D. Thoreson - Meter Maid

“Have you ever had a severe lapse in judgment?” I asked my coworkers when I stepped into the lunch room when I returned from Meals on Wheels yesterday.

Why is it that I have a knack for making an abrupt transition from the good guy to the jerk?

It all started back in December. I was making my rounds on the Meals on Wheels route that I do regularly. John and Peggy are also on the team and our office covers Mondays so each of us delivers every third week. This day in December was like any other except I had promised Ron a special sandwich from the best food cart in the city, Rip City Grill. You might remember Ron from my first ever blog post. If you don’t, you can and should read it by clicking THESE WORDS.

So I stopped at Rip City Grill (side note: I treated Jesse to Rip City Grill for his birthday back in September and received a parking ticket for my generosity) to buy a sandwich for Ron. I had never done this before. I’m sure it’s against the rules to go out and buy additional food for the seniors on the route, but you read the story about the giant turd…this guy is awesome. He deserves this sandwich (and there’s no telling what it might turn into).

Well, I buy the sandwich and drive the two blocks to Ron’s building. Like Peggy, John and I have done every week now for a year I park in the 15 minute slot, put the sign on my dashboard, add the magnetic sign the senior center gave us that reads “Meals on Wheels” to my door and head to the front of the building. When I get to the 6^th floor Ron is really touched that I would buy him this sandwich and we talk for quite a while. As you shouldknow, Ron’s a talker and we get to chatting for probably 25 minutes. Eventually I make my exit and when I get back to my car there it is: a $40 ticket from the City of Portland. All I can tell you about what I felt at that moment is pure emptiness. I just felt my stomach sink. I already had the previous parking ticket from this neighborhood and now a Meter Maid named “D. Thoreson” had taken it upon himself to ruin my day. And he did too…he ruined it. I felt victimized.

Well, I have probably told the story about this parking ticket aloud about a hundred times by now and I won’t bore you with the details, but here’s the short version. You have three options when you get a parking ticket in Portland: 1) Pay the ticket 2) Pay the ticket and submit a letter 3) Pay the ticket and request a hearing. I chose option 3 and have my day in court coming up on February 7^th.

So at this point in the story I’m the good guy. I’m the volunteer who has been wronged by a twerp Meter Maid that exercises the small amount of authority he has on everyone he can because he’s small. The problem is pretty much encapsulated by the previous sentence. What’s the tone of that sentence? It’s the same tone that I used to take with my sister before she finally splayed me open with a nearby cutting tool. It’s the tone that you take when you feel anger and you’re ready to tear someone down. One thing I’m not good at is letting things go. And D(ouche) Thoreson has really pissed me off.

So fast forward a couple months to Monday. I have my court hearing coming up in two weeks and I’m mentally preparing every day. I’m ready to go down the list of why I’m right and in the process casually mention what is wrong with Douche Thoreson from an ideological standpoint. My working bullet points are as follows:

·         Why should the City of Portland be taking a cut from the people who are spending their time and gas performing social services?

·         Meter Maids have the ability to discern when someone is truly deserving of a ticket and Douche obviously doesn’t understand that it’s not in the City of Portland’s best interest to deter volunteers.

·         If the City of Portland wants to fine me for bringing food to a disabled, terminally ill Vietnam Veteran who is slowly losing his bodily functions because of Agent Orange then perhaps this issue is bigger than I thought and KATU local news would be interested in it.

·         The parking spot I was in is located on a street that always has open parking…it’s not like parking downtown where the spaces are at a premium.

·         We’ve been doing this for over a year…why now?

Well, all this logic went out the window when I saw a meter maid on a bicycle as I was approaching Ron’s building. I parked the car and bought my 15 minute pass for $0.40 and was about to put it in the window when Satan jumped into my head and said “Douche Thoreson has wronged you…you need to punish him.” Now the obvious answer to this is “get out of my head, Beelzebub.” Unfortunately my answer was more of a question “how can I do that?” Well, it turns out the Devil is pretty stupid. He says “you need to write something on your parking receipt.” That’s stupid. So I did it. Here is what I wrote:

Alright, good, screw that guy.

So I made my way up to Ron’s and he was feeling pretty talkative. I can’t just leave his place while he’s telling me about his disease and his Christmas visitors and giving me a small piece of framed art that his brother loved and he hated and while he’s remembering my name because it rhymes with teeth. I’m about 5 minutes late getting back down to the car and you already know what I found.

