Sleepytime Regrets Ch.3

Sleepytime Regrets Chapter 3:  Back to the Few Chairs

When I was younger, and still to a lesser degree today I suppose, I demanded to be the center of attention.  When someone did something that was met with high praise, I had to try to do it too.  I thought that perhaps if I did the same thing, then I could piggyback on the adoration of the original.  This usually ended poorly.  Basically I was the Monkees spin-off to the smarter, cleverer, and funnier Beatles main act that preceded me.  The mere fact that Microsoft Word recognizes the word “Beatles” but puts a red squiggly underneath of the word “Monkees,” something I have literally just uncovered, is testament to the relationship between the two.

One of the most notable of these desperate attention seeking occasions occurred when I was in 2^nd grade. 

There was a boy, Chad, who I was friends with in elementary school who was better than me.  It wasn’t just the normal “This guy is better than me at football but I’m better than him at Candyland,” where people stack up as better or worse than others across many categories.    He was better than me in literally all regards.  He could do math homework two grades above us; he would get better report cards; girls liked him more; guys liked him more; he was faster; he was better at sports; he could read aloud without stumbling over himself; and he was taller.  And yet, despite all of this, he lowered himself to be my friend.  This was the ultimate example of why he was better. 

He would sometimes invite me over to his house.  I used these opportunities to ransack his bathroom, hoping to find some medication or voodoo doll to somehow explain his superiority. 

One fateful day, our teacher assigned us an arts and crafts assignment.  All of the supplies were on a desk across the room, so everyone was frequently out of their seat to get whatever they needed.

I don’t remember the particulars of the project, but knowing me I probably wasn’t following the teacher’s instructions.  I always found some way to bend any school activity into something pretty close to what the teacher wanted us to do, but not quite.  For instance, if we were supposed to be making macaroni paintings, then I would make a 3-D macaroni volcano sculpture that was belching glitter lava down one side.  I hoped I would be received as a savant, but usually the best I got was sideways glances and prescriptions for ADHD medication that, perhaps unfortunately, went unfilled.

I was working diligently at my desk when I heard a loud thump from behind me that shook our classroom/trailer.  I turned to see one of my classmates, Jennifer, on the ground laughing.  Chad stood behind her with her chair in his hands.  I spun back around and asked someone if they had seen what had happened.  Apparently Chad had pulled the chair out from underneath Jennifer as she was about to sit down.  I watched as Chad and Jennifer and everyone at her table laughed heartily.  As Jennifer got up, she smiled at Chad and he helped her back into her chair. 

Interesting.  I wanted that.  I wanted the laughter and the smiles and the attention.  I turned to look at my project which was probably a sticky mass of construction paper and rubber cement.  I’m not sure if it was some deep-rooted personality disorder or just the glue fumes, but suddenly I had an overwhelming desire to yank someone’s chair out from under them.

I stood up and scanned the room, looking for a victim.  I decided that I wanted to follow Chad’s blueprint as closely as I could and do my chair pulling to a girl.  I ruled out Jennifer, however, because I figured it would be weird if I de-chaired her right after Chad did.

I walked over and stood at the craft table, absently shuffling the supplies while scanning the room for movement like a predatory bird.  No one got up from their seat for quite some time.  I was left standing in front of the table for several minutes like a victim of Prepubescent Alzheimer’s.

Too much time was passing.  The buzz from Chad’s prank was dying and people were going back to working silently.  I had to do this soon, but no one was getting up!  I started to panic.  I was no longer pretending to look for supplies but rather was watching the class like a vulture up on his perch trying to identify the weakest member of the herd. 

I was losing hope when suddenly Rachel, a quiet girl, stood up to reach across her table for a particular color of marker.  Rachel wouldn’t have been my first pick because she was a little reserved, but I thought that this might be my one and only chance.

She was starting to sit back down when I sprinted noisily across the room and grabbed her chair.  I had it pulled about half way as far as I needed to when she committed fully to sitting.  Her butt missed the chair and she hit the hard metal seat with her back.  Her vertebrae sliding against the metal lip of the chair sounded like a woodblock soloist on meth.  She bounced off of the chair with a yelp and flopped onto the floor, creating a loud thump and shaking the classroom/trailer like before.  However, this time there was no laughter.

She clutched her back and started to cry.  I stood over her, holding her chair.  I looked up to see the entire class staring at me.  Chad shook his head in disapproval.  I felt absolutely terrible.  That’s when the teacher started yelling.

30 minutes later I was in the principal’s office and Rachel’s father was on his way to pick her up from school.  Sometimes I lay awake at night thinking about how I am probably the only person in the world to physically give someone scoliosis.  

Massages Are Awkward.

