

What Doesn't Kill You Only Makes You Stronger...

Except Herpes

Buck Brennan

Copyright © 2020 Buck Brennan

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9798622431913

This book is dedicated to my two amazing children, Tucker and Macy.

Remember what I always told you when you were growing up, "Shut the fuck up! I'm trying to watch TV."

Life is too important to be taken seriously.

-Oscar Wilde

# The Beginning

Sometimes it takes losing everything to appreciate anything. At least that was what happened to me, and by the time I was thirty-five years old, everything good in my life was gone. I lost my home, my kids, my wife, and my job. I lost it all. I was just another homeless vagrant. I was no different from the celebrities in the "Eleven Famous People You Wouldn't Believe Were Homeless" article I read during my daughter's super-boring dance recital last month.

When I was homeless, I didn't know where I would get my next meal, when I would shower again, or even where I could take a decent shit without being arrested or freaking anyone out. It was awful. I would go days without brushing my teeth, and sometimes I'd even go weeks without flossing. I couldn't watch The Walking Dead anymore, and I even missed the final episode of Breaking Bad.

With no access to my favorite television shows, being homeless was the hardest thing I ever had to face in my whole entire life. I would not wish such a fate on my worst enemy, not even my fat fuck of a boss who busts my balls about being late for work all the time.

The whole time I was homeless I kept looking for salvation, but all I ever found was the bottom of a Natural Ice can, the worst kind of beer known to man, the kind of beer only drank by poor people and college kids. I was on a crash course towards self-destruction and ruin, and also cheap beer. It was only by the grace of God and the help of a few kind souls that I was able to rise like a Phoenix out of the ashes to discover true happiness and start getting drunk on delicious craft beer again.

My life as a homeless person taught me a lot of valuable lessons. It taught me way more about living my best life, the power of positive thinking, energy gifts, self-love, courage, affirmation, I-statements, or any of that other stupid bullshit in all those self-help books that my mom buys me for Christmas every year. My experience as a homeless person strengthened my faith. It defined my character, and it fostered my resilience. It even taught me how to love myself again. Now I am back to loving myself three or four times a day, just like I did when I was back in middle school.

Well, I guess I got ahead of myself a little bit. Before I go any further, let me tell you everything that happened to me on this extraordinary journey that led me to self-discovery and spiritual enlightenment. I will share with you the entire story of my tragic fall and epic rise, all the way to the catharsis that helped reset my narcissistic mindset so that I can exist on a higher plane of consciousness than the rest of you. First, you need to hear my backstory. I need to tell you about how I came face to face with vile and despicable foes such as bosses, co-workers, wives, children, teachers, pets, parents, family, and friends; and how their constant barrage of bullshit and nagging led me down a path of self-destruction and ruin. This is what we writers like to call a backstory. At least I think it is called backstory. It might be an opening or maybe an introduction, but I am pretty sure it's a backstory.

You see, all the great timeless pieces of literature have great backstories. Death Wish, Die-Hard, Braveheart, Alien, Predator, and even all those Jason and Freddy movies, they all have great backstories. Let's examine the backstory of Braveheart for a minute. Braveheart managed to win five Oscars, even though Mel Gibson hates Jews. That was how good it was. In this movie, Mel Gibson paints his face and kills everyone. Not a bad plot for a movie, but not exactly Oscar-worthy either. Now add a backstory where his entire family gets killed by the bad guys. Now we are talking five Oscars.

Schwarzenegger did a similar movie called Commando. In this movie Arnold was just a simple retired commando living in the middle of the desert, when suddenly the bad guys bust in and kidnap his daughter, which obviously forces him to paint his face and kill everyone. There is also a fantastic movie called Robocop, which has a great backstory as well. In this movie, a police officer gets shot and turned into a robot cop who winds up killing everyone also.

As much as I love movies about people who paint their faces or get turned into robots and kill everyone, that is not what happened to me. I was simply citing those as examples of good backstories because I myself have a pretty amazing backstory. It's probably not as good as getting turned into a robot or being a secret commando and killing everyone, but it still is a pretty good one.

You see, I was once an optimistic young man who had a promising future. I absolutely loved life and I treasured every moment. I would spend every day smiling, laughing, skipping, and whistling. Sometimes I would even jump around and frolic in the autumn leaves, or simply burst into song. But then something happened. I stopped being me. I stopped being that fun-loving, happy-go-lucky kid who masturbated five times a day and played with matches. I didn't play with my GI Joes or Transformers anymore. I gave up on popping wheelies and vandalizing stuff. Not even spitballs or really loud farts were as hilarious as they used to be. I stopped getting stoned before school, and I couldn't tell you the last time I threw a party at my parent's house when they weren't home, or when I had sex with a sixteen-year-old girl in the back seat of my mom's car.

Somewhere along the way, I lost sight of everything that ever made me happy as a child. I got too wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of everyday grown-up stuff like finding socks that matched, taking showers, getting dressed, looking for my car keys, looking for my wallet, trying to get in my house after I locked myself out, paying overdraft fees, forgetting about dirty dishes, ignoring late notices, not taking the garbage out, spanking the shit out of my kids, complaining about stuff, and coming up with lies about why I was late for work. Being a real grown-up had become such a burden that life had lost its luster. The joy and innocence of my youth were dead.

I never knew that being an adult would be such hard work. I always figured that my whole life would just fall into place and I would have been the kind of guy who looked like a male model and wore khaki pants, just like all those guys in the Dockers commercials who look like male models and wear khaki pants. I assumed that I would have six- pack abs and a smoking hot wife with huge fake tits, and we would make out all the time in public and do really trendy parenting stuff like pay attention to our kids. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would grow up to become a homeless guy drinking Natty Ice out of a brown paper bag, but there I was. By my 35th birthday, I was nothing more than a shell of that spry and gallant young man who had his whole life in front of him and left the loudest farts in the 5th grade. Here is how it all happened.

My story begins in the spring of 2001 on the campus of the US News 135th best liberal arts college in the entire United States of America. You have probably never heard of it, but I can assure you that it is a very prestigious school. In fact, it is better than 134 other colleges in that specific category included in that particular ranking. This school is so elite that it only accepts 72% of all applicants. Not that I am bragging, but in 1997 I happened to be of those applicants. I know statistics may seem a little trite and boring, and you are probably wondering where I am going with all of this, but those figures are a much-needed element to my story because they provide the necessary empirical data to support my mom's undying belief that I was indeed her very special boy.

So, on a fateful spring day in 2001, in a quaint little college town nestled in the foothills of Pennsylvania, I was about to graduate college and embark on my journey into manhood and greatness. Now to some skeptics, they might argue that a college degree doesn't hold as much value as it used to. Sure, I did borrow $65,000 to take a useless major that will eventually not get me a good job from a mediocre college that no one has ever heard of. And sure, I will never be able to pay back those loans and my credit will someday be ruined because of it, but that doesn't mean that I still didn't deserve to have a party with cake.

The graduation was a fine and wonderful ceremony. It had a well-known keynote speaker who I am sure said some very profound words. I don't remember what they were, but I am sure his speech was very good. The ceremony itself was wonderful too. It had pomp and it had a circumstance. It even had a blistering hot sun that was beating down on me for hours upon hours as every single last name got called, even the names of the people who had shitty majors like Philosophy and Psychology.

Ok, let's cut the shit. Graduations are pure torture. I'd rather have someone put cigarettes out on my eyelids while they sodomized me with a cactus than go to a graduation ceremony. No, even worse, I'd rather go to my 3rd cousin's gender reveal party. Newsflash Jessica: You're not the first person to have a baby. No one gives a shit about what you're having.

Anyway, the tassels were turned, and the graduation finally ended. It was somewhere between holding in a fart and looking at my watch because that was what I usually do at this sort of thing. That was when something wonderful and extraordinary happened. Out of nowhere, the whole entire audience stood up and erupted with applause. It was a standing ovation! I couldn't believe it. I puffed my chest out proudly. Everyone loved me. It was the proudest moment of my life. I was not expecting that sort of praise and adulation. I didn't realize that people were such big fans of psychology majors. I'd bet Jesus Christ himself never got a standing ovation, and he performed miracles.

I'll be honest. Based on my major, GPA, drinking, drug use, the assortment of disorderly conducts, my cheating, work ethic, and overall disposition I probably deserved the opposite of standing ovation. I probably deserved a roomful of silent farts.

I had no job and nowhere to live. I was in debt up to my ears, and I was drunk all the time. Still, there I was getting my first standing ovation. One of my dad's buddies was a degenerate gambler. He lived that way for years, and no one ever gave him a standing ovation, but then again, he didn't graduate from college either. It was truly the proudest day of my life.

# The Real Beginning

Okay, so I lied. I didn't really graduate college on that day. I feel bad about lying, so I am just going to come clean and tell you the truth now. It is not that I am opposed to lying. I actually love lying. Lying is most certainly a wonderful and useful tool, and it does have a tremendous upside when dealing with employers, police, family, wives, ex-wives, children, and filling out various official forms. However, a lie is probably a terrible way to start a memoir.

The truth is that I failed two classes in my senior year, and the asshole dean wouldn't just let me graduate anyway. He didn't even care how much my mom begged him. It was not my fault though. Had it not been for my advisor who made me switch majors twice, or the asshole professor who gave me an F in Learning and Motivation, or the philosophy professor who caught me cheating in his Moral Conflicts class, or the girl who wouldn't let me cheat off her in Research Methods, or all my friends and roommates who pressured me into drinking and smoking weed all the time instead of studying, or the Flyers going 7 overtimes forcing me to not study for a Neuropsychology final. And had it not been for the people who sold me weed, or forced me to try acid, ecstasy, mushrooms, and whippets, or the dean of discipline who tried to have me kicked off campus, or all the hot co-eds who were constantly trying to distract me with their long sexy legs and tight young asses, I might have been graduating on that day, and writing a different book right now: a self-help book or a get-rich-quick book probably. My point is that this could have very easily happen to anyone. I'd bet not even Stephen Hawking would have graduated in four years if drank as much beer as I did while I was in college.

Without a real college graduation or anything vaguely interesting to put in my epic memoir, I needed to think of a new beginning. I thought about starting with my Catholic school experiences and the years I spent being molested by a priest and how he used to dress up like a woman and make suck his.... I am kidding! I just made that up to see what you would think! I was never molested by a priest.

The closest I ever came to being molested by a priest was the time Father Dave caught me drawing dicks on all the desks in study hall. He scheduled a meeting with my mom and the principal because they all thought I was a pervert who had a sick obsession with penises. Although that is an interesting anecdote, it is probably the beginning of a completely different story.

Perhaps I could start with the time that I got accused of "flaunting my erection" at Sister O'Malley. It is a good story, and it does make people chuckle. Still, that is more along the lines of delightful conversation. It is nothing more than a quirky side note, something I might use as playful banter on a Good Morning America interview, or maybe as an icebreaker at a dinner party. It is not really a good beginning for my epic memoir.

I would have loved to write a memoir about the time I spent in a drug rehab and all the interesting characters I met there, but that idea was already taken by James Frey. Without a crippling drug addiction, an unbelievable kidnapping, a sex scandal, a mental illness or anything remotely interesting enough to say in a memoir, I really don't have anything to write about. If I was a famous person, it would be easy to write a memoir. Every famous person from Hulk Hogan to Carrie Fisher wrote a memoir. Heck, even Felicia Day wrote one, and I don't even know who the fuck she is.

# Introduction to the Greatest Story Ever Told...About Drugs

I think it is an important part of any memoir to take a moment and reflect on past drug use. Drugs were indeed a very important part of my life. In fact, if it weren't for drugs, I might not be the man who stands before you here today. That is why I always tell my kids, "If you're not going to do your best, then at least do drugs instead, because the next best thing to doing your best is having a good excuse." Besides, everyone loves people who use lots of drugs. That writer, James Frey, told people he was addicted to drugs and his book sold like a gazillion copies. In fact, people were really upset when they found out that he didn't do as many drugs as he claimed. I think Oprah even cried over it. There is also a show called Intervention, which is about people doing lots of drugs. I am not exactly sure why it is on The Learning Channel because it has absolutely nothing to do with learning, but I guess it's like the old saying goes, "Awesome shit on TV is always way better than learning stuff."

Lots of drug addicts give lectures on addiction too. They tour all over the country telling people about all of the drugs they did in hopes of scaring people into not doing drugs themselves. I saw one of these this "scared straight" lectures in my high school once. It was some recovered heroin addict, and he was talking about typical heroin addict stuff, like shitting his pants, robbing off his mom and dad, being homeless and that sort of thing. At the conclusion of his story, he told everyone that he is no longer addicted to heroin, and that son of a bitch got a standing ovation. I couldn't believe it. A standing ovation, just for not doing heroin. I thought not doing heroin was just something you were expected to do in life, like wiping your ass after you shit. Who knew something as simple as not doing heroin could get a standing ovation?

I had this life thing all wrong. Here I was like an idiot, never getting addicted to heroin when what I should have been doing was getting addicted the whole time. That way all I ever had to do to get people to give me a standing ovation was not do heroin.

I am not totally innocent though. I guess if I am being honest with myself, which is probably the point of a memoir, the truth is I love drugs. In fact, if someone were to show up at my house right now with a big bag of them, I would stop what I am doing and take them all. I wouldn't even care what they were. I love them all just the same.

I just never had the kind of passion that addicts do to get fully addicted. You'd be surprised how much work goes into being a drug addict. Ask anyone who's ever dabbled in drugs before and they will tell you that drugs can be a real pain in the ass to get, and they can be pretty gosh darn expensive too. I was always much too lazy to ever become a full-blown addict.

If I only had a little bit more ambition, maybe I would have been one of those guys getting standing ovations for not doing heroin too. I always had the potential to become a really good drug addict. I shoplifted before, and I do shit my pants occasionally. Once in a while, I might even steal some money out of my mom's purse. The only problem is that I just never did any of that stuff because of drugs.

And when I quit using drugs, it wasn't because I hit rock bottom, found God, or had a moment of clarity like you hear about when the real drug addicts stop using drugs. I quit doing drugs because they got to be too much of a headache. I was always scared that I was going to get arrested. Then I was worried about overdosing, and constantly stressing about how to get money to buy them. The whole thing was just not worth the aggravation for me anymore.

That is why I really admire the dedication of a full-blown drug addict. They have this laser focus, and they will stop at nothing to reach their goals. They rob. They steal. They beg. They even suck a dick from time to time. Now that is what I call drive.

I never had that kind of determination to do anything. Maybe when it comes down to it that is why I was never successful in life. I was never willing to suck dick for anything. I do remember trying to suck my own dick once. It was when I was a small boy in the bathtub at my nana's house. It wasn't for drugs or anything. It was more out of curiosity to see if I could do it. I bent over and I remember getting about two inches from the head, but it was still too far out of reach, so I simply gave up and went back to playing with my toy battleship, a trend that would follow for the rest of my life. Not playing with my toy battleship. I am talking about the trend of giving up. I hadn't played with my bathtub toys in years.

I guess you might call me more of a recreational drug user. My drug use was more of a hobby that was defined by merriment and laughter more than an addiction that was defined by self-destruction and ruin. If I told my drug stories to a room full of high school students, they would leave that assembly thinking that drugs were pretty gosh darn cool. My stories would be like, "And then we smoked a bong and ate some ice cream. After that, some girls came over with a Party Ball of Coors Light and we all snorted some coke. Then everyone got up and danced."

My drug stories just don't have that doom and gloom anti-drug message that is needed to scare high school kids. Although, I do have one drug story that might scare kids into not doing drugs. Some might say that it is the greatest story about drugs ever told, even better than the ones you hear during D.A.R.E. week in a high school, or that episode of Intervention where I saw this guy free-basing meth in a sewer pipe. This story involves sodomy, asshole stitches, a bike, a hunter, suicide, a fire, being homeless, and of course drugs. How is that for a cliff hanger?

# The Greatest Story Ever Told...About Drugs

I was never one to believe in fate. That was until the one night when such an odd series of occurrences would take place that it couldn't have been anything other than the forces of the universe at work. It was at that very moment that realized it was my destiny to be the one who would tell the greatest story ever told.

One night my friend and I stumbled upon a phone in the kitchen of our house. We typed some numbers into the phone, which just so happened to be the number to a guy I knew, who just so happened to have a lot of acid. He answered. What were the odds of that?

We got to talking and came to find out that he was selling some of that acid. As chance would have it, we were interested in buying some of his acid. Then, he told us that he only accepted cash for his drugs. Curiously enough, there was an ATM machine just a few miles down the road where we could get the money we needed. The only problem was that I needed a secret passcode to get the money out of the machine. I typed in my birthday, which just so happened to be the exact numbers of the passcode that was needed to get the money. It was our lucky day.

Next, I took out forty dollars, which was uncannily the exact amount of money that he wanted for acid. It was too weird how this night was unfolding. Then the cosmic forces of the universe aligned once again putting the ATM close to a Sheetz, the only place in the world where you could a Shmuffin, which just so happened to be my favorite food in the whole world. That was when I knew this was no accident. This was destiny.

Now I know a story about dropping acid and eating Shmuffins is not a great drug story. It is probably not even cool enough to make the Top 100 greatest drug stories of all time. That is why the trip to Sheetz is only the beginning of my epic tale.

We got the Shmuffins and the acid, then we returned home. I took my acid immediately, as I usually did with my drugs. My friend took his out and carefully weighed all the pros and cons of taking the acid before making an informed decision that taking the acid was a bad idea. He then brushed his teeth and went off to bed. On a side note, he eventually became an accountant with no cavities and good credit.

With my friend now sound asleep, I was left with no other choice but to eat his acid too. I was afraid that acid was like eggs or milk and it would probably spoil if I didn't eat it right away. It was 2 a.m. on a Thursday night when I decided to drop 4 gel tabs of acid. Now, I am not fully willing to call that a bad decision quite yet, as bad decisions are mostly a matter of perspective. What Jerry Garcia and my mom might see as a bad decision can be quite different. In this particular instance, I decided to do what Jerry would do instead of my mom and I ate the acid.

Shortly afterward, I smelled smoke. It was coming from the upstairs bedroom. There was a fucking fire. Of all times for there to be a fire, it had to happen right after I dropped a bunch of acid.

I was in a panic. All my roommates were sleeping, and none of them knew there was a fire. I was the only one who could smell the smoke. If I didn't do something, they were all going to die! It was up to me to save them, so I rushed up to the bedroom, but the door was locked.

I screamed and yelled and pulled on the door over and over until finally I broke the chain that locked the upstairs bedroom. Then I rushed up to the room and looked frantically for the fire. I tried to get them up and out of the house to save all their lives, but there ended up being no fire. It was a false alarm, which can sometimes be the case while fighting fires on acid. I apologized to my roommate by shaking his foot, which I mistook for his hand, another common mistake people make while fighting fires on acid.

By the time the sun started to come up, I was getting wanderlust. I had a hankering for an adventure, so I took a walk into town trying to think of a good quest. Then it hit me. I always wanted to hop on a moving train and become a hobo, and there is no better time to do that than when you're tripping on acid.

I walked down to the tracks, past the campus, past the laundry mat, past the bank, and past this deli that had really good sandwiches. My plan was to leave all that behind and liberate myself by experiencing the freedom of the open road. I was going to become a modern-day Jack Kerouac.

I couldn't wait to hop on that train and hear that rhythmic clickety-clack of the wheels rolling over the rails. The sound of that train would relieve me all the societal pressure that was binding me to other people's expectations and forcing me into a life that would never truly be my own. After I would finally free myself from the chains of conformity, I could finally persevere into a true state of authentic being. That is what true freedom was all about.

My plan was to sit by the track, then when the train came by, I would jump on. I figured that was going to be as good a plan as any to jump on a moving train. I was sitting on a curb next to the tracks for about an hour when suddenly I saw a police cruiser drive by. The police officer looked in my direction, which led me to wonder if I had paid all my fines. Then I started to panic, thinking that there might be a warrant out for my arrest. I also remembered that I was really fucked up on acid, and I had a bunch of weed in my pocket. It also dawned on me that I was intrinsically afraid of police. I was sure he was going to come back and arrest me, so I did what any good hobo would do. I turned around and went home, ending my life as a modern-day Jack Kerouac before it ever began.

This all happened on a Friday morning, and I had 3 classes that day, so I got dressed and.... I'll bet you thought that I was going to say, "went to class." You guys are too funny. I never went to class when I was in college. That was the best part of college. You don't really have to do anything you don't want to when you're in college, and my motto has always been, "Don't do anything you don't want to do." It's an ok motto. It's not a great motto. A great motto would be something like, "Do your best," or "Always help others in need," or something along those lines, but like I said, it was an okay motto.

I eventually became hungry, which was bound to happen. I am 40 years old, and I don't remember a time where I didn't eventually become hungry. It is one of those harsh inevitable facts of life. I could have eaten a Hot Pocket or made a bowl of cereal, but the cosmic forces of the universe had other plans for me on that day. Fate had already decided that I would become hungry for a world-famous rib sandwich that can only be eaten at an amusement park over fifty miles away. It was either fate or the drugs that I was on. I suppose we could sit here and argue that all day, but that is not the point. The point is that I was hungry for one of those sandwiches.

By now you are probably asking yourself, "Why didn't he just drive to the amusement park?" Well, you must remember that I was drunk, high, and tripping on acid. Driving a car in my condition would have been just plain reckless. Always being responsible, I decided to take my bike instead.

I packed up all the necessities anyone would ever need for a long early morning bicycle trip. I got my weed, cigarettes, some gum, a box of cracker jacks, a few bucks for the sandwich, and some Chapstick. Well, they seemed like necessities at the time, probably because of all the acid.

The epic journey started out about as well as any epic journey could. I raced my bicycle across town as a crisp breeze blew through my hair and across my face. It felt invigorating. I gained speed as I coasted down the hill past the campus, past the laundry mat, and past the deli. It felt liberating and free. I was happy to be alive, and everything was wildly surreal. I couldn't help but feel as if I was just a spectator to the world's stage, and all its players were now acting out all of their parts. It felt as if the world didn't belong to me anymore. I was nothing more than a keen observer of the human condition, as this ensemble of people performed all around me. Even my neighbor who was a huge dick seemed as if he was sleepwalking through his day. It was like his life was some sort of a peaceful dream.

It was the first time I ever saw the world from such an incredible point of view. Everything and everyone I encountered were all right where they were supposed to be in this rare and fleeting moment of harmonious serendipity. All the buildings, people, trees, birds, roads, and everything all around me were not the same as they were just one day before when I wasn't tripping balls on acid.

Everything seemed so familiar, yet wonderfully strange all at once. I was finally seeing the world with my eyes wide open. I had been awakened to a world of limitless possibility.

As the wind blew through my hair and the breeze cooled my skin, I could do nothing but smile. I knew that I had just discovered the answer to life's great mystery. It was everywhere all around us. It was in the clouds, the sun, the moon, and even in the eyes of a stranger. All we had to do was open the doors of perception, and we would see that all the answers were right there in front of us the whole time.

Of course, that was the feeling I had going down the hill. All of that would soon end when the road turned uphill, and my legs would start hurting from having to pedal again.... stupid fucking bicycle.

And if that wasn't bad enough, I realized that I had no idea where I was going. Obviously, I knew I could get to the amusement park using State Route 229, but I didn't want anyone to mistake me for a cyclist, because everyone knows that cyclists are stupid. Imagine, grown-ups who own cars but still ride bicycles in traffic just for fun.

These assholes are constantly getting run over. Every time I see one of these morons on the side of the road, I want to pull my car over and punch them right in their queer biker face and give them a huge biker short wedgie. Even I knew better than to ride my bike on a road next to moving cars, and I was tripping on acid. That was why I decided to take train tracks instead.

I wasn't exactly sure where the tracks led, but I figured they had to go somewhere, so I cut through this cornfield to pick up the tracks. It was right there in that very cornfield where I saw the most unusual thing I ever saw in my whole entire life. I wouldn't blame you if you don't believe this part. No one ever does. I probably wouldn't believe it either if I didn't see it for myself. But right there, right in the middle of all those rows of corn, at six in the morning, there was a man. He was sitting in a lawn chair holding a shotgun, and that was not even the weird part. The weird part was that he didn't appear to be startled by me. It was almost as if he were expecting me.

As I happened upon him, our eyes locked, and he gave me a most menacing glare. I glided past him on my bicycle, and my mind started to wander, as it sometimes will when you come across a man armed with a shotgun in the middle of a cornfield at six in the morning while you are tripping on acid. My initial thought was that he must be trying to ambush passing cyclists, and I fell right into his fucking trap. I was sure I was going to be shot, so I pedaled frantically trying to escape this crazed gunman.

I made it safely to the clearing just past the field, and I never saw that man again. I would imagine that he had his gun pointed at me, only to see me disappear out of sight before he could get a clear shot. That is probably when he threw his hat to the ground and kicked some dirt, foiled yet again by another one of those pesky cyclists. He should have tried to run me over with his car. It is much easier to kill a cyclist that way.

Eventually, I made it to the tracks that were just over the hill past the clearing. Once I got there, I pedaled feverishly down the path next to the rails. I was making good time too. That is until I happened upon a trestle bridge that was crossing the river.

It was a long spectacular bridge, the kind of bridge you would see as in an art gallery or perhaps a dentist's office. It had a calming nostalgia of yesteryear and it was constructed with these arches that looped up and down over the top of the bridge. The loops were filled with a complex labyrinth of steel, rivets, and beams. Under the bridge were these magnificent slabs of concrete that diverted the rush of water momentarily off its inevitable path towards the ocean. As you looked across it, the beams and arches narrowed the focus, and the vast expanse of the world was corralled into nothing more than a tiny speck. It was as if you were looking through a giant telescope that peered to the other side of the river. Ok, that's enough about this stupid fucking bridge. Let's just say that it was a nice bridge.

So, I hopped on the bike and began riding across. I made it past the first trestle, and my bike bobbled. Then I passed the second trestle, and my bike wobbled. Before I could even make it to the third trestle, and just as I was about to run out of words that rhyme with bobble and wobble, I flipped over the handlebars, and I landed on the tracks. Then I fell off the side of the bridge and right into the fucking river.

I will give you a minute to process that. Ok, now that you're done processing. Yes, I flipped over the handlebars and went careening off a really high bridge, falling far into a river while I was tripping on acid.

Luckily, I managed to grab hold of a railroad tie and somehow swung myself around to keep me from falling headfirst, but my hand slipped, and I fell about thirty feet landing right on my ass in about three feet of water. I used to do ass-crackers all the time off the deck of my nana's pool, but I never attempted one off a railroad bridge into a river. This was a first for me.

Once I realized that I survived the world's biggest ass-cracker, I began laughing and dancing all around in the water. I was never more thankful to be alive. Unfortunately, my celebration didn't last long. No sooner than I thought that I survived such a terrifying fall, a stream of blood began pouring out of my asshole. I'll give you a minute to process that one too. Yes, blood was pouring right out of my asshole and streaming down my leg.

Now, if you never had the opportunity to see blood streaming out of your asshole after you fell off a bridge and into a river while tripping on acid, let me tell you, it is quite the experience. I am not an expert on asshole bleeding or even acid for that matter, but I am willing to bet that anyone who is would have been scared at that moment too. In fact, I'd bet Jerry Garcia himself would have been a little bit unsettled if he saw his own asshole bleeding while he was tripping on acid.

I was a little freaked out, so I did what seemed to be the next logical thing. I ran as fast as I could through a thicket of thorn bushes to get to a low-income housing project. It wasn't a hospital, but it was going to have to do.

I ran up to the first door and began pounding on it as hard as I could. A lady answered who looked like she was doing even more drugs than I was. Once I smelled the cigarettes and saw all of her meth rotted teeth, I knew I was in pretty good hands. I was too hysterical to tell her what just happened, so I just shoved my hand down my pants and put some blood on my hands. I lifted it up to her and said, "Do you know anything about internal bleeding?"

As you might have suspected, she knew very little on the matter, but she told me that she did know some people who did. She offered to take me to the local hospital, and I was a little offended when she put a towel down on the front seat so that my asshole wouldn't bleed all over her car, but looking back now as a responsible older man, I probably would have done the same thing.

On the way to the hospital, she kept reminding me that things will get better and that I just needed to hang in there. She then said something else and a few other things that I don't remember because I was not paying attention. That was until I heard the word, "suicide." I realized that this lady was telling me about all the times that she had tried to kill herself. Then it dawned on me. She thought I had jumped off that bridge in an attempt to kill myself too. I tried to convince her that I simply fell off the bridge, but it was no use. She didn't believe me. She thought we were kindred spirits brought together by a couple of botched suicide attempts.

She dropped me off at the hospital and gave me a big hug. Then she said something else about why I shouldn't try to kill myself anymore. I thanked her and continued on my way.

Once I got to the ER, I lifted my hand to show the receptionist my asshole blood, just like I did with the sweet old drug addict lady. A doctor immediately rushed me to a room and laid me on my stomach. Then several more doctors came in and they all began fiddling around with my asshole. As they were feeling around back there, they kept asking me, "Who did this to you?" I tried to tell them that I fell off a bike, but just like the poor drug addict lady, they did not believe me either. They simply kept saying, "You need to tell us who did this to you." They kept insisting that it was some sort of fraternity hazing prank, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what bleeding out of my asshole could have possibly had to do with any sort of fraternity hazing prank.

After they felt around back there for what seemed like an eternity, they finally gave me the diagnosis. The good news was that it was not internal bleeding. The bad news was that there was a laceration on my asshole that needed two stitches. It was right on the asshole. I mean right on the fucking sphincter. Well, I mean, they didn't say it like that. They were more professional, but you get the gist.

It was at that moment that it all became suddenly clear to me. They thought that the only way to get an asshole laceration like that was from having a penis violently thrust up it, or maybe a broomstick handle, or the handle to a plunger, or a vegetable of some sort like a cucumber, or maybe even a beer bottle. Ok, I am getting away from the point again. I am not exactly sure what they thought was shoved up my ass, but that was why they kept asking who did this to me. They thought that I was anally raped by some frat brothers in a super-hilarious hazing prank, and to this day, the biggest regret of my entire life was that I was never able to convince them otherwise.

Now there are several doctors and a handful of nurses who probably gather around at the office Christmas party every year and tell the story about the time they stitched a boy's asshole shut after he claimed to have fallen off his bike. Everyone probably laughs at the part where they say, "That was no friggen bike accident." Then they all probably toast their egg nog and wish everyone a happy holiday.

After they finished stitching my asshole shut, I called my roommates to tell them to pick me up at the hospital. They were all surprised to hear from me, and even more surprised to hear that I was in a hospital getting my asshole stitched shut. They kept asking me questions about it over the phone to which I only responded, "I hurt my bum-bum." I would not give them any further information, as the doctors may have been eavesdropping to hear if I would admit to being anally raped.

It was around noon when they finally picked me up from the hospital. We drove in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. Finally, one of them spoke up and said "Dude, did you just get raped?" I said, "No, I fell off my bike," and we all had a good laugh.

# Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

Selecting a college major is possibly the single most important decision that anyone must make in their entire life. When you select a college major, you are not only choosing what you will study for the next four years, you are deciding on what to devote your entire life to. The magnitude of this decision is so great that it will possibly define your entire purpose for living on this planet. That is why I selected Elementary Education as my major, and I based this decision on three pivotal factors:

1. Elementary education had hot girls I could possibly have sex with.

2. I could get a job with the summers off.

3. The classes were super easy.

My life as an elementary education major was a magical time in my life. I would spend all day getting drunk and fucking off because all I had to do as was make craft projects and read children's books for my classes. Now don't get me wrong, I was not particularly good at doing stuff like making craft projects and reading children's books, but I did good enough to get mostly B's.

The first couple of years my college career was all sunshine and rainbows. I was living my best life, and I was only a few semesters away from a lifetime of seven-hour workdays and summer vacations, but then something happened during my first junior year that would traumatize forever. It came in like a dark storm cloud of chaos blowing in off the high seas of destiny. I had to teach a real class to actual children, and those kids were the biggest bunch of fucking assholes I ever met in my whole entire life. I hated them and wanted to smash all their heads together, those disrespectful little pricks.

Please don't misunderstand me. It isn't that I don't like children. I actually love children. It's just that I didn't like having to teach them stuff or be around them all day.

It wasn't long before the department head, old Dr. Faber, called me into her office, where she pleaded with me to rethink my major. I don't typically like to use dialogue when I am retelling a story, because I usually don't pay attention to what anyone ever says, so I would just be putting words in people's mouths. However, in this instance, I remember exactly what she said.

I remember her being a rather large woman who resembled something of a bulldog, and I remember her saggy bulldog jowls flapping all around, as slobber dripped off her chin and onto her shirt, while she looked me right in the eyes and said, "Buck, I think you should rethink this major. I don't think that this is a good fit for you, and I don't think it would be fair to the children."

I was floored by this comment. Except for the big fat kid who used to bully me in the first grade, no one has ever said such mean and hurtful words to me. She said it wouldn't be fair to the children.

What children? All children? God's children?

She made me sound like I was some sort of monster. I wasn't trying to molest them for Christ's sake. I just didn't know how to teach them how to read. Big deal. My grandfather quit school in the third grade to work in the coalmines. He never learned how to read, and he made way more money working construction than I was ever going to make as a stupid fucking teacher.

Kids think about that the next time someone tries to feed you some line of bullshit about reading being so important. I am a good reader. I've read hundreds of books and no one ever gave me a fucking dime for it. My grandfather couldn't even read Dr. Seuss and he made a good living driving a bulldozer, so maybe this whole reading thing is a little bit overrated.

I was mad at my advisor for trying to get me to give up on my lifelong dream of having summers off, so I sent her the snarkiest, most passive-aggressive email I ever sent to anyone in my whole entire life. I was so upset that I even used all caps and a few exclamation points. I had to get the last word in because it's just like I tell my kids, "Being able to forgive someone is good, but getting the last word in is so much better, especially when you are wrong."

After Dr. Faber crushed all my hopes and dreams of becoming a teacher, I decided to become a Psychology major instead. I wasn't sure how this major could define my purpose in the world, or what sort of a career I could have, but I did know a fat hippie who sold me weed who was a Psychology major. Plus, there was a guy with a lazy eye who lived in my dorm who was also majoring in Psychology. I figured that if a fat hippie and a guy with a lazy eye were able to pass Psychology, then I could too.

I was never more correct about anything in my whole entire life. I eventually earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, which is the liberal arts version of the degree. That means that you are enriched with art, history, and music, and you have a hard time finding a job. A Bachelor of Science in Psychology is the one where you take extra math and science classes in case you wanted to go to medical school to become a doctor or something. I never knew the difference until after I graduated college because I had the worst advisor ever. She never told me any of that kind of stuff. Had I known that was even an option, I would have gone onto medical school to become a successful brain surgeon.

Thanks for ruining my life Dr. something...Shit, I always forget her name. I never really met with her. She was a strong black woman, and strong black women always tend to intimidate me, which is why I always tried to avoid her.

I was unemployed and living with my mom and dad when my degree finally came in the mail. I opened it at the kitchen table in my underwear while both of my parents were at work. I wasn't really expecting to use it for anything, but once I saw its eloquent Latin print and all that other stuff it in real fancy fonts, I couldn't help but wonder what possibilities laid before me. I spent so much time in college that I almost forgot that getting a job was the reason I was there in the first place, and not to become a World Class Beer Pong Player.

I didn't earn any honors or awards like Cum Laude or anything like that when I was in college. However, I did gain some notoriety as a great beer pong player. I also learned how to smoke weed out of an apple, and that was the most important thing. The second most important thing was that I graduated.

I accomplished exactly what I set out to do only five years earlier. The only problem was that I had a liberal arts degree, which was as close to not having a college degree as someone can come while still actually having one.

For those of you who are not familiar with liberal arts degrees, let me explain them to you. It is a degree in nothing specific, which means that it is a degree in dabbling because that is exactly what every employer is looking for. They want the head of their sales department to be able to say I eat chicken in Spanish, or be able to recite the Chopin's catalog, and have a firm grasp on the cause of the fall of the 19th-century Peruvian democracy. Wrap your mind around that. Four years of education and the only thing I was qualified to do was to win at Trivial Pursuit.

I tried to switch majors to business once, but one of my professors talked me into staying with Psychology. She told me that it is a versatile major that could get me a whole assortment of jobs. What she really meant was that I should stick with this major because it was best suited for fat hippies who sold weed, people with lazy eyes, and me.

Now I am not saying that there weren't some smart and talented students who were psychology majors. It had an eclectic group of students, just like most other majors. It had lots of nerds who looked like they were bullied in high school. There were also lots of effeminate gay guys, bull dyke lesbians, and lots of weird, anal-retentive, know-it-all fat chicks.

There were also a few other types of psychology majors as well. There were handsome fit preppy frat guys, and there were even a few hot chicks with big tits and great asses who were sprinkled in the mix as well. They are all probably doing very well for themselves in pharmaceutical sales now.

I even sat next to this one really nice down-to-earth All-American kid who was on the swim team and wouldn't let me cheat off of him on tests. I imagine that he is probably doing well for himself now too. He looked like he was poised for great things in life. He was handsome and had really white teeth, so I imagine that he is probably off selling pharmaceuticals somewhere now too.

Most of my classmates were actually very nice, and I did like them a lot, especially the fat hippie who sold me weed. I just wished that I could say the same for all my professors. Not that they were bad people. They were all probably very friendly. I just don't like people who are smarter than me, authority figures, or people who are in a position to criticize me in any way. I don't like cops, parents, wives, bosses, neighbors, friends, colleagues, co-workers, acquaintances, security guards, or firemen. I even have an issue with those guys who hold the stop/slow signs on construction sites. I always feel like they are on a power trip and trying to fuck with me so that I am late for work.

I think that is why I love my kids so gosh darn much. They are still too young to criticize me or disagree with me in any way. Even if they tried, I can always just spank the shit out of them and send them to their room. Now I know what you are thinking, and I am not naive. I know those cute little innocent children will not last forever. I know that someday they will grow up and become a couple of cocky little asshole know-it-all teenagers who will go on to become even bigger cocky know-it-all asshole adults who will try to put me in a nursing home while they fight over my life's savings, but those will be battles for another day. For now, I sure do love those two little buggers.

At first, I tried to like these psychology professors. I really did, but they always just seemed like a bunch of condescending assholes who were always trying to sound smarter than me by using big words and lengthy descriptions to state the obvious. If they saw someone getting kicked in the nuts, they would say that the action elicited a physical response brought on by a stimulus that exceeded his pain threshold, instead of just saying that he got kicked in the nuts. Here is another good example (a text I found on the Internet somewhere):

"Social exchange theory is a social psychological and sociological perspective and that explains social change and stability as a process of negotiated exchanges between parties. Social exchange theory posits that all human relationships are formed using subjective cost-benefit analysis and the comparison of alternatives. For example, when a person perceives the costs of a relationship as outweighing the perceived benefits, then the theory predicts that the person will choose to leave the relationship."

So, some Doctor of Psychology came up with a whole theory postulating that people don't want to be taken advantage of. No shit. And here I always thought people liked it when I borrow money off them and don't pay them back. And I thought my wife liked it when I never helped around the house. Do you see what I mean? Psychology is nothing more than a bunch of pretentious assholes stating the obvious and trying to sound like they are really smart, a phenomenon in human behavior I like to call "The Bullshit Major Theory."

# This Job Finding Shit Is Harder Than It Looks

I always knew that someday I'd be rich. The only problem was that I didn't have the kind of drive or ambition that rich people do. I always figured that if I just plodded through life long enough, I would eventually fall into money. I thought I might win the lottery or perhaps a huge lawsuit, or maybe even be left an inheritance by a mysterious rich old uncle that I never knew I had. I didn't know how it was going to happen, but I knew that one day I was going to become rich. In fact, a fortune teller even told my mom that I'd be rich once on a boardwalk in New Jersey.