Standing there, about to get back on his two wheeled chariot (aka bicycle) is none other than Douche Thoreson himself. I didn’t  know for certain that it was Douche, but I asked and sure enough it was him. Here is a picture I drew of Douche:

Did you just write me another ticket? “Yes.” Was I over time? “Yup, five minutes. I’d have given you a warning if it hadn’t been for the note you wrote.” I didn’t actually think you’d see that. “We see everything.” Of course you do. “And it’s going in the case log for the judge to see too.” Oh, that’s very frightening. Listen, I’m sorry I wrote what I did. It was obviously stupid and I regret it and I owe you an apology because it was uncalled for and, quite frankly, out of character for me. But here’s why I wrote it…do you remember writing me a ticket right here a couple of months ago? “No.” Seriously? “Yes.” Does this jog your memory at all? (At this point I went into my car, got the magnet out and slapped it on the door and then took out the other ‘Meals on Wheels’ sign and put it on my dash). You seriously don’t remember this? “Well, yes, I do remember seeing this in the case files for the court date that’s coming up.” Yeah, so tell me why you’re claiming that you would have given me a warning today, but you actually ticketed me last time when my car looked like this. “If I gave a pass to everyone who wrote a note then nobody would get a ticket.” Are you seriously giving me the slippery slope argument? As though everyone who writes a note has a legitimate claim that they are doing charitable work? You actually seem to think that it’s your job to hand out a forty dollar fine to the guy who is taking lunch to a service disable Vietnam veteran who is confined to a wheel chair in his 6^th floor condo and can’t get food for himself. “Yes, that is my job.” Then you just don’t get it. It’s too bad you can’t use rational logic because you’re deterring people from doing good. “Well, if you write ‘Meter Maid Bitch’ on a parking receipt you’re going to get a ticket.” Yeah, but let me tell you why I did that. I wrote that because the ticket you gave me last time was so egregiously unfair that I can’t quit being pissed about it long enough to have stopped myself from doing something so stupid. Do understand that? “You shouldn’t have argued with me. Now the judge will get the notes from this case when you come to your hearing for the other ticket.” How am I arguing? I’m simply laying out the facts from my perspective. I don’t expect you to change your mind. You don’t appear to be capable of that. For you to do be a meter maid you have to act as though punishing everyone you possibly can always puts you in the right. You’re basically a ticket robot (I didn’t say “ticket robot” but I wish I would have). “I’ll see you in court.” Oh, you’ll see me in court twice. I look forward to it.

And I do look forward to it. At this point I’ve written away any chance of getting any of my fine back. I’m just going in to get my money’s worth. The only thing I have to be really careful about is to keep it civil enough not to be found in contempt of court. I don’t think that’ll be an issue, but I obviously still haven’t let go of the anger I have toward this guy so anything’s possible.

You know, by the end of writing this I was supposed to have learned my lesson and calmed down but just thinking about it again makes me want to wring that Douche’s fat neck.

Now that the City of Portland/Multnomah County has fined me $80 during my Meals on Wheels delivery I have decided to quit doing the route after nearly 5 years of service. I figure I’ll make up that money in saved gas from not doing the route. So congratulations Douche, you truly did your job. At the time of this writing Peggy might decide to salvage the route, but it looks as though our company will discontinue our service for Meals on Wheels. “Officer” Thoreson, you have made the world a better place. Bravo.

Also, if you happen to know and like this Douche Thoreson, screw you too.

For some tips on how to avoid a ticket and how to eliminate any "need" for this idiots's public employment click here: Douche is a DOUCHE!

Censorship

There’s been a lot of talk about censorship the past couple days. I don’t really understand the legislative issue, but I think you’ll understand what I’m getting at despite what’s being censored:

Last night when I got home from work I had the urge to head straight upstairs and take a nice, hot, steaming ****.  I placed my **** directly above the water. Just before I lowered my **** down into the pool of water below I thought to myself “I don’t want to take a normal ****, I want this to be the best **** I’ve ever taken.” The thought crossed my mind: “I really need to light a candle!” So I rushed off quickly to find a scented candle to create the ambiance to take the perfect ****.

I threw my robe on so I wasn’t running around exposing my**** to everyone and I started digging around for a nicely scented candle. So I finally found a nice apple-spice candle and a matchbook. I lit a match and accidentally dropped it on my ****! “AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!” Holy **** did that hurt! I started running around and my **** fell off! Now I was running around with no ****, my **** was getting cold and I still really needed to get in there and take a nice, long ****.

I made my way back into the bathroom and I looked in the mirror. “Man I wish my **** hadn’t fallen off.” Things aren’t looking as good as they used to. I figured that was probably something that eventually happens when you get old anyway.

It was then I realized that to take the ultimate **** I was going to need some peaceful music to coax the stress from my body. I went and found my iPod and turned on the perfect **** soundtrack. Piano music…listening to a master tickle the ivories while I’m taking a **** is so theraputic. You should try it some time.

 So finally I was ready. I took my ****, dropped it down into the water and instantly felt TOTAL relaxation. It was like an envelope of steaming **** washing over me. I breathed in deeply and let the vapors fill my lungs. “Now THIS is the life!” I thought to myself.

When I was nearly asleep from a wonderful **** coma, I dunked my head into the water covering my hair and face. Amazing!

Don’t you love taking a nice relaxing bath?

Censorship Key:               bath, body, body, bath, bath, bath

                                                self, foot, moly, robe, robe, body, bath

                                                robe

                                                bath, bath, bath

                                                body, heat

                                                bath

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a Bear...

