Pick Your Pocket

Throughout my life, I have endured an extensive neurological history which has resulted in over a dozen surgeries. As anyone who has had an operation or broken limbs will tell you, I was constantly being asked “how did that happen?” It’s gotten to the point where I decided that I either needed to carry around a tape-recording of me explaining the stories behind the scars, or I could just start making up these outlandish stories to account for the anatomical abrasions. Given the constant headache that comes with using all of the medical mumbo jumbo, I have chosen the latter option more often than not.  When asked about the scars on my head, chest and abdomen, I now go off in one of three directions:

1. I gave birth to Wolverine from the X-Men

2.  I was Edward Scissorhands first customer while he was in barber school

3. I got in a knife fight in Detroit (this story is reluctantly verified by family I have that live in the area)

Toward the end of the summer in 2006, I had to undergo surgery to have my appendix removed. The surgery went smoothly and I would be cleared to go home in a few days. As I lay in the hospital bed looking at the newest addition to my collection of cuts, I tried to think up a story that would allow me to avoid the truth and having to use words such as “pus-laden bacteria” and “ooze.” (Such terminology was what I believed caused everyone to eventually be bothered by the word moist)

With the help of my dad, we constructed a tale explaining how we had taken part in the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain and my father had used both his speed and a threat of not having a roof over my head when I returned to the United States to persuade me to pick up the rear as we ran through the narrow Spanish streets. Unfortunately, my cross country and track experience were no match for the powerful and determined bulls and I was trampled and stuck by several horns. The nurses thought this story was hysterical and as a parting gift I received a framed picture of a torero and a bull. This picture hung above my bed for many years and served a great purpose. You see, dream catchers simply net the bad dreams and allow them to collect and eventually seep into your subconscious while you sleep. The bull and torero teamed up to demolish any nightmarish thoughts that crept into my room and prevent me from having a sweet and sound slumber.

It’s been years since then and I recently bought a plane ticket to take a trip to Spain this fall. I couldn’t help but be reminded of that funny story. Both the fond memories of that picture and the fact that the Running of the Bulls takes place in July have alleviated my worries that what was once just a fictional story may come to fruition. However, my concerns associated with international travel have not been altogether eliminated, but rather, shifted.   

Pickpockets are a group of people who have allowed their sense of greed and desire for wealth to cloud their judgement of both right and wrong and acceptable personal zones. These people use crowded quarters and swift movements to steal merchandise and money from unsuspecting victims who take a few seconds to even realize when a traffic light directly in front of them goes from red to green (sorry, I got a little too personal there). They will be my biggest concern while vacationing in Europe.

As a precautionary measure, I have decided to keep my money and any valuables tucked into my socks. The items a potential pickpocket will discover if he decides to go rummaging through my Wranglers are as follows: some old gum, a half ripped ketchup packet, an open paper clip, a Chinese finger trap, a loaded mousetrap, the buzzer from the game Taboo and a laminated index card with Exodus 20:15 printed on it, which clearly reads “thou shalt not steal.”

It’s really such a shame that the skills and abilities that these people have are being used for evil too. Just imagine all of the good they could do. You know those flyers we get in the mail from local restaurants? Imagine if pickpockets went around stuffing those into the pockets of tourists who have no idea where they want to eat. A pickpocket could probably give someone a back-rub without them even realizing it!

“Man, my back is killing me after that long train ride, how about you?”

“I don’t know why, but I feel great.”

Pickpockets could turn from taking to giving and write people little notes of encouragement that they would find later on in the day:

Hi, I hope you don’t mind but I took the liberty of neatly folding your bills and organizing them in ascending monetary value. I noticed that you smiled in the picture on your driver’s license. Most Americans don’t do that and I commend you and I think your teeth are beautiful. Although in all fairness, I do most of my pick-pocketing in England and everyone’s mouth over there looks like Cujo so I’m not the greatest judge of what is considered acceptable dental hygiene, but keep it up and enjoy the rest of your stay!