Every night, I would lie in bed and think about what life was going to be like once I became filthy rich. I would often think about what I was going to say in my memoir as an accomplished billionaire mogul, or at least a guy who won millions in a lawsuit by getting the wrong leg amputated, just like that guy I saw on 60 Minutes once, but until that day I would have to eke out a meager existence with a job.

I really needed to find a Goddamn job, so I could move the fuck out and start paying my own Goddamn bills already. At least that was what my parents kept telling me. I thought they might be right. Maybe getting a job was my ticket to fortune and glory.

Now it was just a matter of which cash cow I would milk. Where would I go? What would I do? How much will I make, forty, fifty, sixty million? Would there be power suits, PowerPoints, power ties, power lunches, power naps? How many things would I be doing with the word "power" in it?

It was time to start taking some serious action, so I put on pants and walked over to my parent's home computer next to their bedroom. It was resume writing time. I created, organized, planned, coordinated, cataloged, collected, acquired, facilitated, managed, directed, and composed everything under the sun. I used every action verb ever known to man until every last bulleted space on that resume template was filled in. It was beautiful. I was sure there wasn't another person in this hemisphere who had my credentials. After all, I did go to college.

I was excited to see where this adventure into adulthood would take me. The American dream was just around the corner for me. I could feel it. I had a strong headline on my Monster account and I had a resume filled with incredible action verbs such as "coordinated advertising strategies" which was just the time I hung up a Spuds McKenzie poster in the beer store I worked at while I was in college. For the first time in my life, I didn't feel like a child anymore, and I felt like a real unemployed adult.

With my strong credentials and such a well-written resume, I figured there would be tough negotiations ahead. I would soon be bargaining for things like salary, benefits, company accounts, travel expenses and an assortment of other things that people in the real world negotiate over. After all, I did go to college.

I sent my resume everywhere, and I applied for jobs such as The Director of The Executives, Head Administrator, Lead Supervisor, Manager of all Employees, Chief Head of All Management, Lead Director of the Executives, and Coordinator of the Supervisor's Directors. I applied for every big important job that I could find. After all, I did go to college.

My dream job as a child was to become a Ghostbuster, but that wasn't listed anywhere on Monster. There were just a lot of mundane entry-level jobs, but I wasn't going to apply for any of those crappers. Entry level jobs are for people who have never "effectively communicated information in the role of primary liaison." And by that, I mean they never took a message.

I had the credentials to become the CEO of a small company, or at least the boss of something. I figured that I might even be hired as a partner in some sort of firm. I didn't care what I was going to be in charge of, as long as I had a company car, an expense account, stock options, a personal secretary, and a huge office I would have been perfectly happy.

But after a few weeks, no one called. I didn't get one single response from any of the jobs that I applied for. Not one. I had no callbacks, no emails, no interviews, nothing. No one even looked at my resume on Monster. I was starting to think that I might be overqualified for everything. After all, I did go to college.

# My First Real Job Interview

Soon hours turned to days, days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, and I still didn't hear from one single job that I applied for. This job-finding shit was way harder than it looked. I was even starting to wonder if all that not studying and smoking pot in college might have been a mistake.

By this point, my mom and dad didn't love me anymore. I could tell by the way they were always asking me to help them pay for groceries and get on my own car insurance. They had officially disowned their only son. To them, I was nothing more than the shitty roommate who eats all their food and doesn't do the dishes.

Suddenly, just when it seemed like all hope was lost and I would be living on my parent's couch forever, I got a mysterious e-mail telling me to report to some office if I wanted to be rich beyond my wildest dreams and be my own boss. I thought a SPAM e-mail was a funny way to schedule a job interview, but I did want to be my own boss, and I did want to rich beyond my wildest dreams, so I decided to check it out.

They must have really wanted me to work for them because it said, "RESPOND IMMEDIATELY." This must have been a really important position. They probably wanted me to be the chief manager of all the directors in charge or at least something of that high-profile sort. I wasn't sure because they didn't specify the position. In any case, I was ready to negotiate.

I was very well-prepared for my first ever job interview. I even practiced for it by having my mom ask me some basic interview questions. I practiced with her until I got annoyed with all the dumb stuff that she kept asking me, so I told her to get out of my room and I practiced by myself. I was ready to kick some butt in that interview. I would tell them my strengths, my five-year plan, and turn my negatives into positives. After I was done impressing them with my interview skills, I was going to talk salary, and I was going to hold my ground at eighty thousand to start. After all, I did go to college.

When I got to the office, it was not quite like I had envisioned. It was an old store with no furniture and a bunch of aluminum chairs. It looked like it used to be some sort of department store that was now being rented out for office space. There were dreary fluorescent lights with brown leak stains on the tiles of the cheap dropped ceiling. It had poorly painted walls and a stained and matted carpet. It had lots of empty dead space too. They were only using about half of it, while the rest of it had random boxes stacked against the intermittent support beams. It was a far cry from the mahogany desks and guys in pinstriped suits who are talking really fast about numbers, budgets and deals like I had envisioned.

There were about twenty other people there for the interview, and we all sat in aluminum folding chairs facing the front of the room. Suddenly, this super scary looking ex-con used car salesman type looking guy burst through the door. He had slicked-back hair, a patchy goatee, and it appeared as though several of his front teeth were missing or rotten, the ones right in the front that everyone sees. I am no Brad Pitt or anything, but this guy was fucking ugly. I must admit though, he did have a lot of self-confidence, which was a very impressive feat for a guy missing most of his front teeth. He was like a cross between a motivational speaker and a creepy child molester.

He would walk really fast around the room telling everyone a little bit about this exciting new opportunity and then started asking everyone if they loved money. I had a feeling that this might be a scam, but I starting hooting and hollering anyway, because...shit, who doesn't love money? He went on to tell us how we can be rich, be our own boss, and work very little. That must have been why he wanted to interview me. I was a perfect fit for his company because I wanted to be rich, be my own boss, and work very little. After all, I did go to college.

As he continued to talk, I couldn't wrap my mind around what he was trying to tell me. I scribbled notes and tried to comprehend how this business model worked, but I couldn't seem to understand it. I felt like I was in one of the math and science classes in college that were always way too hard for me.

Was he trying to confuse me, or was I easily confused? I couldn't understand how this was all going over my head. After all, I did go to college.

He had a dry erase board that ended up looking like this:

# Payment of $500

Level 1 $150 x 3 = $450 # # #

Level 2 $30 x 9 = $270 # # # # # # # # #

Level 3 $30 x 27 = $810 # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

Level 4 $30 x 81 = $2430 etc. # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

He called this the three by four matrix, and he used a bunch of other technical jargon that was even too complicated for us college graduates. He went on to say that we would register with the company by paying him five hundred dollars. That would make us official recruiters, and our job would be to recruit other people to be recruiters who would recruit other recruiters. He even called himself a recruiter. Then he used a bunch of other technical jargon like Multi-level marketing (MLM) and he referred to the three by four matrix on the dry erase board. At one point, someone sheepishly raised their hand and asked him what the point of all of this was. He became infuriated and began scribbling a bunch of huge dollar signs on the dry erase board as he angrily said through clenched teeth, "THE POOOIIIINNNNTT IIIISSSSS TO MAAAAKKKKEEEE MOOONNEEEYYY!" He then pointed to the dollar signs with the marker and stared at the person to really drive the point home. It was that or maybe he just wanted to rape them. You never truly know what another person is thinking.

Needless to say, no one asked him another question. Then he went back to more technical jargon like Stairstep Breakaway Plans (SBP's) and went over the three by four matrix again. The gist of this job was that we would pay five hundred bucks to this guy and he would let us recruit people to sell his product, which was simply the right to sell his product. There was nothing to be sold. We just had the right to ask people for money so they can join and then ask other people for money.

My church does the same exact thing. That was when I realized that this was no fucking job interview. It was a goddamn pyramid scheme. It was just a scam where you talk in circles to trick people into giving you money.

I decided not to take the fake job, and I was still unemployed. It was depressing to know that my first real job interview was nothing more than a con artist with no teeth trying to scam me out of five hundred bucks. That whole ride home I couldn't help but wonder what my next job interview was going to be like. Was someone going kick me in the nuts and steal my wallet, then call it a job interview?

# My Whole Life I Felt Different

The money came fast and it came easy in college. Everyone was getting a piece of the action: the banks, the federal government, VISA, Mastercard, even Discover. I mean everyone. They couldn't throw the money at me fast enough, and there was no stupid debt-to-income ratio, no credit checks, no proof of income either. There was no boring stuff that I have to do now to get approved for a loan. It was just straight-up cash. All you had to do was ask for it. Fixed interest, variable interested, subsidized, unsubsidized. It didn't matter. I took everything they were willing to lend me, even the money that I didn't even need.

Ironically enough, now that I am a grown-up and I need to borrow money so I can do grownup stuff like owning a car and having a place to live, no one is willing to lend me a fucking nickel. I was forced to buy cars at those no credit check places. It took me like four tries to get a mortgage. I was denied financing on furniture, and most recently I got denied a home equity loan that I was going to use to pay off some credit cards. I guess I should have told them I was going to use it to go back to college instead.

Credit cards were easy to get on a college campus back then too. Before the government passed the Credit Card Act of 2009, you used to be able to get credit cards right on college campuses. You didn't need a co-signer or anything. Shit, you didn't even have to be sober. All you had to do was sign a few forms, then they would give you a free t-shirt as a little token of their appreciation for making your first really bad decision as an adult with them.

I used to get these credit cards all the time. Part of me was always a little worried about using credit cards in college because I had no real way of paying them back, but another part of me, the smarter, more rational part, always just figured that after graduation I would get a job where I would make more than enough money to pay them back. I figured that I would probably just get a job that paid like a million dollars, and all that debt I was amassing in college would just be a drop in the bucket to a rich guy like me. It seemed like a pretty good plan at the time, but like I said, it was only a pretty good plan. Not a great one.

It was only six months after graduation before I started getting calls from the bad people. I would see those dastardly 800 numbers calling, and my sweet naive mom would always tell me to answer because she thought it might be a call for a job interview, but I knew better. I knew exactly who was calling. It was that evil bitch goddess Sallie Mae.

Like a siren, she lured me in with her temptation of spring breaks in Cancun, living off-campus, and really good weed. Now it was time for that vile whore to collect. She wanted her money and she was going to get it any way she could. That was why I took a job at Kmart. I needed to keep that viper at bay. I knew that working as a stock boy at Kmart was a classic case of American underemployment at its finest, but I had no choice. She was coming for me. It was only a matter of time.

Did you ever feel like your life was like a movie? You see a movie and you almost feel like it was written about your life. That was exactly how I felt when I was working at Kmart. I felt like I was living in that classic coming of age story, Good Will Hunting.

If you have never seen it, the movie is about this genius named Will Hunting who is working as a janitor at MIT while he secretly solves these impossible math equations that even the most world-renowned mathematicians were not able to do. He is played by the former sexiest man alive, Matt Damon, and his best friend is played by Ben Affleck and his girlfriend is Minnie Driver. Working as an overnight stock boy at Kmart really made me relate to Will Hunting at this juncture of my life. The only difference between me and Will Hunting was that instead of being a genius I had average intelligence, and instead of working at MIT I was working at Kmart, and instead of sneaking off to solve really complicated math problems I would sneak off to smoke weed, masturbate in the toilet stalls, or fall asleep. I don't look anything like Matt Damon, none of my friends are as cool as Ben Affleck, and the last girl I fucked looked more like a chicken than Minnie Driver. Ok, maybe the Good Will Hunting thing was a bit of a stretch.

My life at this time was probably more like the movie about this guy whose parents keep busting his balls about getting a job so he could start paying back his student loans. Then he finds a job at Kmart just to shut them up. There he winds up goofing off during his shift all the time and doing all kinds of zany things like racing the pallet jack through the aisles, smoking weed, taking naps, and stealing stuff off the shelves. He lives with his parents. He doesn't have a girlfriend. And he never gets laid. I don't know if that movie exists, but if it does then that was exactly what my life was like.

Although I only worked at Kmart for six months, this was probably the most important job I ever had. I am not just saying that because I got to steal stuff, come late, not show up, fuck off, get high, and make fun of people. I know what you're thinking, and yes that does make for a very sweet job, but that was not the reason why it had such a lasting impact on me. My experience at Kmart was so important because that was where I discovered what made me feel so different from everyone my whole life. It was just like the part in Superman when he realizes that he has superpowers or when gay people finally realize they are gay.

It happened one morning during the team meeting at Kmart. I have never been to one of these team meetings before because overnight stock boys were not required to attend, but one time I was asked to come in and help during a morning shift. Something so amazing happened at that shift meeting that you may not believe it if I tell you. Had I not witnessed it myself, I probably would not believe it either. It was so incredible that sometimes I think back on it today and still wonder if maybe I just imagined the whole thing. What I saw taught me a lesson more valuable than anything I could have learned in school or at a human resource training on things like workplace ergonomics, ethics, sexual harassment, or even First Aid and CPR.

The meeting began with a breakdown of sales and numbers just like any other meeting at work would, but after that, it would become like nothing I have ever seen before. The managers would all start yelling and talking all this shit on the Wal-Mart down the road. Then they would give an impassioned speech about being friendly to the customers and reminding us to do our best. I don't remember exactly what they said. I just remember that they were very passionate about it and I was very fascinated by it. I couldn't imagine being that passionate about anything, let alone working at shitty stupid fucking Kmart. That is like...well, that is like being passionate about working at shitty stupid fucking Kmart. It made absolutely no sense to me then, and it still doesn't today.

The manager was a frumpy looking guy with a mustache and glasses. He looked exactly how you would expect a Kmart manager to look, only he spoke really loud and authoritative. He sounded more like a football coach addressing his team. But, instead of a football team, he was giving his pep talk to a bunch of old ladies, some weird looking guy who was probably on Megan's law, a couple of high school kids, and a few burnouts. The most fascinating thing was how all the employees hung on his every word, even the burnouts. I couldn't believe how seriously they were taking this shit.

Before that day in Kmart, I never understood why I didn't fit in with any of the other boys and girls and why I felt so different. I always tried to assimilate to what I thought I was supposed to be doing, but it never felt right. I never felt comfortable doing what all the other kids were doing such as having manners, brushing my teeth, raising my hand in class, or not peeing all over the toilet seat. It never felt natural to me.

Deep down inside, I secretly had this desire to wipe boogies on people, put empty milk cartons back in the fridge, and squeeze the toothpaste from the top. Even as a small boy, I would often find myself staring off into the distance of mall parking lots, longing for the day when I too could drive a car of my own so I could use it to take up two spaces. There was something different about me that I was ashamed of and I was trying to hide it from the rest of the world.

As I watched everyone working hard and having a positive attitude about working at shitty stupid fucking Kmart, I realized that I was living a lie. The truth was that I was an asshole. I wasn't sure how I got this way. Perhaps I was bitten by a spider who was also a huge asshole. That is how Peter Parker became Spiderman. Or maybe I came from another planet where everyone who lived there was an asshole too, the same way Superman came from a planet populated by super people. Whatever the case may be, I was relieved to know what made me feel so different for all those years. I was finally free to be myself and not be ashamed or embarrassed about who I was anymore. I was an asshole.

It didn't matter what I was doing, but one thing was for certain, I wasn't going to do it well, and I was going to complain about it the entire time. Even if I had a really big important job like brain surgeon, my surgeries would take forever because I drink lots of coffee so I would have to stop to pee all the time, and I usually don't wash my hands after I pee, so the patient would probably get some sort of urine-induced brain infection. I would also half-ass all my Friday surgeries too because I always like to take it easy on Fridays. I might not even show up for Monday surgeries because I like to call in sick on Mondays, that way I have a nice long three-day weekend. Any surgeries I perform after two o'clock would be sloppy. By that time of day, I am usually too bored to care about work anymore and I'm usually just looking up stuff on the Internet. Tuesdays are no good either because I still have a trace of the Mondays. Thursdays are bad because I am too excited about Friday to focus on anything. If I were a brain surgeon, there would be about a three-hour window on a Wednesday morning where I would at least try to not fuck up your brain. I know it's a long shot, but if by some freak chance I do ever become a brain surgeon, and you need me to repair your brain, schedule your surgery on a Wednesday morning between about eight and eleven. It would be your only shot at survival.

Over the years, as I floundered around from job to job, I always thought back to those meetings at Kmart, and how no one did what I usually do at work meetings. I did not see one eye roll. There were no arms folded and slouching in a "this job is fucking stupid" kind of way like I usually sit at work meetings. There were not even any disrespectful side conversations like the ones I tend to engage in during work meetings. I even tried to start one with this older lady who I thought was cool because she would sneak out back to smoke cigarettes and talk shit on other co-workers with me, but even she shushed me and went back to paying attention.

They were all standing at perfect attention, ready to go do their best. They didn't even care that we were wearing these ridiculous red vests, or that is was Saturday morning and we could still be sleeping. They didn't care that they were making seven bucks an hour either. None of that mattered to them. They were going to do their best no matter what. They were hell-bent on being the best Kmart employee they can be. The weirdest part about this whole thing was when they all broke out into some strange Illuminati Free-Mason chant about doing their best and having pride. I don't remember how it goes, or what they said, but I found it rather odd. I stood in the back laughing at how stupid this shit was, but when I looked around for others to join me, I was all alone. Everyone was too busy being all serious. Even as I tried to make fun of it later that day, no one laughed at my jokes. That was when I knew I was an outsider, a loner abhorred by the masses. I was an outcast who did not belong anywhere, not even stupid shitty fucking Kmart.

Don't bother trying to look for this chant. You will not find any record of it anywhere. It is not on YouTube or Wikipedia. It is not anywhere. Just like all free-masons Illuminati secrets, it has been buried in the annals of time, protected from the scoundrels who want to misuse its intoxicating powers for tyranny and evil, or simply make fun of it the way I do.

There was a valuable life lesson that can be learned from this experience. No matter how small or insignificant the job you should always give 100% all of the time. You should take pride in yourself and in whatever you do, and always be a team player. Help others in need and don't be afraid to let others help you. That is what teamwork is all about. Take that pride, work ethic, and concept of team and carry that with you into everything you do in life. Eventually, all of those qualities will be embedded into your character and they will become part of what defines you. You will soon internalize all those characteristics of a winner and become a person who transcends into a world of unbridled success and contentment.

Keep in mind, that is just the lesson that you should learn. That was certainly not the lesson I learned. The lesson I learned was that all of these people were fucking stupid and I needed to find a different job.

# Moving to California

So, I stopped showing up for work at Kmart, which in my opinion is the best way to quit a job because it avoids confrontation. Confrontation can be very uncomfortable, and I always find it best to avoid things that make you uncomfortable. That was the reason I didn't tell my mom and dad that I quit either.

Instead, I would pretend to go to work, then double back around to my bedroom and hideout before they would wake up. Then I would sneak out and come back as if I was working all night. I was able to manage like that for a few weeks because I didn't have any real overhead, so I really didn't need the paychecks. All I needed was money for gas, beer, my gym membership, a few rounds of golf, and maybe a little weed. I was able to get enough money for that just by stealing money out of my mom's purse. It was a pretty nice system while it lasted, and if it weren't for those dastardly student loans, I might have been able to go on like that forever.

One day while I was pretending to be looking for a job, just like I always did when my mom and dad were in the room, I received an e-mail from a recruiter who was interested in setting up a job interview. I was a little skeptical since my last job interview was just some guy trying to trick me into giving him five hundred dollars, so I didn't even respond and I went back to fake job searching, which I always find to be a lot less stressful than real job searching.

Later that day my mom informed me that I had a voicemail about a job interview. I played the message a few times to make sure it was legitimate. Sure enough, it was the same guy from the email that I didn't respond to earlier. He said that his name was Steve and that he was a recruiter with a staffing agency based in Sacramento California, and that he saw my resume on Monster and he was very interested in talking to me about a position that he had available. I couldn't believe my good fortune.

Not only was I being considered for a job, but I was being considered for a job in sunny California, with oceans, Hollywood, breast implants, paparazzi, Star Bucks, McDonald's, KFC, famous people, and even porn.

I finally had a real professional opportunity and a chance to move to the west coast and start a new life. My friends and I have often wondered what it would be like to live on the West Coast. It has always been a secret dream of ours to move to California.

I always wondered if people from California fantasized about moving to Pennsylvania that same way. I often wondered if they dreamed about leaving the balmy climate and the deep blue pristine Pacific ocean, so they could live in Pennsylvania and spend the humid summers in the mountains with all the mosquitos and ticks, and then spend the winters getting up extra early for work to shovel out their car and spend the rest of the day in cold wet socks, or maybe move to one of our cities, and enjoy all the blight and smells of garbage that permeates the air of places like Philadelphia. I always wondered if California really was better than Pennsylvania, or if the grass just looked greener on the other side. I would find out soon enough.... in sunny California.

With the prospect of a new job, I broke the news to my mom that I quit K-Mart. She started ranting and raving like a fucking lunatic. I think she even cursed. She was going on and on about how I shouldn't have quit my job until I definitely had another job, and something else about being reckless, and another thing about my student loans and money, and I think she said something else about being irresponsible, and she might have said something about me making bad decisions. I'm pretty sure she even alluded to me moving out because I sort of remember her yelling something like, "You need to move out. I can't take this fucking bullshit anymore, something, something, something!" I don't remember what she said exactly, but as you could tell, my mom could be a real pain-in-the-ass.

I waited a few days to call Steve back because job searching is a lot like dating, and I wanted to play hard to get. If I called him back too soon, I may have come across as clingy and desperate. Of course, my mom busted my balls about that too. She asked me every goddamn day why I didn't call him back yet. I got so sick of my mom's constant badgering that I finally decided to call him back just to shut her the fuck up already.

Steve sounded really smart and energetic on the phone, as I would expect everyone from California to be. He told me all the great things he saw in my resume. Then he told me about the job. It was for a goddamn management trainee position. I couldn't believe it. I already had four fucking years of training. In fact, I had one hundred thousand dollars' worth of training in things like European economies, Gender Identities, and Baroque era composers. Hell, I even did a huge research project that examined the effects of self-monitoring on dating patterns, and old California Steve here is going to tell me that none of that shit matters in the world of professional car renters, and that I needed to be trained all over again.

It didn't even matter that I knew Erick Erickson's stages of cognitive development, or Freud's sexual maladjustment theory related to phallic obsessions, or how to smoke weed out of an apple. Everything I learned in college meant nothing in the real world. Apparently, there's a lot more that goes into renting cars to vacationers, salesmen, and people who just hit a deer than one would think.

I decided to play along with Steve's little management trainee game. I knew that being a lowly trainee was a necessary hurdle to my future success. Besides, being a trainee to become a manager in California would be way better than any actual manager jobs that I might get in shitty Pennsylvania, and for one fleeting moment, college seemed worth it. My life appeared to be moving forward, or should I say westward.

I asked Steve if they would be paying my relocation costs to move to California. Steve laughingly clarified that this was not an interview and that he was just a recruiter from a staffing agency that was hired by the rental company. He said that there would be three more interviews and that there wouldn't be a need to relocate because the management trainee position was only fifteen minutes from my house, and he that was only recruiting me because I lived there. I then asked Steve if he has even thought about moving to Pennsylvania. He laughingly said, "No, the thought never crossed my mind."

He started walking me through the interview process, but I didn't remember what he said as I was too busy not listening. I do remember getting off the phone with California Steve and not being entirely sold on a job as a management trainee. I thought I should be interviewing to be a real manager. After all, I did go to college.

By this point, I was really disenchanted with my first experience in adulthood. I wasn't seeing any of the success I thought I would have if I went to college. I was so mad that I called Steve back to voice my disdain for this whole bullshit process. I was going to exact on him all the hatred that had grown around my heart from all the lies that I was told, and the system filled with people like him who thought that they were better than me. Unfortunately, my seething anger always tends to come across as polite overtures and pleasant discourse. So, I called Steve back and ended up saying "Listen, Steve if you got a minute, I have a couple more questions."

Goddamn it, a polite overture!

To which he replied something like, "Actually I'm kind of on my way out the door. Can I shoot you a call back tomorrow?" My blood was fucking boiling with his arrogant, condescending, dismissive response so I said, "Oh cool. No problem. I'll be here."

Son of a bitch, a pleasant discourse!

I was so mad at myself for being a pussy that I went downstairs and yelled at my mom for not washing my favorite jeans. In psychology, we call that misplaced anger. Thank god I went to college or I wouldn't have known what the hell to call that.

The next day I waited for Steve to call me back. I waited by that phone all day and all night, and there was no call from that son of a bitch. The following day I waited again and there was still no call, so I decided to call him instead. Steve answered with his typical West Coast recruiter gusto, "Hi, this is Steve B something or another." I don't remember his last name, but it started with a B.

When I told him who it was, he didn't know what to say. He began stuttering and tripping over his words. He didn't have that old California Steve pizazz that I remembered. He told me, in a very uncertain, I'm completely full of shit, kind of way he was meaning to get back to me, but he's been so busy.

Miraculously, I managed to call him at the first possible moment of free time he had since we last spoke. I somehow doubt the cosmic forces of the universe aligned my call with the first and only moment he had to talk since we last spoke. Something tells me that he was just giving me a bullshit excuse. I should know. I'm full of them.

This motherfucker wasn't busy. In fact, I'll bet during all Steve's busyness at work, he found time to stare blankly into space, forward some hilarious e-mails he found to be amusing, google stuff, pay some personal bills, make a few personal calls, and gossip about other co-workers. I know this because that is what I am usually doing when I tell people that I was too busy to get back to them when I am at work.

I cut right to the chase with this asshole and I asked him to tell me a little bit more about the position. I needed to be frank as I didn't know when he'd get swamped with work or have to tell everyone in the office about the funny thing that happened to him and his girlfriend at a Starbucks yesterday.

He proceeded to tell me that it was a salaried position for thirty thousand dollars and that it was non-negotiable. Weekends and holidays were required, and a typical workweek would sometimes exceed sixty hours. That amounted to about $9. 60 an hour, which was right around the average pay for high school dropouts, illegal aliens, and psychology majors.

I listened to him ramble on and on about room for advancement, getting to drive really cool cars like Ford Focuses, and all the other perks of being a trainee. It sounded shitty, but I had no choice. I had to listen to what he had to say. It wasn't like Fortune 500 companies were beating down my door to offer me a next tax bracket type salary with an expense account.

Then he dropped the bombshell. He explained to me that all the advancement in the company is merit-based, and not based on seniority. He explained that the better you do the quicker you become a manager, and he had the audacity to say that as if it were a good thing. He must have forgotten who he was talking to. Merit-based promotions are a terrible idea for people like me. I need my promotions to come through seniority, or at the very least beer pong. Those were the only two ways that I was ever going to advance in life.

He then proceeded to describe what the job of management trainee entailed at a car rental place. The job consisted mostly of answering phones, making sure the place was clean, making sure all the forms were completed, and preparing all the cars for rental. It was somewhere between janitor and secretary.

This made sense. These places probably need janitors and they need secretaries, and by hiring C student beer pong champion stoners who have never achieved anything, they can ensure that all the work of the janitor and secretary still gets done. They will usually get fired before they ever become an actual manager, but not before they scrub a few toilets, pick some French fries from under a bunch of car seats, and fetch all the lunches for the real managers. It is a pretty genius plan. Why hire two people to do these jobs, when you can pay one asshole thirty thousand dollars a year to do both, work his nuts off for sixty hours a week, and give him a sexy title with the word manager in it.

After his spiel, he asked what I thought, and I thought it was fucking stupid. I'd be working my ass off for shit money, doing janitor stuff, and not even being guaranteed any raises or promotions, so naturally, I said, "Oh that sounds fantastic. I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to interview and come on board."Goddamn another fucking pleasant discourse.

Steve eventually called me to arrange an interview with a representative of the company. Then he asked a rather strange question. He asked me if I had ever been arrested. Of course, I've been arrested. What, did he think I was a pussy?

I told him everything that I had been arrested for. I told him about all my disorderly conducts and my hilarious public urination story. I even told him about the D. U. I that I got in my freshman year of college.

Well, that did it. That was all old California Steve needed to hear to crush my dreams. He immediately stopped the conversation and informed me that the process was over. He told me that I could not be hired as a management trainee for a car rental company with a D. U. I. on my record.

I'll be honest. I didn't see that one coming. I knew that my D. U. I. arrest probably ruined my bid for Senate, but I figured I would at least be able to rent fucking cars for a living.

He wished me luck, hung up the phone, and that was the last I ever heard from old California Steve, the car rental recruiter from Sacramento, California. My dream of renting cars for a living was officially dead. That was a shame too. I was really looking forward to spending sixty hours a week washing cars and working on Christmas and Easter just so I could eke out enough money to pay my student loans, but not nearly enough to move out of my parents' house and get an apartment.

Without the car rental job, I had no choice but to consolidate my loans over thirty years to help lower the payments. That's right thirty years. I'll say it again in all caps, "THIRTY YEARS." I'll say it again numerically, "30 years." That would make me fifty-two years old before I finally paid off my college loans and all because a certain rent-a-car company wouldn't hire me into their management trainee program.

So, there I was, back to the drawing board. I was back to square one, hoping against hope, and keeping my fingers crossed. I knew it was only a matter of time before I got the big break I needed. After all, I did go to college. That must count for something. Right?

# My First Real Job

Sometimes you find your big opportunity in the most unlikely of places. I found mine right next to old treadmills, cheap free weights, old furnaces, boats, ATVs, EZ-Bake ovens, fishing rods, and a few other miscellaneous items. I found my first real job in the classifieds. The ad was for a job as a therapist" and the qualifications were a bachelor's degree in Psychology. I was in such shock when I saw it that I had to re-read it several times. I was beginning to think that I wasn't qualified to do anything, let alone be a therapist, but there it was spelled out in black and white just down from the ad for a free couch.

"Therapist" sounded like such an impressive title too. It is a job that makes a difference in people's lives and makes the world a better place. Plus, if we learned anything from porn, we know that therapists get tons of pussy. They probably don't get as much as mechanics, pool guys, teachers, stepdads, neighbors, or pizza delivery guys, but they do pretty gosh darn good for themselves. That was why my approach to landing this job had to be flawless.

I sent my resume with a cover letter. They called. I interviewed. They asked me about some basic psychology stuff. I knew enough. I talked about my strengths, turned my weaknesses into positives, then I lied about having a five-year plan, and I told them some other stuff I thought that they might have wanted to hear.

I nailed it. I nailed that fucking interview and I got the job. I was a real goddamn therapist. I figured the going rate for a therapist who graduated from the 162nd best small liberal arts college in the eastern part of the country had to be around eighty thousand. I was going to be trusted with the intimate details of people's most private innermost thoughts, their emotions, and their fragile psyche. This shit was important. I wasn't going to be dealing with rental cars or small children. This shit was the real deal. These were real adult lives I would be dealing with.

Then they offered me eighteen thousand dollars a year. I'll say it again in quotes, "eighteen thousand dollars a year." I'll spell it out in all caps: EIGHTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS a year. That was just slightly little less than what I was making as a K-Mart stock boy.

Here's a good math problem they should put on the SAT's: If a man makes eighteen thousand dollars a year, and he paid thirty-five thousand dollars a year to go to college for four years, how long would it take the man to pay back his student loan? The correct answer would be never. The man will never pay back his student loan. This should be the type of math problems they put on the SAT's. Let's see how many kids want to go to college then. I was disgusted, but I still took the job. Short of being a know-it-all prick, there was nothing else that I was really qualified to do anyway.

I showed up on time for my first day at this new job because I always find it best to wait a few weeks before I start showing up late and calling in sick all the time. As my boss showed me around, she had me sign some paperwork, and I noticed that my official title was actually "caseworker", even though the ad in the paper said, "therapist." I had been duped again.

Being a caseworker was such an embarrassment. When I think of caseworkers, I think of fat women, homosexuals, and self-righteous do-gooders. I was none of those things. I thought I was signing up to be a therapist just like Dr. Phil or that guy with the huge cock in Fuck Therapy 3. I knew right then and there that as long as I was a caseworker, I was never going to get laid. Now I could only hope and pray that this job would not turn me completely gay.

My boss kept walking and talking and telling me all about the job. She told me that it was an adult partial hospitalization program for acute and chronically mentally ill patients that provided group and individual counseling. She said some more stuff about groups that I would be facilitating, funding streams, insurance, treatment plans, medication management, incident reporting, and suicide prevention. I don't remember exactly what she said because I was too busy daydreaming.

It was a long first day and she gave me a lot of information all at once. I was exhausted and all I wanted to do was get back to my office, so I could close the door, and get started on all the fucking off I was planning on doing.

When I got to my office there was one small problem. I shared it with two other people, Maria and Gerald. Wouldn't you know it, Maria was a fat woman, and Gerald looked like he was probably a homosexual. And they were both definitely do-gooders. Maria thought she was just so cool, always showing off how much she cared about her job, rubbing it in everyone's face how good she was at it.

She always just sat there like a smug know-it-all, coming to work on time, dressing all nice with her fancy shirts that weren't all stained and wrinkled, never being hungover, getting all of her paperwork done on time, talking to the patients all nice, being all professional, facilitating her groups, writing these service plans that we were supposed to be writing, talking on the phone all serious about work stuff. She even smiled all the time just to show off how white her teeth were. She just thought she was so fucking awesome. It was plain sickening. And Gerald, well he just sat there with his fancy know-it-all goatee, and his extravagant boat shoe loafers, and his fancy ties. He had his nose all up Maria's ass all day as they talked about how awesome they thought they were.

Sharing an office with these two assholes meant only one thing. I couldn't fuck off. I had to look busy all the time or these Dudley Do-rights might judge me and rat me out to the boss. It seemed as though they were not big proponents of fucking off in the workplace, so I always had to try to look busy all the time in front of these two assholes. It was plain fucking exhausting. Being busy is one thing but looking busy is a whole different animal. Looking busy is hard work. I didn't even have a computer so I couldn't Google stuff on the computer to look busy. I just had to sit there for hours and hours, scribbling and writing gibberish to

create the illusion that I was busy doing work to keep Gerald and Maria off my back. Do you think anyone appreciated any of the pretend hard work I was doing? Fuck no. They still hated me. I know this because one day in the kitchen we were serving hot dogs to the mental patients, and I overheard them talking about how much they hated me.

They also thought I was stupid too. One Christmas Gerald gave me Ginko Biloba, the supplement to help your brain work better. The kicker was that he wasn't even my secret Santa partner. That was basically his way of saying in his fancy little queer passive-aggressive way, "Merry Christmas, Buck. Here is a supplement to help your brain work better because I think you're fucking stupid."

Sharing an office with these two retards was pure torture. I had to get out. I needed to start thinking of my next move. Staying at this job would have meant a whole lifetime of trying to look busy, living with my parents, and getting no pussy.

I needed a job with my own office so that I could have sex with women there, just like the real therapists do in porno movies. If you think I am just being some sex-starved pervert, then google search "therapist porn." You will get hits such as, "nasty therapist ass fucks patient, cock therapist, busty blonde oiled and fucked by the therapist, patient reaches over and unzips therapist's pants."

The list goes on and on with the proof that therapists do in fact have sex with their patients all the time. I also Googled "caseworker porn" to see if the same thing happens to them. The only thing I found was article after article about caseworkers getting arrested for child pornography and molesting kids. Not only were all caseworkers fat women and homosexuals. It turns out that a lot of them were child molesters too. It was worse than I thought.

This job was not going as planned. I was making shit money, I shared an office with two assholes, and I was not even a real therapist. To make matters even worse, they were making me work a full eight hours. Anyone who knows me knows that I only have an attention span that lasts maybe two hours at best. And they expected me to care about other people too on top of it. That has never really been a strong suit of mine either. The deck was really stacked against me at this job.

The one bright spot to working there though was that I got to work directly for a real Indian psychiatrist who was revered by his staff as a brilliant, wonderful, sympathetic, and insightful man. Every day at lunch he would call me and ask me to bring him a cup of ice. Then he would call back a second time to remind me to wash my hands first. If he thought my hands were so fucking dirty, maybe he should have gotten off his lazy ass and got his own goddamn ice. My boss tried to tell me that it means he likes you if he asks you to get him his ice. As if I cared that he liked me.

Even though getting this dickhead his ice was a royal pain in the ass, I was a dutiful employee, so I never complained. I always got him his ice, and I even washed my hands, just as he had asked. The only problem was that I always seemed to forget to not put one or two pieces of the ice down my pants and rub it all over my balls and my asshole. I could be so absentminded sometimes.

I like to think that everything in life is a learning experience, and even though my first job as a caseworker sucked a big fat hairy dick and I hated every fucking minute of it, I still took something valuable away from it. This was where I learned how to be an active listener. Active listening means you are attentive to people who are talking to you, and you show them that you comprehend what they are saying by using head nods, eye contact, and a bunch of other common-sense stuff that people do when they listen.

I became such a good active listener that I was able to get people to think I was listening, even when I was not. If active listening were karate, I'd be a black belt for sure. I was a true master of my craft, like a juggler who can juggle chainsaws or a fiddler who can fiddle a really hard to fiddle song. I was that good.

Every day I would have to listen to patients talking about anxiety, fear, using drugs, trying to quit using drugs, their children using drugs, money problems, being sad, being angry, and pretty much all the other stuff people usually talk about in counseling. That shit gets boring after a while, so I conditioned myself to simply pretend to listen. It made the day go faster.

I could pretend to listen to pretty much anyone if I nodded my head a few times and said uh-huh a lot. Then when they are done talking, I would repeat the last thing I heard them say. Most people who go to counseling whine and complain a lot, so after they got done talking all I ever had to say was, "I hear what you're saying, and I understand that your life is really hard right now." It was almost too easy.

Being able to pretend that your listening to someone isn't something you could put on a resume, and it probably won't impress anyone at a Christmas party like a magic trick or a funny joke would. In fact, most people probably won't even know that you are doing it. That doesn't mean that it is still isn't a great skillset to have. Fake listening got me through many long annoying conversations with people such as bosses, co-workers, wives, family members, my mom, my kids, my neighbors, and basically anyone I don't want to have to listen to.

That was the only real thing I took away from my time as a caseworker. It didn't make me become a better person or anything like that. However, there was something magical and wonderful that occurred at that job that would give my life meaning and purpose for the whole year that I worked there.

It happened at the end of my first day when my boss came into my office and said that she had one last thing she wanted to show me. She led me through the secretary's office back into this tiny little cul-de-sac area. There she pulled out a secretive box that was stashed away in this little cubby and kept under lock and key. It seemed like very important stuff, and I couldn't' believe she trusted me enough to show it to me. She maintained a very dramatic and serious demeanor as she opened the box. I couldn't imagine what could be in it, but it had to be some important stuff.

As soon as she opened the box a light immediately beamed down from the heavens illuminating what was inside, and a Halleluiah chorus began thundering a loud hymn of joy in my head. I was overwhelmed when I saw what was inside. It ended up being better than eternal life, the Holy Grail, the Ten Commandments, rubies, pearls, or any of that other stuff I thought it might be. It was the most beautiful, magnificent awe-inspiring thing that I had ever seen in my whole life. It was greater than anything I could have imagined.

That box contained countless drug samples and lots of them. They were all unaccounted for and not in any particular order, an unlimited grab bag of mind-altering psychotropic bliss. There was every psychotropic medication you could ever want. They had everything from the boring ones like Zoloft and Paxil to the really fun narcotic benzodiazepines that fuck you up like Xanax and Ativan. They had Klonopin, Adderall, and Diazepam, just to name a few. They even had a bunch that I have never heard of before like Lorazepam and Buspirone. None of these were accounted for and they were just strewn about in their sample packaging, like a bargain bin of psychiatric drugs.

