint had the opportunity to port the number, they failed to so, leaving her phone number in cyber space where it would be cancelled. Upon calling Sprint, my sister is given the line that T-Mobile has to keep my number for three business days, so she won't have a working phone until Friday.

Diddy calls me while I'm at work to ask for our T-Mobile account number and password, so that Sprint can port her phone number back. The account number is sitting on our kitchen table and I'm at work. I make a dash to my apartment and relay the information back to her, who at this point is ready to reach through the phone and strangle me.

Exhibit C
By this point, I have a nasty stomach virus and a cold that is turning into a sinus infection. Rachel and I both take some Nyquil and head to bed ridiculously early, only to be woken up by my phone ringing at midnight. My sister has been on the phone with Sprint all evening and was now in the middle of a three way call with T-Mobile also. The two companies have a solution to the problem:

• Step 1: Port my Sprint number back to Sprint.
• Step 2: Reset my T-Mobile SIM card and upload my sister's number back to my phone.
• Step 3: Port Diddy's Sprint number back to Sprint
• Step 4: Reset my T-Mobile SIM card a second time and upload my phone number back to my phone.

My sister called me in the middle of the night, to first holler at me that Rachel hung up on T-Mobile moments prior to our phone call (she thought her alarm was going off) then to forewarn me that they were calling her again. I wake Rachel up and she's alert enough to answer the phone, but has no comprehension of what T-Mobile employee A is actually talking about. (From this point forward, I shall refer to Sprint employees as SA; SB; and so on and T-Mobile employees as TA; TB; and so on).

TA explains the plan to Rachel and asks for Rachel to verify her account. Instead, Rachel tells TA that she needs to slow down and provide some information to verify who she was. Rachel goes through the whole phone call with TA, but after the call she is completely confused and decides to call back to verify the plan. Not only is there no record of the conversation between Rachel and TA, but TA has made no notes to the account of the plan of action. 

Rachel now gets on the phone with TB, who is extremely helpful. She begins to uploading process of putting Diddy's phone number back onto my T-Mobile phone, and even goes above and beyond, telling Rachel that she would call her after work on Wednesday to confirm that the number was ready to be ported back to Sprint.

By morning time, Rachel is about to go into hysterics since she only had about an hours worth of sleep during the night and was now off to work. I no longer have any working phones, so I use her phone to call out of work. (There was no way I was going to make it through a day of work when I spent a majority of my night, hanging out in the bathroom). When Rachel got home from work, we relayed all necessary information to Diddy and actually had a somewhat peaceful night.

Later that night, Diddy texts Rachel to let her know that her phone is now working and it is safe to port my number. We are both too tired to worry about the phone situation and go back to sleep.

Exhibit D

Rachel calls T-Mobile on her way to work and talks with TC, TD, and TE. Nobody knew what Rachel was talking about, and actually try to port my phone number to Rachel's phone. Rachel winds up giving up and heading into work at this point. TE does confirm to Rachel that my SIM card has been activated at this point.

During her lunch break, she talks to TF who informs her that they need to speak to me to port my phone number over, which is impossible at that moment since we are both at work. Additionally, not once during this process has T-Mobile needed to talk to me to give them permission to port my phone number. TF also makes the huge mistake of attempting to port the phone number to Rachel's phone also.

When she gets home, she calls T-Mobile and explains the entire story to TG who once again tries to port my phone number to her phone. Rachel then talks to three other T-Mobile employees, who are all as clueless as the next. TK even tells Rachel to calm down. Rachel then speaks to TJ, who informs her that my SIM card had been deactivated the prior day and had never been activated since.

After talking to another three people with the company, Rachel finally is able to get off the phone at 6 PM, knowing that her cell phone plan has not changed and that my SIM card would be activated within 24 hours.

Exhibit E
On her way to work the next morning, Rachel calls and speaks to TN, who explains to her that it will take about 36 hours to have my phone number ported to my phone. Instead of waiting another 36 hours (and encountering more fighting with the company), Rachel has a new phone number activated onto my phone. By the time I get home from work, I now have an activated phone with a new phone number. (Yay!)

Exhibit F
We were fools to believe that fighting with T-Mobile was over. Tonight, Rachel went to check her account online and realized that the plan had in fact been changed. Instead of paying $99.99 a month plus $10 for data per line, we were being charged $99.99 plus $25 for data per line. After arguing once again with incompetent employee TO who claims it was impossible to sign up for the $10 data plan on Monday since it supposedly ended last month, Rachel demands to speak to a supervisor three times. Finally, TO puts Rachel on hold to listen to the recorded line from a few nights ago when employee T? confirmed that her plan would not be changed during this entire process.

TO finally puts her supervisor on the phone, and TP fixes the entire plan. After the conversation, Rachel checks her account again to find that nothing has changed. Rachel calls and speaks to TQ, who confirms the original plan was in place again.