Sincerely,

Sergio  

If I were to take the words of both the 26^th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt and Uncle Ben Parker from Spider-man, mash them together and add a subtract a few words of my own, the quote would look something like this: “With soft and swift hands comes great responsibility.” So a final question to all of the pocket plundering penny pirates out there: Are you going to choose treat your special ability and the rest of humanity like some snobby kids beaten up, Doritos fingerprint stained Gameboy Pocket or will you choose to be a Pocketful of Sunshine? 

Societal Punch List

Lists are important to us from an early age. It oftentimes starts with a young child’s list to Santa Claus, stating their case as to the ways in which they’ve been good this year and are deserving of the fifty things they are asking to play with for twenty-five minutes and then never use again. A bit later in life, the list is used as a kindergarten courtship version of an OKCupid questionnaire featuring the single most important compatibility question: Do You Like Me? Along with the four possible responses: Yes, No, Maybe and Not Right Now Because We Just Ran Out Of Fruit Rollups At The House And I’m Really Upset, But I Think My Mom Is Going Shopping Today So Please Come Back Tomorrow Before That Kid Whose Diet Seems To Consist Mainly Of Boogers, Insects And Paste Tries To Talk To Me Again, Please Don’t Let Him Talk To Me Again!

As any good parent should subject their child to, I started receiving little chores and duties around the house as well. Saturday mornings started with a pancake breakfast and then my brother and I were given our chores for the afternoon which needed to be finished before making any plans outside of the house. If you are a parent of a young child looking for age appropriate chores and allowance amounts to start assigning, check out the list completely made by parents who have reached their wits end and are absolutely irate with where each subsequent generation’s children seems to be headed. The list of chores has been made available online at GoFundYourself.com

I remember a time back when I was a child that we had a gentleman come to paint our house. After several days of work in the blazing sun, he had completed the job…..or so he thought. For confidentiality’s sake we will just call the painter Picasso. The next morning, I noticed a piece of paper on the dining room table entitled “Picasso’s Punch List.” The document appeared to have several areas in which the work he had done turned out to be less than satisfactory. I grew fearful for Picasso’s safety, as the only “punch” I understood at that point in my life was a physical and harmful one. Later on in college, a punch list became a list of alcohol needed for a party, but that’s a story for another time. I was nervous that my dad planned to harm Picasso. I figured it was one punch for every bullet point, much like when I sat down for a meal, I had to eat one grape or one carrot for every year I was old (a rule that my parents enforced but did not seem to follow themselves). When Picasso arrived at the house the next morning, he appeared to be very angry with my dad as he exited his truck and my theory grew stronger. He also began speaking in an altogether different language than the plain English I had heard him using just the day before, because most of the words he said on this day I had never heard before.

A punch list is defined as a document prepared near the end of a construction project listing work not conforming to contract specifications that the contractor must complete prior to final payment. The work may include incomplete or incorrect installations or incidental damage to existing finishes, material, and structures.

Most of my work as a comedic writer is based off of observation. My “ultimate formula” for comedy can be summed up as follows: Real Life Situation or Real Life Observation + Slight to Major Exaggeration = Funny. Things make us laugh because we either think “that is so true” or “I’m picturing what they are saying and it’s funny.” With some of these observations I’ve come up with what I think we can call a Societal Punch List. These are just things that we say or do that I believe need to be reexamined or done away with completely. One of the many memorable quotes from legendary UCLA Men’s basketball coach, John Wooden is “A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.” So, as I go through the following list please keep in mind that we are all on the same “team” as we go through this game of life together and the first step to solving a problem is being made aware of its existence.