I don't remember exactly what she said to me that day. I would imagine she told me that they were drug samples and are only to be dispensed to patients in case of an emergency with direct consent given by the staff psychiatrist, but all I heard was, "These are for you. Take them recreationally and share them with your friends. You deserve it. After all, you did go to college."

# There's Nothing Wrong with Being Stupid

My boss was always telling me that I'm not being professional enough. You're a professional. Act professional. Be Professional. Professional, Professional, Professional...Jesus Christ, for $18,000 a year she should just be glad that I showed up wearing pants.

I was always being yelled at for slouching in my office chair too. I liked to sit with my feet kicked out and my hands folded up over my head. When she would catch me doing this, she would quietly call me off to the side to tell me that I should be sitting in an upright position while I am at work. She said that slouching isn't professional.

She always had this annoyed look on her face when she was talking to me too. It is the same look I give my kids when they spill milk all over the kitchen. Secretly, I want to punch them in the face, but I can't because they are children, and children are stupid, so I just have to swallow all that rage and pretend that I'm not mad. That was always the same look she would give me.

She would always say to me with a big fake smile and her teeth clenched together in an I'm swallowing my anger right now kind of way, "You need to learn to sit at your desk like a professional, okay kiddo." She always called me kiddo when she was talking to me. I would always just stare back at her with a real dumb blank look on my face, which made me look even more stupid, just like my kids do after they spill milk.

One day I was slouching in my office chair and listening to this fat biker chick tell me about how she wanted to start using drugs again for like the gazillionth time. My mouth was really dry, so I decided to put in some chewing gum. First one piece.

I listened patiently as she told me about the fight she had with her boyfriend, just like she always did. I knew this story well, so I fidgeted for my gum and didn't pay her much attention. Then I popped another piece of gum. Then, she told me about not getting along with her son, drinking, and something else. I popped another piece of gum. She got to the part of the story where she starts worrying about money, and I popped yet another piece of gum. Then she started crying just like she always did, so I handed her a box of tissues to let her cry it out, and I put another piece of gum in my mouth.

By the time she finished crying I was up to five pieces of gum. I don't always chew five pieces of gum at once, but for some strange reason, it was losing its flavor more quickly than usual. It was just one of those things that snowballed, and before I knew it, I was in way over my head. That was when I started blowing bubbles. I'm not talking about little snapper bubbles. I'm talking about 5-piece bubbles, the kind of bubbles where you have to take the wad out and dab the gum off your face. I'm talking about world record bubbles, the kind of bubbles that you don't want to be blowing while someone is crying.

It just so happened that my boss was walking past while I was scraping the shrapnel off my nose left from one of the most violent bubble gum explosions in the history of gum chewing. I didn't see her at first, as the gum made its way as far as my forehead covering both of my eyes, rendering her nothing more than a pink silhouette.

By the time I cleaned up the mess, I saw her standing over me. She had her arms crossed and she was scowling. Being a C average psychology major, I could read her body language, and I knew that she was mad. So, I cleaned the gum out of my hair, then I cracked a few jokes with the woman, which made her smile. Then I told her that everything would be okay, and I sent her on her way. She blew her nose, wiped off her tears, and gave me a big smile as she thanked me for listening. My counseling session saved her life, and she left that session feeling pretty gosh darn good about herself. I even remember giving her a piece of gum before she left.

I am not sure if the woman ever went onto have a happy life, but I know that she did go onto having a great rest of that day. Unfortunately, that was not the case for me. Once the women went on her merry way to not be sad anymore and chew her gum, my boss addressed my lack of professionalism with me yet again. She went on to scold me on how gum chewing can be distracting to the patients, and how blowing bubbles is not professional. I gave her the classic dumb look that I always have when I am getting yelled at for something.

I must have looked like an idiot with that stupid look on my face, but I was glad I did because it is always better to look like you're stupid when you get in trouble at work than look like you're an asshole. That way you still do what assholes do, but no one hates you for it. They think that you are just stupid, and you don't know any better.

It's kind of like when a retarded person accidentally kills a puppy because he was petting it too hard, as opposed to someone who just likes to kill puppies. In both cases, the puppy winds up dead, but when the retarded guy does it, you almost feel sorry for him, just like in all those movies about retarded guys who accidentally kill puppies.

Now I'm not advocating for anyone to go around acting like a retarded person, and I am not saying you should kill puppies either. I am simply saying that if you're going to get in trouble at work, you should act dumb. People may not respect you for it, but at least they won't think you're an asshole.

# Breaking the World Masturbation Record

It was a blustery cold night in November. A few friends of mine who would eventually go on to become homeowners with really good credit and mannerly children all decided to go catch up over a few beers and a delightful dinner. We talked, laughed, and ate some food. Then, we all did the responsible thing, and we all went home to brush our teeth, floss and go to bed. Well, some of us did that.

I was never a big fan of the responsible thing myself, so I decided to go with this guy I knew, who knew another guy, who knew a bunch of other guys who were partying in the next town over. It only made sense for me to go with them because I still wanted to party too. I use the term "partying" loosely. Partying could mean anything from drinking champagne with supermodels and P-Diddy on a yacht in South Beach to standing around a kerosene heater in a garage in rural Pennsylvania and drinking Bush pounders.

The guys I met in the garage that evening were all really skinny and their teeth were all bad. Naturally, the first thought that crossed my mind was that these guys were all marathon runners who had poor dental plans. I found chain-smoking cigarettes and drinking beer at four in the morning to be a rather odd training regimen for a marathon, but I never ran a marathon before, so I figured all these guys knew what they were doing.

Later that evening I discovered that they weren't marathon runners at all. They were so skinny and had such bad teeth because they were all on meth. I only figured that out when they pulled out a baggy of some yellow stuff and were all like, "Hey buddy, do you want to do some meth?"

They dumped a bunch of it out onto a table and cut me a line. It looked like a wee bit much, and I was a little nervous about doing so much meth, but they assured me that it was ok and that it was a normal amount. After I snorted it all up, my eyes began to water, and I began gagging from the terrible taste of ammonia and lantern fuel that I had just recreationally ingested into my body.

They all busted out laughing as they proceeded to tell me that was the most meth they ever saw anyone do. Oh, those zany meth-heads were up to their old tricks again. They were just playing a practical joke on me. They thought it would be funny to trick me into doing the world's biggest line of meth, big enough to possibly kill me. Those jokesters were a real hoot. They were always up to some sort of madcap shenanigans. Very funny, guys! You got me!

I've never done meth before, and I've never done meth since, but I did meth on that night, and I did a lot of it. I might have even done what some experts might call too much meth.

After several hours in that garage, the sun started coming up, but the meth-heads showed no signs of stopping. They kept doing more meth, drinking more beer, and they kept talking about the completely insane and nonsensical stuff that people who have been up for four days straight on meth usually talk about. I wasn't really paying much attention to exactly what they were all talking about. I was much more concerned with my own state of delusional paranoia, and I was too focused on trying to keep my heart from exploding to engage in any sort of light conversation.

Don't get me wrong. I like to party and do drugs as much as the next guy, but even this was a tad bit excessive, even for me. So, when they started cutting out more lines, I snuck out the back like I was going to take a piss, and I just kept walking to my car. If I stayed there any longer, I may have had a panic attack or a mini-stroke, which are classic symptoms of having done too much meth.

I didn't know where to go or what to do so I just smoked cigarettes and I ground my teeth a lot, which are also symptoms of having done too much meth. I went home and tried to fall asleep, but my eyes wouldn't stay shut. I would close them for a few seconds, but they would immediately pop right back open again. It appeared as though the meth had broken my eyelids.

With broken eyelids and a temporary state of paranoid schizophrenia, there was only one thing left to do. I needed to go on an adventure. I decided to go looking for an epic beast known only as "Coke Monster."

One of the gentleman meth addicts from the night before told me all about the Coke Monster. He claimed to have seen it several times while doing God knows what up in the coal mines just outside of town. He said it was big, white, and furry, and it had beady red eyes. What he was describing was eerily similar to the Abominable Snow Man in the Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer Christmas Special. At first, I thought this was just another one of the meth-addict's gags, and he was just messing with me, but then he began crying and trembling with fear when he spoke of this horrific beast. It was then that I knew, this was all too real.

I decided that I needed to see this creature for myself. I needed to know if this beast was out there or if this was just some sort of a hoax like Bigfoot or mountain lions. I went out that morning to fulfill my destiny and embark on the greatest adventure of all time, but first I had to get my dog. Everyone knows that a good adventurer must always have a dog. His name was Angus, and he was my wise and noble friend. I tried to look to Angus for advice, but he couldn't tell me what he thought of this adventure because I hadn't done enough meth to be able to talk to dogs yet.

Even though he couldn't talk to me, I could still tell by the look in his eyes that he thought this was a bad idea. He had this look of disgust on his face, and I could tell that he was judging me. It was the same look he had when he watched me have sex with drunk skanks that I brought home from the bar. I had come to know that look all too well.

The sun finally came up, and it was time for Angus and me to make our move. I figured if Coke Monster's habits were like other wild animals such as deer, bears, rabbits, yetis, and that sort of thing, he would be up and moving at sunrise. So, we walked up the hill past some of the heavy equipment used for the mine, then back down the hill, then up a hill, then back down another one. We walked and walked and walked until we covered every last mile of that mine and back again. My feet had blisters, and poor old Angus was limping and tired. Plus, I drank all the beer I had brought in my backpack, so we had no choice but to return.

We never did find Coke Monster that day, or any other day for that matter. We did not even see any signs of a giant Coke Monster. There were no giant white Coke Monster furballs, or giant Coke Monster shits, or any giant Coke Monster footprints, or any half-eaten deer carcasses that may have been ravaged by a giant Coke Monster. There were none of the usual clues you might find in a coal mine inhabited by a giant Coke Monster. There was only some illegally dumped garbage, such as random furniture, old household appliances like washers, and there were a few old stoves. There were also lots of crushed beer cans from other likeminded people who must have been on Coke Monster expeditions of their own, but there was no Coke Monster.

You know what? Now that I think about it, if I didn't know any better, I would say that the Coke Monster wasn't real. I'd bet that the guy who told me about it just imagined the whole thing because he was a meth addict, and sometimes meth addicts imagine things.

Of course, that is just one theory. There has been very little research done on the topic of Coke Monsters. People are always too caught up with Big Foot, Loch Ness, and aliens to pay attention to the much lesser known Coke Monster. For all we know about the Coke Monster, he may still be out there roaming around those mountains, terrorizing people with his scary white fur and his beady red eyes.

I returned from my journey sometime in the mid-afternoon. I figured all that adventure would have tired me out, so I tried to lay down again for a little, but my eyes popped right back open again. I couldn't believe it. My fucking eyelids were still broke, and I was still probably clinically insane, so I got out of bed and went out on my parent's deck to try and gather myself.

Soon enough, my nosey mom came out snooping around because she heard me talking to myself while I was frantically pacing around and chain-smoking. She started yelling "You're on something! What are you on? I am calling the cops on you, you son of a bitch." My mom was a real comedian, and she used to always joke around with me about calling the cops whenever she thought I was on something.

It was almost 24 hours since I snorted the world's largest line of meth, and there were still no signs of sleep or sanity. I was really starting to get bored of pacing around and chain-smoking, but there was nothing else to do on a Sunday night in a small town while you're on meth.

If you ever find yourself in a similar position where you are trying to set the world record for meth, or even if you simply wanted to go on a binge for a few days, I would recommend that you do it someplace where they have fun stuff like strippers, nightclubs, casinos, roller coasters, waterparks, maybe even go-karts, or mini-golf. It would probably behoove you to do lots of meth in a place like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, or even Disney World. There is nothing to do in shitty Pennsylvania except pace around and smoke cigarettes, which is a really terrible way to spend being awake for seventy-two hours straight.

I am not trying to say that you shouldn't do meth, and I am not saying that you shouldn't visit rural Pennsylvania either. All I am saying is that if you are ever going to be up for three days straight on meth, it would be nice to be able to see Epcot Center or maybe a stripper at some point.

There I was, bored and wide awake, completely unable to fall asleep. I even tried counting sheep, but it was no use. After ten hours, I counted well over two million sheep, setting yet another world record.

I got out of bed the next morning and went to work like I usually do. I got about halfway there when it dawned on me. I hadn't slept in 2 days, my eyelids were still broken, and I was still probably clinically insane.

Personally, I didn't think it was a big deal, but I was worried that my boss and those other two assholes, Gerald and Maria, wouldn't see it the same way. Those jerks might have tried to have me fired, arrested, or committed to a psychiatric ward. I couldn't afford to take that chance. I had no choice but to call in sick.

I found the nearest payphone and called my boss trying to do my best impersonation of a person who was not clinically insane from drug use. I tried to think of something that a sane person might say, so I told her that I had a cold. She told me that it was no problem and to try and get some rest. That dummy bought it hook, line, and sinker.

Now there was only one thing left to do, so I checked into a dingy motel in a small town called Cumbyville. I assume that it was used mostly by truck drivers, people having affairs, and other likeminded people who were also hiding out on drug binges. I only say that because I can't see many tourists visiting a place like Cumbyville, even if there was a KFC there.

The Indian man at the front desk was very nice and he gave me the keys without judging me, which is more than I could say about my own family. Their shitty attitudes towards me and my drug use were the very reason that I had to hide in a motel in the first place.

Even though the Indian man was very nice, I still didn't trust him. It is hard to trust anyone after you've done too much meth. I didn't think the cops were looking for me, but if they were, I was concerned that he might alert them of my whereabouts, so I locked the doors and closed all the blinds. Then, I did what anyone else would have done in my situation.

I stripped completely naked and watched The Goonies. Then I masturbated. I masturbated and masturbated, and when I couldn't think of anything else to do, I masturbated some more. I must have masturbated twenty times that day, which probably broke the world record.

It was around four o'clock when I finally left the hotel room. I cleaned up pretty well, all things considered. You know how sometimes you see someone, and they have this look where you could just tell that they spent the last eight hours masturbating in a hotel room. Surprisingly, I didn't have that look at all.

I just looked like a normal guy who was coming home from work, so I confidently returned the key to the Indian man, informing him that I would be checking out from his hotel. Once again, he did not judge me at all. He simply took the key and my money. Now if that were my parents, I would have never heard the end of it. They would have been yelling and screaming like lunatics, asking me what the hell I was doing in that room all day, making all these wild accusations about me being on drugs and masturbating all day. He simply took the key and hung it back on this keyboard. He was a sweet and understanding man. He probably made a good father, and he made me wish that he was my father. I'd bet whenever his son calls in sick and goes to a motel to masturbate all day, he gives him the same nod of approval that he gave me. He was a good man and I will always remember him.

As I was driving home, I began to fall asleep at the wheel. I swerved off the side of the road, and almost crashed into a giant tree, which was the best thing that happened to me in three days. Finally, I was able to sleep again. When I got home, I was able to hold a normal conversation with my mom. I even appeared to have regained my sanity too. It looked as if my plan to call in sick and masturbate in a hotel room all day just might have worked. Every once in a while, one of my plans actually works. Thankfully this was one of those times.

That night I went up to my bedroom and I fell into a deep and restful sleep. The next day I awoke with a new appreciation for all the little things in life that I used to take for granted, things like the birds singing, the sun shining, having eyelids that weren't broken, and not being clinically insane. I swore right then and there that I'd never take anything like that for granted again; because I'll never know when God will force me to accidentally do too much meth again. I had a whole new lease on life, and I relished every little breathe of fresh air that I inhaled as I smoked my cigarettes. For the first time in my life, I wanted to be a better man.

Later that day, while I was doodling and pretending to look busy at work, my boss popped her head into my cubicle to ask me how I was feeling. I turned white as a ghost and began trembling, and I wondered why she would ask such a loaded question. I was worried that she somehow found out what I had been up to all weekend, and she was about to fire me, have me drug tested or even send me off to the looney bin. I just knew it. Then I remembered that I told her that I had a cold when I called in sick the day before. That was why she was asking me how I was feeling. She had no clue about the meth, the temporary insanity, the Coke Monster, the Indian guy, the motel room, the masturbation, the broken eyelids, the not sleeping for three days, none of it. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and told her that I was feeling much better. Then I gave her a big warm smile and thanked her for asking. When she walked away, I went back to drawing a picture of a guy holding a gun. It was an awful picture. I made his fingers too fat and I drew the thumbs on the wrong side of his hand. I was never good at drawing hands, but that didn't even matter to me anymore. I was just glad that everyone was relieved I had gotten over my cold.

# How To Start A Drug Empire

I was starting to turn into one of those young successful upwardly mobile professionals that you are always reading about in Forbes and Men's Health. I wore a shirt and tie to work every day. I had a gym membership, and I was even in a fantasy football league. My future was bright.

My typical Friday night was that of any other young upwardly mobile professional. I would yell at my mom for not washing my favorite jeans, then I would have her make me dinner before I would get shitfaced drunk with my friends. After I would get good and drunk, I would go stand in front of this building where children put the parents they don't want anymore. I believe it was a nursing home of some sort.

Even though some of the old ladies who lived there were probably very attractive forty or fifty years ago and were probably freaks in bed, I wasn't there to try and seduce any of them. Eighty-year-old women were never really my type. I was loitering in front of a nursing home because I was waiting to get picked up by this fat girl who was stuffed into a tiny red Daytona. Sometimes, she would pick me up after the bars closed and give me a handjob in the alley behind my parent's house. I was hoping this would be one of those times.

I was standing there in front of that nursing home just minding my own business when suddenly a car pulled in with its engine roaring and music blasting. They pulled to the side of the curb and waved for me to come closer, only it was no red Dodge Daytona. This time it was an old Buick Century. It had rusted quarter panels and it was missing one of the front hubcaps. It was a real beat-up old car, and I wasn't sure how it even passed a Pennsylvania state inspection or emissions test.

I was hesitant to get in the car at first, as I was always told that I should never get in a car with strangers because strangers could be dangerous men who want to kill you. On the other hand, a stranger in a car could also be a girl who wants to have sex with you. That is why I decided to get in the car. It was just the chance that I was going to have to take.

When I got in the car, the people driving were not men who wanted to kill me, and it was not a woman who wanted to have sex with me either. It was something in between. It was two high school kids, and they asked me to buy them some beer in exchange for the drugs they had. That seemed like a fair trade to me, so I accepted their offer and got in the car.

We talked a little, but the conversation was fuzzy since we were all shouting over the loud heavy metal music. Then suddenly, they whipped out this giant marijuana cigarette and asked me if I wanted to smoke it with them. At first, I said no. I was already pretty drunk and I knew that smoking weed would just make me pass out or throw up, but they were two persistent little buggers and they kept passing it back to me, waving it in my face and taunting me with it, calling me names like pussy and faggot. Always being a strong proponent of marijuana and peer pressure, I decided to smoke it.

We were passing it back and forth to each other without any problems until the wind from my open window blew the cherry off the joint, and it landed on right on my arm. I was so relaxed and high that I didn't even notice the small hole burning into my arm.

It wasn't until the kid in the front seat brought it to my attention. I believe he yelled, "Holy shit! That guy's fucking arm is on fire!" He looked on with horror and disbelief at the small fire that had started on my forearm. You would have thought he just saw an alien or a hot dog eating contest. Now I am not claiming to be an alien or a hot dog eating champion. I am just a normal guy who happens to feel no pain when he is drunk and stoned. Please don't misconstrue this as bragging or self-aggrandizing in any way. My name shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as some of the all-time greats like ET or Joey Chestnut. That is not my intention with this part of the story. This just happens to be a unique talent of mine that I developed over the many years I spent accidentally hurting myself while I was drunk or stoned.

I nonchalantly knocked the hot ember off my arm in a real smooth, macho way, the same way Luke Perry would have done if the same thing happened to him on Beverly Hills 90210. The young kids thought that was the coolest thing they had ever seen. They were laughing hysterically and high fiving each other about it for the next several minutes. I knew right then and there that my feat of bravery and courage had indeed won the respect of these two young and noble high school burnouts, and now we had a deeper and more meaningful connection. We were now friends for life. We were blood brothers.

I then returned to nodding in and out of consciousness, when I was suddenly hit with one of my pretty good ideas. It was one of the most brilliant pretty good ideas that anyone has ever thought of. It was even better than the Snuggie or Beanie Babies.

I wanted to share my stroke of genius with my new friends, as they would play an integral part in my plan. Unfortunately, I had smoked too much weed and was no longer able to speak, so my idea had to remain in my brain where it swirled around, incubating and getting stronger. With each mile we drove, and each beer I consumed, my pretty good plan was making more and more sense. I couldn't wait until the weed wore off so I would be able to speak again and share it with them. I knew those two little high school burnouts would love my plan, and they would be so proud of me for thinking of it.

Catching my arm on fire had won the boys' trust enough to take me to some random lady's apartment. She was a free spirit in the purest sense of the word, and like most free spirits, she was fat and lying on a dirty blue mattress with no sheets or pillows. There was not even a box spring or frame; she was that much of a free spirit. It was just a dirty blue mattress, smack dab, right in the middle of the goddamn floor.

Now I have met some free spirits before. I once dated a girl who followed Phish, and I even did whippets with some guy who never wore shoes, but this lady sure did take the cake. She didn't have a care in the world. She was so free-spirited that she didn't even wash this nightgown that she was wearing. It looked like it hadn't been washed in days... no, months...no, forever. It probably had not been washed in forever. She never once washed her nightgown. That was how much of a free spirit she was.

It was all scrunched up around her waist revealing her cellulite riddled mammoth upper thighs and all the deep fleshy crevasses of fat rolls that made up her bottom half. She was surrounded by crushed soda cans, empty iced tea cartons, pizza boxes, and other garbage that had been gaily strewn about the room. She was so carefree that she didn't even care that two high school burnouts and a strange man had just shown up at her apartment in the middle of the night.

She was a little on the grotesque side, but I still had a great deal of respect for her and her free-spirit ways. Being comfortable enough to be fat, dirty and smelly while you lie in a large pile of rubbish is a rare quality in people these days. She was a true non-conformist and a real breath of fresh air in today's image-conscious society. As we talked, drank beer, and smoked cigarettes, we flicked our butts and threw our crushed beer cans right onto her bedroom floor as a symbolic fuck you to orthodox thinking and the establishment's rules that tell us that we have to do things like put stuff in the trash.

The whole time we were there my pretty good plan was swirling around in my head and gaining traction. It would soon hatch from its gestation period and be revealed to my new friends. But first, the boys revealed the woman's real identity and the purpose of our visit.

We weren't only there to drink warm beer and ash our cigarettes all over this woman's floor. We were there with a greater purpose in mind. Suddenly, it all made sense to me. All that garbage, the dirty nightgown, the disgusting fat, the not giving a shit about anything, it all became perfectly clear to me who this woman really was and why we were there.

Do you remember earlier when I said that I thought that she was a free spirit because she was fat, smelled bad and was lying on a dirty mattress surrounded by a heap of garbage? Well, I totally forgot that drug addicts like to do the same stuff. I had this woman pegged all wrong.

As it turned out, she was not a free spirit at all. She was a drug addict. I was able to tell this by the big bag of drugs she had on her nightstand. That is usually a very telling sign that someone is a drug addict. All of her drugs were pain medications that they give to cancer patients. Or maybe she really did have cancer. Who knows? I never bothered to ask. It didn't really matter to me. I wasn't there to judge. It's all just semantics anyway, potato/patato, tomato/tamato, cancer patient/drug addict.

The important thing was that she had all sorts of drugs, and she was going to share them with us. The drug of choice for the evening was Oxycodone, a pain medication given to cancer patients. I knew that this was a dangerous drug that could possibly kill me, but I didn't want to be a rude house guest, so I took the drug.

That was when I decided it was time to tell them the plan. I presented it to them as a business opportunity. I explained to them that we would be partners with an even 50/50 split of all the profits. This got their attention rather quickly, as drug addicts and high school burnouts love business proposals. It felt like I was on the Shark Tank.

I told them all about where I worked and all the free Klonopin, Adderall, Seroquel, Thorazine, Xanax, and every other psychotropic drug they had there. As I had suspected, they were immediately impressed. Then I unveiled to them the brilliant plan that I had tirelessly been working on for the past hour. Basically, the plan was that I would steal the drugs from work, and I would give it to them, and then they would sell it at the high school. They didn't ask about operating costs or profit margins or anything they might ask on the Shark Tank. They did, however, inform me that they had dropped out of high school, but that they still had plenty of friends who would buy the drugs. We then had to go to Plan B which was to sell it to all those people instead.

We were all excited about the plan, and everyone bought in. It was not very complicated, but it seemed to be foolproof, and we all agreed that it would work. Even the fat, smelly, drug-addict lady nodded in agreement from dirty her blue mattress that it was a pretty good plan. We celebrated our new business partnership by doing more drugs, drinking more warm beer, and flicking cigarette butts all over the floor until the wee hours of the morning.

When I awoke the next day, I realized that my plan was never going to work because there was one crucial piece missing that was vital to all business models. I had forgotten the names of all the people I worked with, and I only vaguely recalled what they looked like. These were all crucial components to starting a business. Yet somehow, I overlooked them.

If I wanted to build a drug empire from the ground up, just like all the movies about guys who start drug empires from the ground up, I needed to remember the names of my partners. Tony Montana had Manny in Scarface, Nino Brown had the Cash Money Brothers in New Jack City, and even Jay had Silent Bob. If I was ever going to get rich beyond my wildest dreams and skyrocket to the top of the dark seedless underworld of dealing criminal narcotics, I needed to find my sidekicks.

Unfortunately, life is not like the movies, and I never did find my sidekicks or remember their names either. My drug empire had failed, and I was now left to question my own existence. I kept wondering if I would ever do anything meaningful with my life.

The plans God had for me still hung out there in the ether, and I became plagued with self-doubt and uncertainty in my ability to ever accomplish anything with my life. As the sun went down on that peaceful Sunday evening, I looked out my bedroom window into the evening dusk that had cast an infinite shadow over this small lifeless town as I became lost in an existential daydream. After I smoked a roach and masturbated to pictures of a few old girlfriends I wiped up the mess with an old sock, and I gazed outward into the night sky wondering what it all meant.

Looking back on everything that happened now with the benefit of hindsight, I realize that there was a reason God had made me forget the names of those little burnout high school dropouts. It was because God didn't want me to start a drug cartel and own a private jet and have a hot wife with huge fake tits. He had other plans for me that I didn't fully understand at the time.

I realize that he used this experience to teach me a very valuable life lesson. I learned that sometimes things are not always going to go the way that you had planned, and there are no real shortcuts in life. If you want to be a success in life you must work hard and do things honestly and earnestly. Doing things that are immoral and wrong to get ahead will never bring you true contentment and inner peace no matter how many mansions or jet skis you own. I learned that true happiness and real success come to those people who follow the path God chose for them. I also learned that Oxycodone makes you itchy.

# The U-S-A Chant Heard Round the World

I was probably around twenty-two years old when I was faced with the first tough decision that I ever had to make as a real adult. It wasn't like most of the other humdrum decisions that average adults are faced with these days like where to get a job, what kind of car to buy, or if they should become a man or a woman.

This was much more complicated than any of that, and probably had the most resounding consequences of any decision that anyone has ever had to make in the history of mankind, except for maybe that pilot Sully Sullenberger or perhaps Jesus. So, it was probably the third hardest decision that anyone ever had to make. I knew that if I didn't think it through properly and I made the wrong choice, the consequences would be so catastrophic that they would haunt me forever, and possibly leave a permanent scar on the legacy of mankind for all eternity. That was how great the magnitude of this decision was.

That is the thing about making decisions. Doing the right thing never comes easy. I guess that is all part of God's great design. He puts us in positions to have to make sacrifices and experience suffering so we build character and evolve into better people who don't smoke, drink, swear, gamble, eat delicious foods, have casual unprotected sex, smoke weed, or use up all of our sick days to go golfing. The choice I made that day would ultimately cost me my job, but in the end, it may have saved millions upon millions and even more millions of lives. Let me start from the very beginning.

It was the spring of 2002. The country was still reeling from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, and there was still major upheaval throughout the world. And even though I hadn't lost any loved ones in the attack, I didn't try to help anyone involved in any way, and I have never served in any branches of the military, nor did I make any real sacrifices for the country, I was still a true patriot in every sense of the word.

I did everything within my means to help this great country in her time of need. I started by watching lots of news coverage to help with CNN's ratings, but somehow that didn't seem like enough. I felt like I could still be doing more. I needed to figure out how I could help my American brethren in their time of suffering and need, but without inconveniencing myself too much, as I was never really a big fan of inconveniencing myself.

I was always more of a quality of life kind of guy, and I liked to practice moderation when it came to stuff like helping others. Besides, I knew that helping others wasn't really where my strength lied. My strength was in being a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen, who is possibly the greatest American of our time.

My plan was that I would buy his new 9/11 tribute album, then I would go see him perform live in concert in Philadelphia to promote the album. At the concert, I would show my support for the country and our troops by getting sloppy drunk and singing along really obnoxiously to all the songs that I thought were about 9/11. Then in a heroic display of patriotism, I would start a USA chant in the parking lot while tailgating, preferably while waving around an American flag. I saw another drunk guy do that once at a Toby Keith concert and it was very moving. It seemed like that was the least I could do to give back to this great country who always gave me such big tax returns every year.

I wasn't sure if any of the proceeds from the concert would be going to the families of the survivors, NYFD, NYPD or any other causes related to 9/11, but I did know one real American hero who would be getting the proceeds, Bruce Springsteen. The same Bruce Springsteen who wrote Born in the USA. The same Bruce Springsteen who happened to be in America on the same day of the attacks. The same Bruce Springsteen who wrote Thunder Road, which is one of my top 10 favorite songs. Bruce Springsteen is as American as apple pie or The Beatles. He is probably one of the strongest supporters of American values and freedom, and I could not think of a better way to show my support for America than to support one of America's biggest supporters. I would buy his album and see his concert, then let him donate my money to whatever he likes, or at least buy himself a new yacht.

I don't really like to donate money or help people directly. I like to give my money to famous rich people and then let them donate it for me. I could have given my money to some charity to help the families or NYPD or NYFD. I could have even donated the money to poor people or people with cancer, but what would have been the fun in that? Those people can't play the guitar nearly as good as Bruce.

Besides, if I give my money to charity to help someone with cancer, they are probably just going to take my money and then die anyway. And if I give my money to a poor person, they will just spend it and be poor again the next day. It just seems frivolous and stupid to throw your money away on things like cancer and poor people.

Now if I give my money to someone like Bruce Springsteen, he will put that money to good use and buy himself a mansion or a new car. He will even give some of it away to things like poor people and cancer as a tax write-off anyway. Not many people know this, but many celebrities are very altruistic and philanthropic, but they tend to be very quiet and unanimous with their charity work. In fact, the only reason I even know anything about celebrities who donate to charity is that I found a bunch of articles on the Internet listing all the celebrities who donate unanimously to charities.

Here is why it is better to give your money to famous people and let them be the ones who decide what charity to give it to. For starters, famous people are way smarter than you and I. Famous people know way more about charity and politics than non-famous people. That is why most of them can never shut the fuck up about it. Secondly, let's say that I did give sixty-five dollars to children with muscular dystrophy. Those kids are not going to sing me a twelve-minute version of Born to Run, and even if they did, it still wouldn't be better than Bruce. If I just give the same sixty-five dollars to Bruce Springsteen instead, he will still give some of it to charity for things like children with muscular dystrophy anyway. Then he can then write that money off in his taxes, and I can still get wasted and hear the twelve-minute version of Born to Run. When you just sit back and let famous people do all your charity work for you, everyone wins.

So, I went out and bought The Rising to support America. I listened to it over and over so I could learn all the words to the songs about 9/11, then I got some tickets to see Bruce perform at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. Next, I got myself a bottle of Jagermeister so I could get drunk before the show and not have to buy too many ten-dollar beers because none of that money was going to charity. Then I bought some weed from a guy I knew. I don't think he was donating any of that money to charity either, but I really like weed.

My plan was working out perfectly, until...well, let's just say there is a saying that life happens when you are busy making plans. In my case, it was a crazy guy who wanted to go on a killing spree that happened when I was busy making plans.

One of the patients on my caseload was this really scary guy who killed his girlfriend's dog with his bare hands, and another time he was in a standoff with the police. Wouldn't you know it? Right as I was getting ready to leave for the concert this guy started with his shenanigans again. This time he called me and told me that he had put Hell on his arm and that he wanted to kill someone. Of all the times to put Hell on his arm and want to go on a homicidal killing spree, it had to be right when I was about to leave for the fucking Bruce Springsteen concert. That was just my luck.

I had to decide. I could have called this guy in to have him evaluated by a doctor for a commitment to inpatient psychiatric treatment, but that could have taken hours and possibly ruined my evening. My only other option was to call his bluff. Always being a gambling man, I figured I would roll the dice. In forty-two years, he only ever tried to kill people. He never actually did it. I liked my odds, so I left a message for my boss telling her all about it, then I skedaddled home to get ready for the concert.

As soon as I got home, my mom told me that my boss called and said that I had to go back to work because there was an emergency. I was so mad. What could possibly be more important than a Bruce Springsteen concert? I couldn't believe that she was calling me to go back to work. She knew I had these tickets. I tried to call her back but there was no answer, so I had to drive all the way back to work, which was completely out of my way.

When I got there the homicidal maniac with hell on his arm was already there. I knew he wasn't really going to kill anyone, and it was all just a ruse to try to get me in trouble with my boss. The only way I was ever going to see Bruce was to get this faker committed to inpatient psychiatric treatment as fast as I could. The first thing I asked him was to show me Hell on his arm, which was only the word H-E-L-L carved into his arm with a hunting knife. It was not an actual portal to Hell like I had thought, so it was kind of disappointing.

He did have a pretty good maniacal laugh though, and with the blood pouring out of the word hell carved into his arm, I must admit, it was kind of badass. I'll have to give him some credit for that. He had this whole Ozzy Osborne Black Sabbath thing going on with this blank, drugged-out, crazed look in his eyes, which was super scary. I'd bet he would have been even scarier if I saw him on a haunted hayride.

I was a little surprised at how terrifying he looked in person. He made Michael Myers look like one of the Wiggles, and if I didn't know better, I would have sworn that he wasn't faking it. When I was on the phone with him earlier he did keep saying something about vodka, pills, Depakote, and death to all, but I couldn't understand him all too well, and to be honest I wasn't really paying attention because I was just trying to get him off the phone so I wouldn't be late for the concert.

I rushed him over to the inpatient unit for an evaluation, and the entire time he kept doing the whole crazed lunatic shtick. He was so good at pretending to be a homicidal maniac that he could have won an Oscar. He was even better than Heath Ledger as The Joker. During the whole entire evaluation with the doctor, he kept doing the whole blank stare, crazy laugh, blood dripping down his arm thing, and he didn't break character once. He had the doctor fooled completely and he was committed immediately.

I checked my watch. It was only a little after five. I was going to make it! I walked briskly back over to the partial day program to finish up the paperwork, then right as I was leaving my boss stopped me. I assumed she was going to thank me for being so brave and selfless in how I had just nobly locked up that crazed would-be-killer. Instead, she told me that I showed poor judgment and that we need to meet and discuss the consequences of my decision. She informed me that this was serious enough to lead to possible termination and that we had to meet first thing Monday morning with some guy named Howard, the fat staff psychologist to discuss the course of disciplinary action.

She had no gratitude whatsoever. The guy only said he was going to kill someone. He didn't actually do it. I threaten to kill someone at least fifty times a day while I am driving. That doesn't mean I am really going to do it. Besides, I came back to put him away anyway. If anything, I should have been firing her for almost making me miss my concert. In any case, I didn't have time to argue. I had a Bruce Springsteen concert to get to, and the greatest country in the whole world to support. I already saved at least one life for the day. Now it was time to save a whole fucking country.

I needed to be as drunk as humanly possible for the concert so I would have the courage to start a U-S-A chant. So, as soon as I got there, I chugged down an entire bottle of Jager. I drank so much Jager that I threw up all over my shirt. That was when I knew it was time. All the hard work was done. Now I was only focused on one thing, and that was starting the greatest USA chant in America's proud history.

Before the concert even began, I started chanting U-S-A, U-S-A, but no one joined in or seemed to understand what I was trying to accomplish. At first, no one looked to me to be the leader who would take charge of this epic display of patriotism. Instead, they all looked at me like I was just some stupid drunk asshole with throw-up on his shirt.

This wasn't going to be easy. Now I knew how our forefathers felt hunkered down on Omaha beach taking on heavy Nazi fire, or when my dad was just a scared young kid stationed in Danang during the Vietnam war, or when the troops bravely followed Washington across the Delaware River on that fateful chilly spring morning.

I wasn't going to give up. I was going to start a U-S-A chant. It didn't matter how many ten-dollar beers I had to drink to do it. The show started and I sang along with all the songs Bruce released to capitalize on...I mean support the victims of 9/11.

As the music pulsed into the night, the crowd fused into one living breathing American organism. We had become one solitary united front of patriotism. It was time. I waited until after the concert, right after the second encore of Born to Run. That was when the crowd's energy would be at its peak.

As soon as the music stopped, I took a deep breath, and with everything I had I let out the loudest, proudest, drunk U-S-A chant that anyone ever heard in the history of all mankind. It was glorious as it echoed through the concrete and steel girders of Lincoln Financial Field. What transpired after that concert was possibly one of the greatest moments in American history. It was so magical, that it still gives me the chills to think about it even today.

People possibly even drunker than I was heard my bellowing siren of hope and felt the urge to come rushing over to join in. Strangers who have never spoken to each other before banded together to share in this one common love of being drunk, Bruce Springsteen, and the USA. In one fell swoop everyone, the blacks, the gays, the Jews, men, women, lesbians, trannies, and even the people in wheelchairs exiting through the handicap accessible ramps; we all put our differences aside and focused only on getting out of the stadium and to our cars and performing the greatest U-S-A chant in all of American history.

There were people of all different creeds and colors, but mostly whites because not a lot of black people like Bruce Springsteen. Even if there were black people there, they were probably chanting U-S-A too. The more we chanted; the more people heard, and the more people joined in. Before long, the entire breezeway exiting our section of the stadium was chanting U-S-A, U-S-A. It was like when Francis Scott Key wrote the Star-Spangled Banner and saw the ramparts red glare only way more patriotic. We chanted so loud and so proud that I am sure Osama Bin Laden himself heard it halfway around the world, or wherever the Middle East is.

For an encore, I did it again later that night. This time is it wasn't as grandiose, but it was equally as patriotic. It was right after my friend got knocked out outside of a bar. He was lying there unconscious, and the three hoodlums who jumped him had run off, so I did the only thing I could think of. I stole a flag from a porch and waved it around chanting U-S-A with a few of my friends. I wanted to let all the terrorists and those guys who had just beat up my friend know that we weren't afraid of any of their terrorism or sucker punches to the back of the head. In the words of George Bush, it was, "Mission Accomplished." I had set a goal for myself to start a U-S-A chant at a Bruce Springsteen concert, and through my dedication and perseverance, I accomplished that goal.

I've said it before, or maybe I didn't, but I am saying it now. Or maybe, I am just stealing the quote from Walt Whitman. We must define the moment, or it will define us. Sure, I could have easily taken the cowardly way out, and just gone home after being told that I was going to possibly be fired. And I could have just as easily not gotten embarrassingly drunk and began chanting U-S-A, but I didn't give up. For once in my life, I defined the moment, and it was my finest hour not only as an American but as a man.