I got a massage yesterday.  This normally isn’t my kinda thing, but I’ve recently been suffering from Rapid Onset Old Man Back and my mom made me an appointment. 

I assumed that I would be going to a white-walled and brightly lit facility where a mannish woman named “Helga” would twist me up like a balloon animal until I was cured of my ROOMB.  I based this assumption purely upon the Saturday morning cartoons that I watched as a child which, as it turns out, aren’t terribly accurate.

This particular place was called “Massage Envy.”  As I entered I was greeted with smooth jazz and a tiny Asian woman who asked me timidly if I would “rike a grass of wata?”  Without listening for a response, the lady lifted a cup of water up to my face.  I took it and she led me to a small room lined with overstuffed couches.  She called this the “tranquirity room.”

She left me on a cushy loveseat sipping my cup of water while panflute music played quietly over the speakers in the ceiling.  The light was turned very low, drawing attention to a tiny, wall-mounted plasma TV that played a short, 30-second loop of waves crashing against a beach.  I suppose this was intended to make me feel tranquil.  However, it did very much the opposite.  I became hyperaware of my surroundings and wary of how calm they were trying to make me.  I felt like a suspicious cow must before getting turned into burger meat.

Pretty soon a masseuse lady came and cooed my name like a nurse does when you’re at the Pediatrician…if it was secretly the beginning of a porno.  I’m pretty sure this was just to maintain the illusion of calm and pampering but it came off like this particular establishment was one of those special massage places.

I followed the woman to a room where she instructed me to disrobe and lay under the sheet on the table.

“A-all the way?”  I stammered.

“Yes.  Everything.”  She answered with an odd tinge of ominousness.  “I’ll wait for you outside.”  She closed the door behind her.

I quickly took off my clothes, not wanting her to accidentally walk back in on me in my nude suit, and jumped under the sheet.  Should I lay face up or face down?  I know she’ll want me to lay face down so that she can push on my back but won’t it be awkward to just be lying face down like a corpse when she comes in?  I was laying in between the two on my side still trying to figure out which one to go with when she came back in.  I must have looked like a sultry jazz club singer sprawled across a grand piano.

“You can lay on your stomach.”  She said.

I rolled onto my tummy and mushed my face into the little donut attached to the table.

“Just relax.”  She reassured as she shot lubricant onto her hands from a squirt bottle in little poop sounds.  I tried to stay still as she started rubbing various muscle groups on my back. 

This room, like the one before it, was dimly lit and Enya was playing quietly over the sound system.  This did not make me feel relaxed, though.  I was acutely aware of the fact that I was alone in a tiny, poorly lit room with a stranger as she pushed on me while I was lying naked on a heated bed.  It puzzles me that this could make someone feel comforted and relaxed, because it had the complete opposite results for me.  I started to get paranoid. 

What happens if I fart or I have to use the restroom?  She’s pushing on me a lot down there.  It’s like she’s trying to get the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube.  I wasn’t feeling anything before, but now that I had started to think about it, I began to feel the distinct rumblings of an imminent foofie.  I started to do the math in my head:  How long is this appointment?  An hour?  I’m going to have to hold this damn fart for 55 minutes.  I can’t just let it slip out and hope for the best.  This room is like a broom closet, there’s no way she won’t know.  But, surely I can’t be the first person to face this predicament.  Is she used to this?  She has to be.  She’s basically milking me for farts.

Eventually I hit critical mass and it was time to do or die.  I fired off a tracer shot to see how bad it was going to be.  After a minute or so it seemed as though my sneak attack had gone undetected, which was welcome news because the rest of the regiment was eager for deployment.  I tried to release the remainder in a slow leak, but the masseuse lady pushed extra hard at the perfectly wrong moment.

A sound like a barge horn erupted from my hindparts as the sheet rippled behind me like the flag of an embassy in gale-force winds. 

For the remainder of the hour, the masseuse said nothing.  I said nothing.  My ears were ringing.

After the massage, the lady left and told me that I could get dressed.  I tipped as well as my meager means would allow.

When I got into my car, I started to think about how much money this woman must make and what percent of her paycheck was a result of fart-guilt.  Probably a lot, I would think.  Farts are recession proof.  

She Mail Porn

Christmas is coming up and I've been trying to figure out what to ask Santa for.  A few days ago I was wandering around Best Buy trying to find something cool but not so complicated that the elves wouldn't be able to make it, when I stumbled into the laptop area. 

It’s interesting to see how laptops have diverged into distinct subgroups.  What began as just a portable version of a computer where all companies generally made the same product, has become a spectrum that varies broadly between itty-bitty, pocket-sized machines and gigantic, air-sucking megalodons.

I don’t necessarily NEED a new laptop, but it’s always fun to browse; everyone’s played that game before.