There are three “L” words that I feel our use of needs to be completely done away with or at least reexamined: Like, Literally and Legit. You can like pizza, you can like the song “Flex” by Rich Homie Quan. I wouldn’t recommend that one if you want people to take you seriously, but you can if you so choose. You can’t however, spend like twenty hours in like a mile long line to buy like a fifteen bajillion dollar Michael Kors bag. My Public Speaking professor refers to words such as “like” and “ummm” as vocalized pauses. In simpler terms, this is when the speed of the information processing in your brain-dome is not keeping up with the information output of your mouth-hole. Since we have grown uncomfortable with even a second of silence in this day and age, we feel the need to close the gap of our journey from verbal point A to verbal point B with something. But guess what? Silence, peace and quiet and reflection time is OK. As any parent will tell you, there will be times in your life when silence simply becomes an unattainable dream. So take your time, think through what is prudent to say and convey your message in a clear concise manner. Because for me, having a conversation is very similar to being at a concert, I’ll remember the beginning and the end, but I will spend most of the time in between wondering where I can get my hands on some fried dough.

The next word in this atrocious trio is literally. I don’t know whether it was the implementation of freedom of speech or the creation of Wikipedia that made us feel as though in order to prove a point we had to drive it home with this all important “L” word. Does this mean that everything we’ve said up to this point is open to personal interpretation? Allow me to pose a question, when you tell someone to show up at your house at 11 and they show up at 11:30, is there a difference between these two apologies “I’m sorry, I got here as soon as I could” and “I’m sorry, I literally got here as fast as I could?” Yes, there is a difference. The person who literally got to your house as quickly as they could had the gas pedal to the carpeting the entire drive over, showing complete disregard for unimportant distractions such as traffic signs, other vehicles and pedestrians. The person standing on your front porch is most likely being pursued by authorities for dozens of traffic violations and quite possibly murder and should not be welcome in your home. The person who chooses to omit the word “literally” in the explanation for their tardiness has a story that goes something like this: They got in their car, picked up a few items from the grocery store, went to the dry cleaner, dropped off some clothes at good will, grabbed a bite to eat with an old college buddy, got their haircut, signed up for a gym membership with absolutely no intention of going, sat in on a DIY class at the hardware store, boarded a plane and went on an all-expenses paid week-long vacation to the Bahamas with their family and then headed over to your house, time permitting. Which one of these people you choose to hang out with is completely up to you.

Last on the list of outlawed “L” words is the word legit. This is a derivative of words such as legitimate and legitimately that sounds absolutely moronic and should not be used in any setting, professional or casual. In fact, if you catch someone using the word legit, you now have my expressed written permission to smack that person over the head with whatever type of sports transportation board they have tucked under their arm. Do this until the four brain cells they have fall out of their ear, bag these brain cells up and have them given to someone who can put them to good use.

Another word that needs to disappear into the olden times of our vernacular is this recent referencing to one’s boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife or otherwise significant other as bae. I was fine with baby, although the sentimental value of referring to a love interest in the same likeness as an infant was a bit lost on me, it was fine. This was then shortened to babe, referencing an early 20^th cigar smoking, beer swigging baseball player, or according to my early childhood filmography, this nickname is a roundabout way of referring to your main squeeze as an obnoxious talking pig. Here’s the deal, there’s a bay in San Francisco, there’s a bay in New York. There is not one nervously sitting across from you at the Outback Steakhouse, who has doused himself in cologne and is attempting a Jedi mind trick on you from across the table to convince you that you need to get the cheapest thing on the menu, but do not need to split a dessert. Fear not those of you who loved the flirtatious farm animal pet name, because we are now just one letter drop and probably only a few shorts years away from simply referring to that special someone as “ba.”

A group of stupidity-laced specimens that need to be called out for the damage that they are doing to society are those people who order water at restaurants by saying “I’ll just have a water” in this snobby, snooty tone of voice as if they are above everyone else at the table or shortchanging themselves in some way. Do they have any idea the minimal percentage of the population on this planet that has access to clean, drinkable water or has it readily available at a location close to them? No, they don’t, but I think they are totally deserving of that Miss Universe crown that Steve Harvey has accidentally adorned them with because they displayed the superhuman willpower to shoot right passed the wine list and the sody pop, way to go!

Next up on the list of our community criminals are the people who take all of the pennies from the “leave a penny” pile that other people have so kindly left behind for those times when a person is short on change when they go to pay at the cash register. They pay, get their receipt and proceed to shamelessly scoop up all six pennies into their greedy little pockets, walking off as if they’d just “stuck it to the man” because they don’t have to pay taxes on those six pennies and they are now six sinful cents closer to retirement.