I'll never regret a thing I did that day. There would be many other jobs to be fired from, but there was only one Bruce Springsteen concert to go to. Well, there are lots of Bruce Springsteen concerts to go to, but there was only Bruce Springsteen concert that I already purchased tickets for and didn't have time to resell. And as for my friend who got knocked out outside of that bar, well he was a little pissed that I just let him lay there like that instead of helping him. What my friend failed to realize was that by me having the courage to hold to my convictions and chant U-S-A instead of helping him, I was actually helping the whole country. Even though we sort of lost touch after that, I think he eventually understood what I was trying to do.

I am not sure if it is just a coincidence, but since I went to that concert in Philadelphia and started the greatest U-S-A chant in history, there has not been another terrorist attack on American soil. Maybe it is because of strategic offensive attacks on terrorist groups led by our U. S. military and highly trained Special Forces. It could be because Seal Team 6 killed Osama Bin Laden in a precise and well-executed mission, or maybe it is because of the heightened security in our airports and all the extra precautions taken around the country to prevent another terrorist attack.

Maybe, just maybe, it was the U-S-A chant that I started in the breezeway of Lincoln Financial Field that stopped terrorism dead in its tracks. If I had not defined that moment and started the greatest U. S. A chant of all time, maybe Al-Qaeda would have continued its attacks on the United States. Perhaps they would have covered the face of the Statue of Liberty with a burka, niqab, or hijab. They might have even blown her up or raped her. If I didn't go to that concert, it is quite possible that Osama Bin Laden would have easily become President of the United States and possibly the whole entire world. I am not sure how many lives I saved the night when I started the single greatest U. S. A. chant in the history of mankind. I am guessing it probably somewhere in the gazillions. You don't have to say it. You're welcome, America.

# The Subtle Art of Getting Fired

I am just like everyone else when it comes to Mondays. I hate them. I hate Mondays so much that I once got a mug as a Secret Santa present from one of the secretaries at work that said, "I Hate Mondays." That sweet old lady also got me a gift card from Applebee's too, which was fucking stupid because I never even told her that I liked Applebee's. Applebee's is only like my 6th favorite restaurant, but that really didn't matter because I ended up losing the gift card anyway.

My point is that I hate Mondays. There is such a feeling of dread and hopelessness that reign over me on a Monday that it feels as if I cannot go on another day. The thought of another soul-crushing workweek becomes so emotionally draining that I often sit on the toilet, paralyzed by the sad, miserable existence brought on by the oppression and servitude to the never-ending carousel of domineering bosses and pointless jobs to the point where I find it a struggle to wipe my ass in the morning.

Sometimes on a Monday morning, the struggle becomes so real and the depression so crippling that I often contemplate suicide. That is when I call in sick so I can cozy up in my jammies all morning and watch Good Morning America and Ellen. I'm not a huge fan of Good Morning America or Ellen but watching morning talk shows is still way better than committing suicide.

There was one Monday in particular that I remember hating. It was the Monday after I led the single greatest U-S-A chant in American history. There would be no calling in sick on this Monday. There would be no lesbians talk shows, no pleasantries exchanged on Good Morning America, no napping or lying around in my underwear all day. This was one Monday that I was going to have to face. It had become known as the most hated Monday in the history of all Mondays.

I had to meet with my boss and her boss to discuss my possible termination from work. I had a whole weekend to prepare a statement that would show them that I was, in fact, a good dedicated employee who just had one terrible lapse in judgment. I needed to assure them that something like this will never happen again, and somehow convince them to see the benefits of letting me keep my job.

I was going to spend the whole weekend carefully planning out how I would approach the meeting by methodically and deliberately rehearsing each answer to every question I felt they might ask. My plan was to really prepare what I would say and say it with such an impassioned and well-thought-out delivery that they would be left with no choice but to allow me to keep my job, and possibly even promote me.

The only problem was that I had a fantasy football draft on Saturday, and Sundays were ten cent wing night at this bar down from my house, so I didn't have time to even think about possibly being fired that Monday. This left me with my only other option, which was to say that I was sorry and beg them to let me keep my job. I figured that if I just issued an apology the same way famous people do when they do something terrible, I might be forgiven. It worked for Mel Gibson after he told people he hated Jews, and it worked Chris Brown after he beat up a woman. It even worked for Mike Vick after he killed a bunch of dogs.

My only hope was that it would now work for me too, but then I remembered that I was also lazy, incompetent, chronically late, unprofessional, and everyone at work always talked shit on me. Not to mention, I was never in any of the Lethal Weapons, I can't run as fast as Mike Vick, and I never even met Rhianna, let alone beat the living shit out of her.

I was as good as gone. It did not matter how sorry I pretended to be. Nothing I would say or do was ever going to change their minds. The writing was on the wall. I was doomed.

Suddenly, like a celestial bolt of lightning struck down upon me by the heavens, I was hit with a pretty good idea. If I quit first, those assholes in charge would never get the satisfaction of being able to fire me. I would march right in there and announce to everyone that I was quitting, and there would never have to be a meeting. It was genius.

Without giving it any further thought, I walked right into my boss's office, puffed out my chest, and told her that I would be resigning. She didn't really seem to care either way. She didn't even stop what she was doing. Instead, she just said in a rather condescending way that I need to submit a resignation letter to human resources. Then she reminded me about the meeting with Howard at nine o'clock. Well, that plan backfired, and I still had to go to that stupid meeting where they were going to fire me from a job that I had just quit.

I don't actually recall any of the details of what was said at the meeting. I would be lying if I said I did. The only thing I remember was that there was some fat guy named Howard who was my boss's boss, making him my boss twice removed. Howard sort of looked like Mr. Rogers if Mr. Rodgers grew a beard and got really fat.

He must have eaten a pastry for breakfast, perhaps a bagel or Danish of some sort because there was a terrible mess of crumbs in his beard. I became so distracted by the crumbs in his beard that I lost sight of the whole meeting entirely. I was fascinated by him. How could a man of such influence and intelligence not know that he had crumbs in his beard? Or perhaps he did know that he had crumbs in his beard and simply didn't care, just like when my pop-pop used to leave really loud farts in public after he got too old to give a fuck anymore.

As he talked at me, some of the looser crumbs fell onto his fat belly, while other crumbs remained embedded in the thick greying curled hairs of his beard, likening them to dingleberries that hung firmly to tightly woven strands of asshole hair. I rubbed my face while I was looking at him to signal that he had something on his face, but he didn't seem to notice my gesture or care. He was too far gone, drunk on his own power.

That is all I really remember about the meeting. I suppose I could just lie and make up the whole thing, the same way that one lady did who claimed she was saved from the Nazis by living with a pack of wolves. Sure, it might make me rich and famous like it did for that woman, but that wouldn't be fair to you, the reader. Furthermore, I wouldn't want to compromise the integrity of this memoir. It would not be ethical to provide an inaccurate account of what actually occurred in that meeting, so the best I can do here is merely speculate about what might have possibly happened.

First, I would assume that my boss and Howard sat in chairs like most people would in a meeting. I probably sat in a chair as well. And we all probably looked at each other as we said various things and made a series of gestures and head nods typical of most meetings where people discuss things.

I would also assume that they scolded me and told me about how I handled the whole maniacal killer thing. And I would guess they probably piggybacked off of that and pointed out a few other things they didn't like that I was doing as well, such as being late for work, not handing paperwork in on time, lacking professionalism, and those sorts of things. I can't say for sure, but knowing me and knowing how I am, I would say that I probably didn't respond to that. I probably just had a really stupid blank look on my face and nodded in agreement.

However, I do recall one important aspect of the meeting. It was the part that will be burned into my memory forever. It was right at the end, where they reaffirmed that what I did was reprehensible. Well, they didn't use the exact word, "reprehensible." That was my interpretation for a dramatic effect, but that was basically the gist of what they said.

They told me that under normal circumstances they would have fired me, but since I was resigning, they would let me finish my last two weeks. They also told me that I was to be suspended for a day without pay. Then they told me that I that was being demoted to the Partial II program where they kept all the really crazy people, the ones who were half-retarded, drooled on themselves, smelled bad, and shit their pants. Again, I'm paraphrasing.

On paper, my plan worked. I was able to walk away on my own terms without them firing me, but there was still something missing. I didn't feel like myself anymore. I was usually a pretty happy guy, unless I was drunk or on drugs. In those cases, my mood tended to fluctuate all over the place, but when I was sober, I was usually a very happy person. Now I was just sad all the time, and I couldn't understand why.

I was terribly confused and I found myself navigating through uncharted waters, only this time it was emotional waters. In a weird way, I was going to miss Gerald, Maria, and the way they always talked behind my back, or how my boss would spend her whole day pointing out my every flaw. I was even going to miss that pompous little Indian doctor, and the way he would make me fetch him his ice at lunch, and that fat lady in clerical who used to stalk me after work. I was even going to miss all the rumors that people started about me dating Gay Bob from outpatient. I was even going to miss that strange little fucker, Gay Bob.

I knew that I shouldn't be sad, and I knew that I would not be working there forever. I was a bird who needed to spread his wings and fly. I was not the kind of guy who could be caged up or tied down too long. I was born to be a rambling man if rambling wasn't so fucking expensive. With the price of airfare, gas, tolls, and lodging, I could only imagine what it would cost to be a full-time rambling man. I was barely able to afford a trip to Ocean City, New Jersey last year.

The more that I tried to be happy, the more it felt like I was just pretending not to be sad all the time. I felt like I was holding in my pee, only instead I was holding in my sadness. My battle with depression was starting to take a physical toll on me. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I barely even showered or brushed my teeth. I would try to do the things that used to make me happy in life like go out to bars, smoke weed and masturbate in my bedroom all the time, but that didn't even bring me joy anymore. Well, I guess it brought me a little bit of joy, but not nearly as much as it should have. I was definitely depressed.

# A Spiritual Pilgrimage

Shortly after my last days as a caseworker, I decided that it was time to do some serious soul searching. I needed to heal the damage that had been done to my already fragile and broken psyche. That was when I reached out to my friend who was always losing jobs. He was always very calm, cool and collected in the face of such turmoil and he won numerous unemployment claims over the years. He was something of an unemployment Zen master, so it only made sense for me to turn to him for advice.

I enlisted him to be my spiritual guru to guide me on this journey through the tangled nest of emotions that come with losing a job and to teach me how to win my Unemployment Compensation claim. He would provide me with the knowledge and the wherewithal that I needed to survive the dismal abyss and the existential doom that comes with no longer having purpose or meaning in this world. I hoped that his mentorship would lead me down a path of spiritual healing and perhaps help me win my Unemployment Compensation claim as well.

His practices were a bit unorthodox as far as spiritual gurus go. When I told him that I lost my job, he immediately suggested that we get two cases of beer and go to his hunting camp to shoot guns and ride four-wheelers. I wasn't exactly sure how that would heal my soul or provide any insight into my delicate situation, but I trusted in his infinite wisdom and did exactly what he said.

We spent the whole day riding four-wheelers, shooting guns, and drinking a shit ton of beer. Towards the evening we rode our quads to the highest summit in the camp. It was perched on a rock that overlooked the whole entire valley. We sat there for what felt like an eternity as we gazed off into a breathtaking view of the distant horizon. Neither one of us said a word. Instead, we enjoyed the sounds of silence and calm of the evening twilight as we chugged Miller Lite pounders and chain-smoked cigarettes.

Finally, the guru spoke. He looked me squarely in the eyes and told me to keep my head up. He said not to get too discouraged because when one door closes another door opens, and that life can be confusing at times, but that God had a plan for me and that he loved me. Wait a minute, I think it might have been my mom that told me that.

If I remember correctly, I think what he said was that we should go to the titty bar named "Leave It to Beaver's" that was just down the road from the hunting camp. I knew exactly why he wanted to take me there in my moment of strife. He was trying to show me that even when things are bleak and it seems as if all hope is lost, happiness can still be found in the tits and ass of a stripper.

He taught me a lot about the meaning of life that day, but it started getting late and I had an excruciating headache from all the beer and cigarette smoke, so I put my head down and passed out at the table next to the stage. It wasn't long before the owner, a few of the strippers, and another grizzly looking guy came over to move me away from the stage and tell me that I had to leave. My guru always had an astute intuition and a keen sense of awareness about these kinds of things, so he drug me out of the strip club and threw me into the cab of his pickup truck before the grizzly looking guy beat me up, the strippers robbed me, or the owner called the police.

Things were kind of fuzzy on the ride home, but I will always remember the one thing he told me right before he dropped me off that evening. He told me that the single most important thing to remember when it comes to losing a job was that collecting unemployment is pretty fucking awesome.

I didn't understand it at the time, but I now know why he did what he did on that day. He took me to out to drink a case of beer, shoot some guns, and go to that titty bar because he wanted to show me that I should take life in stride and if I lose my job then I should enjoy the good parts and not focus so much on the negatives. He was trying to show me that I needed to live life every day to the fullest and not let circumstances that are beyond my control get in the way of enjoying life.

It was that, or he just wanted to get drunk and see some titties. Either way, it was a valuable lesson and one that I will never forget. At that end of that evening, we parted ways and I stumbled back home to bed. I did not feel any better about my situation, but I was still glad that I got to shoot guns and look at some pussy.

As the following months ensued, I came to realize that my friend was correct and that collecting unemployment can be pretty fucking awesome, but only if you win your unemployment claim and get to collect unemployment checks. Just because you lost your job, that doesn't mean that the government is just going to start throwing money at you all willy-nilly as if it were some sort of student loan. When it comes to Unemployment Compensation, you must first prove that you are truly a worthy recipient of all this money for nothing. And when you quit for no reason, as I did, it is damn near impossible to get anyone to believe that.

I did not win my unemployment compensation claim, and without that free government money to collect, my time being unemployed was useless. I was no better off than an ordinary bum or a stay at home mom. The only way I was ever going to win my Unemployment Compensation claim from a job that I voluntarily quit was if I was able to prove that I was being harassed or discriminated against. Unfortunately, I was a young, straight, white male, and no one would ever believe that. I wasn't a woman. I wasn't black. I wasn't even an old person or a homosexual. There was nothing I could do or say to get anyone to believe that I was discriminated against and win my unemployment claim.

This is the sad awful truth, but there is just no place in the world of discrimination accusations for white, young, straight males. Simply because of my gender and the color of my skin, I would have to be unjustly denied my basic American right to accuse people of treating me unfairly.

I know that it is not right, but it is the world we live in. We have not evolved enough as a society to recognize the perils and struggles of the white male. That is, of course, unless that white male just so happens to be one of those transgender ones, but I am not talking about those. They get discriminated against all the time.

I am simply talking about ordinary straight, white, young, males. When we get in trouble at work, or if someone says or does something that we don't like there is nothing that we can do or say to Human Resources to change that. Without any disabilities, racial discrimination, gender biases, gay cards, or minority stress, we are left completely powerless and vulnerable to anyone who wants to say or do anything that might hurt our feelings at work.

I have a dream that someday all of this will change, and there will be a white young straight male who will be brave enough to stand up and finally give our people a voice and a discrimination card to finally play. I have a dream that someday, somewhere, someone will pioneer a crusade to make all things equal for everyone, including the young, white, straight male.

I have a dream that a great white hope will rise up like a white male Rosa Parks, and stand up against oppression, so that white males can someday start complaining about people treating them differently, and that they too can use or their skin color, age, gender, or sexual preference to get their own way too. Only then will young white males be able to walk with their heads held high and think that the world owes them something, but until that day comes, I would have to be denied all my unemployment compensation claims when I quit a job.

After I was denied my unemployment benefits claim, I was left asking the age-old question that has burned inside all of us. Is quitting your shitty job worth losing your chance at getting fired and winning your Unemployment Compensation benefits? I guess as is the case with all deep, burning, philosophical, ethical, moral questions, the answer to that question lies in you and you alone.

# Bad News

It was a year since I graduated from college. That was when the news finally came. It came as a shock to me. Hell, it came as a shock to all of us. I always knew this kind of stuff happened. I just never thought that it would happen to me.

When I found out, it was like I got punched in the gut, and I had the wind knocked right out of me. The bottom of all my hopes and dreams fell out, and everything I worked for in life was gone. My American dream was dead. The house, the white picket fence, the Golden Retriever, home equity loans, 2nd mortgages, they were all taken away from me because you need to have good credit to get all that stuff. It took her a year, but that evil bitch goddess Sallie-Mae finally caught up with me. I defaulted on my student loans.

As I read the default notice, they were almost trying to make it sound like it was my fault for not paying back my student loans. I wasn't sure why they were trying to pin the blame on me. They were the ones stupid enough to lend fifty thousand dollars to an unemployed, seventeen-year-old pothead. If they would have looked at my background, credit, work history or anything that people usually do before they give someone a loan, they would have seen that no one would even lend me a fucking pen.

I hate the word default. Saying that you're "in default" just sounds so embarrassing. Everyone judges you, and people just treat you differently. They look at you like you're some stupid piece of shit loser. It is like telling people that you have herpes, or that you watch the Bachelor.

I knew my life would be ruined if I didn't do something so I called and asked them what I could do to pull my loan out of default. At first, they told me I could pay my past due balance, which was like two thousand dollars or some ridiculous number that no one could ever afford. I immediately scoffed at such a ludicrous suggestion.

The lady then told me about another more realistic option. She told me that I could reconsolidate my loans and put them in this thing called economic hardship forbearance where I didn't have to pay any of it for one full year. Now she was talking my language.

If you're like me and you ruined your life with student loan debt and you have never heard of an economic hardship forbearance, you don't know what you are missing. They come in real handy when you don't feel like wasting all your hard-earned money on something as boring as a student loan. That way you can spend your money on something a little more exciting. Maybe you want a new car. Or perhaps you want to take that dream vacation of a lifetime. Maybe you simply gamble a lot or have a drug addiction. Trust me, I know how expensive those hobbies can be. My point is that it is your hard-earned money and you should be able to spend however you like. You shouldn't have to pay back a loan if you don't want to. This is America for Christ's sake.

So, here is how the economic hardship forbearance works. It is actually quite easy. You just call them and tell them you don't want to pay it back. It's that simple.

They might try to warn you that it will continue to accrue interest and try to convince you to at least try and pay it back. Don't listen to them. This is just standard negotiation tactics.

Don't give in to them if they try to bully you into paying a past due balance or anything like that either. It is your constitutional right as an American citizen to not pay back a student loan if you don't want to. Simply tell them no thank you, I do not wish to pay my student loan at this time. If you tell them that, they have to grant your wish. I think it is a federal law or something.

I can still remember every one of my economic hardship forbearances like they were yesterday. Those were some of the best years of my life. Now don't get me wrong, economic hardship forbearances are not all sunshine and rainbows. Everything leading up to the forbearance can be very stressful, as any debt can be. Debt is a terrible, awful, heinous thing, and I am not advocating for anyone to go into debt. I am simply recommending that if you do, you shouldn't have to pay it back. That is what we need to be clear on here.

With one brief phone call, my first student loan was officially in economic hardship forbearance, and it was the best day of my life. I have been in love a few times before. I have seen the birth of my children. I even got a hand-job once at an Asian massage parlor. But I have to say, there is no better feeling in the world than getting an economic hardship forbearance on a student loan.

# The Perfect Job for Illegal Aliens, Ex-Cons & Psychology Majors

With my student loans now in an economic hardship forbearance, I was finally able to cross that off of my bucket list. However, that was just one small step towards accomplishing the rest of my life goals. There were still many things left that I had to do. I wanted to find a good job, marry a wife who cooks and cleans, and have a couple of children who I can live vicariously through in sports. I was still a long way from accomplishing all my goals.

With no job or money, and my parents still providing all my basic needs, I felt like a helpless little baby at this point in my life, but not like the really cute model babies you see in commercials for stuff like Pampers or V-Tech, and not like baby actors that you see in all those movies that have babies in them. Those babies have jobs just like real grown-ups do. They probably even have SAG cards and everything.

I was not anything like those babies. I was more like the ordinary babies, the ones that just sit around all day doing nothing except making their parents feed them and wash their clothes. Don't get me wrong. I was super-advanced for a baby. I could walk and form small sentences, and I knew all my colors and letters. I even knew how to sit on the potty like a big boy, but that kind of stuff didn't seem to impress my parents anymore. Not once since I moved back home after I graduated college did my parents tell me that they were proud of me for taking a shit. The bar had officially been raised.

They still claimed that I was their special boy, and they still told me that they loved me, but I was starting to have my doubts. I had the sneaking suspicion that they may have been trying to put me up for adoption, but no one wanted me because I was a grown man. I don't know for sure. Maybe I was just being paranoid. But I do firmly believe that were plotting to kill me. And if they weren't plotting to kill me or put me up for adoption, they definitely wanted me to move out of their house and get a job.

I was not sure what they were up to, but I knew they wanted me gone. They kept dropping little hints. Like the time they gave my bed to the neighbor and started using my bedroom for storage forcing me to sleep on the couch. Or the way they would roll their eyes at me whenever I would ask them for gas money. And the way they would constantly keep asking me if I found a job yet, or what was I going to do with my life, and when I was moving out. I love them dearly, but they were just plain fucking exhausting to deal with. I couldn't take living with the constant badgering and passive-aggressive bullshit. Plus, I still wasn't a hundred percent convinced that they weren't trying to poison me or put me up for adoption. I had to make some moves before it was too late. This time I tried a new unconventional approach to my job search. Instead of looking for a job, I decided to lie down on the couch for a few weeks and see if anyone would come and offer me a job. When that didn't work, I decided to check the classifieds, where I eventually found another job. But first I found a great deal on some free weights that I put in my parent's basement.

The job was through a temp agency that would eventually come to offer me many other jobs over the years. They even call me now from time to time to offer me jobs. The ad said something about great pay, guaranteed work and no experience needed. That sounded a little too good to be true, but I was in no position to overthink anything. Time was of the essence. I needed to find a job quickly so my parents would get off my back and stop bothering me or trying to kill me. A job through a temp agency would have to do.

I called the temp agency and they immediately scheduled an interview for that very same day. I was duly impressed with their efficiency. Usually when I apply for a job most places take so long to schedule an interview that they just end up hiring someone else instead. I got dressed in a shirt and tie, printed out a few copies of my resume and off I went to start my new career, whatever that might be.

When I got to the temp agency, it was really crowded, and there were all sorts of people there, but mostly ex-cons. Some people looked dirty, some looked scary, while others looked just plain stupid. There were also a lot of Mexicans there. I wasn't sure if all temp agencies had a lot of Mexicans, but this one sure did. There were more Mexicans than I ever saw in one place, and I've been to Cancun.

There were Mexicans of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Well, maybe they were not all different colors. They were mostly all this sort of beige color, but they were definitely all different shapes and sizes. There were fat ones, tall ones, skinny ones, short ones. One even had a mustache. There was another one who wore a cowboy hat and had tight jeans and cowboy boots. He looked like a Mexican Marlboro man or possibly an illegal immigrant of some sort.

They were a friendly bunch and they all laughed and joked around a lot as they spoke in Mexican to one another. I would have loved to join in the conversation and laughter with them, but I didn't speak Mexican. I only learned how to speak Spanish while I was college, so I simply nodded to them to show them that I bring them no harm.

After I was done eavesdropping on the Mexicans and avoiding eye contact with all of the stupid dirty white people and the one scary black guy who was also sitting there, I got my turn to speak to someone about a job. The interview was with a girl. I don't recall much about her because she was not attractive, and I usually don't recall women who are not attractive.

She had me fill out a bunch of forms. They all looked too long and boring to read, so I just signed them quickly and without paying any attention to what I was signing, just like I always do with forms that look too long and boring to read. As soon as I finished signing, they offered me a job that started the very next day.

She explained that the job was for nine dollars an hour, but they kept a percentage of my wages, so it ended up being like seven dollars an hour. That didn't sound fair, but I was in no position to argue. It was a job, and that was all I cared about.

That was the easiest job interview I ever went on. All I had to do was sign my name in a few places and they gave me a job. I'm pretty sure they didn't even care if I was clinically insane or even if my brain worked properly.

I was curious as to what I would be doing given that the only qualification needed for this job was to be able to sign my name. I assumed that it would not be along the line of being a CEO or brain surgeon. I guessed it was going to be hard manual labor of some sort where I would lift lots of heavy stuff.

When you get a job through a temp agency you are almost like a warehouse mercenary who gets hired to lift heavy stuff. That way the company doesn't have to worry about providing silly stuff like unemployment, health care, worker's compensation, benefits, retirement, and that sort of thing. It was a whole system designed to get cheap labor from people who were desperate for work, like illegal aliens, ex-cons and psychology majors. This seemed like it was unfair treatment and exploitation of the American workforce. I was going to make them pay for this. They were going to regret the day they hired Buck Brennan. I would do that shitty of a job.

# A Little Hard Work Never Killed Anyone

In typical me fashion, I was really excited about the prospect of this new job and facing a new challenge. I was determined to work hard and give it my all. I would do whatever task they gave me, and I would do it one hundred percent to the best of my God-given ability. With a never say die attitude, I would show the grit and determination of a true life champion. Those are always my thoughts right before I start something that I eventually quit. It was the same feeling I had right before I tried to learn how to play the piano, the guitar, the violin, Rosetta Stone Spanish, juggling, various exercise programs, many diets, marriage, most jobs, and any puzzles over one hundred pieces.

Just for the record, I never intrinsically want to quit anything. I always start everything with the best intentions of not giving up. It's just that the tediousness nature of things such as jobs, marriage, diets, exercise, and puzzles make them too hard to stick to. It's a lot of hard work and commitment, and to be quite frank, hard work and commitment are simply not things that I am all that interested in. I wouldn't necessarily call me a quitter, per se. I just haven't found anything easy enough to stick to yet.

I was looking forward to starting this new job. I figured some hard work would be a welcome reprieve from the confines of an office job and the stress of the mental health field. I hoped it would help me overcome the emotional exhaustion caused by my last job.

And by the way, mom, it absolutely was emotional exhaustion. It was not just me being lazy and irresponsible like you said. Go read up on emotional exhaustion. I had all of the classic symptoms. I had a loss of appetite. Sometimes I would go five or six hours without eating. I was so emotionally exhausted that there would be times where I wouldn't even feel like getting off the couch to get candy while I was watching TV.

Forgetfulness and trouble concentrating are also symptoms of emotional exhaustion. Sometimes I would go weeks where I wouldn't be able to focus or concentrate on anything while I was at work. I would just stare off into space all day or bullshit on the phone with my buddies.

People with emotional exhaustion are also known to have a lack of motivation. I was so emotionally exhausted that I would lie on the couch for hours and hours just watching movies and taking naps. My motivation was lacking so much from the emotional exhaustion that I didn't even wash my clothes or make my own meals. I had to have my mom do it for me.

Anxiety is another symptom. I was so anxious that I had to self-medicate with delicious craft beers like IPA's and Chocolate Stouts. If it weren't for being drunk all the time, I probably would have had insomnia too, which is also another symptom of emotional exhaustion. So, despite what my mom might tell you, I was not just being lazy. I was the poster child for emotional exhaustion.

I figured that a physically demanding blue-collar job was just what I needed, plus a little hard work never killed anyone. Well, except for all those people who died building the Hoover Dam. There are also lots of other construction workers who get killed doing hard work too. Miners die all the time doing hard work, so do people who work on high voltage power lines. And those people who operate dangerous machines in plants get killed doing hard work sometimes too. Once in a while, even a guy working road construction will get hit by a car while he was doing hard work. But for the most part, a little hard work never killed anyone.

I was looking forward to being one of those hard-working salt of the earth type guys that you always hear about in country songs. I wanted to come home from work feeling tired and dirty, but still feeling good about myself because I knew that I just earned an honest buck. A hard day's work would help me learn to appreciate every last penny I earned, even the percentage of all the pennies that the temp agency was taking from me.

They hired me in a place that was located in what was known as an industrial park, which is like a giant theme park, only instead of rides and rollercoasters, they had giant warehouses, manufacturers, and distributors of things. The place I worked at made rolls of tar paper, and my job was to stack them on pallets. I loved it. I was getting exercise, making money, and I felt good knowing that I was helping others because people needed tar paper, probably. I wasn't sure for what, but I am sure some people needed it for something somewhere, and that made me feel pretty goddamn good. I finally felt like I was making the world a better place and knowing that made lifting all of those really heavy and awkwardly shaped rolls of tar paper all worth it.

Well, that good feeling lasted about two hours. After that, I was only consumed with being tired, thirsty and having sore feet. I could care less about who needed fucking tar paper. That became the least of my worries.

All I could think about was how those assholes at that temp agency were skimming twenty-five percent off the top of my pay. Meanwhile, I was the one who was busting my balls for this stupid fucking tar paper that no one probably ever uses anyway. And I couldn't understand why they had to make these rolls of tar paper so fucking heavy. If they were smart, they would have made them smaller and just made more of them. And just for the record, I am not complaining. I am simply explaining to everyone how difficult my life is because no one likes a complainer.

When they hired me, they told me that I had to wear steel toe boots. That was the one rule they were very clear on. I was never in any real danger of dropping anything heavy on my foot before, so I never felt inclined to own a pair of steel toe shoes. I didn't feel like wasting a hundred bucks buying a pair now either, but I also didn't want to get caught breaking the rules. So, I decided to wear the closest thing I had to boots, which was a pair of brown loafers. They weren't steel toe loafers, but they were going to have to do.

I learned the hard way that loafers aren't the best shoes to wear in a tar paper factory. As my feet throbbed in pain, I became more and more infuriated. However, it was not the rule banning sneakers that I was mad at. I understand that in life there will always be rules. I was mad at myself for trying to follow them. I should have gone with my guy and broken the rules like I normally do, and I should have just worn the goddamn sneakers. Trying to follow the rules at that job left me in a great deal of pain that evening, but it also taught me a valuable life lesson, and from that point on I never followed a rule again.

After a few hours of this nightmare, right when I was about to quit or possibly be worked to death, something wonderful happened. God himself intervened. It happened right when I couldn't lift one more roll of tar paper. Actually, that's not true. I could have lifted a lot more rolls of tar paper. It happened when I didn't feel like lifting any more rolls of tar paper. There. That's more accurate.

That was when the machine that kept relentlessly shooting all those rolls of tar paper at me broke, and literally saved my life, or at least gave me time to smoke a cigarette and buy a soda from the vending machine. I went back into this little break room and right as I was about to quit, I was approached by this kind old gentleman who gave me the encouragement I needed to carry on. It's funny how life works. Fate put this man in my life at just the right place and just the right time. In this life, we are all connected in some cosmic way, and sometimes it is a stranger that comes into your life and has a lasting impact on you.

Just when I was about to lose all hope and give up on myself and this job, the strange gentleman picked me up with a few kind words that I needed to hear. In a calm soothing voice, he asked me if I wanted to smoke some weed with him out by the loading docks, and I couldn't have been more appreciative of his kindness and his weed. I never needed to get high more than I needed to at that moment, and somehow, he knew.

It was right there, right out on those loading docks, where he told me about the dark sinister underbelly of third shift warehouse operations. He proceeded to tell me that because we were working third shift there were no managers on duty, so people did what they wanted and that it was ok to smoke weed. That was not the dark underbelly. That was actually a good thing because I love to smoke weed.

The dark underbelly was that while we were harmlessly smoking weed out on the loading docks on our work break like two civilized adults, all the other guys were sneaking around using methamphetamines like a bunch of crazed reckless assholes.

Fucking speed! I knew it. That explained why they were working circles around me. It was all starting to make sense to me now. As I took another long pull off of the joint, I processed what the kind gentleman had told me, and I was growing increasingly concerned for my own safety.

To think that the people operating the tar paper machine were under the influence of speed was a very scary thought indeed. Their irresponsible behavior was putting their lives and the lives of everyone around them in grave danger.

No one should be operating machinery while under the influence of a controlled substance like that, especially speed. Smoking a little weed or having a few beers before you drive a car with a 5-star safety rating while wearing your seatbelt and going the speed limit like I do sometimes is one thing, but doing methamphetamines while operating a tar paper roll shooter? Well, that is just plain reckless.

As we continued to talk, the sagacious gentleman enlightened me on other more important matters of the world such as his ex-wife being a cunt, Protection From Abuse Orders, his outrageous child support payments, his fucked up kids, how to beat a piss test, his bad back and how he is going to file for disability benefits. He was even kind enough to point me in the direction of some of his favorite hiding spots around the warehouse that were perfect for weed naps.

We sat on that loading dock for the better part of an hour as I listened intently to this wise old sage share with me all of his infinite wisdom. We then parted ways and he offered to give me a ride to work, but only if I gave him twenty bucks a week for gas, then told me that I owed him 5 bucks for the weed. At that, I respectfully told him that I don't have any money and that I would just drive myself. I then disappeared into the bright fluorescent lights of the warehouse in search of a much-needed hiding spot.

If I didn't find a hiding spot before that tar paper machine got fixed, I may very well be killed by one of those reckless speed junkies working the machine, and the mere thought of being hit in the head by a rogue roll of tar paper had me scared for my life. Plus, the weed made me sleepy, and honestly, I didn't feel like working anymore.

Before I had the chance to find one of the coveted hiding spots, one of the speed junkies came flying around the corner and crashed into me. He questioned me, asking me where I was going and what I was doing. His eyes were wild and crazy, and he frantically told me that I needed to start taping up boxes until the machine gets fixed.

With a boney outstretched finger, he pointed to a room that was filled with empty cardboard boxes. There were boxes as far as the eye can see. Almost out of thin air, he produced a roll of packaging tape and handed it to me. He told me to get to work. Then he ran off fast and crazy, the way only a person on speed would. Meanwhile, I began taping the boxes slowly and methodically, like only a sane person not fucked up on speed would.

As you can see there are great differences between us, the people who use meth and the people who don't. We will never truly be able to coexist together in one harmonious world the way John Lennon imagined in all his hippie songs about everyone getting along. Now I try to not stereotype people or put labels on them. I can get along with almost everyone, black people, gays, Asians, Latinos, whites, trannies, and even cripples as long as they aren't acting like giant dickheads and running everyone over with their wheelchair, but I have to say that I will never like meth-heads. Those types of people are all a bunch of crazy fucking assholes that cannot be trusted, and no peace-loving John Lennon song about everyone getting along will ever change that.

The box taping assignment was a welcome reprieve from those crazed lunatic speed junkies and their really loud-sounding and dangerous machine. While I was with the boxes, there was a certain quietude and peace. The only sounds I could hear were the interspersed rustle of boxes and the precise rhythmic tearing of the packaging tape every time it reeled off the spool. The beat was set to the pace at which I taped the boxes. Rustle box, rustle box, tear tape, tear tape, 1,2,1,2. The cadence was set to the soothing melodic hum of a generator while my carefully patterned breaths kept the time.

The whole experience of taping those boxes had a strange songlike quality to it, and it was very therapeutic. I must have taped hundreds upon thousands upon millions, if not a billion, and quite possibly a trillion boxes. I taped those boxes for hours and hours without a single thought entering my head. I was just lost in the musical qualities of the box taping and the slow steady drone of the warehouse. While I was taping those boxes, I lost track of time and I was in some sort of trance, mesmerized by the repetitious nature of my new job. Although somewhat mundane, my new task of box taping had transcended me into a world of peace and contentment.

At last, there were no more racing thoughts, no more stress, and no more anxiety. It was just me and the boxes. I finally found the inner peace that I was searching for all those years. I finally found my home. I could have stood there taping those boxes forever and been perfectly happy. Well, maybe not forever, but at least until my shift ended.

Standing amidst the boxes finally purged all the emotional toxins that polluted my soul during the dark painful years of my life that I spent trying to find myself. I paused for a moment to look around and take it all in. I took a deep breath and smiled to myself knowing that I had finally found my calling in the messy order of this world.

And my calling was to be a box taper. That was who I was meant to be all along. I didn't care what the rest of the world thought of me. I was a box taper! I was going to run home and shout it from the rooftop! I was a box taper! Yes! I was a box taper!

But then I heard the most heinous sound. It was the grinding noise of the tar paper machine working again. Immediately, all of the crazy guys who were all hopped up on speed came over to me and started yelling at me to get the fuck over there and start stacking all those fucking pallets.

They whisked me back to the machine and took me away from my beloved boxes. I looked over my shoulder as they escorted me back to the machine. Oh, how I longed for them, my lovely boxes. It crushed me to know that this would be the last time I would ever see them. And like that, my lifelong dream of becoming a professional box taper was over. I returned to the tar paper machine, and it began firing rolls of tar paper at me even faster than before. The guys on speed were running around acting even crazier and more maniacal than before too. With all the speed that they were doing, they set a real frantic pace. It reminded me of the pit on Wall Street, but with heavy rolls of tar paper instead of money. Given my lazy nature, the pot I had smoked, and my loafers, it was impossible for me to keep up. It is not that I am making excuses. I am just giving you all of the reasons why I was unable to do this job because no one likes people who make excuses.

The workers were getting angrier and angrier at my slow pace. The rolls of tar paper would get backed up into the machine, and they would have to shut down production to wait for me to catch up. They all wanted to kill me, but there was nothing I could do. My lower back was throbbing in pain, and my blistering feet were hurting. I couldn't lift the boxes any faster even if I wanted to, which I didn't of course.

Every passing minute seemed like an eternity in this hellish nightmare. There was no reprieve from the onslaught of the heavy rolls of tar paper that were being launched at me. I can still remember it like it was yesterday. Stack nine rolls to a pallet, shrink wrap it, wait for the next. Stack nine rolls to a pallet, shrink wrap it, wait for the next. Stack nine rows to a pallet, shrink wrap it, wait for the next. Sometimes late at night, I can still hear the men screaming at me like ghosts from the past, calling me all sorts of names like faggot and cocksucker, telling me to hurry up.

As the night wore on, my thoughts kept returning to the old gentleman who shared his weed with me. I hadn't seen him since our chance encounter on the loading dock. He was beginning to seem like something of an enigma who had just vanished into the night air like the wind or a silent fart. I began to wonder if he ever existed at all or if he was a figment of my imagination. I wondered if perhaps the old man was really me, and it was my own weed that I had smoked, kind of like in Fight Club.

It was six a.m. when my twelve-hour shift finally ended. That was the happiest that I've ever been in my whole entire life. I was just about to call it a day and give high fives to all my co-workers, just like they do in beer commercials when suddenly the tar paper machine shot another tar paper roll at me. Then it shot another, and another, then another. This went on for almost fifteen minutes. Only now the machine was firing the rolls much faster than before and the men were acting even crazier. Finally, I had enough. I decided to take a stand for all the people everywhere who had to lift heavy stuff.

I walked away from the tar paper machine and went right through the exit of the warehouse. As I stepped out into the crisp morning air, I took a deep breath, and I enjoyed the majestic beauty of the rising sun. I was proud of myself knowing that all those dirty white people, the Mexicans and even that scary black guy at that temp agency will be jumping for joy once word gets out that I had just stuck it to the man.

After I took that job and shoved it, I noticed how beautiful a sunrise can be. I would have liked to see more sunrises, but they usually happen while I am still sleeping. It's too bad sunrises don't happen at like noon in my living room, because they can be very pretty. That sunrise was probably the most beautiful thing that I ever saw. It was almost as beautiful as my income tax return last year or a pair of really big boobs.

It would have been even more beautiful too, had it not been those dickhead speed junkies trying to ruin it for me. They were screaming at me and calling me all kinds of names like faggot and asshole as they complained about all the extra work they had to do now. It was difficult, but I managed to block out all of their negative energy and threats to punch me in the face, and I was still able to enjoy the splendor of that rare majestic sunrise.

In a dramatic exit, I walked directly into the long shadows of the rising sun, and never looked back. I quit that job the same way I quit everything. I kept my head held high as I looked to what lied ahead of me because that is how a true champion of life quits things.

As time went on and the years slipped away, the day I tried hard work became nothing more than a faded memory. I don't really miss it, the work, tar paper rolls, the speed junkies, not even the old gentleman who shared his weed with me, none of it. However, there isn't a day that goes by that I still don't miss those boxes. Oh, how I longed for the peace and contentment that I felt while I was with my beloved boxes.

