At this point we’re getting snow every other day or so, and I’ve officially had enough. Tomorrow night we’re supposed to be clobbered, yet again: a big John Holmes-sized accumulation. It’s bullshit, I tell ya.
Yeah, I know… I complain about hot and humid weather, too. But who says I can’t spread the hate around? Hating one thing doesn’t mean I automatically have to love its opposite. Right? I guess weather is like politics: it’s the extremism I don’t like — on both ends of the spectrum.
Last time I asked you guys to guess what the cashier at a drugstore said to me, when I asked, “Just curious? Why did it take me, like, 30 seconds to complete my transaction, and it takes everybody else 7 minutes? What’s the difference?”
Some of you were close. She said, “Have a good day, sir,” and waved over the next person in line. So, basically I was dismissed by a cashier. Which was probably appropriate, if I’m to be honest; I was being a snarky little shit, after all.
One thing I want to clear up, though… It wasn’t just the old man in front of me who was taking 7 minutes (possibly a slight exaggeration), it was also the two or three people in front of him. This wasn’t a case of oldster aggravation, it was human race aggravation. It feels like everybody lives inside their own bubble now, and has no consideration whatsoever for the folks outside it. It’s bubble blindness.
But anyway…
Today I’d like to talk about waking up in a state of confusion. Hopefully you guys have some stories to tell on this one? I’ll start the ball rolling with three of my own, and hand over the reigns to you. How’s that sound? Good. Let’s get started, shall we?
A few days ago I was driving to work, talking to Steve on the phone. He’s a college professor, and had a great story for me.
He said a kid recently showed up to one of his classes about 35 minutes late — 15 minutes before it was supposed to end. After the class was over, he apologized and explained that he’d been out late the previous evening “partying,” and didn’t get much sleep.
Consequently, he nodded off in another class, earlier in the day. The class ended, and everybody left — without waking him. Not even the professor bothered with the guy. Then (get this!) another class arrived, and also didn’t disturb him. So, when the kid finally jerked awake, he was surrounded by a totally different group of people, and a different teacher, teaching a different subject.
Ha! How long would it take your brain to process that crap? A tiny puff of smoke would probably come out of my ears. Also, when did it become OK to casually explain away your fuck-ups to an authority figure, by telling him you’ve been partying too much? Does that seem bizarre to anyone but me?
When I was in high school I attended Senior Skip Day, and was drinking heavily before noon. It was insane: Sodom and Gomorrah at Shawnee Park. I remember I was eating grilled chicken that wasn’t cooked all the way through, and didn’t give it a second thought. The basketball team was cooking it up, and it was freaking good. Just, you know, kinda raw. It’s a wonder I didn’t shit myself into oblivion, over by the teeter-totters or whatever.
Anyway, around 5pm I woke up in my own bed, and had no idea how I got there. My parents were due home from work any minute, and my beleaguered brain was spinning a thousand miles an hour, trying to figure it all out. I was just glad I wasn’t smeared in blood, or clutching a butcher knife, or something.
Then I had a terrifying thought: Where was my car?? I didn’t even know how I got home. Please let the car be outside… preferably without a wad of flannel shirt wedged in the grille.
Of course, it wasn’t out there. It wasn’t on the driveway out back, and it wasn’t parked on the street in front of our house. WTF?! I was in a full-on panic.
Eventually I found it, parked on the street, about halfway down the block. And I learned, a day or so later, that someone drove me home, parked my car, and walked to their own house.
Crazy! I felt like shit for days, and made it a rule to never start drinking before the sun goes down. It’s still something I subscribe to, thirty-some years later. Those fifteen minutes, or whatever it was, when I couldn’t find my car and had no idea what was going on, were horrifying.
Finally, on a lighter note… Back during my high school days, some of the theaters in Charleston would show midnight movies. Hundreds of drunken (ALWAYS drunken) teenagers from all over the valley would congregate to watch weird-ass movies like Eraserhead, and Plan 9 from Outer Space.
One night I went to a multiplex, called Park Place, where they were showing something like six different movies. I was with my friends Bill and Vincent, and we opted for Taxi Driver. It was showing in the biggest theater, but there were only about twenty people inside.
We sat about halfway back, in the middle, and were (needless to say) half to three-quarters drunk. And at some point Vincent fell asleep. I elbowed him, and he didn’t respond at all. Bill tried to rouse him too, but he was snoozing; I mean, the dude was out.
So, we did the only logical thing… We gingerly placed an empty popcorn bucket on his head, and left. We paused near the doors at the back of the room, and looked at him sitting in the center of an almost abandoned theater, with a popcorn crown on top of his head. And we laughed and laughed.