As a child, I hated going to the grocery store because what was promised to me as a five item, ten minute stop quickly turned our shopping cart into a lunch meat, lime beans, Land O Lakes landfill. This suffocating experience was not at all hastened by the fact that my mother seemed to know everyone in the entire store and felt the need to connect with them each individually in a deep, meaningful and very time-consuming way. I hate grocery shopping as an adult, aside from the knowledge that I have to get, pay for and cook everything myself, because every time I pull into the lot, 90% of the parking spaces are occupied by shopping carts that people are too lazy to put away. This gives the parking lot the appearance of a poorly constructed paintball course and while it does keep young boys busy at their first job, it is a pain in the butt. Please make the already stressful search for a parking space a little easier for everyone by returning the cart to one of the corrals, thank you.

This next one is really quick and very simple, it’s the use of the phrase "the other day" There are seven options, which one is it? Where exactly on the timeline of my life between “yesterday” and “one time at band camp” does this other day fall?  

A coalition of motor vehicle morons who have earned their way into the spotlight are those people who get into a left turn lane and then decide they need to go straight so they just go ahead and do it anyway. If someone needs to fly from Tampa to Detroit and several hours and a layover in Amsterdam into their flight, they realize that they’ve gotten on the wrong plane, is it then on the pilot to compensate for the fact that the passenger wasn’t paying attention? I was always told if I get in the left turn lane, follow through with my turn. When people get in the left turn lane and go straight, everyone around them is forced to pull these moves out of The Fast, The Flipping Off and the Furious. If you just take a left at the light and find somewhere to turn around, everyone is safe. Heck, it may even look like you did it on purpose and knew exactly what you were doing the whole time.

An almost daily occurrence that I feel needs to vanish into extinction is guys like Johnny Manziel being front-page news and top story on shows that claim to discuss "athletes" i.e. people who actually play. When I was in the hospital my freshman year of high school, Adalius Thomas, a linebacker for the New England Patriots at the time, paid me a visit and do know where we were in the newspaper? Page four! Why do we have to highlight the negative and brush off the positive? I’m sick of being made to feel depressed all the time and I’m tired of people that children are supposed to be able to look up to behaving like children themselves. All I’m saying is that when you have to apologize for the same type of behavior time and time again, it starts sound a little less sincere. We all know how “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” ends. I’m sure Johnny doesn’t, because he could throw a ball and couldn’t be bothered with something as trivial as reading. To the next generation of athletes, it’s time that we put the word professional back into the job description of professional athlete.

There’s a hotheaded group of people out there who need to cool their jets. I’m addressing those who get mad at people who “sneak” snacks and drinks into a movie theater. I’m paying for it somewhere, I’m not stealing money from them, why should the location where it was purchased be a concern to them? I found the same product for a better deal. In practically any other scenario this is called being a smart consumer. Every time in my life I’ve pulled out a five dollar bill in order to pay for a 20oz soda, I can feel Honest Abe’s gaze shift up to me as he grumbles “I think we’re being cheated.” Although, in all fairness, that theory can only go so far, because I can’t get a burger from McDonald’s and then walk across the street and get a table at Chili’s and have the waitress come over and say

“What can I get you?”

“No thank you, ma’am we are just here for the table.”

Lastly, I wish to bandage up some personal childhood trauma. If you’re against capital punishment that is absolutely fine, but a mass of miscreants that I think need to be strapped to a time out chair and never heard from again are the kids on Halloween who would take all the candy from the bowl on the porch with the sign that clearly said “Please Take One.” They’re not a capitalist, they’re a dorktator and they’re taking complete advantage of a situation and being unfair to those arriving at that house after them. However, there is a silver lining to this that will allow us all to sleep soundly at night. That is the knowledge that this child will go through life slipping on a lot of wet floors, accumulating a massive amount of speeding tickets and ultimately having a lot of failed relationships, simply because they taught themselves at a young age that it was OK to ignore the signs. 

