"It's Just Me and You"

The guy in the office next to mine has been without his live-in girlfriend for about two weeks now while she's away on business. I know this because he mentioned to me but I probablywould have figured out that "something" was up even if he hadn't told me.

He usually brings in left-overs for lunch but he's been buying out everyday... He's normally a very good dresser but his outfits have slowly regressed from his typical heavy starched exprensive suits to slightly wrinkled khakis and a polo shirt... He looks like he didn't shave all weekend... and this morning he was a very active participant in our Monday morning office football talk even though he normally "doesn't have the time to watch."

In my mental picture of what his condo must look like right now I see a sink overflowing with dishes, empty beer bottles littering the coffee table, and dirty socks and underwear lying on the couch.

For these two weeks he's been going without home cooked food, clean and pressed clothes, and someone worth shaving for. But this afternoon he made me painfully aware of another "need" he's been going without since she left town.

At around 10:30 AM, EST, he got a phone call from his girlfriend. His voice is low and deep and normally easy to ignore, but I heard him make a couple of affectionate comments about how much he's "been missing her". I think I may have even heard him call her "baby" a few times. This is a very professional guy so it caught me a bit off guard.

Next there was a long pause from his end of the conversation, and then he replied with "oh yeah?....... Mmmmmmm, I think I'd like that...... And then what would you do....?"

At that point he got up and closed his office door shut tight. A second later he turned the lock.

I was 80% sure he was about to do something "improper" with / on the phone, but the clincher came a minute later when I heard his stereo turn on. The song was "Me and You" by 'Tony Toni Tone'.

In case you've forgotten, they were a big hit back in the mid-90's when sappy R&B love songs ruled the pop charts. In addition to "Me and You" they also had success with "Feels Good" and "Lay Your Head on my Pillow".

Although I was never really a fan of their kind of music "Me and You" will always hold a special place in my heart simply because that was the song Cuba Gooding Jr. boned Nia Long to in "Boyz in the Hood". I was 12 years old when I saw that movie and well... lets just say Nia had a profound effect on my transition to becoming a teenager. I basically hit puberty while watching that scene.

Anyway... as troubled as I was by what my office mate was probably doing on the phone in his locked office I found myself more troubled by his choice of music... what the hell is he doing still listening to 'Tony Toni Tone'? Seriously, that song has been out of the picture for like 17 years!

My question is, do you think he had the 'Tony Toni Tone' CD already set aside special because he knew that phone call was coming? or does he just always have that 'Tony Toni Tone' CD near by? I'm not sure which answer is worse but the possesion of the 'Tony Toni Tone' CD is (n my mind) just as disturbing as the fact that he was, in all likelihood, getting busy by himself at work.

My questions for all of you FITS readers out there are:

1] have you ever 'gotten busy' at work?

2] have you ever 'gotten busy' by yourself at work?

3] what's the weirdest song you've ever 'gotten busy' to?

4] do you have any 'gettin busy' music? and if so what is it?

[ you know it's time to update your CD collection if these guys find their way onto your 'love makin' rotation! ]

Take That Bully!

Being one of the bigger kids when I was growing up, I was never really picked on in school. There was however one kid that decided to make me his target when I was in the 7th grade.

He was actually a year younger and not quite as big as me but had the advantage of being completely insane... plus he rolled with a posse of about 5 or 6 other insane kids. They were known for catching other kids alone in the bathroom then beating and robbing them.

His name was Juivon (pronounced like Joe-Vaughn) and it all started one day I was opening my locker. It seems that for no reason other then "wrong place-wrong time" Juivon decided to run up from behind me and punch me in the side of the face... I had never even spoken to him before.

Without realizing 'who' had punched me or 'why' I instinctively turned around and shoved my assailant to the ground. Then I saw who it was... gulp... Juivon... and of course all of his friends were there too.

I thought for sure I was in for a severe beat down, but instead, Juivon's friends all started laughing... at him... "That white kid fucked you up!" they taunted him. You can imagine how their reaction made him feel.

Embarrassed, Juivon got up, shoved me back, and unleashed a stream of insults and threats. I wanted to punch him. My arms were actually shaking because I wanted to throw a punch so badly. But I knew that if I did, all of his friends would jump in and I would end up at the emergency room.

Luckily, a teacher saw what was about to happen and broke it up. We both went our separate ways, but of course, this was only the first chapter. A pattern soon developed. I would see Juivon with his friends and he would hurl insults at me, shove me, spit on me, do anything he could to try and provoke a fight so that they could jump me... and I would just stand there and take it.