We waited in the lobby for him, and about ten minutes later… he came roaring through the doors, completely pissed. And that only made us laugh harder. Again: how long would it take a human brain to process such a thing? Good stuff.
And now it’s your turn. Please tell us your tales of waking up in absolute confusion. Use the comments link at the top, or bottom, or whatever the hell.
Thank you guys for reading! We’re very close to getting this thing back on track. Please stay tuned.
And have a great weekend.
More snow is coming. Buy Jeff a beer! It’ll be touch-and-go for a while. He’s gonna need beer.
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First
It’s the re-beginning of a bygone era. Makes me nostalgic. Now I want a bowl of corn.
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Mother Fucker
Lmao
Well, someone has a picture of me on college marching band trip (Pittsburgh? DC? I can’t recall) passed out on a hotel bed with a hastily handwritten sign posted above my head that said “Wasted Badly.”
I was dog shaming before it was a thing.
And marched halftime in a pro football game halftime the next day.
Fucking ouch.
A couple of years ago a friend was staying at my place for a few days while going through a horrible divorce. So one evening we decided to get completely wasted and talk trash about her ex, as you do. When I woke up the next morning half my hair was gone, Bert’s Chili from Waffle House was smeared all over the kitchen floor, and my car was parked two streets over. My friend and I still don’t know what happened.
The popcorn thing had me lolling out loud. We are expecting the snowpocalupse here too. I live about 5 miles from the last place I knew jeffindenverincleveland lived so I hope he survives too.
About 2.5 years ago (yeah I’m 38 don’t judge) I woke up in the vacant lot at about 645 am across from the bar I was at the night before. I’m surprised I wasn’t mugged murdered molested or arrested. I woke up. Walked to the pizza joint that does grab and go breakfast than walked home.
The is a Shiners song called tavern song. First line is “woke up on the ground again this afternoon”. I’ve lived that song now.
Been a fun weekend. Blower went out on the furnace. We blew a fuse due to space heater overuse. The 8 month old scratched the girlfriends cornea. The girlfriend fell leaving work jacking up her knee. And grandpa didn’t get out of bed for 4 days.
We got by, but the show thrower shit the bed Friday. Parts will be here this week, but I couldn’t get out of the garage yesterday, much less down the driveway. Snowmageddon!!
*snow*
One time in January 2001, I woke up and the clock read 7:00. It was dark out. I was completely baffled: AM or PM?
Generally if I wake up without the alarm, my first thought is “shit! What time is it?”. With luck, that will be followed by the realization that it’s Saturday and it doesn’t matter.
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The AM/PM (which one is it?) deal has happened to me many times. Always good for laughs. Three or four days later.
In college I drove to Buffalo with a buddy to watch the Bills v. Broncos in the AFC Championship.
He was from Niagra Falls. We arrived in town Saturday evening and went straight to a bar where one of his buddies was a bartender. We were drinking pitchers of beer and I was a lightweight trying to keep up with, if not pros, certainly nationally ranked amateurs.
We closed the bar at 3 am and somehow made it to one of his friends houses where we crashed on a pullout couch in a living room just off the attached garage. Sometime around 5am I woke up and went to the bathroom looking for aspirin for my building headache.
When I got back to the couch my buddy was gone. I figured he rolled onto the floor so I walked around the bed.to check the floor. He wasn’t th and he didn’t pass me in the hallway so I was mystified.
Right about then I hear the doorknob on the door to the garage rattle, so I opened it. There’s my buddy with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. I asked him what happened and he said he woke up in the garage curled up around the tire of one of the cars.
He had no idea how he got there and I never saw or heard him leave.
20 plus years later and the whole episode remains a myster.
Y.
Y not
The wife and I live in a perpetual state of confusion due to working midnight shifts…our dogs aren’t sure what time they are supposed to get fed or let out, but they just kind of roll with it. I’ve been so confused by what time it was that I found it much easier to roll to 24 hour time like I use at work–makes it much simpler to figure out what time you got home and what time it is now. The worst was when I was sick over Christmas and couldn’t figure out what day it was or how long I had slept–made for an interesting couple minutes of trying to figure out where the wife would be and what holiday festivities I had missed.
I’ve worked a 12 hour rotating shift for the last 20 years. Never had a problem sleeping or getting up in all those year. The hours are 5 to 5. When working nights I almost always sleep for about 7 hours, once in blue moon 8 and never use an alarm. As I have gotten older it is usually my full bladder that wakes me up these days.
Last week on night run after hitting the platform around 5:15 am, I rolled over and noticed it was 4:02. I had no idea what in the hell part of the day it was (my wife made blackout curtains years ago), or what shift I was working or not working. It was like someone had racked me in the head with a pipe and I had been concussed.