I was wandering through a gauntlet of HP behemoths when I heard something odd.  It sounded like a girl asking “do you want to see my-“ and then it suddenly cut out.  I looked over to see a young kid scrambling around on a computer further down the line.  I kept walking.

When I got close enough, I could see on that the kid’s computer was showing the desktop, and yet his gaze remained fixed on the screen. 

Well this is suspicious.  No one just looks at the desktop…unless…

He turned to me, blushing.  That’s quite the poker face, kid. 

“Jeremy!”  A woman called out from somewhere.  “Jeremy, where are you?”

“H-here!”  The kid squawked nervously.  He cleared his throat and started toward the voice.  After a few steps, he turned to glance back at the computer he had been using.  Then his gaze shifted and met mine.  When the woman called again, he turned and ran, disappearing around the corner.

As the sound of his pattering feet dissolved into the low hum of 500 televisions all set to the same Mexican soccer game, I was struck with a morbid curiosity.

I moved over in front of the kid’s computer and opened a web browser.  I opened the history expecting to be confronted by some sordid something or other.  I found nothing.  An odd blend of relief and disappointment washed over me.  I closed the web browser.

Then I noticed that there were two different web browsers installed on this particular computer.  I had opened Google Chrome, but perhaps the kid had used Mozilla Firefox.

I opened up Firefox and navigated to the history.

It started innocently enough:  “Car Gamse” was his first search.  Kind of funny that he misspelled a word.  Endearing almost.  Then he clicked through a couple game sites:  AddictingGames, Miniclip, and a few I didn’t recognize.

Then something went horribly wrong.

There must have been an AdultFriendFinder advertisement or something dirty on one of these websites because the kid’s next click took him to some like “Japanese Lust Garden” place or something.

There were a dozen or so clicks through what Asia had to offer before the kid began to hone his tastes.

“She Mail Porn” was his next Google search.  There’s that adorable spelling again.

This is oddly specific, isn’t it?  I thought.  When I was this kid’s age I didn’t even know what a girl was, much less a girl with swiss-army equipment.

The shock of this discovery suddenly gave way to jealousy.

This kid was 10?  Maybe 11 tops.  I don’t know what I’m going to do with my future, if I’m going to be able to fulfill my dreams, if I’ll be able to support a family.  I can’t even make simple decisions like whether to eat Frosted Cheerios or Frosted Flakes in the morning, and yet this kid knows exactly what he wants.  I found myself, while I looked through this kid’s very narrow and discerning Google searches, growing envious of his self-assuredness.  I want to feel passionate about something!  If he can do it, why can’t I?

“I wish I liked shemale porn” I found myself thinking.  And then I realized how absurd that was and added this addendum: “Thank God that’s a metaphor.”

A woman’s loud voice ripped me from my reverie.

“Jeremy!  You have to tell mommy what you want for Christmas!  I can’t read your mind you know.  What do you want?”

I know what he wants.

Jeremy and his mother walked by the computers, his hand clutched tightly in hers.  He looked over at me, his face completely draining of color when he realized that I was at his old computer.

I clicked the clear history button on the computer and gave Jeremy a secret thumbs up that I knew only he could see.

No look of realization entered his face, so maybe he didn’t understand what I had done for him.  It’s okay, though.  This is the season of giving after all.  I’m like his secret Santa.

--

I left Best Buy with a little spring in my step.  It’s nice to do things for others, even if it is to protect the perverted generation whose tax dollars I’m going to depend upon for my old people medicine.

Double Irony is a Bitch

I’ve been hard at work deluding myself that I could possibly make a career out of writing. The next step in my unreachable fantasy is to apply to grad schools to get a degree. Grad schools, as a part of their admissions requirements, demand applicants to take a test called the GRE and submit their scores. 

After some research, I discovered that the GRE is offered via computer through designated centers but, unfortunately, very early and considerably far away.  Oh, and they charge 160 dollars for you to TAKE a test, which is such a hustle it blows my mind.

After some initial hesitation, I finally signed myself up to take it.  My limited options led me to a timeslot at 8 in the morning at the nearest facility which happened to be over 60 miles away, despite the fact that I live in a college town. 

I had a terrible night’s sleep the evening before the test.  It was one of those nights where you lie awake for hours and hours only to wake up to your alarm and not be sure if you were actually awake or if your douche bag brain had been dreaming that you were lying sleeplessly in bed the whole night. 

I rolled out of bed feeling more tired than when I got in.

Drowsily, I got myself ready, picking up the pencils and passport that I had set aside the night before.  The passport would serve as a second form of ID in case they didn’t think that the picture of 15 year old me on my driver’s license was convincing enough.