But whenever I'd see Juivon by himself he wouldn't even make eye contact with me... He was a really tough guy with a group of friends behind him, but alone, he was a coward. Of course the knowledge that deep down he was really afraid of me didn't help much when his posse had me cornered in the hallway.

Finally I ended up telling a kid on my basketball team about it. He was from the same neighborhood as Juivon and had a way of making problems disappear. And just like that the Juivon issue was over and done with. He would give me the occasional dirty look, but there were no more punches, no more spitting, no more insults. Eventually he just disappeared from my life.

I didn't see him again until a few years later in High School. By then he had grown a lot bigger than me and his arms were covered in tattoos. I remember seeing him in the hallways once and my heart stopped. I was frozen with fear but when he looked at me there was no recognition on his face. Thank god.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Well Moe Greene sent me an email today from the local paper where we grew up... it seems Juivon has gotten into a little bit of a pickle.

Turns out the DEA doesn't like it when you sell an undercover cop 247 grams of crack!

He was facing 27 separate drug charges in local court but the DA instead decided to turn him over to Federal prosecutors. I can only hope his prison tale turns into something out of "Shawshank Redemption."

Let clarify that... I don't mean to say that I wish he find life long friendship with a wise older Morgan Freeman type... I don't want him to find "a purpose" by helping other prisoners earn their GEDs... I'm not hoping that he have any happy endings on a beach in Mexico. In fact, I don't wish that he find any kind of "redemption" at all... Basically, I just hope he gets butt fucked by a gang of creepy prison rapist. I don't think it's too much to ask.

With a Little Help From My Friends

As a rule, I enjoy crazy guys... When other people get nervous and try not to make eye contact, I settle in and enjoy the show. I've gone on record about this before.

But I read something this morning that creeped me out a bit...

From the Washington Post [link to article]:

"A Virginia man who was caught with a homemade grenade and an assault rifle near the Library of Congress last week told authorities that he came to Washington to help police in the event of a conflict, according to charging papers.

Christopher S. Timmons, 27, said he wanted to provide more "manpower" in case of a conflict with a secret society, charging documents say. He also told police that he planned to visit the Library of Congress to research secret societies, the court papers say. He was arrested Friday after he stopped his Jeep to ask an officer for directions.

The officer noticed a rifle case on a passenger seat, leading to a search that uncovered the grenade, AK-47, knives and ammunition, authorities said."

Okay... this is like, 3 blocks from where I work! Not only that, but it happened LAST WEEK and this is the first I've heard about the incident... note to Capitol Police: keep me in the loop next time you catch a schizophrenic wandering Capitol Hill with an assault rifle and grenade!

Well... at least he was coming here to help...

Misplaced (?) Note

I found a 'post-it' note stuck to the windshield of my car yesterday in the metro parking garage. It read as follows:

WHY wont u call me back! - Dan*

The note isn't addressed to anyone in particular, and since I don't know any "Dan" (at least not well enough for them to leave a note on my car) I assume the note was not intended for me. I drive a black jeep and I have noticed that there is another black jeep that often parks somewhat near me, so maybe they're the person who won't call Dan back.

Anyway, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the note last night and I've decided that Dan is an asshole. I have several reasons:

[1] Someone is avoiding Dan's calls... we don't know Dan, but we know that someone who does know Dan doesn't think he's worth calling back. Not a good sign.

[2] Dan can't take a hint... if someone is avoiding your calls to the point that you need to leave a note for them, then you already know why they won't call you back and you're just being pushy.

[3] Dan isn't worried... I was thinking about acceptable reasons you could leave a note on someones car if they weren't calling you back and the only thing I could come up with is: you're worried that something has happened to the person. But that is clearly not the case with Dan. He left the note on a car at the Metro parking garage. That means he thought the person was on the metro. People who are on the metro are not dead, in a coma, or kidnapped.

[4] Dan is angry... note the "!" at the end of the sentence... it should be a "?". Had the sentence ended in a period I would have chalked it up to grammatical error and moved on. But he took the time to end with an expressive character and the character he chose to express was 'anger' over 'confusion'... So really, the whole note is dishonest... What he wanted to write was: "I'm pissed off that you haven't called me back!"

[5] Dan was determined... this parking garage is not free. Dan paid to get in. He could have walked into the garage, but there is no free parking close by. So either he [a] paid to get into the garage, [b] paid to park on a nearby street, or [c] parked several blocks away and walked in. I suppose you could argue that perhaps Dan rides the metro and uses the garage everyday. But if that was the case wouldn't he probably know his intended recipient's car a little better?