When I finally realized what in hell was going on I had about 10 minutes to get my shit in order and hit the road so that I wasn’t late for work for the first time in my life.
Are you sure that wasn’t a KFC bucket?
A star is born.
When I was a young I was in the military – and more than once woke up in weird places.
Back in my mid-20s, following a divorce, I was living with my parents until I could get back on my feet, or kicked out, whichever came first. I went out way late one Saturday night, not getting back home until shortly before noon on Sunday. I crashed immediately after getting home, then at about 6:00 pm I woke up. First thing I thought was”Holy shit, I’m gonna be late for work”, thinking it was am. It was middle of winter so it would be dark either way, which added to the confusion. I hauled ass out of bed, got dressed and bolted upstairs to grab a coffee and split. Then my brain almost ejected itself from my skull when I spotted my parents sitting on the sofa watching TV – they would never be up that early! I stood there staring at them for what seemed like an eternity, trying to figure out what was going on, until my mom asked “are you ok?”. I replied yes and went back downstairs to figure this all out in solitude. Imagine my relief when I determined that I was not late for work, and in fact could begin drinking anew!
When I had knee surgery and was still messed up from anesthesia, my office called to find out how I was doing. I finally had to cut the woman off because I coukdnt figure out who I wad talking to. That was weird.
Today’s snowstorm is a lot worse than the so called blizzard of the century. Where is mayor Dr bladio and his over gesticulating sign language guy?
That is supposed to be de blasio
Wasn’t Mayor/Dr. Bladio the multi-tasking mayor/doctor in Blade Runner?
. . . to my knowledge, Dr Bladio spun for Dr Dre on the Niggaz4Life album and tour. I don’t remember him using a sign language guy to translate the samples.
jtb
Eventually Dr Bladio quit touring because he kept having to leave the stage during shows to take a piss.
.
.
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Je suis Bladio.
I am on day 8 of the flu and one typo made it all go away. Thank you Madz. “over gesticulating” got it all started and now I cant stop laughing.
The madz abides!
Fuck it, Madz. Let’s go bowling.
.
Huh?
The big lebowski reference
Ha Ha Ha Ha
It is very important to get your kids vaccinated. Remember; vaccines don’t kill children, the music of Bob Seger kills children.
Or Jerry Sandusky’s peter.
LMAO! I guess if you’re a young boy, this is an inappropriate comment.
Seger’s music might be tough on children, but Misty, Destiny, and Bambi are very fond of it, and they all claim to be vaccinated.
Back in college, 26 years ago, I woke up in a roadside ditch. I had been eaten to hell by mosquitoes and chiggers.
My car was parked just a few yards away. It was locked with the keys in the ignition..
I walked directly to my 8am business speech class, looking and probably smelling like hell.
Afterwards, I called a locksmith to open my car. It was out of gas, and the battery was dead.
Apparently, the night before I had attempted to drive back to my dorm, drunker than Cooter Brown. I stopped to piss, locked the door, and promptly passed out in the ditch. With the car still running, headlights still on.
I kinda sucked back then.
A couple more notes:
When I woke up, my dick and balls were still out, and apparently to mosquitoes and chiggers, they are the tastiest part of the male anatomy.
And that business speech class, well at 8am I missed quite a few classes. My final was a speech on SDI, Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, otherwise known as “star wars”. The bitch lesbian professor (I don’t want to say “Bulldyke”) gave me a 100 on my final. And failed me for the class with a 69.
69, eh? Perhaps a sexual reference from la bulldyke
Yesterday, February 5, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport received a wecord wainfall of 1.03 inches. I hope it clears some this evening so we can see the moon, because right now it’s waning gibbous.
As you can see, I’m out of box scores.
jtb
Could be worse. It could have been waning men. Although I’m not sure if that would be better or worse than waxing.
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Droll. Nice. Clap 🙂
I’m at school right now and a few of my classmates are workout junkies. However, they aren’t too pushy about “EVERYONE MUST WORKOUT”.
They try to be the helpful type, still annoying.
Anyway, one of them said, “You need to get into a rhythm that feels natural to you.”
That sounded exceptionally stupid. You know what feels natural, not doing a damn thing.
That’s the problem with people trying to say you should do something they do. You aren’t them. If everybody did the same thing you liked then we’d all eat fries with mayonnaise; and that would result in very much murder.
What is natural to you doesn’t have to be natural to me just because we each have the same basic arrangement of proteins and acids.
Meh, whatever. screw it. I’m bored. Anybody out there around Fort Leavenworth?
Is there some other website Jeff updates regularly? It is very quiet here. Maybe he’s back at The WVSR.