In the subsequent years to follow, I taped hundreds upon thousands of boxes. And every time I reach for a box and a roll of packing tape, I always hope and pray that it will bring me the same feeling of contentment that it brought me that night in the warehouse. Whenever I send a package in the mail or I help someone move, I try to replicate the magic that happened that night in the warehouse, but sadly it never comes. It doesn't matter how many boxes I tape; I am never able to recapture the unparalleled spiritual transcendence I felt that night in the warehouse. Who knows? Maybe that feeling of unparalleled spiritual transcendence had nothing to do with taping boxes at all. Maybe I had just smoked some really good weed.

# Battling My Demons

I lost my third job in less than a year, and for the first time in my life, I felt completely vulnerable. My defenses were down. There was nowhere left to hide and no more rocks to crawl under. I had no one left to blame and no more excuses left to make. I was forced to grow up and come to terms with my flaws and limitations. The dark heavy curtain of denial had finally been lifted. I had no choice but to come face to face with my demons and confront them.

And by demons, I don't mean internal struggle, self-doubt, drugs, alcohol, mental illness, or any of the traditional demons that you might think of when you hear someone talk about their demons. The demons I had to battle were far worse than any of those. The demons I had to battle were the most self-righteous and judgmental demons that anyone ever had to face in the history of mankind or demons. They were possibly even more self-righteous and judgmental than God himself. They were my parents.

I knew those two condescending assholes were going to start busting my balls hardcore after I told them that I quit another job, especially since I only worked there one day. I dreaded having to explain that to them. I knew they wouldn't understand my pain and how greatly I suffered at that job. There was no way they could know what I went through. No one could. Unless someone actually lifted really heavy rolls of tar paper for twelve hours straight while wearing loafers and getting harassed by speed junkies, no one will never truly understand the pain and anguish I had to endure.

When I returned home from work that morning I retired to my favorite couch where I watched TV, allowing for my sore feet and my damaged soul to heal. That was when my father approached me and asked me how my first day was. I told him the whole horrifying story about the dress shoes, the other guys being really mean to me, and all those awful rolls of tar paper. I told him everything, well everything except the part about smoking weed and trying to find a hiding spot.

It was the first time in my life that I opened my heart to my father like that, and his reaction reminded me again why I never opened up to him before. Even when he saw me in clear physical pain and obvious emotional anguish, that insensitive prick kept bothering me with questions. He showed no compassion, empathy or understanding whatsoever. He even kept talking over the movie that I was trying to watch. Then he laughed when I told him about the mean men, the heavy rolls of tar paper and my sore feet. He ridiculed and mocked me, trying to hurt the very same feelings that I had just poured out to him.

He was a sadistic man who scoffed mercilessly at my pain and angst. He almost enjoyed hurting me as he bragged that he knew I wouldn't be able to handle a factory job. He told me that he knew I wasn't cut out for that line of work, which really hurt my feelings. It pained me to know that he thought so little of me that he didn't even think I could lift heavy stuff.

I wasn't upset with him though. He was a hardened Vietnam vet who had a tough life. He probably didn't know how to have empathy and show understanding like me. I am very insightful with an astute sense of awareness. I scored very high on an emotional I. Q. test that I took on the Internet once, which was probably why I was able to have enough compassion to forgive him for acting like a giant fucking dickhead towards me all the time.

As he made fun of me and teased me about being lazy, I couldn't help but wonder if maybe he was right. After all, I did quit after only one day. I ruminated intently on his accusations of laziness, and his words resonated with me.

I worried that I would never be able to measure up to my father. He toiled as a machine operator in a dairy for almost twenty years. He served his country in a time of war, then he gave most of Pennsylvania and certain parts of New Jersey milk. Meanwhile, I have done nothing to make the world a better place. I could not even handle one single day of hard work, the same type of work that my dad labored at his whole life, sacrificing his entire being so that his family could have a better life, and people could have milk.

It took many years of hellish introspection and personal struggle, but I have come to see that my father and I were very much alike. There was a generation gap between us, and we didn't always see eye to eye on a lot of things, but I was still my father's son.

He had a job, but he fucking hated every minute of working, just like me. He called in sick a lot and complained about going to work all the time, just like me. I never really saw him work hard or do anything productive around the house either, and now that I am a grown man who hates to be productive and do stuff around the house, I understand my father much better.

He spent most of his days sitting in a recliner, smoking cigarettes and eating Popsicles. Typical of most men who fashion themselves in that particular way, he would often fantasize about the day when he could retire and eat even more popsicles and smoke even more cigarettes. I remember when I was growing up as a child how he would always romanticize government jobs where people sat on their asses and did nothing all day. He would stare with a certain longing at the Pennsylvania state road workers who were just standing there doing nothing but smoking cigarettes while they were getting time-and-a-half. He would get this faraway look in his eye, and I could just tell that he wished that he was the one being paid to stand around and do nothing.

He would have loved a job like that, but God never gave him the chance. That is why he was being so hard on me. He wanted me to have the cake job that he always wanted. I didn't realize it then, but he knew me, and he knew that it was not in our family's genetic makeup to want to work hard. I always thought that he was just being a dick and making fun of me for being lazy, but looking back, I realize now that it was just his way of nudging me in the direction of my life's true calling. He was pushing me so that I could have the cushy dick-off job that he never had.

He didn't want me to have to work hard like he did his whole life. He didn't want me to make the same mistakes he made and take a job that requires an effort of any kind. I only came to truly understand that about my father many years later. All those long hours and hard work in that dairy went against his very nature. He spent his entire life with this internal struggle of having to work hard when he really didn't want to, and that can be very traumatizing to an intrinsically lazy person.

Looking back now with the benefit of hindsight, I know now that it was actually his job that was the catalyst for his severe alcoholism and crippling depression. I always just assumed that it was because he was in Vietnam or that he got molested, because in every movie I ever saw about Vietnam and people who get molested everyone winds up being depressed alcoholics. As it turns out, his drinking and his depression didn't have anything to do with Vietnam or being molested at all. He was drinking and sad simply because he hated working.

After he retired, he spent his days doing absolutely nothing, and almost instantaneously the raincloud of depression and alcoholism lifted. He morphed into a completely different person who was happy and content, and he never touched a drink again. He didn't need any twelve-step programs, no psych meds, no intensive psychotherapy, no rehab or anything like that. All he needed to kick the bottle and beat depression was to stop working. He finally found his true place in life, and that was on a recliner eating popsicles and smoking cigarettes.

My father passed away in 2008. It was two months before my daughter was born. It was tragic and sad for us all that he didn't get to meet his granddaughter, but at least he got to spend the last few good years he had left on this earth doing what he loved, which was sitting around doing nothing.

He spent most of his life tormented by this insatiable hunger for not having to go to work, which I never understood as a child, but now that I am a grown man who also hates work, I understand completely. I am grateful that I finally got the chance to know and understand my father, and that he finally found peace in this world.

The story of my father's internal struggle and his untimely death is certainly a touching little side note to this story, but that was not the point I was trying to make here. The point I was trying to make was that he acted like a giant dickhead when I told him that I quit my job at the tar paper factory.

Shortly after my dad finished busting my balls about quitting that job, my mom came in and took her turn at me. She always took a slightly different approach from my father when it came to busting my balls. Her big thing was always that she was disappointed in me, but she still loved me. I must have heard that speech a thousand times already. It didn't matter if it was my drug use, troubles with the law, losing jobs, bad grades, wrecked cars, going broke, gambling, drinking too much. It was always the same old, "I love you, but I am disappointed in you," speech. I am almost forty years old now and she is still giving me that same fucking speech, only now it is always about being more patient with my kids and all the bourbon I drink.

The night after I quit the tarpaper factory, she told me that she was disappointed with me, but she still loved me. Then she gave me a big hug and started crying a little bit. I wasn't really upset or moved by the gesture, but I played along with her anyway because I am a good son and playing along is what any good son would do.

# Almost Getting Abducted by Aliens Can Be Really Scary

After I lost my job down at the plant, the pressure to find steady work was starting to mount. I wasn't sure what my next move should be, and I was stuck in some kind of existential limbo where I wasn't sure what my purpose was or if I even had a purpose at all.

I was a lost soul at this point in my life, and my father's wild accusations of me being lazy were starting to resonate with me. I was still wrestling with the notion that I might be lazy, and I was debating whether I should try to prove him wrong and try to work really hard, or simply accept his words as true and embrace my inner sloth.

I thought about trying to become the laziest person in the history of the world, even lazier than the super morbidly obese people on those Learning Channel documentaries. Did you ever watch one of those? I am not into fat-shaming or anything, but those motherfuckers are lazy! They just lie in bed and eat all day. Then they get so fat that they can't fit through their bedroom door and they have to get cut out of the wall and removed with a crane. A fucking crane! How awesome is that! Another episode I saw was where the guy was putting deodorant on his fat rolls and then he couldn't fit in a regular bathtub, so he took a bath in a pond. A fucking pond! Can you imagine being so fat you have to take a bath in a pond! If you never saw it, you should check it out. It is fucking hilarious! I don't know why it's on The Learning Channel. It has absolutely nothing to do with learning. I doubt that there will ever be a question on Jeopardy or the SAT about a fat person taking a bath in a pond, but still.... It's fucking hilarious!

So, just as I was about to start training for the reality show, "My 600 Pound Life", I got a call offering me another job. It was the temp agency again. I was surprised to hear from them since I quit the last job that they offered me, but they ended up apologizing to me for that. I liked how this whole temp agency thing worked. Every employer should call and say they are sorry after you quit one of their stupid jobs.

Although I appreciated their sincerity, I didn't accept their apology right away. That was a real mean thing they did to me, and I was still hurt by it. If they knew that I wouldn't like lifting heavy things, then they should have offered me a job that involved eating or watching television, or something I might actually enjoy. I could have remained bitter and angry with them for giving me such an awful job, but I am a good person and I always try to take the moral high ground, so I decided to accept their apology.

After we cleared the air, they told me that they had a new job for me, but this time it was at a Gatorade plant. I never really thought about working in a Gatorade plant. When I was a kid, I always thought I'd b become either a Ghostbuster or a G. I. Joe when I grew up, but I needed a job, so I listened to what they had to say. It sounded to me like they might be trying to trick me into hard work again because they knew how much I liked Gatorade, especially the blue one. I knew that this might be a ruse, but this was my last chance to make my dad eat his words and prove to him that I am not lazy, and put an end to my mom's stupid "I love you, but I am disappointed in you," speeches once and for all.

It was another third shift position and I remember it being dark when I left for work. At least this time I knew what to expect, and I was confident that if I just wore sneakers and smoked some weed that I would be successful at this endeavor, and possibly any endeavor. I was sure that if I could get high and wear sneakers, I could do anything. I could even be president of the United States as long the President wasn't subject to random drug tests, but I knew that would never happen. If I got drug tested to work in some shitty warehouse, I would imagine that the President of the United States probably gets drug tested all the time too.

I put on my sneakers, threw in a mix CD, lit up a joint, and went off to work. I quickly realized that there was one small problem; I didn't know where the fuck I was going. I was so fixated on rolling a joint and making the perfect mix CD labeled "Driving to Work" that I completely forgot to look up directions.

By the time I realized I didn't know where I was going, it was too late to turn around. I knew the general direction and that it was in a little town called Swoonsburg. I figured once I got to Swoonsburg, I could just stop and ask for direction to the Gatorade plant. Back in the old day, we didn't have GPS or cell phones. When we couldn't find a Gatorade plant, we had to stop and ask people how to get there, and then we had to use our cunning sense of direction to find our destination. We also had these things called maps too, but I never actually met someone who knew how to read one.

I pulled into the first gas station off of the exit ramp, and I asked the man behind the counter for directions to the Gatorade plant, but he appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent and was unwilling to help me. He was annoyed and quickly dismissed my question, as he went back to building a bomb of some sort. He was too busy plotting against America to be bothered, so I decided to drive down the road a little more.

I passed a few people who looked poor, so I didn't stop to ask them for directions because everyone knows that poor people smell bad and are terrible with directions. I then came to a lady who was taking packages out of her car. I pulled in and stared at her for a while as I smoked a cigarette. Judging by the cleanliness of her SUV and her conservative haircut I determined that she was the oracle. She would be the chosen one to give me directions to the Gatorade plant.

I rolled down my window and began shouting at her in a loud and threatening manner to get her attention. She was initially frightened of me, but warmed up once she realized that I was not black. Fearing that there might still be a black person hiding in the back seat or lurking somewhere in the shadows, she maintained a safe distance from my car. She refused to give me directions and she scurried into her house and locked her door.

I stopped several more people that night, but no one seemed to know anything about any Gatorade plant. I was already late for my first day on the job, so I began frantically driving through the streets of Swoonsburg looking for some sign of a Gatorade plant, but it was no use. There was no Gatorade plant to be found.

On the surface, Swoonsburg appeared to be just like any other town. It had your typical houses, people, storefronts, roads, street signs, and restaurants. It had everything you would expect a town to have, but oddly enough there was no sign of any Gatorade plant. I began to realize that there was something different about Swoonsburg. There was something that was inexplicably odd.

I became increasingly confused and disoriented as I zigzagged through the bizarre labyrinth of streets, and it wasn't long before it became clear that Swoonsburg was not a town at all, but an alien vortex of some kind. It appeared as if I had entered an otherworldly gridlock that traps anyone who enters. The aliens must have been using the temp agency as a ruse to lure specimens to the mothership.

I realized now that this was like Roswell, and the Gatorade factory was a top-secret operation. Gatorade must have been the code word for the alien experiments that were being conducted there. That could be the only possible explanation for the reason I was not able to find an entire fucking warehouse.

I can understand not being able to find a gangster's hideout, a sleeper cell, an igloo, possibly a mud hut, or even an adobe of some sort that is way out in the desert. I could even understand not being able to find St. Luke's gymnasium for your daughter's CYO basketball game, but not being able to find an entire warehouse seemed kind of suspicious to me. And the fact that no one who lived there has ever heard of it was even more bizarre.

The only logical explanation was that all of the townsfolk had all been brainwashed. Or maybe they were not even real people at all. Maybe they were clones, robots or holograms of some sort. This shit had government conspiracy written all over it and getting to work on time now became the least of my worries. All I wanted to do was make it out of this hellish nightmare alive. I knew that if I didn't get out of there, I would be forced to become an alien slave or be the subject of all kinds of sadistic alien experiments. I might even be sold off as part of some sort of disturbing intergalactic sex trade operation.

I drove frantically through the town looking for a way out, but it was no use. I was trapped. As I drove through the town everything blurred together giving me this uncanny feeling of having been there before. One street turned into the next and then that street became the next until I eventually ended up right back where I started. I must have passed the same coffee shop, the same houses and the same streetlights a hundred times. My only hope was to find the gas station. I knew that if I could just find the gas station, I would be able to find the exit ramp and make it out of this nightmare once and for all, but once I got to the gas station it was just an open field. The aliens must have vaporized it already. I only hoped and prayed that they didn't vaporize the ramp back onto the Interstate as well.

Suddenly, I saw a sign pointing towards the Interstate. I was worried that it may have been a hologram used by the aliens to trick me into driving my car into the mothership. It was that or a glitch in their vortex that accidentally created a wormhole back to my own dimension.

I slowly crept up around the bend of the exit ramp until I could hear the familiar roar of eighteen-wheelers and other various cars zooming by. It was comforting to see the steady stream of headlights burning bright in the night sky as I merged with the rest of the travelers off of the ramp. I sustained a safe speed, and I had my seatbelt fastened. I kept both hands in the ten o'clock, two o'clock position, and I scanned the road checking my rearview every so often to make sure I maintained a safe distance from other vehicles. That whole ride home I was extra vigilant with my defensive driving strategies and followed every traffic rule and regulation exactly because I always drive extra cautious when I am really stoned.

I spent the next several days ruminating on what happened to me on that fateful night in Swoonsburg. I wondered what sort of alien experiments they were conducting there, or if there ever was really a Gatorade factory there at all. I thought I might have imagined the whole thing, and maybe it was all just a bad dream. I do tend to have bad dreams from time to time, but they are mostly about showing up naked to work or being chased by bears.

There had to be some logical explanation as to how and why a Gatorade plant was kept so top secret. And why were they hiring temps to work there without any high-security clearances or background checks? It didn't make sense to me. I needed to know what was so important about that Gatorade plant that they had to keep it so top secret.

If they can hide one measly little Gatorade plant, it made me wonder what else they were hiding. I know for a fact that the government has all other kinds of other top-secret operations and factories that make robots, weather machines, mind control devices, and people with six-pack abs. I'll even bet there is even a top-secret factory somewhere in the United States right now that is forcing midget slaves to paint their faces orange and wear green wigs while they make chocolate all day, just like Willy Wonka did to all those midgets back in the seventies.

If all of this is true, then everything around us is an illusion, and our freedom is nothing more than a smoke and mirror trick pulled off by the shadow government. Big business, corporate America, the government, they are all hiding a lot more from the American people than they are leading us to believe. And this is not some farfetched conspiracy theory either, like global warming or Autism. This is an all too plausible explanation of the truth behind our entire existence. If you think this all sounds too ridiculous to be true, well I saw a girl shove her entire fist up her own asshole once on the Internet, so believe me, anything is possible.

If all of this was true, and that Gatorade plant was some sort of top-secret government conspiracy involving aliens, then nothing was real anymore. Everything we were taught to be good and true about America was just a façade, and our whole existence is nothing more than a house of cards. Our freedom is just an illusion concocted by the shadow government to give us a false sense of freedom and personal choice. There never really was any American liberty, and none of our choices were really ours to make. Our lives and our freedom always belonged to them, the puppet masters in the top 1%. Everything that we were ever taught about American values was just a smokescreen to hide the gut-wrenching real truth.

If the Gatorade plant was indeed an alien vortex operated by the government, then our fate has already been sealed. There is a system that is too big and too powerful to fight, and it was put here to control us all, you, me, and everyone. We are all just cogs in this great immovable machine, nothing more than a disposable resource tracked by a nine-digit number.

Luckily for all of humanity, none of that turned out to be true. The only reason I couldn't find the Gatorade plant was because I smoked too much weed and I ended up driving in circles, which I tend to do when I smoke too much weed.

The temp agency called me a few days later and explained the whole thing. I was supposed to be working for PepsiCo, not Gatorade. I didn't have the correct name of the place where I was supposed to be working. PepsiCo is the parent company of Pepsi, and the Quaker, Tropicana, and Gatorade division was located in Swoonsburg. I must have heard them say Gatorade, and I became fixated on that because I really like Gatorade, and I am not particularly fond of orange juice or oatmeal. That must have been why I kept calling it the Gatorade plant. And that explains why no one ever heard of it. There never was an actual Gatorade plant. What I thought was a Gatorade plant was actually a PepsiCo warehouse affiliated with the Gatorade product. That cleared up all the confusion.

And it was not even in Swoonsburg. It was actually down the road a few miles, but it still had a Swoonsburg address, which was why I was dumb enough to spend all night looking for a giant Gatorade plant right in the middle of downtown Swoonsburg. It wasn't even a plant either. It was a distribution center that simply stored and shipped Gatorade, along with orange juice and oatmeal.

And there were no vortexes or aliens, and it wasn't the nexus of the universe or anything like that. The only reason I kept seeing the same houses and driving on the same roads over and over was simply because I was lost and driving in circles.

I was relieved to know that there were no aliens or secret government operations, but I was still disappointed to know that I would never be able to live out my lifelong dream of working at a Gatorade plant through a temp agency. I was forced to start my life over, and the only thing that remained in the wake of my shattered dreams was the question of what might have been.

As is the case with most of my shattered dreams, none of this was my fault of course. Had it not been for a few bad breaks, I would have found that Gatorade plant and my whole life would have turned out different. I hope this story serves as a reminder to all those young kids out there trying to make it in the world of sports beverage distribution. If you don't seize the opportunity when it in front of you, you may never get the chance at it again. Opportunity can be so fleeting and so infinitesimal in the world of sports beverage logistics that if you don't pay attention, you might miss it, and it may never come back around again.

I often think back on that night and wonder what my life would have been like had I just got the few lucky breaks I needed. I would have probably shown up on time and been really awesome at my job. The middle management there would have watched in awe and wonderment at how I was able to stack those cases of Gatorade. I would have been like the Paul Bunyan of pallet jack operators. They would have been so impressed with my skills that they would have immediately offered me a promotion, and my journey up the Gatorade corporate ladder would have begun. If only I would have gotten the lucky breaks I needed, I would have found that Gatorade plant and my whole life would be different now.

Maybe if the gas station clerk was not a Middle Easterner who was too consumed with trying to blow up America to give me directions. Or, if my mom and dad weren't so self-involved and caught up in their own bullshit, they might have actually reminded me to get directions. Maybe if they were better parents, they would have just got the directions for me. If Gatorade had still been Gatorade, and not gotten taken over by PepsiCo and turned into some lame subdivision.

Just one lucky break was all I needed, and I would have quickly been promoted to division manager, then regional director, then assistant Chief Executive Officer, until I finally became the actual Chief Executive Officer. With me as it's CEO, Gatorade would have been the ones buying out PepsiCo, and we would have made them one of our lame subdivisions...the fat loser one with no friends that everyone Cyber-bullies. But alas, the breaks didn't go my way that night, and there is nothing that I can do to change that now. I can only live with the heartache that comes with the question of what might have been.

If I would have found that Gatorade plant, I would have been rich and successful beyond my wildest dreams, and I would probably be on vacation right now at my beach house in the Hamptons. And I'd be grilling those real expensive Kobe steaks made from real Japanese cows while I sipped fancy wine with my pinky up. I'd be wearing wrinkle-free designer khaki pants that have no stains and a form-fitting Polo that hugs every sinewy muscle of my perfectly sculpted Adonis-like body. And I would be on the deck of that oceanfront beach house while my incredibly attractive wife with huge symmetrical fake tits grabs my really big cock and whispers in my ear how she can't wait to suck on it later. I'd probably have really smart, mannerly, attractive kids who are superior to all other children in every way, yet still have enough humility to not be giant dicks about it. Meanwhile, our well behaved, well-groomed, very obedient Golden Retriever would probably be sitting by my side, just staring at me in admiration of me and my life of absolute perfection.

Instead, I am sitting here right now in the middle of a snowstorm in my tiny home that won't even be mine for 26 more years. And I am not wearing wrinkle-free designer khakis or a form-fitting polo. I am wearing sweatpants with no elastic, so they keep falling down, and my ass crack is showing. And instead of Kobe streaks, I just made my kids grilled cheese sandwiches with outdated cheese, but I didn't tell them that the cheese was outdated because they can be real whiney assholes about stuff like outdated cheese, then they would probably run and tell my ex-wife who would give me even more shit about it. Speaking of which, I am texting back and forth with her right now about my daughter's bad grade on her English test, and she is telling me how my son is using curse words and being sarcastic lately, and how it was my fault because he got it from me.

I can feel myself getting annoyed, so instead of sipping a fancy wine, I just took a big swig out of an eight-dollar bottle of bourbon and finished it with a beer back just to take the edge off and not start a fight with her. Meanwhile, the rescue dog that my daughter refuses to walk because it is not the cute little thousand-dollar Pug she wanted is staring at me in disgust because I haven't taken her for a walk yet. I keep putting it off because it is 19 degrees outside right now and snowing sideways, which is not exactly dog -walking weather.

As I look out my window and watch all the snow drift across my driveway, I can't stop thinking about all the goddamn shoveling I am going to have to do just to get to my shitty job tomorrow. Meanwhile, my kids are fist fighting like two giant assholes over the stupid fucking remote for the like the millionth time, and I think I may have just heard my nine-year-old son call my daughter a cunt. I have been known to use that word from time to time, and now that I think about, maybe my ex-wife is right. Maybe he does get it from me. If only I found that Gatorade plant. All of this would be different.

# Everyone is Good at Something

I landed my fourth job that year rather easily. It was with a telemarketing company. Well, I don't know if you would call it a company per se. It was probably more along the lines of a shady operation. It was just a bunch of cubicles stuffed into this abandoned store which had a bunch of middle-aged women who were selling timeshares over the phone.

Not being a middle-aged woman myself, I worried that I would not fit in. All of the women working there were kind of frumpy and had bad haircuts, but they were as smooth as silk over the phone. Those bad bitches knew how to close a deal. They could sell the shit out of a timeshare. They were so good at sales that they could sell beer at an AA meeting. Well, that might not be the best analogy. People at AA meetings are all alcoholics. They would love beer. How about this one? They could sell stilts to a midget. No, that's not a good one either. A midget would probably love to own a pair of stilts because they would make him taller. I don't know. I am terrible with these analogies. My point is that they were all very good at selling these timeshares over the phone.

I only wished I could say the same. I was just plain awful at telemarketing. Now don't get me wrong, I was awful at a lot of things, but telemarketing was one thing that I was particularly bad at. I didn't sell one timeshare as a telemarketer. I couldn't sell a golf club to a Chinaman. Never mind. That one doesn't even make any sense. The point I was trying to make was that I was bad at selling stuff.

I wouldn't even make it through my whole scripted pitch before someone would hang up on me. Meanwhile, these smooth-talking, wheeling and dealing, PTA moms were selling circles around me. They gave me a script to read off and a list of numbers to call. That list of numbers was supposed to take me all day to get through, but I was finished calling them all by lunch.

I made every call on my list in like two hours and didn't make one single, solitary, stupid fucking sale. I don't know how these women were so good at it. We were all reading from the same Goddamn script. I didn't understand how they were they were all closing deals, while I was getting screamed at and hung up on the whole fucking time. A bell would ring every time someone made a sale, and that thing was going off all day. They were all having such a good time too. They were talking shit, high fiving one another, and dancing around all proud of themselves and their stupid fucking sales.

The more that bell rung, the more disgusted I became with myself and everything in my life. Telemarketing is a dog eat dog world, and it takes a special breed of person to make it in this game. There are only a handful of people in the world who were lucky enough to be blessed with the God-given ability to sell timeshares over the phone. Unfortunately, I was not one of them. I quickly learned that being a good telemarketer is not something that can be taught. It is just something you are born with, like knowing how to do Algebra or juggle. You either have it or you don't, and these women had it. These women were blessed with a rare God-given ability to sell timeshares over the phone.

With each failed call I made, the more and more evident it became that I did not have what it takes to be a good telemarketer. Every time I was abruptly hung up on, or even politely told no thank you, a little piece of me died inside. That onslaught of rejection took its toll on my delicate soul, and it crushed every last bit of self-confidence I had left. It made me think of all the billions of people in the world, and how God gave them all a talent to call their own. There are clowns, unicyclists, and even people who are good at hotdog eating contests like Joey Chestnut. Even my asshole neighbor who spent his whole life faking a back injury to get on disability was able to piss over a van.

It just seemed like everyone was good at something, and I was good at nothing. This job made me worry that I didn't have any talents at all and that I may never find my true calling. If God did give me a purpose in this world, I knew that it was not selling timeshares over the phone, so I snuck out to my car and lit up a joint. Then I put on a sweet mix CD, and never returned to the cruel and merciless world of telemarketing again.

As I drove away, I worried that I might not fit in anywhere. I felt like Rudolph, and not the good part where Santa asks him to pull the sleigh. I felt like Rudolph in the sad part where all the other reindeer make fun of him and call him names like loser and faggot. I was an outcast who had been shunned by the rest of the world. I failed as a telemarketer. I couldn't ride a unicycle. I couldn't do Algebra. I couldn't even piss over a van.

The seed of self-doubt had been planted, and the budding flower of worthlessness left me with an empty feeling inside. There was nothing in my life that I could honestly say I was proud of, and I was envious of those incredible telemarketer women who did.

I have nothing but respect and admiration for them and their ability to sell timeshares to people over the phone. Those bitches could sell ice cream to an Eskimo. Hey, that one made sense! Here is another one. They could sell a toaster to Wal-Mart. No, that one was stupid. How about this one? They could sell rice to a Chinaman. Oh, I got a good one! They could sell sand to an Arab. I think I may have heard that one before. I got another good one. They could sell a welcome mat to a homeless guy. Since a homeless guy doesn't have a front door, it would be really hard to sell him a welcome mat. That was a good one.

Here are some other good ones. They could sell roller-skates to a paraplegic. They could sell a Christmas tree to a Jew, or a book to an illiterate. How about a Sugar Daddy to a diabetic, or glasses to blind man, or a rock-hard veiny erection to a lesbian...ok, that one may have been a little too graphic. How about this one? They could sell a donut to an anorexic. Hey, I am really good at these! What do you know? Maybe I found my talent after all.

# Follow Your Dreams, No Matter How Stupid They Are

I was left completely demoralized after my career as a telemarketer ended. My self-confidence was completely shattered, and my quest for meaning had come to a screeching halt. The existential tumult brought on by the onslaught of failure was really starting to take a toll on me, and the maelstrom of self-doubt and pity became so unbearable that I didn't think I could go on another day. That was when I sought refuge in the most unlikely of places. I got a job at a beer distributor, and being able to slam beers in the back cooler when no one was looking gave me just the balance and harmony that I needed to regain my footing on the path towards self-discovery.

It was my fifth job in less than a year and the place where I would decide to do something that would change my life forever. I did something that I would recommend to anyone if they are ever lost, stuck, helpless, alone, or even if they simply wanted more money. I prayed. Every evening at work, right after I watched the Simpsons and stole some money out of the register to order a pizza, I would pray to God and ask him to help me find my calling.

And he did. Within a few months, my boss's gambling addiction got so bad that he stopped paying his bills and the bank shut down his beer store. The Lord sure does work in mysterious ways. If God didn't make sports betting so much fun, and had he not willed a few teams to not cover the spread like they were supposed to, my whole life would have turned out different. Had God not answered my prayers by giving my boss a crippling gambling addiction, I would have never been thrust back onto the path of my true destiny.

If the beer distributor didn't go bankrupt, I would probably still be working there, making ten bucks an hour, getting all of my beer at sweet discount bar prices, smoking weed all the time and living with my mom and dad. I am not saying that it would have been a bad life. I am just saying that it would have been different. But God had other plans for me.

Soon after the beer store closed, I began seeing signs all around me. There were messages everywhere that would eventually lead me to discover my true calling. The first sign came on the six o'clock news when I saw a story about a teacher strike. Everyone there was just hanging out doing nothing while they were drinking coffee out of thermoses and refusing to go work. They were all marching around with these posters that you see at protests, rallies, and on College GameDay. They didn't light anything on fire or flip over any cars the way most people do when they protest stuff. I think it was because they were only protesting something like a rise in their healthcare contribution, so it was pretty lame. Still, getting to march around with those signs all day looked way more fun than having to go to stupid work. I hate working, and I would protest it any day of the week. You wouldn't have to ask me twice.

The only problem with strikes these days is that most employers won't put up with it. It is not like the old days. If you try to strike at any other job now, they might humor you for a little and let you march around with your cute little protest signs demanding more money or better vending machines in the break room, or whatever. But they won't put up with that bullshit for long. Instead of giving you a raise or a brand new Pepsi machine in the break room, they will just send your job to another country where a little Mexican, Haitian, or Indian guy would be more than happy to do that same work for half the pay. They might even just hire a robot that would be willing to work for free because robots don't need money.

That was the great thing about being a teacher. Teachers could strike all day and never have to worry about having their jobs outsourced to another country. It is one thing to have all of our auto parts built in Mexico, but there was no way anyone was going to send their kids to Mexico to learn math.

The only foreseeable threat I saw to a teacher's job in the future might be those damn fucking robots again. Everyone knows that robots are stealing manufacturing jobs, so it would only make sense that they start taking all the teaching jobs too. A robot is a scab and wouldn't think twice to cross the picket line to teach AP Calculus, and I'll bet robots know how to do AP Calculus too because they are robots, and robots are really good at math. They are probably even better at math than Asian people.

When the Lord inspired those teachers to go on that strike that day and fight for a lower health care premium, it stirred up feelings in me that I have been repressing ever since I was just a small child. It was now time to answer God's calling. I knew that I always wanted to be a teacher, and I was not going to let one little bump in the road like not being good at it stand in my way anymore. What if Abraham Lincoln gave up every time he lost an election, or if Walt Disney gave up when he was fired from his first job at a newspaper, or if Edison gave up after his first thousand failed attempts at creating the lightbulb, or if Nick Vaill gave up after he lost the final rose to Josh Murray in season 10 of The Bachelorette?

Every person who has ever been a huge success in life is going to experience failure at one point or another in their lifetime, the same way Abraham Lincoln, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, and Nick Vaill did. Despite all of their failure, and all of the people who kept telling them they can't, they never stopped believing in themselves. They never gave up on their dreams. Whether that dream was to invent the lightbulb, or become the greatest American President, or be on season 21 of The Bachelor, they never stopped believing in themselves. They were my heroes, and they made me believe that I could become a teacher no matter what anyone else thought.

I knew exactly who I was meant to be. I couldn't run from my calling any longer. I was never meant to be a beer distributor clerk, a K-Mart associate, a professional car renter, a drug dealer, a case manager, or even a temp. I was never supposed to advance past the burger board at Burger King or even have a successful paper route. My true calling was always to be a school teacher, and I spent my whole life running from it simply because I wouldn't be good at it, just like my college advisor, my parents, friends, family, acquaintances, and everyone I ever knew always told me.

Despite it all, the dream to become a teacher and get my summers off was always in the back of my mind. Whether it be laying on the couch all day, smoking weed, experimenting with other more dangerous drugs, getting drunk with my buddies, having one-night stands, gambling, getting arrested, paying fines, ruining my credit, getting fired from jobs, quitting jobs, or looking for new jobs, that dream to make a difference in the lives of children was always there. God had finally given me the strength and conviction I needed to overcome my crippling self-doubt and follow that dream at last.

When I saw that teacher strike, I realized that it didn't matter if I was a bad teacher. Seeing all those obnoxious teachers marching around all day made me realize that there are plenty of bad teachers in the world. You don't necessarily have to be a good teacher to be a teacher. All you have to do is be able to pass some standardized test, and I could do that blindfolded.

With that new mindset, something inside of me changed. All of a sudden, it seemed as though my dream of becoming a teacher was within my grasp. A few extra bullshit classes and a standardized test was all that stood in the way of me leaving a lasting imprint on the lives of children everywhere and making the world a better place, all while still getting a summer vacation, snow days, a Christmas break, guaranteed annual raises, a defined benefit package with a fixed pension, a 403B tax-sheltered annuity, great health benefits with dental and vision, and protection through a very strong union.

When I saw that teacher strike that day, I made a promise to myself to get a job helping children in a public school because private schools are non-union and they don't pay very well. I also swore that if my school ever went on strike that I would be right there marching that picket line for the rights of teachers everywhere. I would even start a fire and possibly even loot a few television sets from a Rent-Center or maybe some tires from an auto store to show how angry I was at my teacher contract.

I vowed that if my school ever went on strike, I would make it one of the greatest protests of our generation. It would be mentioned in the same breath as St. Louis, Baltimore, and even L. A. after O. J. and Rodney King. It would be known as one of the greatest disruptions in the history of any protests, strikes, or riots known to man. After I watched that teacher strike on the news, I knew exactly what God wanted me to do with the rest of my life. Being a teacher was good honest work. It gave back to the community. It helped children. And I knew that it would make my family proud. Plus, I knew deep down in my heart that I would never last at any position that requires any type of real job performance where you could be held accountable in any way. After blowing through five jobs in less than a year, I knew that the only way I was ever going to hold down any sort of steady work would be with the help of a tenure track and a strong union.

The only downside of being a teacher was dealing with all those children. Children are very similar to old people and women. They tend to get really annoying if you have to be around them for too long, especially if there are a lot of them. Being trapped in a classroom all day with a bunch of smelly, annoying, know-it-all kids who had head lice, learning disabilities, autism, behavior problems, bad attitudes, or others who were just plain stupid sounds like it can be a complete fucking nightmare. Not to mention all those dickhead parents you have to deal with who are constantly trying to blame the teacher for their kids being so fucking dumb. Dealing with that amount bullshit on a daily basis would be a very steep price to pay for getting a summer vacation, and for a brief moment, I doubted that I was making the right decision.

It is not that I do not like children. I actually love children and I wanted to make a difference in their lives, but only in small doses, like maybe one at a time, for an hour here and there, then be able to send them away if they started acting up or if they smelled bad. I knew that I didn't have the patience to deal with a whole roomful of them all day. I would end up having a nervous breakdown, or probably end up one of those teachers you see flipping out on YouTube all the time. Those videos are really funny but becoming an Internet sensation who has viral temper tantrum was not what God had planned for me.

I knew God wanted me to work with children, in a public school, and in small doses. The only problem with God's plan was that I didn't think a job like that existed. I starting to think that maybe I was reading God's signs all wrong. And for a brief moment, I thought maybe He wanted me to be an assistant manager at Ruby Tuesdays or sell insurance on full commission with my cousin from New Jersey.

I was just about to give up on my dream of becoming a teacher when suddenly, like a glorious awe-inspiring eagle of hope, God swooped in and picked me up with his God-like eagle claws, putting me back on the path to my destiny. I suddenly began having visions, and every time I would close my eyes, I would see the familiar face of a person from my distant past. I found it odd that she was on my mind so much, as she was possibly the most insignificant person I ever encountered in my entire life. I have had more meaningful conversations with gas station attendants and pizza delivery guys, but for some reason, I couldn't shake the thoughts of her.

The role that she played in my life was so minuscule and pointless that I was sure I would never think about her ever again, but there she was. She was consuming my every thought. I couldn't figure out how a person who had such little influence in my life could have made it to the forefront of my consciousness so many years after I had last seen her. And the more I tried to forget about her, the more I couldn't stop thinking about Mrs. Krump, my old high school guidance counselor.

Mrs. Krump spent most of her days in a tiny windowless office that sat in the hall just past the chemistry lab. I never saw her leave that office or speak to anyone, which fascinated me. Every time I had a class in that lab, I would never be able to pay attention because I was too busy staring down the hall into her office and wondering what the fuck she did all day. Here it was many years later, and I found myself once again consumed with that very same obsession that caused me to get a D in chemistry class. I found myself once again daydreaming and wondering about what the fuck guidance counselors do all day.

When I told others about the dreams that I kept having and the question that was now burning inside of me, it turned out that I wasn't alone. Everyone else in the world at one point or another has pondered the same question. They too all wondered what they fuck guidance counselors do all day.

In fact, I met some people who never even knew their guidance counselor. To them, the guidance counselor was just an enigmatic shadowy figure who would only be seen lurking in the halls drinking coffee or exiting the faculty restroom. And then I remembered all those movies and television shows that portray the guidance counselor as these bumbling, incompetent, lazy, buffoons who have no idea what they are talking about. There is always a general theme, an aura of incompetence and laziness that surrounds guidance counselors. One night I was watching this old movie. I forget the name of it, but there was this scene where a guidance counselor says really stupid stuff then he trips and spills coffee all over his shirt. That was when I realized why God was sending me all those visions of Mrs. Krump. He wanted me to be a guidance counselor. That was my true calling.

I did a little digging on guidance counselors, and they have the same guaranteed annual pay steps, defined benefit package, 403B tax-sheltered annuities, health benefits, dental, vision, union, and tenure track as a teacher. The only difference between a guidance counselor and a teacher is that a teacher has to be stuck in a hot smelly classroom with twenty asshole kids all day, while a guidance counselor gets to sit in their spacious office doing God knows what all day. There are no lesson plans, no papers to grade, no asshole kids to teach, no dickhead parents to deal with. It's just sitting in an office all day and fucking off. I finally found my dream job.