At this point, Rachel and I have both agreed that if things have not changed by the end of this week, we will be returning our phones/equipment to T-Mobile before our 14 days are up and will be getting phones with AT&T.

Pentatomoidea

About a year ago, the state of New Jersey became infested with Pentatomoidea, better known as the stink bug. These tiny little fuck-tarts have glands in their thorax which produces a foul smelling liquid to deter potential predators or when they are handled carelessly. The myth that stink bugs stink when you squished them is actually wrong. The fuck-tarts release their foul smelling liquid moments before they are squished, when they realize that their puny internal organs are about to squeeze out of their eye sockets.

During the fall, our apartment building became infested with stink bugs. The fuck-tarts were everywhere. At first, Gerald thought stink bugs were fun and he would go chasing after them and smacking them across the apartment. The problem was, that the fuck-tarts released their stinky butt juices in the apartment, leaving a foul, musky, rotting fruit smell that was quite nauseating to walk into. As quickly as I was flushing them down the toilet, another ten would appear from thin air to replace their fallen comrade.

War was declared between the Human Inhabitants and the Stink Bugs. I should define Human Inhabitants as solely my responsibility to rid our habitat of the rancid ass-turds, since Rachel squirmed and ran away from them with her arms flailing. After a week into battle, I quickly found the location of their entrance, they had laid eggs in our window. Hundreds of rancid bugs covered our window, sneaking into the apartment through a small crevice between the window and the exhaust fan in the window.

I took a large freezer bag and a Kleenex tissue (I sure as hell wasn't going to pick any of the fuck-tarts up with my bare hands) and began to grab the bugs from the window and place them into the bag. The bag quickly filled up with rancid creatures who began to excrete their foul smelling liquid onto each other. As I picked them off the window, about ten to twenty rancid ass-turds would dive bomb for my ankles, biting at my skin, leaving tiny little red pin pricks all over my legs. After collecting all accessible stink bugs, I closed the freezer bag up and threw into the trash can.

With the exception of a few Stink Bugs who found refuge inside our apartment, the war between Human Inhabitants and Stink Bugs appeared to be over...at least I thought it was over...

Over the last two weeks, I began to develop an itchy red rash on my legs, which consisted of several patches of tiny little red pin pricks. The patches only appeared from my knees to my ankles, and I couldn't figure out what the hell was causing it. I thought it was dry skin, so I bought new soap, in-shower moisturizer, and cocoa butter, but found no relief.

After several more days with no relief in sight, Rachel and I headed to bed. I nestled myself under the blankets and was moments away from sleep time, when I felt a strange sensation on my leg. At first, I thought it was Rachel's shoelace on my leg and began to debate the sanity of my fiancée since she wore her sneakers to bed. My internal debate was interrupted when the sensation began to move, and I jolted upright with the realization that something was crawling on my leg. I pulled the covers off and low and behold, a fucking fuck-tart was crawling on my leg. The little fungus had been making my legs a midnight snack for the last two weeks. There was a moment of direct eye contact between the two of us, and I think the little stinky beast even gave me the finger at one point.

Of course, he joined the rest of his fallen comrades, drowning in a whirlpool of toilet water. I seriously hope Raid makes a Stink Bug murdering spray before next fall so that I'm prepared for next years war. In the meantime, I'm going to take Rachel to a psychiatrist to find out why she's been wearing her sneakers to bed. Silly girl.

Seven Unhealthy Fast Foods

Just to get the point across on the following foods, I've included Rachel's recommended daily calorie intake to compare it with. Keep in mind, that many of these items don't include a side order of French fries or onion rings.

Burger King's Triple Whopper with Cheese
Burger King's gigantic burger has 1,250 calories, although I assume that anyone willing to eat that much beef probably isn't too concerned by the technicalities. Three layers of beef add up pretty quickly, and despite the best effort of the vegetables to make this thing look healthy it's pretty clear from a glance that it will wreak havoc on your body. But hey, at least there's some lettuce, right?

Rachel's recommended daily calorie intake: 1600
Triple Whopper with Cheese: 1250

Dairy Queen's Six Piece Chicken Strip Basket
Dairy Queen's basket of chicken strips contains 1,410 calories. I thought chicken was supposed to be good for you, but apparently that gets negated by frying it in batter and serving it with a bunch of fries. Inexplicably, Dairy Queen also adds a couple of slices of toast into the basket.

Rachel's recommended daily calorie intake: 1,600
Six Piece Chicken Strip Basket: 1,410

Domino's Three Cheese Mac-N-Cheese Breadbowl Pasta
This awkwardly named "pasta" from Domino's has 1,460 calories. For that impact I hope that it tastes a lot better than it looks. It's pretty obvious what went wrong here; there isn't so much pasta as it is a big slug of melted cheese that's been poured into a loaf of bread. Look, bowls shouldn't be edible. Bread was doing a fine job as a staple food, it doesn't deserve to be shanghaied into a secondary role. And while I won't deny that cheese is delicious, it probably shouldn't be the focus of your meal, assuming you want to eat more than one a day without packing on the pounds.