I’d like to end with two quotes. The first is from a man whose magnificent manly beard make his words an ultimate authority, our sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln. He said “If the people decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”

In conclusion, some words of wisdom from a big friggin' cartoon talking bear who I'm sure scared the crap out of all of us as child......."Only you can prevent forest fires!"

The Buffer App

Business venture idea:

I have always had troubles getting up in the morning and coffee is just getting too darn expensive. Luckily, I believe that there's a solution to this problem

An alarm clock that features the voice of UFC announcer, Bruce Buffer.

5:30 comes around.......

"IT'S TIME!!!! The main part of your day! The three people judging you today will be your manager, your coworkers and anybody driving behind you. Live from your crappy little apartment, this is the moment you've been waiting for! A sixteen hour shift to determine what side effects little no exposure to sunlight and massive exposure to nicotine filled, vulgarity spewing coworkers has on the human psyche!"

"Introducing first, fighting to stay awake out of the sad and blue corner, this man is a hit once and run like hell style fighter, well-versed in Cross Country and Track and Field. Weighing in at an amount which recently caused a lady to say "Wow, you're really skinny." The inflection in her voice hinted that it was more out of concern than a compliment. Given the fact that the youngest sibling on both his mother and fathers' side are both over 6'2, he stands at a very resentful 5'8". That height is when he stands up straight, which let's face it, is basically never. He's had three highly educated neurosurgeons refer to him as "bright and articulate".........Mark Woonton!"

"Introducing next, fighting out of whichever Japanese city he was assembled in. He specializes in timely striking and intimidation tactics through volume capabilities of 80,000 decibels.Weighing in on every time I've made the decision to get out of bed in the morning. He stands at a height a little bit taller than that dresser that was a total pain in the ass to carry up the stairs when I moved in. He gets hit and thrown around a lot in the United States, but I hear he's a big deal in London.........The Alarm Clock!"

How stoked would you be getting out of bed every morning?

And no, there is no snooze button

Call Me Old Fashioned

I'm a little hesitant to admit that I've tried online dating because some part of me feels like that's giving up and saying "I can't do this! You find someone!" Call me old fashioned, but I guess I've just always thought I'd be walking through a library with a stack of books up to my forehead, unable to see where I'm going and then I'd just bump into some lovely young lady and we'd look down and see that we had the same book and then glance up at each other all shy and embarrassed and it would be happily ever after. There are two problems with this fantasy. Firstly, the percentage of women interested in Terry Goodkind probably only has numbers to the right of a decimal point, making them very difficult to find. Secondly, no one is even getting books anymore. What do you think would happen if you "accidentally" bumped into some chick, causing her to drop her Kindle in order for you to create a "moment?" You don't get the fairy tale ending. You don't find love! You just find out via an entirely nonverbal encounter, yet since actions speak louder than words a completely merciless monologue that she's been taking steroids and Krav Maga since she was 11! No thank you!

Prescription Poker

Because of my extensive neurological history, I’m the only kid I know of who, at fourteen years old, was taking as much medication as his grandpa. It was so awkward when he came to visit, we’d both stroll into the kitchen each morning, pour our pill bottles all over the kitchen table like a couple of really educated, distinguished looking drug dealers. We'd both look down at what appeared to be the result of the most poorly chaperoned children's Halloween night ever. So began the world series of pill popping poker, the high stakes health insurance hassle health hazard hold ‘em. I’ll see your 600 milligrams of arthritis medication with 300 milligrams of seizure medication taken twice a day and raise you one gal stone dissolver. Grandpa narrows his eyes, whether out of intensity or sheer senility I don’t know. “Let’s make this interesting, shall we? I match your bet with a cholesterol medication and I’m gonna throw in my memory pill to keep you honest. Alright, I’m gonna throw in my mens vitamin gramps! Grandpa's like "ok, I didn’t wanna do this, but here’s my memorymedication that needs to be taken…....."