The only downside to becoming a high school guidance counselor was that it required a master's degree, which would cost me an additional twenty-five thousand dollars in student loans. Coupled with the forty-five thousand I already wasn't paying, that would put me somewhere in the vicinity of seventy thousand dollars in student loan debt. After some careful deliberation, I decided that spending seventy thousand dollars for a master's degree to pursue a career that doesn't pay well and has a really small job market was a great idea. So did Uncle Sam, and I secured yet another Federal Stafford loan with no questions asked. It was a huge gamble, but if it paid off, I would never have to work another summer again.

It was the first time in my life that I ever felt confident in a decision because I knew that this decision had been inspired by God himself. Everything else that has ever happened to me in my life led me to this very moment. The public urination, the numerous disorderly conducts, the arrests, almost getting kicked out of college for blowing something up with dynamite, the two times I got caught cheating in college, the plummeting credit score, the student loans that I couldn't afford, my car being stolen and lit on fire, losing all those jobs. All those screwups, and all those lost jobs, those were all God's way of showing me that I wasn't meant to be anything else in this world except a high school guidance counselor.

I was shunned from the world of car rental manager trainees. Insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, Fortune 500 companies, and other various sales departments all turned their noses at me. I failed miserably in the mental health field working as a caseworker. I didn't have the charisma for telemarketing. I didn't have a strong enough back for hard work, and I sucked when I worked at Burger King in high school.

I was even fired from my very first job as a paperboy when I was twelve years old. I would always end up with a bunch of papers left over because I would always forget a few houses. Then I would try to remember the ones I missed, but that would only confuse me more and I would end up giving some houses two papers and other houses none. Sometimes I would simply get bored and just say fuck it all together, and then I would ditch all the papers off the side of a bank and go home. The only time I would ever finish my route correctly was when my mom would do it for me. I was eventually fired, and my route was given to Phil Wagner from down the street, a more competent and reliable eleven-year-old.

It took twenty-three years of setbacks and misgivings, but I finally came to terms with who I was and with who God wanted me to be. I understood that God had not blessed me with any viable skills or real talents. Nor did he bestow upon me a work ethic or a strong moral compass. The only thing the Lord gave me was a desire to become a high school guidance counselor, and a social security number so that I could get more student loans to pursue that calling. God has done his part. It was now up to me to do the rest. If I didn't at least try to get my Master's degree and get a low paying guidance counselor job, I would spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been, and be forced to use the money that I spent on student loans on other cool stuff jet skis, 4-wheelers, chainsaws, awesome guns, or maybe a sweet bass boat. But it was not my destiny to own a chainsaw, an awesome 4-wheeler, or a sweet bass boat. My destiny was to make a difference in the lives of our children, but not if it is snowing and not in the summer. My destiny was to become a high school guidance counselor.

# Change Is Hard

I knew that I had to change if I ever wanted to become a high school guidance counselor, and change is one of the biggest challenges a person can face. At least that was what all those stupid motivational Internet memes about change that my mom always posts on Facebook say. That is also why there are so many self-help gurus, therapists, psychologists, life coaches, authors, and motivational speakers who make a pretty good buck off change.

I read an article about change once, and it said that there are eight reasons change can be hard. There was something about eating an entire elephant, having a toolbox, being motivated by negative emotions, and a bunch of other bullshit. I am not going to get into the whole thing here. It was a stupid article.

Let me just say that in my epic quest to become a high school guidance counselor, change was the biggest mountain I had to climb. However, before I could even begin to think about change, there was a more immediate impasse that I had to face. It was an obstacle that was so difficult to overcome that it almost stopped me dead in my tracks.

To be accepted into graduate school, I needed three professional letters of recommendation. For a person with my work history and general disposition that was going to be damn near impossible. I racked my brain to think of anyone that might have something nice to say about me, but I was drawing a blank.

I decided to ask the doctor whom I had worked for previously. He wasn't particularly fond of me, but he was a Buddhist, and they are supposed to love all people, at least so I thought. That motherfucker gave me back that recommendation form, and he didn't have one nice thing to say about me. He put N/A down for every goddamn question on the form and didn't even take the time to write anything in the comments section. And to think I almost felt bad for rubbing the ice for his soda all over my balls and asshole.

The next person I asked was my old college advisor. I forget her name, but she was the strong black woman whom I always avoided and felt threatened by. I showed up at her office unexpectedly and without an appointment in hopes that I could catch her off guard. I figured that if I put her on the spot like that, she would have no choice but to write me a glowing letter of recommendation. After all, she was my advisor. Would you believe that self-righteous bitch had the audacity to tell me to my face that she wouldn't be comfortable giving me a recommendation letter? It was no wonder I avoided her all the time.

I struck out on my first two attempts at securing a letter of recommendation, and I needed three. I couldn't ask any former bosses, as most of them either despised or didn't know me. I probably could have asked the guy who owned the beer distributor. I think he tolerated me, but I wasn't sure what working in a beer had to do with helping America's youth. I kept asking the guy who supervised me at my summer internship for a letter of recommendation, but he never returned any of my calls, so I did the most ethical thing I could think of. I wrote my own recommendation letter and signed his name. I wanted to do the right thing, so I only wrote stuff that I thought he might say. Then I got my friend, Gay Bob, to write one. I told him to say that he was my supervisor, which was somewhat true because he can be bossy at times. I did help him move once and he told me where to put all the boxes, so he technically did supervise me once.

I got the first two letters easier than I thought, but I still needed one more. This one was not like the others. This last letter would be the single most difficult letter of recommendation that I would ever have to ask for in my whole entire life. It had to come from a professor who taught me, and I couldn't think of any teacher that I ever had in my whole life who would recommend me for anything. Even my Kindergarten teacher probably wouldn't write me a letter of recommendation. She referred me to speech therapy and gave me an Unsatisfactory in "Task Completion" on my kindergarten report card. I still run into her from time to time, and that dumb bitch still won't say even look at me or say hi to me. I did have a third-grade teacher who might have written me a letter of recommendation, but she was dead. It looked as if this was going to end my career as a high school guidance counselor before it ever began.

Then suddenly, just as I was about to call my cousin to get me a job selling insurance on full commission or becoming an assistant manager at an Applebee's who works shitty hours and on weekends, I remembered this strange old hippie professor who always smelled like patchouli oil and wore Birkenstocks. She gave me the only A I ever got in college. It was a research class where I worked in a group with a couple of weird fat chicks to determine if there was a correlation between dating patterns and self-monitoring. It was so good that the results were published in the Eastern Psychological Association Journal. Needless to say, the hippie professor was dually impressed. Don't get me wrong. I had nothing to do with it. The weird fat chicks did all the work, but the professor didn't know that.

Now I could only hope and pray that the efforts of those weird fat chicks would be enough. I emailed the teacher and within a week, I had a letter of recommendation. It was less than flattering, and sort of a backhanded compliment about how I was an underachiever, but I had potential. Not a great letter, but I'll take it.

I had my three letters of recommendation, but they didn't even matter in the end anyway. They weren't enough to overcome my spotty work history and my poor college GPA. I applied to five schools and was denied immediately by all of them. Well, all but one.

The only school that was willing to give me a shot was this tiny religious college about fifty miles north of me. They didn't accept me, but they did invite me to interview with the school counseling department head. My entire future hinged on this one solitary interview. If I screwed this up, I would be forced to go to work all year round for the rest of my life, even in the fucking snow. The stakes were that high.

As I walked into her office, the department head was eating a sub of some kind. I began to panic thinking that I may have had the date or time wrong. I said that I would come back when she was finished eating, but she insisted that I stayed and she waved me into her office. With a big mouthful of a sub, and without saying anything, she pointed to the chair motioning for me to sit down. We sat in an awkward silence as I watched her chew that gargantuan bite of sub. After she swallowed it, she finally began the interview. She asked me standard questions in between enormous messy bites of the hoagie, and she hardly paid attention to my answers because she was much more interested in eating her sub than hearing anything I had to say.

She spoke with her mouth full, and at one point she got mustard all over her face and she didn't even bother to wipe it off. I took great comfort in seeing the highest level of all guidance counselors eat a sub all piggish and messy the same way I would. Seeing her half-ass that interview with complete and utter disregard for any sort of professionalism was one of the most inspirational moments of my entire life.

All of a sudden, I was not a misfit oddball loner anymore. I didn't feel like I was the only one in the world who was an incompetent buffoon. I knew now that there were others like me, and they were all guidance counselors. I smiled to myself as I left that interview because I was now sure who I was supposed to be. I knew that I had finally found my home.

After the interview, she threw out the hoagie wrapper, wiped the mustard off her face and offered me a conditional probationary acceptance into the guidance counselor program. I told her that I wouldn't let her down, but she didn't seem to care either way. She was too busy looking up at the clock. I spryly walked out of her office full of glee and jubilation. I was officially a probationary graduate student.

With my newfound purpose and drive, it would only take me one semester to get my probation lifted. In my first semester of graduate school I got straight A's. They were the first real A's that I ever got without cheating, and I didn't stop there. I kept getting A after A, and eventually finished my master's degree in two years with an amazing 3.75 GPA. Not too bad for a guy who doesn't even know how to do fractions.

Remember all that shit I was saying about having to change my life if I wanted to succeed as a guidance counselor? Well, that turned out to be a bunch of bullshit. All those Facebook memes about change were right. Change is really hard. That was why I gave up on that nonsense after a week. While I was in graduate school, I didn't change a thing. I didn't work harder, study more, try harder, or do anything different in any way. I was still up to my same old hijinks of binge drinking, doing lots of drugs, skipping class, not studying and handing in the same jumbled, half-assed garbage that I always did with the same typos, spelling errors, plagiarism, poor citations, and everything. The only difference now was that I was getting A's for it.

There was even one class I had that was based on one solitary project. That assignment was supposed to take us the whole semester to complete, but I work very efficiently so I was able to get mine done in just a few hours. It was so poorly written that I don't even think it would have gotten a passing grade in a middle school. Luckily for me, I was not in middle school and I was in graduate school instead. At the end of the semester, the professor had us give ourselves a grade that we thought we deserved. Holding true to my humility and modest nature, I only gave myself an A-, which was the same grade I got on my transcript.

A few months later I happened to be walking by the professor's office. He left his door open, so I peeked in. To my surprise, all of the projects were stacked in a pile in the corner of his office. I grabbed mine and looked through it, noticing not one red mark or comment. It was then I realized that he did not grade it. He just tossed them in the corner and gave us all the same grades that we gave ourselves. I wasted all of that time and money on this upper-level graduate course, and that professor didn't have enough decency to look at all my hard work. If I knew that I would have given myself an A.

Graduate school was a wonderful time in my life. My mom and dad would brag to all their friends about their son who was in graduate school, and I think they might have even stopped trying to have me killed or put me up for adoption. I even got a blurb in the family newsletter. It was not accurate and said that I was studying to become a psychologist, which I was okay with me because being a psychologist sounds way more prestigious than being a guidance counselor anyway. I would tell girls that I was in graduate school, and once in a while one of them would even get drunk enough to have sex with me. Things were going great for me at this point in my life. I was on a meteoric rise for success in the world of helping children and getting my summers off. I even landed a full-time job working as a Rehabilitation Specialist for a therapeutic foster care agency which sounds really important, but all I did was take these foster kids out to McDonald's once a week to try and help them forget that they were orphans. I worked maybe ten hours a week, but they paid me for forty, so it was a perfect job for me.

I eventually moved out of my mom and dad's house and moved into a great big white corner house that had French doors and came fully furnished with everything left behind from some old guy who just died. All of his stuff was still there like his clothes, furniture, dishes, and even pictures of his grandkids. I would relax in his recliner and drink coffee from his #1 Grandpa mug, the same way that he probably did when he was alive. In the evenings I would retire to the master bedroom, and I would fall asleep in the largest comfiest queen-sized bed that the old man had probably died in. These were some of the best days of my life.

# The Time I Partied Like a Rock Star

The best part about being a graduate student was that I did not have to make payments on my student loans anymore. As long as I was taking six college credits a semester, they gave me something that is called a deferment. Deferment meant that I was not making the monthly payments on my student loans, and they weren't accruing interest either. That was much better than those crummy forbearances that I was used to that still racked up interest. With my loans now in deferment I did not having a monthly payment to worry about anymore, and suddenly a brand-new world of student loan debt opened up to me.

No one was even busting my balls anymore or harassing me about all the stupid money I still owed them from the last time I was in college. Now, it was the opposite. Not only did I not have to make payments on the original loans. They were actually encouraging me to borrow even more money than before through a new untapped avenue called a Graduate Plus loan. The possibility of debt that lied before me was endless.

After my last semester, they lent me too much money by mistake. I wasn't even sure how it happened, but there I was, standing in my living room, holding a check for fifteen thousand dollars. I didn't have to use it on books, tuition, or anything school related. It was all mine, and I could spend it however I liked. My initial plan was to send it right back, so as not accrue any additional debt, but then I came up with an even better plan. I decided that I would reinvest that money into a diversified, moderately aggressive stock portfolio that was balanced with high-risk stocks, conservative bonds, and more moderate mutual funds that would secure an annual return of anywhere from 7-10% annually, while I consolidated my student loan at 2. 9% interest, guaranteeing me a return of anywhere from 4-7% on my investment. It sounded like a solid plan that could really make that money work for me. But then I came up with an even better plan on what to do with that money. I FUCKING PARTIED!!!!

It was so fucking awesome! I took a cruise in Miami, blew tons of coke, went to the bar every night, drank top-shelf liquor, went to Atlantic City all the time, and ate all my meals at bars and restaurants. I even quit my job and cashed in my 401K. I was living like a goddamn rock star.

Okay, maybe I wasn't really living like a rock star. I was only banging mostly fours and fives, and rock stars bang mostly tens. I wasn't famous like a rock star. I didn't have any musical talent like a rock star. I wasn't rich like a rock star and didn't have a mansion with an in-ground pool or any cool cars like a rock star. Come to think of it, the only thing I was doing like a rock star was blowing tons of coke, which was still pretty gosh darn fun in its own right. Soon enough the money ran out and my head cleared up enough for me to see the rough road that now lied ahead of me. That sobering experience taught me that life is nothing more than a series of ups and downs, ebbs and flows. Life is like a giant roller coaster, but not the kind that goes upside down. Well, I guess technically life could be like the roller coasters that go upside down, like if you get paralyzed in a bad car accident, or maybe if you get diagnosed with cancer, or if something bad happens that turns your life upside down like the loop on a roller coaster. However, for the sake of this story, I am only talking about the roller coasters with really big hills because in life you're up one day and you're down the next. As quickly as my spectacular rise to glamour and decadence had begun, it had ended just as abruptly. By August of that same year, I had come full circle back to where it all began. Once again, I was completely broke and unemployed.

# Job Interviewing 101: Don't Mention Public Urination

I blew through all my student loans and my 401K. I had no job, no money, and I got evicted from my apartment. I thought about moving into a homeless shelter, but I knew they would not have HBO, or wash my clothes, or cook me dinner. Luckily, I knew two people who would, and it wasn't long before I was back home living on my parent's couch again.

I was down, but I was not out. Even amidst the ruins of poverty and failure, I never gave up on my dream of becoming a high school guidance counselor. I feverishly applied to many school districts across the state of Pennsylvania, and I went on countless interviews, but thanks to some terrible advice from another guidance counselor, no one offered me a job.

I should have known better than to take career advice from a guidance counselor. They are the last people on earth who should be giving career advice. Think about it. The same person who is supposed to guide people to finding their dream job is the same person who grew up to become a fucking high school guidance counselor. How is that for irony? It is like having a health teacher with herpes, or an illiterate English Teacher, or a piano teacher with no fingers, or a blind driver's ed teacher, or a ...well you get the point. Anyone who grew up to become a high school guidance counselor is in no position to be giving any sort of career advice on anything. Take it from me.

Anyway, there was a section on the Pennsylvania Standard Teacher Application that asks if you were ever convicted of a crime. My natural inclination is to lie about things such as criminal history on a job application, but my internship supervisor advised me to be honest. Looking back now, I should have known better than to listen to her. She was terribly disorganized, and she would spend all day looking for stuff that she lost, or she would be scrambling to fix things she screwed up. Not that I am judging her for losing stuff or screwing things up. I have been known to lose things or screw stuff up a time or two myself. I am just pointing out that I probably should not have taken her advice.

She told me to list every crime I was ever convicted of, even the little ones, because if they found out that I was hiding anything they could fire me. She told me that an employer would appreciate my honesty. That sounded like bad advice. It sounded like it would ruin any chance I would ever have of getting hired, but she was a doctor, so I figured she knew what she was talking about.

Taking her advice, I put down every crime I ever committed. I listed everything from the public drunkenness to the disorderly conduct, and I even listed the time I got arrested for a public urination. Of course, my criminal record came up in every single goddamn job interview, and I found out the hard way that it is damn near impossible be taken seriously for a job once the people interviewing you know that you get drunk in public and sometimes you urinate in the street. I don't care how good you are at interviewing, there is literally no way to spin that into a positive.

After a while, I realized that no employer ever intended to hire me, and the only reason they interviewed me was so they could ask me about my criminal history, then make fun of me behind my back after I left. I eventually stopped showing up for interviews. It was too humiliating. I knew I was never going to get a job. If it was between hiring me and someone who didn't get drunk and urinate in public, the job was going to the person who was sober used a public restroom every time.

I did not get my dream job of being a high school guidance counselor. I had to settle for a job as a mentor for troubled youth instead. At least they didn't care where I took a piss. It was a good job that was very rewarding because I got to fuck off all day and no one paid attention to what I was doing. I even found some old Nintendo games that the IT department didn't block like Mike Tyson's Punch-out, Contra, and RC Pro-am. It was a very good job that I loved, but it still wasn't my destiny. It wasn't my true calling. It was just a job that helped to pay the bills. Actually, it paid for me to go to the bar, get concert tickets, and buy other cool shit. I was still living with my mom and dad, so they were the ones who mostly worried about the bills.

# When Hard Work Pays Off

It was that time of year again. It was mid-summer and school districts were starting to fill their job vacancies for the upcoming school year. This meant that I would be throwing my hat in ring for another shot at the big leagues and a lifetime of summer vacations. I was ready to start applying for high school guidance counselor jobs again, but this time I was going to do it on my terms. I was going to follow my heart and not listen to anyone else's dumb advice this time. I was not going to let anything stand between me and my destiny of becoming a high school guidance counselor. No more shitty advice from any more stupid guidance counselors. There would be no more disorderly conducts or public urination on my application. I was not going to let any crimes that I may have committed or character flaws I might have get in the way of my dream of helping children. I was not about to give the upper hand to the people interviewing me. I was going to make sure that they would have to stick to questions about what was really important about being a great high school guidance counselor and leave questions about my character and my criminal history out of it.

I only went on one interview that summer. That was all I was going to need. I did everything I could to impress them in that interview. I had my mom buy me a sharp blue suit from Boscov's. With that, I wore a red tie that my mom also bought me from Boscov's, but only after I had yelled at her and made her return the ugly yellow one that she bought first. Then I made sure my mom had everything laid out for me, neatly pressed with no wrinkles.

The only thing I had left to do was put on my tie, which I did all by myself. I decided to go with the traditional Half Windsor instead of using one of the more unconventional knots like the Fishbone or the Eldridge because I think those knots are used mostly by hipsters and eccentrics, plus I didn't know how to tie them. I thought about the robust triangle of the Double Windsor often used by the stylish black athletes that I see on ESPN. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to tie the Double Windsor either.

I knew that a suit from Boscov's and a Half-Windsor wasn't going to land me on the cover of GQ, but it could definitely get me a job as a high school guidance counselor. It was also an acceptable suit to wear to a wedding, but not as the best man or a groomsman. It was more along the lines of a suit that would be worn by a wedding guest who only showed up because the reception was open bar, like a friend of the family, a third cousin, or maybe a co-worker.

I was confident in my appearance until the assistant principal pointed out one glaring flaw. She snickered as she informed me that I had not aligned the buttons to the correct holes on my jacket, making the suit look crooked and uneven. I must have hastily misaligned the top button to the bottom buttonhole, the same mistake I have been making since I began buttoning my own shirts when I was five years old. Of all the times to fuck up the buttons on my coat, it had to be on the day of a job interview.

First appearances are crucial in a job interview, and an initial setback like that would have demoralized any other man and shattered his self-confidence, but that was not going stop me, not on that day. I ignored her attempt at humiliating me and simply sat down at the table to begin answering all of the questions they asked me. I knew in my heart that I was not the kind of guy who doesn't know how to button a suit coat, and I was not going to let that define me as a man.

My son used to fuck up the buttons on his shirt for school all the time when he was in first grade, yet he somehow always found a way to persevere. He would ask his mom to fix it, and then he would get on that bus and go to school. Using my son as inspiration, I was not going to let something like not knowing how to button my coat stand in my way. I was going persevere, and get on my own school bus and go to my own first-grade class the same way he always did.

I made sure that my responses to their questions would be so moving and so powerful that they would have no choice but to hire me. It didn't matter how stupid I looked with my suit buttoned in the wrong holes. I was not going to let one little mistake like that determine the rest of my life. I was better than that, and my determination was unwavering. I was assertive, impassioned, and self-confident in that interview. I made good eye contact and used a series of hand gestures as I skillfully articulated all of my responses to their questions. I showed so much passion and enthusiasm for guidance counseling that even if my zipper was down and I appeared drunk, they would have still hired me anyway. That was how good I was.

After the interview they all nodded to me in approval as we shook hands in a gesture of incredible politeness and great respect. The next day they called and offered me the job, and I was officially a high school guidance counselor. My plan to omit my criminal history from my job application had worked.

All the hard work I put in over the years, the self-sacrifice, the blood, the sweat, the tears, those long nights I spent not studying, the countless hours I put in procrastinating, and it all finally paid off. I had answered God's calling for me to become a high school guidance counselor. Through my hard work, perseverance, and determination I finally landed my dream job. Plus, my mom knew the woman who hired me.

# My Father's Approval

I rolled up my shirtsleeves and I got to work at my first job as a high school guidance counselor, and it was just how I had imagined. I walked around a lot, drank lots of coffee, cracked a few jokes, and gave high fives in the hall, all while doing very little actual work. I had this great big office with these huge windows that looked out over the campus of the whole school. It was bigger than the superintendent's office and even a few doctors' offices that I have been in. It always smelled nice too because my secretary bought me a diffuser that smelled like cinnamon.

She was a very nice lady and she took great care of me. She was very organized and efficient, and she was always happy to do my work for me or correct anything that I screwed up. In return, I would lean on the counter by her desk for hours and hours, just drinking coffee and entertaining her with my amusing stories and playful banter. It was exactly how I had imagined it.

No one knew what I did as a high school guidance counselor, nor did they expect me to do anything either. The school had principals, secretaries, teachers, and even janitors to do the really big important stuff. I did mostly standardized testing, had a few lunch duties, and sometimes I would cover a study hall. Of course, I did have to guidance counsel a few students here and there from time to time. Most of the students I dealt with had a wide range of issues that could have been anything from suicide to drawing dicks on a bathroom stall. If it were something as serious as suicide, I would just refer them to a real counselor or someone more competent than me to handle it, like the social worker, a crisis worker, or even the cops. Sometimes I would even just let the other guidance counselor deal with it.

I tried to keep my counseling to cheeky stuff like smoking weed or drawing dicks, stuff that I can really relate to. One student stands out in my mind in particular. I did connect with her and think I did make a real difference in her life. She was a chubby little awkward freshman who lacked self-confidence and was still unsure about where she fit in this world.

One day she came to me and she was very upset and crying. When I asked her what was wrong, she told me that some of the surly vo-tech kids from her Agricultural Science class had been farting in her face all morning. I tried to use the reflection techniques that they taught me in my counseling classes in graduate school, so I asked her how those farts made her feel, but she was unable to put those emotions into words. All she could muster was a really dumb and confused look on her face. It looked like conventional counseling techniques were not going to work this time.

I needed to rely on my own instincts, so I called the boys down to my office and I gave them a lecture on why it is important to not fart in people's faces. In the middle of our counseling session, one of the boys farted really loud, and we all busted out laughing because farts are always funny. Then we all high-fived one another and I sent the boys back to class. My intervention must have worked because that girl never once came back to ask me for help with anything ever again.

Another big issue that I tackled during my tenure as a guidance counselor was stopping a powerful gang that had been on the rise in our area. It was being formed by the notorious Fenstermacher boys who had dropped out several years earlier. After they quit school, they began a fight club that was terrorizing the park and the pizza place in town. They began recruiting some of our more impressionable young students to join their sinister gang, and in some sort of bizarre initiation, they were forcing these vulnerable young men to eat dog shit. I made it my personal mission to try and talk some sense into these young boys to keep them from joining this awful gang. If I was able to keep just one child from eating dog shit, then I did my job, and I can rest easy on my three-month-long summer vacation knowing that I made a difference in the life of at least one child. And that pretty much sums up my life's work as a guidance counselor. It was exactly how I pictured it in all my dreams.

Shortly after I got hired as a guidance counselor, my father passed away. He was in his early sixties and had only been retired for a few years when he died from congestive heart failure. It was tragic that he died so young. He didn't even live long enough to meet his granddaughter or see me put him in a nursing home. I was saddened by his early departure back to God, but I was still grateful that he lived long enough to see me happy with my real cushy job because an easy dick-off job was what he had always wanted for me.

He was diagnosed with COPD and Emphysema from smoking, and he was confined to sit in this brown recliner in his living room twenty-four hours a day. If he so much as sat up something called his pulse ox would go up and he would be in danger of dying. It was medically necessary for him to lie there and do nothing all day, which was a fitting end for him because, as I mentioned before, he was an extraordinarily lazy man.

He spent his dying days sitting in that chair eating popsicles, watching movies, and having my mom wait on him hand and foot. I never saw a man enjoy dying as much as he did, but he loved every minute of it. Seeing him like that was bittersweet for me. I was sad to see him dying, and I was going to miss him a great deal, but it was still nice to see him doing what he loved right up until the end, which was sitting around doing nothing.

One of the fondest memories I have of my father was when we watched this movie about an umpire starring Nick Nolte. He asked me to get him a Popsicle, which I did. Then he asked for another, which I got for him of course. Then he asked for another, and then another, and another until I flipped out. I told him to knock it off with the fucking popsicles already, and that I was trying to watch the fucking movie too.

The movie ended and I was just about to leave when he asked me to come over to him. I was about to flip my shit again because I thought he was going to ask me to get him another fucking Popsicle. I didn't care that he was dying. I would have punched him right square in his fucking face if he asked for one more goddamn Popsicle.

But that was not what he wanted at all. Instead, he called me close and told me that he wanted to ask me a question. I was blindsided by his tone, which had suddenly become serious and heavy. I was nervous to hear what he had to say, but I leaned in anyway. I got close to him as he mustered up what little strength he had, and he pulled himself up to talk to me. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me in close and he gave me a big hug. As we embraced, he asked me the very same question that has burned inside of all of us. He asked me. "So, what the fuck does a guidance counselor do all day?" My eyes swelled with tears, as I whispered back into his ear, "I don't do much, pops. I don't do much."

Hearing that, he gave me a nod of approval and told me that he was proud of me. It was the first time in my life that my father told me he was proud of me. Well, I think he might have told me that he was proud of me a few other times before too, like whenever I got a trophy or a medal of some sort when I was a child, but those times don't count because everyone is proud of someone who just got a trophy. This time was different. This time there were no awesome runner-up medals or sweet participation awards. There was nothing like that. It was just me. He was simply proud of the man who stood before him. The years of strain between us had finally lifted, and the damaged relationship between my father and I had finally healed.

Seeing Nick Nolte die in that movie and hearing my father tell me that he was proud of me was just too much for me to handle. Suddenly a wave of emotion came rushing over me that I never felt before, and for the first time in my life I felt caring, empathy, compassion, sympathy, and even sadness. I was finally beginning to feel all of the emotions that I denied myself for all those years with the calloused wall that I built to protect myself from ever being hurt or having my heart broken.

I tried to fight it off, but the emotion was too strong. My eyes began welling up with tears, and right as the levy was just about to break, and I was about to cry for the very first time, would you believe that motherfucker asked me to get him another Popsicle? It was like his tenth one in an hour. I was fucking livid. He ruined my one chance at actually having an emotional breakthrough. I was so pissed, so I told him to go fuck himself, and I left. At that, his last bit of strength gave out and his head fell back into the recliner. Then his eyes closed, and he passed away. Well, I don't mean he died like right then and there. He died like two months later, but you know what I mean.

# Summer Vacations and Post-Partum Depression

My first year as a high school guidance counselor finally ended, and it was time for my first summer vacation as a grown man. I mean there were a few times other when I didn't work in the summer, but that was only because I didn't have a job during the summer. Being on a summer vacation is way more awesome than being unemployed all summer. Saying that you're on summer vacation just roll off your tongue and make you think happy thoughts about things like Jimmy Buffet, beer cozies, and suntan lotion. Saying that you're unemployed all summer makes you think sad thoughts about things like unattractive people, cigarettes, and Wal-Mart.

I was so happy to not have to go to work for three whole months. It was a much-deserved respite from all those seven-hour days I was putting in for the past nine months. I finally had a little time to myself to do whatever it was I wanted to do, and I would have liked to have done something productive too, but I'll be honest with you, productive stuff always kind of bored me. If I was the type of person who liked to do productive stuff, I probably wouldn't have become a high school guidance counselor in the first place.

There was only one small problem with my first summer vacation. By the time I became a real high school guidance counselor with a real summer vacation, I accidentally got my girlfriend pregnant, married her, then I got her pregnant again. Right when I was just about to live out my lifelong dream of making a difference in lives of children for nine months and then getting shitfaced drunk the other three, I accidentally had two babies to take care of.

My plans were once again foiled by other people putting their own selfish needs before mine. This time it was two selfish babies who needed me to watch them while my selfish wife went off to work. My summers of hedonism and drunken debauchery had been reduced to nothing more than babysitting a couple of toddlers.

Instead of drinking a cold one on a beach like people are supposed to when they are on a summer vacation, I was having a cold one in my living room while I was changing diapers, playing the happy monster game, giving baths, and watching PBS kids for the like the gazillionth time. I had no connection to the outside world during those summers. Martians could have been taking over the world, and I wouldn't even know it because I was too busy giving horsey rides and watching the Wiggles. By August I was possibly clinically insane, possibly even more clinically insane than the time I did all that meth. It was my first summer vacation, and ironically enough, I couldn't wait to go back to work.

If that weren't bad enough, I was completely broke, and I couldn't afford anything. Had someone told me that guidance counselors don't make a lot of money, I would have decided to become a successful doctor or an investment banker instead. And had I known how much work children were going to be, maybe I would have worn a condom, or at least got a better paying job so I could afford to pay someone else to take care of my kids for me.

Instead, I had all this time on my hands, two kids to entertain all day, no money to buy anything, and nowhere to go. I was stuck with these two kids all day while my selfish wife would go to work and relax in her air-conditioned office. Luckily, I had great parental instincts and I knew how to keep children occupied without having to spend any money. I would give them anything I could find to keep them busy, and then I would corral them into this hexagonal play area using these baby fences so that I could ignore them for hours. I would toss all kinds of stuff in there to keep them from bothering me. I would toss in all the mail, old batteries, Tupperware, aluminum foil, anything I could find just to keep them from badgering or trying to interact with me in any way.

Not that I didn't like playing with toddlers. I loved giving horsey rides, or playing the happy monster, or.... ok I can't even lie. I hated it. Don't trust any guy who says otherwise. If a grown man tells you he likes doing stuff with toddlers, he is either a pedophile or he is completely full of shit.

Alcoholics say to avoid people, places and things that trigger you to want to have a drink. That is all fine and dandy as long as those people, places, and things aren't your kids, your house, and all their toys. With my kids running around like a couple of crazed assholes all day, I was left with no choice but to drink, and when I would run out of shit to throw at them, I would toss my empty beer cans into their coral for them to play with like building blocks. They loved that.

Sometimes I would run out of things to throw at them, so I would take them to this big field where I would throw sticks for them to fetch. My son would run on all fours and bring the stick back in his mouth, then he would drop it and start panting and barking at me, pretending that he was a real dog. When I told some of the ladies at work about this, they all looked at me the way you would expect a bunch of judgmental women at work to look at you after you told them something like that. Well, they never had to take care of kids all day. Actually, they probably did have to take care of kids now that I think about it. They were all really good moms. In any case, my kids are older now and they still haven't gone to therapy yet, so I couldn't have fucked them up all that much.

We lived in a tiny row home and it would become sweltering hot in the summers. It would get so hot that even the candles would melt sometimes. The only way to combat the heat, besides the logical approach of installing an air conditioner, was to fill an old Windex bottle with water, then spray my kids in the face with it and instruct them to stand in front of a fan. It kept them cool and the kids thought it was fun to be sprayed in the face from a bottle of window cleaner.

I am not complaining about living there. It gave me a chance to start my life and it provided me with a home to raise my family. It could have been worse. I could have been homeless or living a shelter. Worst yet, I could have been living with her parents.

Despite the hot summers, having no money, and being around my needy and annoying kids all day, I wouldn't have changed it for the world. I was very lucky to have been blessed with the opportunity to be such a big part of my children's lives while they were growing up, even though I hated every minute of it.

With 2 young babies and money being so tight, it was a very stressful time for us, as I am sure it is for most young families who are just starting their lives. The only thing that got us through those hard times was the strong love that we had for one another. My wife and I had a very strong bond and a deep connection. We had a stronger love than any other couple that ever existed, even stronger than famous couples like Brad Pitt and Angelina Joliet before they got divorced.

It was only through our deep love that we were able to fight through her postpartum depression together. She had one of the worse cases of postpartum depression that anyone has ever seen. She had all the classic symptoms. She had crying episodes, anxiety, depression, and a reduced desire for sex with me. It was a very difficult thing that we had to suffer through together, but my love and admiration for her never waned.

I helped her struggle through her postpartum depression for almost nine years, right up until she filed for divorce from me last July. It was only then that her postpartum depression finally lifted. She is very happy and content now. She doesn't cry anymore. She isn't sad all the time. She is not stressed out. Her sex drive even turned around, and she started dating this chubby little Filipino guy who she met at work. Every time I bring it up, she still insists that it was never was postpartum depression. She says that the only reason she was so upset all the time was because I was such a dick, but I know better. I looked it up on WebMD. It was definitely post-partum depression.

# Making Money the Old-Fashioned Way

I was getting more and more frustrated with my place in life, and my days of trying to pretend that money was not important were starting to take a toll on me. The free-wheeling spirit of my twenties was dead, and the new responsible, goal-oriented thirty-year-old version of me had been born.

Getting drunk in my tiny row home just wasn't good enough anymore. I wanted more out of life. I wanted to be getting drunk in a bigger fancy house instead. I owed that to myself, and more importantly, I owed that to my family. They deserved to see me happy.

Even though I had a beautiful wife and two healthy amazing kids, I knew in my heart that a great family alone would never be enough and that only superficial things would ever bring me true happiness. A fire in my belly had been lit. It was a fire that burns inside all of us, the fire to live out that American dream of owning a big house that had a two-car garage and a refrigerator filled with beer, and I'm not talking shitty domestic beers like Budweiser or Miller Lite. I'm talking Heineken.

The more I tried to ignore it, the brighter and hotter it burned until I couldn't ignore it any longer. It was time to act, and I swore to myself that I would not live like this for one more year. I owed it to my wife and kids to buy a new house.

They deserved to be able to sit out on a big beautiful deck and watch me get really drunk on expensive beers as I cut my huge well-manicured lawn on a riding mower. That vision of my family seeing me happy was what kept me going, and now I was even more determined than ever to live out my dream of impressing other people with all the stuff I owned.

I read somewhere that if you visualize yourself doing something that it will happen. That was why I kept visualizing me in my two-car garage getting drunk on Heineken with my old high school buddies. In my vision, my wife comes out dressed all slutty and serves us all perfectly cooked steaks. Then my kids come out to tell me how proud they are of me for being such a great drinker, and they give me a big hug and ask me to chug a beer. Then, before they go back inside to teach themselves Spanish, my nine-year-old son does a sweet one-handed windmill dunk on the basketball court in my driveway, while my eight-year-old daughter solves Trigonometry problems with sidewalk chalk on the garage floor. My friends then admit to me that I defeated them all in life, and they hoist me onto their shoulders and carry me around the garage, acknowledging that I had become a true champion of life. That vision is what inspired me to change my life forever.

Here is how I did it. I read a lot of books on how to pay down debt. I downloaded some budgeting software to track my monthly spending and devised strategies to save money. I buckled down, worked hard, made lots of sacrifices, and I saved money. I spent responsibly. I cut out all the little extra stuff like eating out, going to the movies and buying extra stuff that we really didn't need. I put our whole family on a tight budget, and I got a second job.

I cut coupons and looked for bargains in the weekender, and if I couldn't afford something, I simply did not buy it. Then I took some night classes to slide over on the teachers' pay scale and position myself for a raise. I volunteered for extra stuff at work, stayed late, came in early, and worked hard hoping to get a promotion to administration someday.

Nah, I am just fucking with you. I didn't do any of that shit. That would have been way too much work. Actually, my grandfather died, and I inherited a shitload of money off of him. I was fortunate to have that windfall come my way, but there was still one small, teensy, weensy, little problem that stood between me and my American Dream.

Like most people, I was not paying my student loans whatsoever, and like most people, I never really had any intentions of paying them back either. I mean don't get me wrong, I wanted to pay them back, and I always felt bad about avoiding their phone calls and throwing away their stupid letters, but there was just no way I could afford that sort of monthly payment, not with all the other everyday living expenses that I had to pay for.

I needed to buy a brand-new jeep; deluxe edition with 22-inch low profile tires and chrome everything. And of course, my kids needed Ray Band sunglasses, because toddlers always look too cute in expensive sunglasses. My daughter needed Vera Bradly purses and Ugg boots for the same reason too, and what kid could live without all those real expensive wooden Melissa and Doug toys. I mean the list goes on and on with the things we needed to survive as a young family just starting out.

By the time we paid for all the basic necessities, there was just nothing left to spend on extra stuff, like student loans. My student loan lenders couldn't seem to understand that though. They must have thought that I was made of money. Year after year they would threaten to put me in default and use all these scare tactics about garnishing my wages and ruining my credit. We would go around and around with the same bullshit song and dance and I would weasel my way out with one economic hardship forbearance after another, which can be a wonderful thing. Under the right set of circumstances, a student loan forbearance can be a really good short-term solution to a problem, just like crash diets and shoplifting, but now it was time for me to start thinking more long-term.

Sure, putting loans into forbearances was putting a little extra money in my pocket, but at what cost? The consequence of using forbearances over many years was debilitating. As the interest kept getting tacked onto the principal, my debt had grown exponentially. It was even more debt than Superman could pay back. Bad example, Clarke Kent was only a journalist. He probably got paid shit, so he probably didn't have the money to pay back his student loans either. I had more debt than Batman could pay back, and Bruce Wayne was a billionaire. There. That's a better analogy.

I knew that it was only a matter of time before my student loans caught up with me, and I was beginning to fear the worst. I worried that I may be forced to dip into my inheritance to pay off my student loans. That would not have been fair to my grandfather. If I wasted my inheritance on student loans, that would have devalued my grandfather's entire existence as a man, and his life would have been completely and utterly pointless. He spent his whole life slaving away and risking his life every day in those dangerous mines, and he saved every penny he could so that I could someday inherit it. If I did not buy something totally awesome for myself with that money, then my grandfather's entire life would have meant nothing. It was now up to me to make sure that my grandfather's death was not in vain. If his life were to have any meaning at all, I had to spend all of that money he gave me on some really cool shit.