I left the house and hoisted myself reluctantly into my car.  I punched things absently into “Carmen” the Garmin (My sister named her.  I would have named her “Bitch-Who-Always-Interrupts-Me-When-I’m-Talking-To-Someone-During-Road-Trips”).  After I had poked Carmen in the face enough times, she finally figured out where I wanted to go.  This began her 7 minute attempt to “locate satellites.”  Try looking up, Carmen.  I’m pretty sure up is a good place to look.

After doing a few laps around my neighborhood, she was finally ready to go.

Carmen took me straight to a main highway which was unusually intelligent of her.  She usually has an inexplicable penchant for choosing routes that lead her unwitting victims down single lane state roads where they inevitably get stuck behind slow moving trucks spewing hay out of the back.

About thirty minutes into the trip, Carmen directed me to exit the highway.  I was skeptical, but she indicated that we’re only about 20 minutes away from our destination, so I exited the highway.  The road she led me down quickly became rural and she said that we’ll be on this road for another two miles.

Okay, Carmen.  I knew you’d do this.  I know your games.  When I looked at Google Maps last night, it said we were supposed to be on a highway the whole time.  I call bullshit.

So I turned around and reentered the highway.  Sometimes when you just force Carmen down main roads, she takes the hint and recalculates your new route using highways instead of tiny country roads.

Carmen’s reaction was not what I had hoped:  At the next exit in five miles, do a U-Turn and go back to where I was friggin’ taking you.

Noooo, Carmen had been right.  The box in the lower right hand corner of her screen that estimated time of arrival turned instantly from 7:15 to 7:32 as if to say:   I know all of the roads.  Literally.  Now stop second guessing and treat me like the deity that I am.

I drove bashfully down the highway and did the u-turn.  I had just unnecessarily tacked fifteen minutes onto the trip, but I was still going to be half an hour early to my appointment.  No harm, no foul.

I finally got back to the intersection where I had initially lost faith in Carmen.  I gave her an apologetic pat on her robot head and followed her instructions.

Six minutes later, I was bouncing down a gravel road with water-filled potholes and broken mailboxes strewn about.

WHAT THE HELL, CARMEN?  WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?  There is NO WAY there is a testing facility for grad school out here.  No one in this area is looking to get another degree.  Putting a center here would be a terribly unsound business venture.

I grabbed my phone which is fortunately of the “smart” variety.  I opened my test confirmation email and tracked the included location with Google Maps.

38 miles and 44 minutes until destination, it informed.

I sat in disbelief, staring at my phone.

Then I yelled a battle cry and slapped Carmen right across her deceitful mouth.  “You harpy wench!  You have led me astray for the last time!”  I shrieked as I ripped her from the dashboard, gave her a hard elbow to the gums, and chucked her into the back seat.

Recalculating... she gurgled from somewhere behind me.

My phone in my left hand, I jerked the wheel around hard with my right.  The car kicked up gravel as I did a violent half-donut in some farmer’s driveway. 

I was so mad.  I didn’t want to reschedule this test.  I hadn’t studied a ton, but I didn’t want to have to worry about this any more than I already had.  I wanted to get it over with.

My phone led me back to the very same highway which I had thought might be a faster way to the testing facility before Carmen had rebuked me.  This is where literally said out loud, “Goddamn Double Irony!”  I had been wary of Carmen and tried to stay on the highway but she told me I was wrong.  I obeyed her commands only to, after consulting a second technological device, be told that I was right after all.  It wasn’t good enough for me to just have second guessed her.  I should have second guessed her second guess of my second guess.

I was tearing down the interstate toward my destination when the car made a “ping” sound and an indicator came on that said “low tire pressure.”  I was going 88 miles per hour at the time (fast enough for time travel).

“Screw it.  If I blow a tire and hit a tree, I hit a tree.”  I thought to myself.  My judgment was clouded by a dangerous mixture of sleep deprivation and a loathing for technology.

A moment later, the sun peaked out over the horizon and I realized how much it must suck to regularly have the morning shift in job that is East of your house.  I quickly had to decide what was more important:  seeing the cars in front of me or not having crispy retinas.

So many forces had convened to try to keep me from getting to this test.  I felt like a modern day Odysseus only more physically diminutive and with really lame problems. 

I sped the rest of the way to the facility.  I got there 7 minutes after 8.  Perhaps by some small miracle, they admitted me.  The test itself no longer felt like it was a huge obstacle.  I was actually relieved to have made it.  It seems perverse that adversity actually took away my nervousness about the test.  I think I might be on to something.

--

For only six easy payments of $14.99, try Patrick’s new terrify your way to success kit!  Comes with two dozen dirty hypodermic needles and quick and easy at home disease self-tests!  Watch as your nervousness melts away as it pales in comparison to the possibility of contracting Hepatitis-C!  Reclaim your life!  Buy today!