What's Your Position?

When I was learning to drive in high school, I was taught to have my hands at ten o’clock and two o’clock. While taking Drivers Ed (which honestly, in New England I think they should just link Driver’s Ed and Anger Management together, but that’s a whole other thing) I was instructed to have my hands at 9 and 3. I was recently informed that we are all now supposed to have our hands at 8 and 4. We may be headed into some trouble for two reasons:

1.      I highly doubt that the 16 year-olds of today have even seen an analog clock in order to reference that hand position

2.      This trend means that we are two years away from having our hands at 6 and 6, which coincidentally is a number commonly associated with demonic forces , this credible thought, plus the increased difficulty I forsee of making successful turns with both hands at the bottom of the steering wheel is why I am predicting that that is the year the world will end

But based on what I have seen on the road, there are a lot of options out there and quite frankly I don’t know which one to go with because the hand positions seem to be changing quicker than the female fashion at North Shore High School after Regina George gets two holes cut in her top. These days when I am driving I now feel more out of place than an overly emotional fat chick at an all-girl meeting in the gymnasium. (Everybody good on Mean Girls references? Good) But luckily, in this “you just do you, Boo Boo” day and age we live in we can pick from a seemingly endless combination of hand positions and be absolutely fine. My goal here is to simply give you access to the information and much like I know the majority of the country spends countless hours tirelessly researching presidential candidates so that on voting day they can make an informed decision instead of just sitting on their hands and then complaining about the country going down the crapper. I am sure the DMV is hard a work putting together a pamphlet that they will get to you in an efficient and expedited manner, but just in case that doesn’t happen, here is a quick list of prudent and acceptable hand postures for the modern-day motorist:

1.      12 and cell phone

2.      12 and radio dial

3.      12 and coffee

4.      12 and shaver

5.      12 and accusatory argumentative pointer finger aimed at spouse in the passenger seat

6.      12 and cigarette (because while death is inevitable, I’d like to think that the rate and circumstances by which it happens is at least a little bit up to me)

7.      12 and fishing loose change out of cup holder as they approach a toll booth or drive-thru window

8.      12 and makeup (because if a cop is going to take your picture, you might as well look good, right?)

9.      12 and novel (Ah yes, reading and driving, a perfect example of how to look smart and stupid at the same time)

10.   12 and fast food (I’ve often been asked if I had to die a certain way, how is it that I would like to go out? And to tell you the truth, I’d die a happy man if I was holding a hamburger. And that really creates a conflict of human interest because survival is a natural instinct and both the need for nourishment and not slamming into oncoming traffic satisfy that need so at that point, much like all that preceded this final note, the choice is yours 

The Real Most Dangerous Game

I just feel fortunate to be alive really. I participated in the most dangerous sport in the world recently. And it’s not football. Listen, if that bumbling idiot scarecrow could get a new brain by walking for awhile, I’m pretty sure 10 million dollars a year could get you some pretty decent concussion coverage and a half coherent speaking ability. And let’s be honest, the NFL is getting softer and softer every year. I think we forget that at one point, there were guys playing this game in leather helmets. Man, if I were a ref, the only time I’m calling pass interference is if as a receiver, you are at the 40 yard line, and your arm is at the 45. And I know some of you are thinking cheerleading, cheerleading has the most injuries per year. But I think that maybe if half of the pyramid stopped dating the quarterback at the same time, we would see a dramatic drop in cheerleading injuries. It’s like the great pharaoh King Tut once said, “A pyramid divided against itself cannot stand.” Just one of those girls on the bottom of the pyramid is like “Oh, so Kevin the All-State quarterback dumped me for Bridget just cuz she’s a Flyer? Well he better hope that she can fly! If he loves her so much, he’ll catch her.”