He spent fifty years working in those harsh Pennsylvania coal mines and died at the age of eighty-five from complications with pneumonia. As he was dying, I would visit him in the hospital as often as I could. He would always be too weak to talk, and if he did speak it was usually garbled rubbish that made no sense, which was really annoying, but being that I am very a very patient and understanding person, I would never let him see me roll my eyes or mutter under my breath.

The last time that I saw him alive, he grabbed my hand as he kept trying to tell me something. He kept mumbling something about nurses, needing a drink of water and using the bathroom or something. I wasn't sure what he was talking about, but I could tell by the look in his eye exactly what he was trying to tell me. He was trying to tell me that his dying wish was that I take all of the money that he was leaving me, and I buy myself something really fucking awesome with it.

He never really got the chance to discuss the inheritance with me, or even speak coherently again for that matter, but I knew what he was trying to say in his dying words. He was trying to tell me that he wanted me to use that money to buy a really big truck with a V8 engine, or maybe a sweet bass boat, or a snowmobile, or even a four-wheeler of some kind like a utility bike, so that I could drag logs around my yard that I cut down using a huge 4 stroke chainsaw that I also bought, or maybe a tractor with a little backhoe so I could dig holes around my house on a Saturday afternoon when I was bored. I am not sure what he wanted me to buy, but I know this. He did not want me to frivolously piss away all of his hard earned money on something as pointless as a student loan.

At the very least he probably wanted me to use that money to put a down payment on a modest home for me and my family, one that sat on a few acres of land with a big garage, a tool shed, a jet tub that had a rain shower, some really nice crown molding, central air, and maybe a finished basement with a bar and a pool table. Or maybe he wanted me to buy a rustic cabin out in the woods, or a beach condo. I wasn't sure exactly what he wanted me to buy, but I knew one thing for sure, he did not want me to use that money on student loans.

If I frittered away all of his money and had nothing to show for it, then all those times that he went deep into those mines would have all been for not. I owed it to my grandfather to make sure his money would not be wasted on paying back a debt of any kind. Carrying out a man's dying wish was a heavy burden to bear, but I loved my grandfather and there was no way I would let his death be in vain. It was now my mission to make sure that his money would be spent on something awesome. I wanted to make him proud of me, and I was going to do that the only way I knew how. I was going to buy a new house and post pictures of it on Facebook.

In the years to follow, I endured countless years of struggle and economic hardship forbearances, but I remained steadfast and vigilant in my promise to my grandfather, refusing to use my inheritance to pay off any student loans. I let it sit in federal savings bonds collecting an unbelievable eight percent interest until I felt that the time would be right to cash them in.

Finally, I got the big break that I deserved. It was the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, a piece of legislature inspired by God himself that would forgive all of the federal loans for people who worked in the public sector such as teachers. There were other aspects of the bill as well, but I will not bore you with them here, because they do not concern me.

The part of the bill that pertained to me was called the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. I was a high school guidance counselor in a public school, and I had thousands of dollars of federally funded Stafford Loans, which were about as American as apple pie, undocumented Mexicans, or welfare.

All I had to do was make one hundred and twenty payments toward the student loan, and I would not have to pay the remaining balance. That was not even the best part. The best part was that I only had to pay a fraction of what I was supposed to be paying. This was based on some sort of calculations involving family size, poverty guidelines, income, and that sort of thing. After they crunched all the numbers, they determined that I clearly couldn't afford to make my monthly payments, so they enrolled me in the Income-Based Repayment Plan. This meant that I only had to pay a fraction of my monthly payment, and by the time it was all said and done, my monthly payment wasn't even covering the interest, but it didn't even matter, because the rest would be forgiven anyway.

When I got that news that I qualified for all the perks in the College Cost Reduction Act of 2007 my whole life changed. I couldn't believe that God had blessed me with such good fortune. Everything was finally falling into place, and it all seemed too good to be true. I was in disbelief, but once the reality set in that God had actually spared me from my student loans, and that I would be screwing the government out of close to fifty thousand dollars, I fell to the floor and began crying tears of joy. All those long nights that I had spent asking God to send me an angel that would get me out of paying my student loans, and He answered my prayers.

I was ecstatic. I couldn't believe the government was going to find it in their heart to forgive me for making all those poor life decisions to go to really expensive colleges and take shitty majors, only to wind up getting a job as a low paying guidance counselor job. They were even going to forgive me for all of the other stupid shit I did with my student loans too, like the time I quit my job and blew coke for four months. Or the time that I went on a Caribbean singles cruise. Or when I went to a bachelor party in Atlantic City and got a fat black hooker.

They were going to forgive all of it, even the money I spent on coke and hookers. I can't think of another country in the world that would give their citizens money to spend on coke and hookers. Do you want to know why? It's because we are America, and we are the greatest fucking country in the world. That's why.

When I got approved for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program and I didn't have to pay back the government what I rightfully owed them, I was never more proud to be an American. I was even prouder than when I saw Toby Keith playing a real patriotic song about America on a red, white and blue guitar that was made in Japan.

Through some sound financial planning on my part, along with a government handout and my grandfather dying and giving me a shitload of money, I was finally able to put a down payment on my forever home. The house had everything my grandfather could have wanted for me. It was way out in the country with a gorgeous panoramic view of beautiful rolling fields in the foreground with splendid mountains in the backdrop that could make for an unbelievably breathtaking picture if you took a photograph using the correct wide-angle lens and the proper raking light technique.

It also had crown molding, central air, and a big jet tub with a rain shower, just like my grandfather would have wanted for me. We furnished it with new flat screens, new furniture, new decorative towels, a new computer, and new everything. We probably didn't need all that stuff, but I had to keep the promise that I made to my dying grandfather and make sure that I spent all of his money until there was nothing left.

That whole time I was spending all his money, all I could think about was how proud of me he must have been as he looked down on me from heaven. My crowning achievement was when I got my first real riding lawnmower. I always wanted to own a riding lawnmower and be like the rest of the rich people who have really big yards. The first time I sat on that baby and listened to her engine purr was a defining moment for me. It was the sound of me officially moving to a new class of living.

The first time I cut the grass was exactly how I envisioned it in all my dreams. There were the silhouettes of insects dancing gracefully in the reddish hue of the setting sun, and the only sound I could hear was the whirr of the engine coming from my brand-new tractor. The air was filled with the wonderful aromas of fresh-cut grass, the faint smell of gasoline from the tractor, and the smoke coming from the really expensive cigar I was smoking.

I drank an entire IPA twelve sampler that day, yet I still somehow managed to make perfectly symmetrical cuts in the lawn. I was a real natural at cutting the grass with a riding mower. It was almost as if I was born to own a really big yard. That was my best day ever. My wife and kids were out on the deck watching me, and even though they were getting bored and the bugs were biting really bad, I made them stay out there to bask in the glow of my happiness and contentment. I knew that it would be worth it for them to see how happy I was.

I stopped at the far end of the lawn and got off the tractor to give them a big wave, but they must not have seen me because none of them waved back. I then had to pee from all the expensive beer I drank, so taking advantage of not having real close neighbors; I whipped my dick out and took a piss right in the middle of the yard. As I was pissing, I took a long pull off of the cigar and I stared up to the heavens. I knew my grandfather was up there smiling down on me knowing that I did right by him by blowing through my entire inheritance. He was probably up there in heaven with a big ole shit-eating grin on his face, bragging to all of his dead buddies on heaven's Facebook about how awesome my new home was, the same way I was back down here on earth.

# The Greatest Family Christmas Photo Ever Taken

With my newfound fortune and glory, my life turned out exactly as I had planned. I had it all. I had a beautiful home, a hot wife who was probably an eight, and even my kids were very attractive too. And I am not just saying that because they are my kids either. They have very symmetrical faces with no big noses, or unibrows, or anything like that either. They aren't fat, and their teeth are pretty straight too. An unbiased third party like a children's beauty pageant judge or even a pedophile would probably give them an 8 as well.

My kids were not only very attractive, they weren't all that screwed up either. They didn't go to therapy or have to take meds or anything. When my children were younger, they did have a few minor problems that we were concerned about. My daughter had this uncontrollable blind rage that my mother-in-law mistook for autism, and we had some concerns that my son might grow up to be a serial killer. We did seriously consider sending them to therapy at one point, but having kids in therapy can be so embarrassing, so we just decided to hit them instead. Sure enough, after a few spankings, they became really good kids who got straight A's, and we never had to think about sending them to therapy again.

I am very proud of my children. It doesn't even matter to me that they suck at sports. I am the kind of loving father who is proud of my kids no matter what. They are smart, funny, well-behaved, mannerly and thoughtful. Those are the kinds of things that are truly important, not some silly sports. Who cares that they can't hit a home run, score touchdown, or even make a simple goddamn free throw in a CYO basketball game?

It doesn't even matter to me that my daughter wasn't a boy anymore either. Not that I wanted her to become a boy like those weird transgendered ones. No one wants that. What I mean is that I hoped that she was born as a boy, and preferably one who was able to hit a home run once in a while. That would have made me the proudest dad ever. Not that I still I wasn't proud of them. I wouldn't trade them for anything in the whole wide world. I am just saying that maybe I would be a little bit prouder if my boy socked a dinger every once in a while in a Little League game instead of striking out all the goddamn time, or maybe if my daughter started bending her fucking knees when she shot a free throw. That is all that I am saying.

My point is that I was proud of my kids, but more importantly, I was proud of myself. I finally reached the pinnacle of success, and I accomplished everything I set out to do. I was the king of my castle and the master of my domain. I had a hot wife, a beautiful home, and two kids who were not ugly or in therapy. Now I just needed to figure out a way to let the world know how polished and attractive my family was. The world needed to know how well things had turned out for me.

A class reunion would be the perfect venue to show off this sort of thing. Unfortunately, my next class reunion was still a few years away. I couldn't wait that long. My wife could easily get fat by then and my kids would be in that awkward pre-teen phase and they would not be cute anymore. They might even get caught up with a bad crowd and get into drugs by then, which would be a class reunion disaster for me.

I thought about posting cute family pictures on Facebook, but I was afraid it might get overlooked in people's newsfeed. I needed a more aggressive approach to bragging than just social media. I needed something that would reach people directly, leaving them no choice but to bask in the awe and imperial grandeur of me and my perfect family.

I needed to figure out a way to send a picture of my family to people in the mail, yet somehow make it look like I was not being a giant douche about it. If there was only a way to make it seem as though sending a picture of my family was a kind and thoughtful gesture, and not me just being some sort of self-obsessed asshole who likes to send pictures of his family to people.

After some careful deliberation on how to execute such a plan, I came up with the perfect idea. I would send out a picture of me and my family as a Christmas card. That way I could let someone know I am thinking of them around the holidays, yet still manage to show off how awesome my family is. Giving someone a picture of me with my wife and children as a wedding gift or even as a birthday present might come across as a little bit tacky and somewhat strange. That is why it had to be done at Christmas.

I always get those Christmas cards from my friends, co-workers, and relatives every year, and I always think that they are the most considerate gestures of love and caring anyone can give during the holiday season. Never once do I ever think that getting a picture of someone else's family for Christmas is self-absorbed in any way. Even when I was a small child, I would often long for the day when I too could have a family of my own so that I could send people pictures of them and spread Christmas joy to everyone I know. Sending someone a picture of your family is possibly the greatest and most thoughtful gift that you can give someone during the holiday season.

Nothing warms my heart more around the holidays than seeing pictures of other people's families. In particular, I look forward to the family Christmas photo sent to me by an old childhood friend who moved away and became very rich and successful. I haven't talked to him in years, I don't particularly like his fat ugly wife, and I never met his kids, but I still appreciate that he thinks of me around the holidays and sends me a picture of his fat wife and ugly kids. That card always seems to tickle my belly with the warm Christmas fuzzies, and it has become something of a Christmas tradition in my house. Once it arrives, my kids rush to the mailbox to open it. That picture makes their little hearts swell with Christmas joy, as they dance around the kitchen singing Christmas carols and sipping hot cocoa while they hang the picture of that strange ugly family up on the fridge. It is a sign that Christmas has officially begun in our house.

I've always hoped and prayed that I too could bring the same type of Christmas joy with a Christmas card like that of my own. I knew that if my friend can bring Christmas cheer with a picture of his wife who is like a two, and his kids who might be fives, then a picture of my wife and kids who are solid eights would truly make Christmas a magical time for everyone.

Everything was falling into place for a very special Christmas card. My daughter got a cute haircut and her two front teeth were missing, which was adorable, and my wife started doing that Insanity workout. She was in the best shape of her life. With the proper lighting and the right filter, I think I could have gotten her up to a nine in that photo. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be married to a nine. I don't make a lot of money, I am kind of frumpy, and I don't have much personality. I always pictured myself marrying a five at best.

My wife was so determined to look good in the Christmas photo that she even shaved her vagina and started using Crest White Strips. I tried to tell her that she was beautiful without the white strips and that no one would even see her vagina in the family photo, but she didn't care. She wanted everything to be perfect. She wanted to look super sexy for that family photo and make me the happiest guy in the whole gosh darn world.

We were poised to take the best family Christmas photo ever, possibly even better than Tom Brady's or baby Jesus. My only concern was that it might be too beautiful, and someone might try to steal the rights to it or sell it on eBay. I was thinking that I might possibly have to copyright it or trademark it. It was going to be that wonderful.

Then out of nowhere, my plan to execute the most perfect family Christmas photo ever witnessed by human eyes fell apart. It was a tragedy so great that it could have possibly ruined Christmas not only for me but for the whole entire world. It was the biggest bombshell of my entire life.

My wife told me she didn't love me anymore. She said that she hated my guts and that she had feelings for another man. I didn't know what to say. The only words that I could muster were words like cunt, whore, and slut, but mostly cunt, because women don't like it when you call them that.

And just like that my whole world came crashing down. I couldn't wrap my mind around why she would do this. I mean I knew why she would have feelings for someone else. She always told me that I never took anything she did serious, and that I was passive-aggressive, vindictive, hyper-sensitive, bad at communicating, emotionally unavailable, and I kind of remember word "narcissist" being thrown around a few times, so I got that part. I just didn't understand why she cheated on me with a chubby little Filipino guy. I would have understood if she cheated with a hot guy who had huge muscles and six pack abs, or maybe a rich old guy who would buy her stuff, or a guy with a monster cock.

I would have even understood if she found comfort in the arms of another woman, but not one of those masculine butch lesbians. Those types of lesbians are fucking disgusting. I am talking more along the lines of a lipstick lesbian, one of the feminine attractive ones, like the ones you see in porno movies. That would have made sense to me.

I just couldn't understand what she saw in that guy. I couldn't understand what he could offer her that I couldn't. Not that I am prejudice or racist against Filipinos in any way. I actually like Filipinos. I think they are very cute. They always remind me of bananas and plantains. I just didn't like that guy.

When she broke the news to me that she had feelings for another man my head began spinning. It felt like I was having a panic attack, so I did the only thing I could think of on a Sunday morning. I went out and got drunk.

When I walked into the bar, it felt like some sort of weird dream. I felt like I was going to wake up, and none of this was going to be real. I couldn't believe what was happening. I was in total shock and utter disbelief. I couldn't believe they were still making Red Dog beer.

I thought they stopped making that shit back in the nineties, but there it was right in front of me, almost ten years since I last tasted its golden nectar. The Red Dog label is a bulldog, but if you turn it upside down, it looks like Batman is eating out Cat Woman's pussy, and if I ever needed to laugh at Batman eating out Cat Woman's pussy it was then.

When I was in high school, my buddies and I would spend every weekend smoking weed and getting drunk on this stuff, and we would turn those cans upside down and laugh our silly little heads off. Being able to get drunk on Red Dog again took me back to that same innocence of my youth and the good clean fun we that we used to have as children. After I turned that first can of beer upside down, I laughed so hard that I almost forgot that my marriage had just fallen apart.

Over the next several months, I was determined to do whatever I had to do to get my wife to fall in love with me again. If I was ever going to send the greatest Christmas card ever, then I needed to fight to save this marriage. I couldn't let my wife waste all those hours she spent doing the Insanity workout only to not take a picture of her in front of a fireplace with our kids.

Without a wife, a family Christmas photo would not bring anyone holiday cheer. A Christmas photo of just me would have only made people feel sorry for me and send me lots encouraging posts and memes on Facebook, but it was not pity I was after. I was looking to bring people Holiday joy, and also make them jealous of me. If I didn't win her back and save my perfect family, I would never have another chance to bring anyone Christmas joy and make people jealous of me again. Winning my wife back was going to be a daunting task indeed. The only thing I had working for me was that the guy she was having the affair with was Filipino so he might have had a smaller penis than me. Other than that, the deck was completely stacked against me for this next challenge in my life.

She always told me that I was self-absorbed and that I never validated her feelings or made her feel loved. Those were some tough obstacles standing in the way of saving my marriage. I had to somehow find a way to trick her into thinking that I was none of those things and that I did care about her feelings. If I didn't change my ways, and I didn't start pretending to listen to her and respect her, I knew that I would lose her forever, and I knew that if I lost her, then I would be losing part of me as well, the most important part of me too, the part of me with all my money and stuff.

I would never be able to go on if we got divorced. Even if I did, it would be with less money than I had before, and that would suck. I knew what I had to do. If I wanted to save my marriage, my money, and all my stuff, I would have to reinvent myself and become the perfect husband and father that she always wanted. So, I devised a plan to save my marriage. I would pay attention to her morning, noon and night. I would shower her with all of the love and affection she felt that she deserved and was always nagging me about all the time.

I would start acting interested in what she was saying, and start pretending to care about her feelings, just like the chubby Filipino was probably doing, only better. If I could only somehow figure out a way to treat her like a woman who I didn't have sex with yet, I could win her back for sure, but I was working against the clock.

Christmas was only a few months away. If I didn't save my marriage in time for the family Christmas photo, the result would be catastrophic. I would be letting down all those little boys and girls, some people that I went to high school with, my Aunt Helen, and a few cousins who I was planning on sending a card to. Their little hearts would be crushed to not get a picture of me and my family for Christmas. Without this card, Christmas would be ruined forever. I have seen all those Christmas movies about people who have to save Christmas like Elf, The Clause, The Santa Clause, Miracle on 54th street, Ernest Saves Christmas. This time it was up to me to save Christmas, and the only way to do that was to save my marriage. But first I had to fuck a few other women to get even with my wife. After that, I was going save Christmas and my marriage for sure.

# Healing a Broken Heart

Christmas came and went that year, and I never did get to send a family Christmas card. Luckily there were enough other attractive families out there sending pictures of themselves to friends and family to save Christmas. I only wish I could have said the same thing about my marriage. Despite my best efforts to trick my wife into thinking that I was a sincere and thoughtful husband, the conditions of my marriage only worsened.

She told me that the damage was already done and that we couldn't repair it. In one last-ditch effort to save my marriage, I decided to try a completely new approach to marriage. I knew it would be a longshot, but I was going to try the honesty approach. So, I told her everything I did wrong in our marriage. I even told her about all the women I slept with while we were working on our marriage. I told her about everything from the fat girl with really big boobs, right down to the skanky chick with lots of tattoos. I hoped that she would forgive me for sleeping with all those other women and realize that she still loved me. Honesty is always the best policy when it comes to a lot of things, but saving a marriage is definitely not one of them. She got really upset and told me she wanted a divorce, then she left. My first marriage had officially ended.

Being alone was hard at first, but soon enough I became numb to it, and the days turned into weeks, the weeks turned into months, and the months turned into years. Still, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss her and think about her. It's sad to say, but it took losing her to finally realize just how much she meant to me and how much I needed her. I didn't realize how many chores she did while we were married. Holy fuck there were a lot of chores, and now that she was gone there was no one here to do any of them for me. Without her in my life, there was no one here to clean my house, do my laundry, dust, mop, run the vacuum, or buy groceries for me. It's not that I am intrinsically opposed to household chores. I am actually a huge proponent of household chores, just as long as I am not the one doing them.

When I was still married, my house was always very clean, and my laundry was always done. I never really took the time to think about who did all that kind of stuff. I always just assumed that there was some type of magical chore fairy that followed me around and cleaned up after me, just like the one that lived at my parents' house when I was a child.

Within a few weeks of her leaving me, my tub suddenly became filthy, my floors became dirty, and so did everything else. There was dust everywhere and the refrigerator had stopped magically filling itself up. After she left, all of my clothes sat in huge smelly piles next to the washer and drier. I guess she was right all along. The clothes were not going to magically wash themselves. At the time that seemed like the only logical explanation as to how my dirty clothes always ended up washed and neatly folded back in my dresser drawers. Even all of the socks in my house got divorced after my wife left because there was not one single pair that matched in my house anymore.

The worst part of losing her was losing her income too. Without a second income, I was forced to start drinking cheap beers and smoking generic cigarettes again. I knew that once the divorce was finalized and child support reared its ugly head that I would be faced with financial ruin for sure.

I officially hit rock bottom. I lost everything. I lost my wife, my kids for half of the week, and some other stuff too probably. The world turned its back on me. Even the fat girl with the big boobs and the skank with the tattoos wouldn't talk to me anymore.

I was completely alone and trapped in the desolate remains of my shattered American dream. Everything in my life had fallen apart in less than a year. Even my beautiful lawn tractor was broke. I was too stupid to fix it myself, and too broke to pay someone, so my once beautiful manicured lawn now became an overgrown and unkempt eyesore for the world to see. The gnarly weeds and high crabgrass served as a constant reminder of the neglect that was the theme of my marriage. It also reminded me of how I could probably plant marijuana out there and not get caught, but mostly it reminded me of the neglect of my marriage.

In the months following our separation, I was miserable. I was plagued by racing thoughts of regret, self-pity, and doubt. I would just lay in bed for hours and hours wondering what I could have done differently that would have made her stay. Maybe I could have told her I loved her more. Maybe I could have shown her more appreciation or helped her with some more housework. Maybe if I was a better father. Maybe if I was a better provider. Maybe if I was kinder, gentler, more open to ready listen to her and try to understand her, or maybe if I had a bigger dick.

If I had a big dick, she still might have left me, but who cares? That wouldn't even matter because I would have a big dick, and everyone knows that all a man ever needs to be truly happy is a big swinging dick. Sadly enough, my dick is only average. It's about six inches maybe on a good day, which is nothing to be embarrassed about, but not big enough to bring me true happiness either. I looked down at my dick one last time, then I looked at all the dishes in the sink that I needed to wash, and I decided that it would be best for everyone if I ran away from home and was never heard from again.

# Sometimes Even Grown-Ups Run Away from Home

Now I know what most of you are thinking. Only dirty orphans, pregnant teenagers, and disgruntled pets run away from home. Grow-ups don't run away from home. They become homeless people that we make fun of and call names like "bum" and "wino." I suppose we can sit here and argue semantics all day, but the point is that I left my house without a plan on returning, which by definition is running away from home.

My son was my inspiration to run away from home. When he was a toddler, he would often have temper tantrums because he didn't get his own way or because he was overtired and being a dick. He would then fill his backpack with his favorite Matchboxes and fruit snacks and tell me that he was going to run away and live at the park in Gilbertville, which was a few miles away. I would sit at the kitchen table and look out the window, watching him trudge up the driveway until he disappeared out of sight, and I would think to myself, "I sure hope that son of a bitch makes it out there."

Seeing him try to run away all the time eventually sparked a wanderlust and a desire to be free in my soul, but I knew that if I ran away, it was going to be forever. I wasn't running away from some bullshit kid nonsense like having to put my toys away or not being allowed to have sugar before bedtime. I was running from real pain, and real angst caused by the weight of the world being thrust upon my shoulders. I wasn't going to be a huge pussy and come home crying like he always did. Probably because I am allowed past the stop sign, and I know how to cross the street. Plus, I wasn't four years old.

I decided to run away the year after the divorce. I probably would have run away sooner but something always kept coming up. I just started a new job, and there was always some sort of family function or birthday party to go to. Plus, I was coaching Little League, which was a royal pain in the ass.

It would have been ideal to run away on a Saturday morning, but I had my kids every weekend. That would have been pretty irresponsible of me to run away and leave a Kindergartner and a 1st grader home alone for three days. They fuck up everything. They couldn't even make a bowl of cereal without spilling milk everywhere, plus they didn't have a car and they had no money. And those lazy fuckers would never get a bath or brush their teeth if I wasn't there to bust their ball about it all the time. Plus, I think my ex-wife would have been fuming if she found out that I left the kids home alone for three days.

I didn't have enough vacation time saved to run away on a weekday, and I needed a doctor's note if I took more than three sick days in a row, so I waited until the perfect time. I waited until my ex took the kids with her family to the beach for vacation.

As I started to plan my runaway, I realized that there was a lot more to consider than you realize. Do you take money? Do you not take money? Should you leave a note, or is that only if you are planning to commit suicide or kidnap someone? What if you have pets? Do you drink a lot like most of the homeless people do? Maybe you do crack cocaine or heroin instead, and if so where do you buy it? And how do you get money for it? Do you just beg for money or maybe it's easier to just steal it?

And then you need to decide what type of homeless vibe you want to go for? Will you live in the mountains and become a wilderness survivor man, or do you just become an ordinary alcoholic who lives in the streets and at various shelters? If I had known how much of a pain in the ass running away was going to be, I probably wouldn't have even bothered.

I tried to look up how to run away on the Internet, but there is very little information on the topic. There were no WikiHow pages, no discussion forums, no Livestrong articles, not even a YouTube video. This is the first document ever written on how to run away.

Not that this book is going to be the governing authority on running away. I am not suggesting you run away the exact same way I did. I am just giving you some basic ideas to go off, then you can tailor your own run away to how you would like. Feel free to add your own flair to it. Don't feel like you have to run away like I did. This is just a basic concept to go off.

My runaway began with a fresh pot of coffee as I watched the news. It was the local news of course. I find world news to be too boring. I don't give a shit about places like London, Europe or the Middle East, because I don't live in those places. I live in rural Pennsylvania, so I like to watch news about potholes, school strikes, and house fires. Plus, every once in a while, someone I went to high school with comes up on criminal charges or someone I know dies in a car accident. That is always way more interesting than things like geopolitical affairs and international politics, plus it gives me and my friends something to talk about for a few days.

My ex-wife texted me that they made it to the beach safely. It was now time to run away, but first I had to take a shit. My initial plan was that I was going to live in the mountains on the outskirts of town and become an eccentric hipster. I was going to have a beard, wear flannel, and eat organic wild berries and free-range squirrels, while I read books of poetry and philosophy that I get from my local free public library.

But then as I was taking a massive shit, it hit me. I thought that if I run away and lived in the woods, I would have to wipe my ass with leaves and sticks, and that would be just plain awful. Plus, I don't know how to start a fire, and I don't really like to read all that much, especially poetry and philosophy. Not to mention that there wouldn't be any places to buy booze, and I could only imagine how boring homelessness would be if you had to be sober the whole time. Also, I saw that movie, Into the Wild, where that guy runs away and ends up dying from eating those poison berries.

I am not nearly as smart as that guy, and I was never really any good at identifying poison berries either. I can't tell a poison berry from a Welch's fruit snack. If I had to live off of the land, I would be dead within a week. My decision was made.

I was going to live in the streets and become an ordinary homeless alcoholic. I know that is not nearly as cool as living with nature and studying Thoreau, but I felt that I was much more suited to be an alcoholic than being one with nature. At least then, I could shit in fast food restaurants and eat out of their dumpsters. I watched a guy doing that once at a McDonald's in Baltimore. He took a big bite out of an old half-eaten McMuffin that he found in the garbage. I remember thinking to myself that I would have eaten that too if I was as drunk as he was.

As I watched him enjoy his dirty McMuffin, my wife was bitching about how cheap I was and how shitty the hotel was that I booked, while my kids were fighting like two giant assholes. And I have to admit, I was a little bit jealous of that homeless guy at that moment. Sure, he didn't have a home or any teeth, but at least he didn't have to put up with the bullshit that I was putting up with either. That stuck with me, and I remembered that all those years later when I decided to be a homeless person myself.

I was just about to run away when I remembered the cat. I almost forgot about this fucking stray cat that my wife brought home from work one day. She left it here after she moved out, and I never took this cat to the vet for shots, got it spayed, or did anything that a real grown-up might do who had a stray cat living in their house. There was literally a wild animal living in my house. It could have had all kinds of diseases and rabies. It could have even been an evil demon cat like in that movie Pet Cemetery, and there it was sitting on my kitchen table watching me eat dinner every night. I'd rather eat a McMuffin out of a dumpster. At least I know there won't be any disgusting cat hair on it.

Now I wasn't sure what to do with the cat. I thought about putting it in the field behind my house, but I was afraid that it would get carried off by hawks. I didn't really like the cat, but I didn't want to see it get eaten by hawks either. So, I put all of its food into a giant salad bowl and left all the toilet seats up in the house. I figured that would be

enough food and water to keep it alive until someone finds her after I am gone.

After I got done saving the cat's life, I stuffed my summer wardrobe into a duffle bag, and off I went to start my new career as a homeless person. I didn't even make it to the top of the driveway when my feet started hurting because I made the mistake of trying to run away in a pair of flip flops, which is possibly the worst footwear to run away in. Even though I hate doing things like bending over to tie my shoelaces, I decided to change into a pair of sneakers instead, which were at the bottom of this giant duffle bag. So, I had to take everything out, and then repack it. Of course, now the clothes didn't fit back into the bag. I didn't understand how they couldn't fit. They were literally the same clothes that fit in the same goddamn bag just a few minutes earlier. It was too way too hot to try and figure out this kind of problem, so I just tossed aside some of the clothes that didn't fit, zipped it back up, and started walking again.

Here is another tip on running away. Don't do in the middle of the day during the goddamn summer. It was so fucking hot, and I was so thirsty that my tongue felt like sandpaper. I was afraid that I might die of thirst, so I turned around and got myself a drink of water. Another helpful tip on running away is that you should always drink something first. I learned that the hard way, so I went back into the house and got a can of diet soda. I chugged it down quickly, but I was immediately thirsty again. Looking back now, I probably should have had some water instead. Another good idea when you're running away is to drink lots of water. I personally don't drink a lot of water, but I did read somewhere that you should drink at least eight glasses a day. It is really good for you. It helps your internal organs function properly, and it is good for your skin, your blood pressure, and a few other things I read about in the article. This probably isn't advice on running away. It is more along the lines of health advice or a life hack. Either way, I figured I would just put it in here because it sounded like really good advice.

It was so fucking hot out, and I was already bored with walking, so I decided to take my car instead. I know that driving a car is not really running away. It is more along the lines of a road trip, but I needed a little head start after my discouraging beginning. I figured that I could always abandon the car later. I think that guy in the movie, Into the Wild, did the same thing.

Wouldn't you know it? As soon as I got in the car, the gas light was on. And I forgot to bring money, so I had to go back to the house to get my wallet. Of course, that was lost. After a half hour of tearing the house apart looking for it, I finally found it in the drawer where my underwear used to be. After my wife left, there was no one to put clothes back in their drawers, so they just sat in piles next to the washer and dryer. My empty underwear drawer had become a symbol of my defeat and my soul-crushing depression, but the good news was that I found my wallet.

Of course, there was no money in it, so I drove to the bank and took out eighty bucks. I figured that would be enough to keep me drunk for a few days until I could beg for some more or rob someone. Now I had my car, my wallet, and some cash, but I didn't want the wallet. I figured that a homeless guy shouldn't carry a wallet.

I am not saying you should or shouldn't carry a wallet when running away. It was just my preference to not take a wallet, so I threw it out the car window next to the ATM, but then I worried that my ID was still in there. So was the AAA card my mom gets me for Christmas every year, an Old Navy card, a Home Depot Card, and an assortment of business cards. Who knew what the common criminal could do with all that kind of information? So, I stopped the car, put it in reverse and picked up the wallet.

I drove home, left the car running, ran upstairs, and put the wallet back in my underwear drawer, and then I ran away. I made it to the stop sign at the end of the road by my house when I realized that I left all the money in the wallet. So, I turned around, stopped the car, ran upstairs, got the money out of the wallet, ran back downstairs, hopped back in my car, then I ran away.

I got to the stop sign again, but then I worried that people might wonder where I was, so I thought that maybe I should leave a note. I turned back around, went in the house, and scribbled down a few lines on a sheet of paper, but the darn thing kept sounding like a suicide note. That was not the message that I was trying to convey. I had no plans of killing myself. I simply wanted to become a homeless alcoholic, and all I wanted the note to say was that someone would need to check in on the cat. Finally, I wrote a good note that didn't sound so suicidey. It said something like "I am running away. I will be in touch soon. Please check on Luci." Luci is the cat I was telling you about.

A good tip for running away is to always leave a note. At the very least you should post something on Facebook or send out a group text to let people know where you are. If you don't, you will have a big mess on your hands. Everyone will assume that you were kidnapped, or that you fell into a mine shaft, or maybe even a well. There will be a huge search party looking for you, and people will probably even call in sick to join the search party.

Your disappearance will make for good news ratings, so the Associated Press will pick it up and it will probably get non-stop national coverage. The whole country will hold vigils and prayer services for you that will also be covered on channels like CNN and MSNBC. Once everyone finds out that you were just out getting drunk somewhere for three days, the whole country will be really pissed at you. Your Facebook will blow up with all sorts of nasty posts and angry face Emojis while the people on Twitter will send you death threats and hurtful GIFs. Now, I am not saying that this will happen. I am just saying that it might. So, cover your bases and leave a note.

It was late afternoon on the first day of my runaway, and I only made it a few miles from my house to a place called Sandy Beach. It was starting to get pretty late, so I figured would just spend the night there. Then I would set out on my travels first thing in the morning. I parked my car at the top of this hill, then I trudged down this abandoned road past the gate that was blocking the road.

I walked past this huge blue water tower and past many of the "no trespassing" signs, which made me felt like a real homeless guy. Sandy Beach was the dam where my mom would take me swimming as a young boy. It was this small spring-fed impoundment with the coldest, most refreshing water you could imagine. It was better than any pool I ever swam in. It had a slide in the shallow end, and a raft to jump off into the deep end. It even had a concession stand with standard picnic foods like hotdogs and hamburgers, but it also had these incredible frozen candy bars. I tried to freeze candy bars like that at home as an older man, but they never quite tasted like they did while I was eating them at Sandy Beach as a child.

I had some of my best memories of growing up at this place. Now thirty years later, it was nothing. The concession stand burned down, and the dam was broken leaving a small trickle of water that rolled over some rocks where the slide used to be. The shed where they stored all of the rafts and tubes had been reduced to rubble as well. At that moment, Sandy Beach became a reminder of my inevitable mortality. As I stood among these epic ruins of time, my mind became flooded with all these memories of a place that was once young and still had life.

I closed my eyes and I could see myself jumping into the deep end of the dam, which was now nothing more than a field of weeds. I could still see George Kazaka, Phil Buckley, and Tony Salen. All of us playing tag in the grassy plateau by the concession stand, running up and down the small tailwater catching crayfish, stopping only to eat frozen Snickers bars. Those memories were now visiting me like ghosts that were reminding me of my past innocence. An innocence that I lost years ago. An innocence that will never return.

Those memories felt good, and for one fleeting moment, I felt at peace. I found comfort in the past, and I was now ready to embrace my future, whatever that may be. After I finished reflecting on the haunting memories of my childhood, I began my meditation practices. I became immersed in the magnificent tranquility of the present moment, and I searched for inner peace and a soulful serenity that would hopefully bring me to Zen.

I am going to take a moment to enlighten you on the secrets of Zen meditation practice and the search for inner peace. I don't care who you are. I don't care if you are the Dalai Lama himself. After twenty minutes, meditation gets really fucking boring. How much contemplation can one person possibly do? That was the first time I ever tried meditation and I fucking hated every minute of it.

Maybe it was because I was not sitting full lotus, or maybe it was because I didn't have a zafu, or I wasn't in a Soto Dojo. I don't know what the problem was, but I fucking hated meditation. After a while, I could care less about my stupid fucking breathing, my state of mind, or any of the other bullshit I read about in that article on meditation that I read while I was taking a shit once. All I could think about was how bad the bugs were biting me and all of the gnats flying around my head. They were getting in my mouth, up my nose, and in my fucking eyes. Meanwhile, the mosquitos were having a feast on my legs and arms. Not to mention, I didn't have beer or cigarettes. It was turning into pure torture, so I walked back up to the car, drove home and got some bug-spray.

While I was there, I also grabbed a radio because being homeless was too quiet. I also packed up a cooler with some ice, then I grabbed a lighter and some newspaper to use as tinder for my campfire. I ran to the beer store to get a few beef jerkies and a few of those real big 24 oz. Natural Ice beer cans that I wrapped up in brown paper bags, just like you always see the real homeless guys drinking. I went back up to Sandy Beach, and parked my car at the top of this hill, then trudged back down the abandoned road past the gate blocking the road, past the huge blue water tower, past the many "no trespassing" signs to where the breast of the dam used to be, and I set up camp. I lit a cozy little fire and began drinking heavily. Now that sort of meditation practice is more my speed.

At some point in the night, a few high school kids came down off the mountain. I imagine that they were going to drink, do drugs, have sex, or do whatever it is that high school kids do at abandoned swimming holes late at night. Once they saw me, they immediately froze and became petrified by the mysterious stranger who was lurking in the gloom of Sandy Beach.

There I was, a dirty bearded vagrant. I was a shadowy presence illuminated only by the dim light of a dying fire, staring at them with wild drunken eyes through the hazy smoke that was cascading upwards into the night sky. I did not want them to be afraid of me, so I gave them a polite nod to let them know that I bring no harm and that they could share their weed with me, but it was no use. The fear had set in.

I watched as they slowly turned around and walked back up around the bend in the road. They crawled over the collapsed fence that surrounded the old dam, and they all sprinted back up to the car. Even though I was disappointed because I was unable to score any drugs off those kids, it still felt good scaring the shit out of them like that. It made me feel powerful and almighty, which is how all the other drunken homeless guys must feel when they scare the shit out of people.

Surviving Homelessness and Beating Addiction

I awoke to a mess of beer cans and cigarette butts. It was my first morning as a homeless person, and it was awful. I didn't have a phone anymore, so I couldn't text anyone or play Subway Surfer. I didn't have a television, so I couldn't watch my favorite shows either. There was not even a way to watch porn. I tried jerking-off that morning, but without porn, lube, or even a shower to wash off afterward, it was useless. Don't let anyone ever try to tell you otherwise. Mental masturbation in the middle of the woods is darn near impossible.

I soon realized the difficult challenges of everyday life that homeless people were faced with, especially when they got shit-faced drunk the night before. My mouth was dry, and my head hurt. I was still in the same clothes from the night before, and I smelled really bad. Back when I was just a regular old homeowner who had a drinking problem, I would wake up feeling like this all the time, but it would be no big deal. I would just hop in the shower, grab a coffee, pop a few aspirins, brush my teeth, then drive off to work, Little League practice, church, or wherever I was supposed to be, and I would feel like a million bucks. Now that I was a homeless alcoholic, I didn't have those luxuries anymore. I didn't have Tylenol or a place to shower. I didn't even have a toothbrush anymore. All I had were the streets, so I just sat there bored out of my mind. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what the fuck homeless people did all day. They must have had hobbies or something. It was so boring sitting there all day staring off into space.

I was left with no choice but to start drinking again, so I went home and got a six-pack of these summer shanty craft beers out of the fridge. I am aware that a delicious seasonal craft beer isn't something that a conventional homeless alcoholic would normally drink, but they were delicious and refreshing, so I didn't even care.

After I took a shit and laid down on the couch for a little, I decided to hang out at my old house for a little while before I went back to being homeless. I was fortunate enough to be one of the few homeless people who still had a home, so I figured I should take advantage of it.