[6] Dan screwed up... as we determined above, Dan went out of his way to leave this note, he was angry, maybe a little hurt... this note was important to him... and yet he didn't even manage to find the right car! Who puts all that effort into writing a note only to deliver it to the wrong person?

Dan does... And like I said, Dan is an asshole... I wouldn't call him back either.





*I'm going to try and get an actual picture of the note instead of just the transcript but I doubt I'll be able to get it done until tomorrow**

**Yes, I kept the note. I don't know what that says about me.

Scarrier Than A Mailman On Sunday

I'm not sure if it's OK to have a political post on a blog called "Farting in the Shower," let alone immediately following a post called "Crotch Doctor," but since this isn't my blog I figured I'd go ahead and do it anyway.

Before I move into my topic, I think it would be relevant if I gave you a quick summary of my personal political background. Getting the big question out of the way, I'd say ideologically I side pretty squarely with the Democratic party. I agree with them on most civil issues, such as gay marriage, abortion, separation of church and state(*1), etc., and from what history and politics I studied in school, I believe the economic policy under Clinton was worlds better than the one introduced by Reagan and taken further by Bush. However, what's stronger than my ideological affiliation is my apathetic and futile attitude towards our government. I'm 24 years old, and I've never voted. I'm not particularly proud of it, but the reasons I had for not voting in the past still stand for the most part. I'm not going to get into them here because the only important thing to take from this is that while I'm ideologically a Democrat, I'm quite politically inactive.

The biggest political story right now is clearly McCain's controversial choice for his Vice Presidential running mate. As you should already know, he chose current Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin. When this happened, and all I knew about her was that she was young, female, and from Alaska, my knee jerk reaction was that she was probably a bad choice. In truth, she is a woeful choice. Apart from her non-existent credentials(*2), extremely radical voting record(*3), questionable morals(*4), having a vagina(*5), she's also next in line if McCain's barely animated corpse should decide to cash out. I've only known of her existence for a week and I am terrified of this woman.

OK. Only Tom DeLonge could write a longer intro, and for that I apologize. So without further ado, I'll move onto my intended topic, what really scared me: Palin's speech at last night's Republican National Convention.

As I've hopefully illustrated, this woman already scares me. But what scares me more, as was accented during her speech, are the masses of people that blindly follow a person like this. Every few seconds during the speech, the camera would pan to some random attendees. The looks on their faces, coupled with their enthusiastic applause at the mention of topics such as torture and the war in Iraq, scare the balls off me. While I was overcome with a numbness of fear during the entire event, Two things in particular were stand-out-scary. One, every time she said something inflammatory about the Democratic candidates, the cameras could always find someone in the stands jumping out of their seats and flailing their arms and their signs in divine satanic ecstasy. The only comparison I can summon is from the movie Borat, where he visits the crazy religious congregations that speak in tongues and practice what I can only best describe as "running the gauntlet" through the isles during the sermon. Even sports fans aren't this enthusiastic. And the other thing that terrified me, was during a specific point in her speech where she was vilifying Obama for wanting to raise taxes. At one point she listed the taxes he wanted to raise. From what I can remember, it went like this: "Income tax, Payroll tax, (something), Death tax(*6), Business tax, (something)..." and the only audible boos in that huge crowd came when she listed "Business tax". BUSINESS TAX. Fuck every one of you rich greedy bastards in that room. I was appalled, speechless, confused, angry, everything. These are the people that want to run our country.




(*1)This shouldn't be a party issue (it's in the Constitution!), but sadly, it really is.

(*2)She's been Governor of Alaska (ALASKA!) for less than 2 years. She was mayor of a town of 5000 before that, and the rest of her political credentials aren't significant enough to mention, even with respect to what I just wrote.

(*3)She was a member of an organization that wanted Alaska to secede from the United States. Do I really need to add that she voted to ban abortion for rape victims? Or that she's a member of the NRA (scary)? Or for abstinence-only sex education?

(*4)When her water broke during her latest pregnancy to an autistic child in the mainland U.S., she decided to take a 10-hour plane/car trip back to Alaska to deliver the baby. Medically, this is extremely dangerous (once her water breaks, the baby is no longer in a sterile environment and is very susceptible to infection, which can easily become fatal to a fragile newborn), and in my opinion, incredibly morally irresponsible. Lest I forget, her 17-year old daughter is currently 5 months pregnant (abstinence-only education is clearly doing wonders for her own family).

(*5)Just trying to add a little humor, please don't be offended. But seriously, I think she has a vagina.

(*6)She emphasized "Death tax" for some reason, to no response from the crowd.