 And people say hockey is the toughest sport in the world, give me a break. With all of the advancements in tooth paste and floss, hockey players are the only reason dentists are still in business. And an Olympic event where Canada repeatedly takes home the gold is not the toughest sport in the world. You want to know what the most dangerous sport in the world is? Public sledding. And here’s why, public sledding is the only activity where the only thing more dangerous than doing it, is getting back up the hill to do it again. You’re sled doesn’t come to a stop at the bottom of the hill and you’re sitting there like (sigh) Well, that was a marvelous and enjoyable ride.” No sir, you’ve got thousands of little kids with wool caps that cover their eyes hurtling toward you. You’ve got families of eleven that think it would be a good idea to link arms as they all sit on their tubes and go spinning down the hill slicing people apart like a giant humanoid battle ax. You are running up that hill with the drive and determination of a Black Friday shopper. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! You’re hurdling little nine year olds like you’re in the Pedophile Games holding your sled up like your part of the riot police in Los Angeles.

 I’ll never forget the first time in my life that I was absolutely certain I was going to die. I was in the 6^th grade, it was wintertime and I was sledding at a friend’s house. We decided to build a jump, because clearly a cheap plastic sled, icy conditions and a mentally and physically underdeveloped teenager aren’t dangers enough. Ladies and gentlemen, you know that feeling that you get that something bad is going to happen even though it hasn’t happened yet? Well, let me rephrase the question, who in here has ever been kissed by their grandmother? Ok, because if you’ve been kissed by your grandma as a little kid then you know this premonition kind of fear that I’m talking about. Just this pair of saggy lips covered in 80 years of tobacco, racism and economic collapse rushing toward you. That’s how I felt as I rocketed down my friends’ front yard. On the outside my 6^th grade self is going “Yay! Sledding!” But that one percent of the male teenage brain responsible for rational thought and logical reasoning is going “Hey, it’s me, logic! Sorry to interrupt, but do you remember that time when you were 5 years old, sitting in that pile of mud, and you kept telling yourself that the mushy brown stuff on the ground was Boston Cream Pie? So anyway, I’m shaking in this sled like an epileptic on a pogo stick. I didn’t hit the jump head on, I kinda glanced off it on this angle. And anyone who didn’t spend their time in high school Geometry leafing through Fantasy Football magazines under the cumulonimbus cloud cover of cigarette smoke permeating from the five trashy cheerleaders behind him fresh off of a smoke break in the girls bathroom will tell you that this is not a good thing. So I smack into the ice head-first. And I have a pretty high pain tolerance as long as I don’t know that I’m bleeding. And the first thing my friend says to me when he ran down to where I was was “Oh my god, you’re bleeding!” So in order to save a little face and salvage a little pride in myself, if I haven’t completely destroyed it by this point, I’m going to skip ahead a little bit to when I’m in the hospital getting the stitches. Because something that absolutely amazes me is how freely the nurses and doctors yell out to each other what they’re about to do to you and the size and sharpness of what they’re doing it with. This poor nursing assistant is being yelled at by this doctor who’s just going to town on my forehead with this mini hose thing like he’s trying to put out a Yellowstone National Park wildfire. And debris is just flying off my forehead like the Tasmanian Devil excavating an Ancient Grecian site with a jackhammer. And the doctor is yelling at this poor woman the whole time. And let me just pause here for a second and say that I sincerely believe that the medical community seriously needs to come up with little code names for the tools they are getting just to ease the tension on me a bit as blood is gushing out of my forehead. I swear, from across the office the doctor turns to the nurse as I’m lying there, not sure if my pants are covered in my own urine or water from fire chief tantrums’ spray-fest, and he yells “GET ME A 6 INCH NEEDLE AND A SCAPEL!” Ok, I know that I didn’t go to medical school, but shouldn’t there be some kind of code for that? He might as well have said “yep, send a letter to the family, this one’s not going to make it.” I mean, not only is he telling me it’s a needle, but he had the courtesy to give me the measurements too! Like I’m going to think to myself “Ok, a six inch needle is nothing to worry about. There’s only a sharp object half the size of a ruler dangerously close to my brain…..so do you enjoy your work?” But seriously, would there have been any miscommunication if he had just turned to her and went “Ya, I’m going to need a mid-size Ouchy Bar and a Grave Digger.”