After I got a shower, I took a nap, then I watched the same Sports Center four or five times. Around mid-morning I figured would go hang out under this bridge where I saw a real homeless guy drinking once before. That was fun for a little while, but I got bored with that after about an hour, so I went to this little dive bar where mental patients and drug addicts in my hometown usually drank.

I spent the rest of that day drinking lots of beer, doing shots, and playing the jukebox, while I had delightful conversations with some of the other patrons of the bar. I was having the time of my life being a homeless alcoholic. I didn't have a care in the world. All I could think about was how this was way better than coaching stupid Little League or going to work. Then, everything faded to black.

The last thing I remembered before I blacked out was playing songs on the jukebox and singing Roadhouse with my new best friend, some crazy drunk guy with no teeth. His drunkenness was sickening and appalling, but that son of a bitch sure could sing good. I told him that he sounded just like Jim Morrison, but he was too drunk to understand me, so he just stared at me for a little.

When I awoke, I was lying on the couch back at my house with an empty Tupperware container of leftover chicken on the floor. It was still light outside, and I was disoriented and unsure of what day it was. I got up and walked around looking for clues as to what might have happened. I didn't see any signs of foul play. There were no bodies or hostages, so it didn't look as though I committed any serious crimes or killed anyone. Even if I did, I had no real motives, so I was pretty sure I was going to get away with it.

It was a relief to know that I may have gotten away with murder, but that still didn't answer the question as to how I ended up back home. Using my powerful logic and deductive reasoning skills, I surmised that I must have gotten so drunk that I forgot all about being homeless. Then I went home to eat leftover blacken chicken with a mango salsa that I made on the grill two days earlier, which was delicious by the way.

It was at that moment that I realized; I was trying to be something that I was not. I was not a scary homeless person, and I was not a raging alcoholic either. I was just a regular old homeowner with a small drinking problem, and for the first time in my life, I was okay with that. Being a homeless alcoholic was kind of boring anyway. There was nothing to do except walk around all day being homeless, which gets boring after a few hours.

To celebrate my triumphant return to homeownership and partial sobriety, I ordered myself a large pizza and a two-liter bottle of Coke. I flipped through the channels and decided to watch golf because I always enjoy watching golf when I am hungover on lazy Sunday afternoon. I find the way the commentators speak in that low whisper to be very comforting. It always makes me feel like I am a little baby, and they are telling me a bedtime story about golf. It is a wonderful tale about a tiger, a shark, a walrus, and a golden bear, and they are all fighting over who gets the most birdies. At that, I fell into a wonderful sleep. When I awoke, tears of joy began rolling down my face as I took a lion-sized bite out of a slice of pizza. It wasn't a half-eaten dirty McMuffin that I found in a dumpster, but it would have to do.

So, there you have it. That was how I survived homelessness and beat addiction. There are many other extraordinary things I did in my life that I didn't have time to fit in this book, like the time I took a stance against racial inequality and decided to never say the "N" word in public. Or when I devoted my life altruism, and I put a dollar in the Salvation Army basket outside of a Wal-Mart once.

I could also tell you about the time I became a modern-day Robin Hood in my fight to end to class divide and stop de-gentrification, and how I gave back the welfare check my friends and I stole while we were drunk, the same way Robin Hood and his Merry Men would have if they stole a welfare check while they were drunk. I also have inspirational stories of Shakespearean retribution and loyalty, like the time I wiped my own shit on the door handle of my friend's girlfriend's car. I never did tell him that I did it because she was cheating on him. I felt that he did not need to know that because knowing she touched my shit would be the only truth he ever needed to hear.

And I didn't want to scare you with the story of the time I came face to face with the devil himself. It happened one night while I was drinking infinite amounts of Budweiser and doing lots of drugs. We were all listening to Neil Diamond when suddenly, out of nowhere, my friend grew horns and began laughing maniacally; forcing me to leap into the back of his Ford Bronco, where I would meet a man whose legs were made entirely of shit. Meanwhile, I was being attacked by an unworldly plague of tiny black bugs, as two girls with no faces kept singing the most awful rendition of Sweet Caroline I ever heard. Had it not been for the mushrooms finally wearing off I am sure that the devil would have eaten my soul that evening.

My life has been such an extraordinary journey, and I have so done many unbelievable things. It is almost as if I am the not-retarded version of Forrest Gump. The list goes on and on with the incredible places I have been, the challenges I've faced, the mountains I've climbed, the goals I reached, the obstacles I overcame, the odds I beat, and the adversity I overcame, but nothing would prepare me for what would happen next.

# Three Miracles That Changed My Life

I was no longer a homeless alcoholic, but I was still a high school guidance counselor, which probably paid less. I once read an article about a homeless person in New York City who was making over fifty thousand dollars a year just from begging for money. I wasn't even making close to that as a high school guidance counselor.

I liked being a high school guidance counselor, but that is more of a job for slackers, hipsters, people in two-income households, and the odd do-gooder. There was just no place in the world of guidance counselors for a divorced father of two children.

I needed to find a real breadwinner job, the kind of job that buys my kid's happiness and lands me a smoking hot young second wife who uses me for my money. I needed the kind of job where I worked late, wore suits, never had time for my kids, and had sex with prostitutes. This lifestyle would be a drastic change for me. I only owned one suit, and I never worked late a day in my life. I did have sex with a prostitute once, but that was just because I was drunk and sad.

I was soon starting to realize that God had other plans for me. That was why he made me my wife leave me. He wanted to give me a sign that I needed to pursue a more challenging and lucrative career. The only problem with God's plan was that I tried to pursue a more challenging and more lucrative career once before, and no one would fucking hire me. That was why I had to become a stupid fucking high school guidance counselor in the first place. Of course, I also became a guidance counselor to answer my calling to help God's children, which I only discovered after I couldn't land one of those high paying pharma sales jobs I wanted. Without the looks, charm or charisma to make it in the lucrative world of sales, and without any knowledge of some of the other more profitable careers such as medicine, law, finance, or even mortuary science, it appeared that I was destined to remain a guidance counselor forever.

Like I said, being a guidance counselor a is all hunky-dory if you're married to someone who has a good-paying job, and it's fine if you are a single hipster with a cool hipster side job like being a lifeguard, a bartender, a poet, or maybe being a health guru of some sort. Unfortunately, I am too fat to be a health guru, and I'm not a strong enough swimmer to be a lifeguard. I am not good at rhyming words like Eminem, Dr. Seuss, and all the other great poets. And unlike most competent bartenders, I couldn't even begin to tell you what goes in a Manhattan.

Without the necessary skills needed to land a cool hipster side job, my last hope at supplementing my income was to find another wife with a job who would supplement it for me. I was so desperate that I would have married any woman with a good-paying job. I scoured the Internet dating sites far and wide searching the far ends of the earth to find a second wife with a job. I hit on every single woman between the ages of 18 and 80 who lived in the entire western hemisphere. I messaged the ugly ones, the fat ones, and even the ones that I thought might be guys. I never worked harder at anything in my whole life. I spent tireless hours, day and night, swiping right, sending messages, liking profiles. I must have sent a dick pic to every woman within a hundred-mile radius, but it was still no use. I never did find that special someone, and just like that, my dream of finding true love and once again having a two-income household was dead.

All of the good women with jobs were either already taken or lesbians. There was nothing I could do. I fell between the dating cracks where no one wanted me. I wasn't rich enough to land a younger woman who wanted to use me for my money, and I wasn't hot enough to land an older cougar wanted to use me for my body. My hopes of finding true love and a soul mate with a good-paying job had been thwarted. The closest I would ever come to finding true love again was banging out a few skanks and a bunch of fat chicks.

Without a second wife to pay all my bills, it looked as if it was going to be up to me to pay them, so I took a job moonlighting as a pallet jack operator at a distribution center. It only paid ten bucks an hour, but at least it was something. I didn't think it would be a bad job.

There were a lot of sweet old ladies working there, so I assumed it would not be physically demanding. Boy, I was dead wrong about that. All of those boxes were really heavy, especially the cauliflower and the carrots. I don't know how those old ladies did it. They were all working circles around me. They must have had superhuman old lady strength because after about an hour of that bullshit my back was killing me, and I was pouring down with sweat. To keep from dying, I was left with no choice but to hide in the bathroom and read newspapers. The whole time that I would be in there hiding, those old ladies never stopped working. They just kept lifting and stacking all those heavy boxes without ever slowing down. And even though they talked a lot of shit on me, and they were always trying to make me look bad in front of the bosses, I still admired their valor and their undying commitment to produce distribution.

I noticed that some of my former students worked there as well. They were all stoner nincompoops, so I figured this couldn't be that mentally challenging of a job. All I had to do was wear a little headset and listen to some robot woman tell me how many boxes to stack on a pallet. The only real mental requirement for the job was being able to count to fifty, so this job seemed idiot-proof. The only problem with that was that I usually lose count of stuff somewhere around twenty-five. I could count the same thing a hundred times and a hundred times I would get a different number. This job was no different. I would always end up short on something, or having too many of another, so I would just toss the extras off to the side when no one was looking.

Seeing that everyone else was getting their counts right every time, I became very disappointed in myself. The disillusionment of knowing that I was unable to do the work of nincompoops and old people did not sit well with me, so one day instead of going to work, I quit and went out drinking instead. I was always better at drinking than I was at stupid stuff like work anyway. I was so disgusted with myself that I probably drank twenty-five beers that day. I don't remember the exact amount. I lost count.

After I lost the job down at the plant, money started getting tight, so I did everything I could to cut corners. I cut out all the frills and made sacrifices anywhere I could. I stayed at the cheapest hotels when I went on vacation. I didn't supersize my value meals anymore, and as much as it pained me, I even stopped getting cheese on my Whopper. When I went to the movies, it was always a matinee, and I only bought popcorn and soda, skipping the Sour Patch Kids and the Junior Mints that I always enjoyed. I even switched back to my old college beers like Milwaukee's Best and Natural Ice. I started returning movies on time and I didn't even pay for girls when I took them out on dates. However, none of it made any difference. My most valiant effort at frugality was no use. My thrift and prudence were no match for the onslaught of bills that were now burying me. I was on a crash course for financial ruin.

I have been in some dark places before. I have faced many challenges and fought off many formidable foes, but this was possibly the biggest test of my whole entire life. For the first time, I can honestly say that I was scared. Well, I guess it wasn't the first time I was scared. I have been scared a few other times before, like after I watched The Exorcist, and the time I accidentally lost my son in Wal-Mart. I got scared every time a deer jumped out in front of my car, and I get scared when someone sneaks up behind me. I am also afraid of heights, and I was scared of the dark for a few years, but nothing scared me more than this. I was scared about how the divorce would affect my kid's lives, but more importantly, I was scared about how it would affect mine. The mere thought of having to pay child support sent shivers down my spine and frightened me to my core.

As I navigated through the stormy seas and unchartered waters of my first ever divorce, I feared what was on the horizon for me. So, with nothing left to hold onto, I turned back to the only thing that ever brought me solace in the face of such adversity. Obviously, I turned back to drugs and alcohol, but I also turned back to God. I began praying all the time, and I surrendered myself to the Lord. I prayed every night as I humbly begged for His support and guidance. I put all of my faith in Him and trusted that He would help me overcome the greatest obstacle of my entire life and get me out of paying child support.

There is a saying that things tend to happen in threes, like the time Michael Jackson, Farah Faucet, and Ed McMahon all died in the same week. Why did the cosmic life force of the universe choose to take those three famous people in the same week when He could have taken any celebrity? God could have easily taken that guy who played Screech in Saved by the Bell as well, making it four celebrity deaths, but He only took three.

Three is such a powerful number. There is even a rule of three suggesting that everything that comes in three tends to be more satisfying and complete than any other number, even the number four, which doesn't make any sense because four is more than three. The phenomenon of number three cannot be explained by logic. There is even a Latin term for this called omne trium perfectum, which means that everything that comes in sets of three is complete and perfect. That explains why there were Three Little Pigs, Three Billy Goats-Gruff, Three Musketeers, Three Amigos, Three Stooges, and three Godfather movies. There are also three flavors in Neapolitan ice cream, three Hanson brothers, and three bones in the human ear.

The number three is influencing us everywhere all around us. It plays an important role in many of the big important religions of the world such as Buddhism and Christianity, and it even plays a part in the smaller more fucked up ones too, like Wicca. With the number three being so mighty and powerful that it impacts things as important as organized religion and celebrity deaths, it only made perfect sense that it would take three miracles to eventually help me through my divorce and change the course of my life forever.

# The First Miracle

The first wind of change blew during my darkest hour. I was so desperate that I started doing anything for money. I even did some things that I am now ashamed of. People who are desperate for money will often do things without thinking about the consequences, such as robbing, stealing, prostituting, or even cashing in a 401K and paying the huge tax penalty like I did. I knew that cashing in that 401K was a terrible idea, but I had no choice. I was out of options, and I needed money to buy really expensive Christmas presents to get my kids to like me more than my ex-wife.

I know that there is an old saying out there that money cannot buy happiness, and that might be true for some well-adjusted adults, but for a couple of shallow little fucked-up toddlers whose parents are going through a divorce, money can definitely buy happiness. Those two little superficial motherfuckers' faces lit up brighter than the goddamn Christmas tree once they saw all those expensive toys. It filled my heart with the Christmas spirit to see that money could still buy them happiness, but I was still saddened by the fact that I couldn't share in their joy. I was too worried about how I would pay my mortgage now that I blew through all of my money on awesome Christmas toys.

To try and make ends meet, I started selling off some stuff that I didn't want anymore, like my daughters EZ-Bake oven, her slushy maker, some of my son's Tonka trucks, and a few other toys that I thought were stupid or I tripped over all the time, but even that was no help. That barely made me enough money to pay for a weekend fishing trip with my buddies. I still needed to figure out how I was going to pay for all the other boring stuff like bills.

So, there I was having a few stiff drinks in my car with the engine running and the garage door closed, just like I always do when I think about stuff like divorce and money problems, when suddenly my phone rang. It was my mom calling. I usually never pick up the phone when she calls, but for some strange reason this time I felt compelled to answer. I had a strange feeling that she had something very important to tell me.

At first, our conversation was nothing out of the ordinary. We had the usual mother and son exchange. I talked a lot of shit on my more successful family members, told her how I hated work, how annoying my kids are, and things of that nature.

Then she said something to me that would change the course of my life forever. It was the single most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me, and possibly the most poignant words ever said out loud by another human being. Her words were so eloquent and stirring that they sounded like the words of a beautiful poem, a wonderful sonnet, or even the song of a bird chirping in the early morning dew. Once I heard those words of hope and inspiration roll so seamlessly off of her tongue, I broke down and cried tears of joy. That was when she said, "I am going to lend you three thousand dollars." That was just what I needed to hear to give me the hope and inspiration to persevere and continue on my life's journey.

By the grace of God and my mom's three thousand dollars, I was saved, at least for the moment because three thousand dollars doesn't take you very far. It is not that I am trying to be ungrateful. It was a very kind and thoughtful gesture that helped me learn how to play Blackjack and buy a new kayak, but it wouldn't be long before that money would run out. It was a nice temporary fix, but with the threat of child support still looming, and the divorce not yet finalized, I still needed to find a more permanent solution to my money problems other than her measly three thousand dollars.

I racked my brain long and hard to think of how I could make more money without having to work harder or do anything extra. I thought about possibly inventing something, but all the really good ideas like the Internet and rocket ships were already taken. I thought that building a time machine might be a good invention, but I wasn't very good at working with my hands. I couldn't even fix the belt on my lawnmower, let alone build a time machine. Selling meth like the guy in Breaking Bad sounded like a good idea, but then I remembered that I tried to sell weed in college once and I wasn't particularly good at that either. I didn't even sell enough drugs to support my own habit, let alone make any money. To be a good drug dealer you really need to be a self-starter, or at least somewhat motivated. I am neither of those things, which was probably why I became a high school guidance counselor.

Knowing that I was never going to be a successful drug dealer or inventor, I set my sights on achieving the greatest American dream known to man, the one that I completely overlooked. In my newest venture at securing financial freedom, I excitedly went to work on building my fortune, the same way so many other self-made millionaires did so before me. I forged ahead on a trail that had been blazed by some of the greatest American icons the world has ever known, Jack Whittaker, Merle and Patricia Butler, Eddie Nabors, Jim, and Carol McCullar, all world-famous Powerball winners and my newest inspiration.

I played Powerball constantly, and I played all kinds of numbers and combinations. I even took the time to strategically pick my numbers and not let the machine generate them. And when I wasn't playing Powerball, I was buying scratch-off tickets. I bought all kinds of scratch-off tickets, everything from Bacon Bucks to King Cash. I even scratched off the real scary ones like Zombie Cash, but it was no use. I was never meant to be a famous lottery winner like Holly Lati or the 8 employees of the ConAgra meatpacking plant in Nebraska that hit it big for 360 million back in 2006. I think the most I won was a hundred dollars, which was not even enough money to get rod holders and an anchor system for my new kayak. With each failed Powerball drawing, I soon realize that I would never come to know financial freedom, and my dream of one day having a butler was now dead. I was never going to get too much plastic surgery, or even pretend to care about stuff like global warming or poor people. I was never going to be rich.

# The Second Miracle

I found myself muddling through the messy quagmire of my separation, kids, work, and the overall chaos of life. That was when the second miracle happened. My wife and I had been separated for over a year, but neither of us wanted to pull the trigger on divorce just yet.

I think that we were both hesitant to file for divorce because we were starting to fall in love with one another again. I was trying extra hard to pretend to be nice to her, and she was trying really hard not to hate me. Every time I did something stupid or boneheaded, she would get this cute little vein in her forehead as she forced a half-hearted smile and tried to convince herself that she didn't care. And I was impressed with how hard she was working to go against her natural inclination to hate me. She just looked plain adorable when she was swallowing all that anger. I just wanted to give her the biggest hug every time she pretended not to be mad about something.

Things were finally starting to look up. It looked like I was going to save my marriage, and the nice guy wasn't going to finish last for once. Then out of nowhere, like a tornado that wreaks havoc over the planes or an unplanned pregnancy, the worst thing could have happened. She accidentally had a baby. I was shocked when this happened. We were so careful to not get pregnant. We took all the necessary precautions. In fact, we didn't even have sex.

At first, I thought that some of my sperm must have escaped and flew through the air, landing in her vagina and impregnating her, like baby Tuberculosis. Or maybe it was just like a baby Jesus, where God himself impregnated my wife, but I had a friend in Jesus, and I knew that he wouldn't do that to me. I kind of had a funny feeling that it might have been that chubby little Filipino guy she worked with because I am pretty good at figuring things out, and also because she told me that it was his.

At first, I was upset, and I called her the all usual names you would call a wife who had a baby with a chubby Filipino guy from work, like whore, slut, cunt and that sort of thing. But as time passed and the seasons changed, I did too. I eventually realized that she was not a slut, a whore, or a cunt and that she was actually a vessel of God's goodness and the answer to my prayers.

Her beautiful new little Filipino baby turned out to be the second of God's three miracles. I am not sure if it was enlightenment, an epiphany, or just plain old heavy medication, but after she had that baby she became nice to me, and this time it was genuine. The divorce had not even been finalized and she had already transcended to a higher plane of ex-wife consciousness that no ex-wife has ever before achieved. She had reached self-actualization and had become like the ex-wife Buddha. She was some sort of ex-wife prophet. I am sure of it.

She became the kindest most thoughtful person I know. I would bet Mary the mother of Jesus Christ herself would not have been as nice. Even Mary would have probably fought for half of Joseph's carpentry business, but my ex-wife wanted none of it. She didn't fight me for anything that a normal ex-wife would. She didn't fight me for the house, my pension, custody, alimony, spousal support, not even child support. She told me that she wanted none of it.

She even drove me to get a vasectomy so I could sleep with other women, and when one of those women tracked her down on Facebook to tell her that I gave her HPV, she simply finalized the divorce, and she even paid for it. I tried to give her back the money for the divorce in a Christmas card, but I couldn't find a Christmas card for ex-wives so I had to find a card in the wives section at Hallmark, and write an "ex" in front of the word "wife" with a sharpie. As soon as she opened the card, she gave the money right back to me and told me to use that money to fix my broken toilet. She was the kindest, most compassionate ex-wife the world has ever seen. I'd bet even Mother Theresa herself wouldn't have done that for ex-husband.

It was triumphant to have God send me such an amazing ex-wife. She was truly an angel delivered from the heavens. Through her secret love child, God filled her with the grace and goodness that she needed to find it in her heart to not take me for child support.

Later that same year would be the first and only time I ever truly felt like I was in the presence of God. I was sitting at my kitchen table getting drunk on bourbon in a moment of partial quietude and silent reflection, just like I always do when I am getting drunk on bourbon. That was when my ex-wife sent me a text saying that she bought our kids their Christmas presents this year. That was when I finally realized that I had done what no man has ever done in the history of the world. I got out of paying child support. It was right there at that very moment that I truly felt like I was in the presence of God.

It is hard to describe what being in the presence of God feels like. All I could remember was that the world felt new again. The lights shone brighter, the air seemed cleaner, and bourbon tasted sweeter. I even began levitating around the room.... no, I am fucking with you. I didn't levitate, but all of my worries and stress did go away. I felt a warm comforting feeling come over me like I was a baby being swaddled in a blanket, or I just drank an entire fifth of bourbon. I felt no hatred or animosity towards anything, and all I could feel was this great appreciation and gratitude for everything that happened in my life, especially getting out of paying for child support. For one fleeting moment, I felt completely at peace.

The next day everything returned to normal. I awoke feeling hungover from all the bourbon, and all the worldly emotions of worry and sadness returned. I never did feel like I was in the presence of God ever again, but I will never forget the time God and I got drunk on a bottle of Elijah Craig as we basked in the triumphant glory of not having to pay child support. Over the years, I have become fascinated by divorces and ex-wives. I have become something of an ex-wife enthusiast, like a storm-chaser or a model railroader. I look for people to tell me about their horrific divorces and all of their terrible situations, and it makes me happy inside knowing that my life turned out better than theirs. Not having to pay child support or alimony was truly a miracle. It was something the great miracle workers of our day like David Copperfield were unable to do. He was the same guy who made the entire Statue of Liberty disappear, and even he couldn't get out of paying child support.

# The Third and Final Miracle

There I was sitting in my car, chain-smoking and harassing my ex-wife with all kinds of crazy text messages, the same way I always did while we were going through the divorce when suddenly I received a call from a strange number. Now I never pick up calls from strange numbers. They are usually collections agencies, so I just ignore them and hope they go away, but for some strange reason this time I felt inclined to answer.

Something was telling me that this was not someone who was going to bust my balls about past due pay medical bills or credit cards. Something was telling me that I needed to answer this call, and for once my intuition was correct. This phone call was not from an Indian person in an outsourced call center, or a robot lady, or any of the other usual people who call me from strange numbers.

Instead, this time it was the voice of a siren. Her voice was beautiful and melodic, and she was tempting me with her alluring promise of a new and wonderful opportunity. Hope was once again alive in my heart, and I was so taken aback by my good fortune that I forgot all about telling my ex-wife what a slut she was.

After I hung up the phone I broke down and began to cry. I knew that this was the phone call that would change my life forever. It was an official phone call from the government, and they were offering me a job that would pay me close to 50,000 dollars a year. That was almost as much as a beggar in New York City would make. With this new windfall, I would finally have enough money to pay all my bills, and maybe even start a small gambling problem, an idea I had been tossing around for a while.

After I hung up, I was left pondering the questions, "Why me? Why did they offer me the job?" There had to be thousands if not trillions of people more qualified for this position, and yet for some reason, they picked me.

Word must have been spreading like wildfire about all the great things I was doing as a guidance counselor in a public high school. They knew that if I could get kids to stop drawing dicks on bathroom stalls and eating dog shit, then I could handle just about anything at any job, just as long as I was familiar with Microsoft Office.

Never in a million years did I think I would end up working for the government. I always thought that big government jobs were only reserved for America's elite such that Oklahoma senator Ralph Shorty who got brought up on child sex trafficking charges, or the Massachusetts senator Michael Brady who was famous for getting a D. U. I. Government jobs are given to famous professional wrestler conspiracy theorists like Jesse "The Body" Ventura and Austrian bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger, not guys like me. I was, lazy, careless, rude, disgusting, probably unethical, somewhat fat and even smelly at times, but there I was an official government employee. I even had an official government I. D. badge and everything.

I could now be mentioned in the same breath and working alongside some of the legendary government employees of our time. These are the men and women who worked and sacrificed to make our country and our government as prosperous as it is today. I was up there with some of the all-time great American public servants who gave their blood, sweat, and tears to this great country, humble men who selflessly devoted their whole life to giving back to this great country, heroes like Roy Moore, Anthony Weiner, and even Donald Trump.

Although getting a job working for the government was a big break and a fantastic career move, it was not the last miracle. It was only the beginning of a journey that would ultimately lead me to discover the third and final miracle. God had not bestowed me with this cushy good-paying public sector job because wanted me to buy a sweet bass boat or finally pay off my credit cards. He did it because He knew that this job would lead me to the path of self-actualization and true happiness and also the third miracle.

It would be through this job that I would experience such a great spiritual awakening that it can only be paralleled by the likes of the great televangelist icons like Jimmy and Tammy Faye Baker, and possibly even Jesus. All those corny inspirational Internet memes that my mom posts on her Facebook are right. Salvation does come when you are least expecting it. My salvation came in the most unlikely of places. It came to me in a Holiday Inn in upstate New York.

Ever since I was a small boy I've been fascinated with famous people. I would spend my childhood days pining to meet one of these larger than life celebrity megastars who had encapsulated the world with their popularity and good looks. I would often sit and wonder what it would be like to meet one of these immortals, and maybe get a baseball signed by a Major Leaguer or get my picture taken with a real movie star. Meeting a celebrity was all I ever really thought about as a child.

Even when my mom and dad would take me into the big cities like New York or Cincinnati, I could care less about seeing the Statue of Liberty or eating chili. All I ever really cared about was meeting a famous person, and maybe getting an autograph or a picture.

That was the only thing I ever wanted in life as a child, and for one ephemeral moment in 1986, my dream almost came true. That was when former Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion and WWE Hall of Famer, Ricky the Dragon Steamboat was selling autographs next to the keychain kiosk at the mall. I will never forget that day for as long as I live. I remember begging and pleading with my mom to let me buy his autograph or at least let me stand there and stare at him for a while. I was in awe of his famous white celebrity teeth as they glistened in the fluorescent lights of the mall, and the way his sinewy celebrity muscles flexed with each ten-dollar autographed picture he signed. I begged and pleaded with her let me get an autographed picture, only to be selfishly whisked away from my beloved Dragon so that my mom could try on outfits for work at the Fashion Bug Plus.

That would be the closest I would ever come to meeting a real celebrity. I didn't realize it at the time, but that day would leave a barren empty void in my soul that I would spend the next twenty years trying to fill. I would go to countless baseball games, football games, and other concerts and sporting events but it was no use. No celebrity ever wanted to write their name on anything I would obnoxiously wave in their faces. I was excited for a little while when I got two autographs from a couple of Penn State football players, only to have my dreams shattered years later when I learned that they were only college students who eventually went on to become an accountant and a middle school social studies teacher.

As I grew older, I convinced myself that meeting a famous person was just a silly childhood dream that would eventually die, the same way most silly childhood dreams often do, like curing cancer or solving world hunger. As I grew older, I told myself that it was absurd and childish to want to meet a famous person. I even scoffed at my mom when she bragged about meeting Charles Barley while she was waiting for a cab in the Phoenix airport.

I tried to tell myself that it was stupid and that I didn't care about meeting a celebrity, but deep down inside I knew that wasn't true. I became enraged with contempt and jealousy as I listened to my mom's non-stop bragging about how she shook Charles Barley's hand and how nice he was. I secretly wished that it was I who shook Charles Barkley's hand, and not her. That was when I realized that I had not yet exercised the demons left behind by having never met Ricky the Dragon Steamboat on that balmy August afternoon in 1986.

When I saw the picture of the back of Charles Barkley's head that my mom took when he wasn't looking, it all became crystal clear to me. The root of all my unhappiness and discontent in life was because I never got to meet a real celebrity. All of that changed on one fateful day a few years ago when my job sent me to a conference somewhere in upstate New York to learn about stuff related to my job.

So, there I was at this conference. I just finished skipping all the sessions to get shit-faced drunk at the hotel bar, just like I always do when I go to work conferences. That was when the strangest thing happened. I was back in my room fumbling around with my phone looking at porn just like I always do when I'm in a hotel room alone. That was when I saw him out of the corner of my eye.

I couldn't believe it. On the back of the conference schedule that I carelessly threw towards the garbage can, there was a picture of an older distinguished gentleman. Time had put wrinkles on his face the same way a tanning bed would or smoking, and his hair had turned to the shiny silver color of a new spoon or a runner-up trophy. Still, even in his old age, he managed to look wonderful and majestic like a unicorn or a picture of a sunset. You could tell that there was something magical about this man. He was not just an ordinary old man that you would find taking forever to pay for groceries or driving like a fucking asshole. He was vibrant and spy, like an old man you'd see in a commercial for erectile dysfunction or Low Testosterone. He was fit and trim and you could tell by just one look at his infectious smile and his professionally photographed headshot that he was a famous person.

I just couldn't understand what a real celebrity was doing on the agenda for my silly little workshop. I picked up the brochure and read the bio under his photo. He turned out to be a very famous world-renowned author and NPR radio host who I never heard of, and he was going to be the keynote speaker at the last session of tomorrow's conference.

I couldn't believe it. God had sent me to this conference because he knew that a real celebrity was going to be there to talk about teamwork, or resilience, or something. Such a wave of emotion came over me that I forgot all about the babysitter porn I was watching.

All I could think about was I could get my picture taken with a real celebrity and possibly even get his autograph. A sense of calm came over me knowing that I could right all the wrongs of my childhood and finally meet a real famous person. I had such a feeling serenity and inner peace that I fell asleep with my shoes still on, the television on blast, and a half-eaten slice of pizza in my hand.

The next morning, I quickly got showered and dressed, then I skipped all the morning sessions of the conference so I could watch Ellen and check on my fantasy football league. I waited until right before the closing session was about to begin. Then I sprinted out through the hotel lobby, past the registration desk, and past all of the vendors giving out free stuff. I was in such a hurry to get a good seat at his speech that I didn't even bother to stop and take any more of the cool free pens they were giving away.

I got a seat right in the front, and I sat in nervous anticipation of meeting my first ever real celebrity. I have never been so close to real-life NPR radio host before. As he entered the room, immediately all the idle chit-chat and side conversations ended, the same way they would if the President of the United States entered the room, or my really scary third-grade teacher, Sister Rose Anthony. That was the type of respect he commanded.

He exuded the energy and confidence of an infomercial host, and his charisma encapsulated the whole room. I was so drawn into what he was saying that I almost paid attention, and I only got up to go to the bathroom twice. After his brilliant speech was over and he got his standing ovation, I pushed my way through all of his admirers and fans with my conference agenda in my hand. I extended it to him with my hands shaking, and I sheepishly and nervously asked him to sign it.

His brilliantly handsome celebrity face suddenly fell with a look of bewilderment. There was a moment of hesitation on his part, and I began to have flashbacks to my mom whisking me away from The Dragon. My heart sunk and I felt like it was 1986 again. Just as I turned away to leave, he outstretched his famous arm and took my agenda. He then asked me for a pen. Luckily, I had stolen about fifty from the vendors the day before. My pockets were beaming with all sorts of pens. I handed him one. He took it and signed my paper. He then handed it back to me and laughed, saying that not too many people ask him for his autograph. I said thank you and extended my arm toward him for a handshake, at which he politely declined due to germs. I didn't even care. I just had my first conversation with a real celebrity.

I placed the autographed agenda on the front seat of my car. That way I could stare at it in admiration as I drove home. I forgot to take it into my house that night. I forgot to take it in the next night as well, and the night after that. Eventually, days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months, and my car began to fill up with empty water bottles, McDonald's wrappers, crushed cigarette packs, coffee cups and other types of garbage that eventually buried my autograph somewhere on the floor.

When the time came for me to clean out my car, I forgot all about the autographed conference agenda and I accidentally threw it out, and with it all the memories of that famous NPR radio host/author. It didn't matter though. Even though I forgot his name, I accomplished my goal. I finally met a real celebrity. My life was now complete.

# 5 Years Later

It's been 5 years since the three miracles happened, and a lot has changed in my life since then. I got into The Bachelor again, gained a lot of weight, almost won a Super Bowl block, tried Baklava for the first time, bought multi-vitamins once, almost quit drinking twice, thought about buying a gun, switched my Internet provider, and I even bought new pants a few times. I also got accused of giving a girl HPV in her butt, which I don't think is even possible, but I'm not a doctor, so who knows? Maybe I did.

My point is that my life is finally on the right track, and I couldn't be happier. I am beaming with self-confidence again, and I finally feel good about myself again. I feel like I can take on the world, just like I did when I was bully back in high school.

Things couldn't be going better, and I owe it all to this exciting new job with the government. This new job has me doing all sorts of big important things like creating Excel spreadsheets and going to meetings. When you work for the government you go to a lot of meetings, and I mean a lot of meetings. And at those meetings, people talk about all the big important stuff they plan on doing. Ironically, rarely does any of that stuff ever get done, and if it does, it usually gets done all wrong or at least incredibly inefficiently. When that happens, everyone usually just forgets the last big idea and start over with some other big idea that wasn't fully thought out.

My job is to keep track of lots of spreadsheets and fill out lots of reports that have lots of numbers, figures, and percentages. I am not exactly sure why I keep them, who reads them, or what they are used for, but I trust that they must be used by someone, somewhere, for something very important and official. I mean they have to be, right? This wasn't some rinky-dink fly by night operation like my cousin Tommy's vape shop in New Jersey. This was the government.

Since I started this job, I mastered the art of creating spreadsheets. I can create huge complicated spreadsheets in less than two hours, mostly because spreadsheets in the government don't necessarily have to be accurate, which gives me a lot of creative freedom to make stuff up on them. Not having to keep accurate records makes record keeping a breeze. When I make everything up on my reports, I can get them done with a 225% higher efficiency rating than someone in the private sector who must submit accurate reports. See how easy that was. I just made that whole thing up, and it took me less than ten seconds.

When you work for the government there isn't the kind of pressure to succeed and make money the way there is in retail, industry, or even at a child's lemonade stands for that matter. Those places need to turn a profit, or they will go out of business. If the government doesn't turn a profit, who cares? They can always just print more money. Printing your own money is a sound business model that all companies should follow. Maybe companies like Blockbuster and Radio Shack would still be in business today if they printed their own money the way the government does.

Printing your own money is also great for staff morale. Studies show that people who work for an employer who prints their own money have a 78% higher job satisfaction rating. That is a higher morale rating than companies known for their high morale, such as Google and trampoline stores.

Because it can print its own money, the government is constantly expanding and creating new jobs every day. It has so many bureaus, departments, divisions, and subdivisions that there are literally millions of jobs in the government. There are big jobs, small jobs, silly jobs, scary jobs, dirty jobs, clean jobs, funny jobs, mean jobs, and lots and lots of easy jobs. There are even vague jobs where no one even knows what the hell you do like, "The Special Assistant to the Project Analyst" which is located in the Office of Legislative Affairs. Who knows what that the hell that even means, other than sounding important? The government has lots of auditors, inspectors, analysts, coordinators, supervisors, planners, directors, managers and controllers too. Everyone seems to either be overseeing something or inspecting it, but no one ever seems to be doing any actual work. That is why I fit in so well in the government. I hate doing actual work, but I love to be in charge of stuff. Me and the government, well let's just say that we are a match made in heaven. I finally found my forever home, just like an orphan or a stray dog who was cute enough to get adopted.

# And Finally, The End

Well, I guess this is where my story ends. I don't have anything else to say. With a decent paying job, an amicable divorce, and two kids who aren't in therapy yet, my life has turned out exactly as I planned. I have everything a guy could ask for. I even have Triple-A Roadside Assistance and dental insurance. There aren't too many guys who can say that.

I also have a great relationship with my ex-wife. We co-parent like two civil diplomats navigating through the treacherous waters of geopolitical affairs on the world stage in hopes of avoiding the most unholy of wars. And by that, I mean we pretend to get along in front of the kids, which can be an excellent strategy for co-parenting in a split household.

I am grateful that all the struggles I went through to get to where I am today are finally behind me, and it is a relief knowing that a great peace has settled across the land. However, the war is far from over. I know that every ending is simply a new beginning. This time of peace and tranquility will not last, and all I can do now is sit patiently and wait. For I know that off in a not so distant horizon there is already a new enemy force mobilizing, and it won't be long until I come face to face with a stronger and more powerful super-villain. It might be a 2nd wife, a cable company, some asshole stepchildren, maybe my dickhead third cousin from New Jersey, or even my fat nosey neighbor who can't ever mind his own fucking business.

My point is that you never know when you will come face to face with your next enemy, so you must always be ready. I know for a fact that there is already an orthodontist plotting to overcharge me thousands of dollars for my son's braces. And at this very moment, there is a dickhead stepdad who is trying to get my kids to like him more than me. As long as there are bosses, wives, ex-wives, children, banks, interest rates, hidden fees, surcharges, gas prices, taxes, and heat in the summer there will always be assholes like me to complain about it, but those are my battles for another day. For now, I am just thankful that all my prayers were answered, at least the smaller stupider ones that taught me valuable life lessons. The big prayers that grant me eternal life and give me unimaginable wealth have still yet to be answered.

Just because God didn't answer my more awesome prayers, that doesn't mean I will give up. That just means I will try even harder. I will fight the good fight until the bitter end to have all my prayers answered, but this time I want the cooler more awesome ones answered. God could take those gay, little, stupid, inner-strength, life-lesson, peace of mind, personal growth prayers and shove them right up his fucking asshole. Valuable life lessons are for pussies. They are nothing but a bunch of bullshit consolation prizes for losers.

This time I want the big prayers answered. The one where God gives me a Porsche and I bang two chicks at once, or at least the one where I win the Powerball. Mavis Wanczyk won the Powerball. I think he won 758.7 million. James Stocklas, Tom Rea, Roy Cockrum, Joe Saxer, and Kevin Carleson won the Powerball. Even Ted Baumgartner won 50 million back in 2013. I heard that even Gary Banaravage, a guy I went to high school with, won like ten grand on a scratch-off ticket last year, and that guy's a fucking dick.

If anybody deserves to win the lottery and never have to go to work again it's me. That is why I'll never give up. I am just one Poweball win away from accomplishing all of my goals and becoming a true life champion.

# About the Author

Buck Brennan is best known for showing up late for work, farting, and yelling at his kids in Wal-Mart. He also has an incredible ability to drink infinite amounts of beer. Once, back in 2009, he drank over 30 beers at a family reunion. Everyone was so impressed with this awesome feat of beer drinking that they picked him up off the picnic table that he was passed out on and carried him home like a true champion of life. Buck's beer-drinking prowess has since grown in stature and he has become something of local legend, solidifying Buck Brennan's place in history as a true virtuoso in the art of getting shit-faced drunk.

Buck came from very humble beginnings where he remains even today. He was born in 1979 in rural Pennsylvania just outside of Philadelphia where he would spend the better part of his childhood masturbating to his dad's Penthouse magazines. By the time he was fourteen he was considered to be one of the most active masturbaters of his generation. Eventually, he did have sex with a real girl, then he got married and had two kids named Tucker and Macy, but his love for masturbation never waned. He still masturbates today when no one is home or when he is in the shower.

Buck never won any awards for his writing, but he won many participation trophies as a child and countless drinking games in college. Currently, Buck lives in rural PA with his dog, his cat, and his two children 50% of the time. In his free time, he enjoys looking for the remote, complaining about stuff, and fighting with his ex-wife.