Rachel's recommended daily calorie intake: 1,600

Three Cheese Mac-N-Cheese Breadbowl Pasta: 1,460

Five Guys Burgers and Fries' Large French Fries

They may look like your typical French fries, but that heap of potato, batter and salt somehow manages to contain 1,464 calories, making this the most unhealthiest item on the menu. I'm pretty sure it's just sheer volume, although even with that in consideration it's hard to explain how so many calories were packed into these bad boys. Obviously no French fries are healthy, but you'd be hard pressed to find another brand that comes anywhere near the calorie count of these. Five Guys must have some sort of horrible secret that, frankly, I don't want to learn.

Rachel's recommended daily calorie intake: 1,600

Large French Fries: 1,464

Ruby Tuesday's Boston Blue Burger

This burger has 1,466 calories, which is quite impressive considering it lacks the cheese, bacon and extra beef of its rivals. It looks pretty disgusting, but I'm not entirely sure how it manages to be unhealthier than the Monster Thickburger disaster that Hardee's offers. Is it the blue cheese dressing? There are also onion rings and barbecue sauce, but those don't seem like they would screw things up that badly. Maybe it has something to do with being connected to Boston.

Rachel's recommended daily calorie intake: 1,600

Boston Blue Burger: 1,466

Hardee's Monster Thickburger

Anything with thick in the name can't be good; this baby has 1,420 calories. That makes "Monster burger" a pretty literal name, although I think Abomination burger might work better. Just looking at it, it's a nightmare. Two 1/3 pound beef patties, four strips of bacon, three cheese slices, and a couple of dollops of mayo: it's a heart attack waiting to happen. They're not even trying to pretend it's healthy by adding a leaf of lettuce or something either, it just straight up says "I'm terrible for you, and yet delicious, and we both know you have no willpwer. Now buy me with some extra large fries and a coke, tubby."

Rachel's recommended daily calorie intake: 1,600

Monster Thickburger: 1,420

Quiznos Large Tuna Melt

Of course, I had to save the best for last. Quiznos innocent looking tuna sandwich manages to hold a staggering 1,760 calories, 93 grams of fat, and 2,120 milligrams of sodium. And in the optional dressing and yo're looking at an extra 370 calories and 40 grams of fat. Isn't tuna supposed to be pretty good for you? Of course, a large anything in fast food is never a wise ideas, but that's only a partial explanation of what's going on here. Being drenched in cheese and mayo doesn't help much, but really, I'm at a loss to explain how so many calories got packed into a single sandwich. It's not the result of some weird Quizno's sorcery either, because most of their other products are pretty average by fast food standards. Maybe you shouldn't question it; just avoid it.

Rachel's recommended daily calorie intake: 1,600

Large Tuna Melt: 1,760

Leather Bracelet

On our second date, Rachel and I went to Gettysburg for the day, eating chili dogs at Ernie's Texas Lunch and a chicken fingers and Lincoln's Diner. Rachel gave me a tour of Gettysburg College, the battlefields and monuments of Gettysburg, and a ghost tour of the battlefields that night. During our trip, Rachel had went into a random shop and bought a black leather braided bracelet for herself. After wearing it for several weeks, she eventually found a leather bracelet that she liked more and gave me the leather bracelet during our first trip to New Hope.

I've been wearing my bracelet on the same wrist since our trip to New Hope and have refused to take it off. During our move two weeks ago, I realized that my bracelet had fallen off at some point and was gone forever.

Insert: Giant frowny face and a few tears.

Rachel and I went to New Hope yesterday for all you can eat tacos at Taco Loco and went shopping at some of the shops. Our major objective was to find something to decorate our bedroom with, since putting my Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin albums on the wall is such a pain in the ass. My second objective, was to find a new leather bracelet.

One of the first shops we went into was a leather shop, (I think called Genuine Leather, could be wrong though). The first thing I found was a new leather wallet, with lots of compartments (including a secret compartment) for $15. I also found a thick leather bracelet that I fell in love with for $12. Even though it wasn't exactly what I was looking for, it was still a nice bracelet. I purchased my two new leather products and we continued on our journey.

By the end of our trip in New Hope, we were both tired and overly stuffed from all the tacos. Before we could leave, Rachel was determined to get something pierced, and decided to get a third hole pierced in her ear. After our experience at Warrior Piercing, we went into a little shop consisting of beads and antique jewelry.

This was my last chance to find a leather bracelet, so I asked the woman behind the counter if she had any thin, braided leather bracelets. While she didn't have any in stock, she was determined to make sure I left a happy customer. The next thing I know she pulls out a spool of leather and tells Rachel and I that if we braided it ourselves, she would make sure I left with a braided leather bracelet at a cheap price.

I held one end of the leather while Rachel braided the strands together, creating a nearly identical bracelet. The woman gave us a good price on the bracelet, especially since Rachel did a majority of the manual labor.