Sometimes in life you’re just sitting there minding your own business when reality decides to broadside you right in the face. If you’re like me you live in this kind of bubble where you think you are pretty introspective but in reality you’re just a biased arse who doesn’t give a crap about perspective when it comes to you.

Back before I was cheated by Bodog (now Bovada) online poker (that’s another story altogether that 95% of you wouldn’t understand and 98% of you would find incredibly boring, but suffice it to say that I was truly cheated by someone who cracked the program and there’s no way I’m getting my $200 back!) I used to semi-watch a lot of TV shows. They were shows I considered second-tier. Not good enough to command my full attention, but good enough to put on the DVR and then give 30% of my attention to as I played poker in bed. Among these shows are House, Ghost Hunters, Bones, Leverage, Tosh.0 and Man vs. Wild. Most of these shows used to be on the A list, but they’ve grown tired and repetitive. Leverage is only on the list because it’s filmed locally and, despite the fact that I’ve never seen them filming, I constantly search the screen for shots of myself…just in case.

Well, now that I no longer play poker on Bodog (did I mention I was cheated and you shouldn’t ever play poker on there, ever?) I have to make some critical DVR management decisions. I have this weird OCD about the DVR. I never want to erase anything I haven’t watched even though that thing isn’t really worth watching. I don’t understand it, but I work within these confines.

So a few nights ago I was watching Man vs. Wild. This used to be one of my favorite shows of all time. I mean Bear Grylls is the manliest of men. He can climb anything, eat anything…really DO anything when you think about it. How many people have you seen kill a skunk with nothing but a knife, cook it then eat it and tell you it tastes like someone smeared your steak in dog’s droppings?

Well, I was watching Man vs. Wild with my undivided attention (because I had been cheated at Bodog/Bovada online poker last month, you should never EVER play there) and they flashed back to a couple of past scenes in which Bear gets naked. He does this sometimes when he’s in cold weather so he can keep his clothes dry or get his wet clothes away from his skin. And that’s when it hit me…

I couldn’t really follow what was going on because I was focusing 100% of my attention on Bear’s blurred out crotch. Not being a guy who tends to gaze at male genitals I tried to figure out what I was doing. It felt natural as though I made a habit of searching the blur in the past. What was I looking for? I asked myself. Well, I answered, I was looking for shapes…specific shapes…recognizable shapes in the blur. I was looking for Bear’s junk. Why? Why was I looking for Bear’s junk? I asked. Well, I answered, if I see Bear’s junk then I can be outraged that cable television subjected me to staring at a penis. Huh? I wondered. I don’t know, I replied.

That got me to thinking. I’ve stared pretty hard at countless blurs, studying, searching. When the blur is complete and unreconfigurable (I made that word up) I always feel a bit dissatisfied. I feel as though I’ve failed or that the show withheld something that it owed me. Conversely, when the blur is small enough to allow my imagination to fill in the details then I’m shocked and outraged that they would show that much genital (male, female, top, bottom…it makes no difference) on TV. How dare they show that much private part!

What am I getting at? Isn’t it obvious? I’m an a-hole. Not the kind of a-hole that gets blurred out on network television. I’m the kind of a-hole that wants to watch someone take a risk (show partial nudity) and then roots for them to fail (accidentally show full nudity). In fact, I’m not just rooting for the fail, I’m actually inspecting it with a magnifying glass to find the failure.

Or maybe I’m reading too much into it. I mean, let’s face it, genitals are funny looking.

Penis.

Feast with me

It’s always a melancholy time for me when the holidays end. No more Christmas to look forward to. No more gift buying. No more pretty lights. No more annual sentimental movie traditions. But worst of all, no more excuses for eating like a giant hog.

“Oink, oink…it’s the holidays. I have to eat like this,” I say over and over in November and December. “Of course my face is looking fat…I haven’t shaved in 3 hours AND it’s the holidays! What self-respecting American has only one chin anyway?”

Now it’s January and it’s time to start your workout routine. It’s time to reintroduce yourself to that personal trainer who offered you a free session back in July. It’s time to dust off those P90X DVDs you put away back when you were more active before the rain and cold sent you into a hibernation that has stretched the holes in your belt into some bizarre oblong shape. It’s time to buy the 2-year 24 Hour Fitness membership at Costco because if you make that big a financial commitment then you’ll HAVE to work out.

Well, fatty (and I’m talking to me)…I’m here to announce one more thing you have to train your body for. And this time it’s all about gluttony. What I’m about to tell you is going to make all those extra scoops of gravy and melted butter seem worth it all these weeks later.

Let me tell you a little story. I once organized a pickup baseball game for a bunch of has-been old-timers like myself. I actually did it twice, but this story is about the first time. With a great deal of help from a lot of people we were able to field two full teams of former baseball players. We went out there and pretended like we were teenagers again. It was a blast. Instead of having a 7th Inning Stretch I brought a barbeque and hot dogs. We fired it up and started cooking enough hot dogs to feed a small army. I ate one and it was fantastic. So I had another and it was pretty dang good too. Then I started thinking about having a third and this guy I had never met before came over to me and said “you’re thinking about having a third dog aren’t you?” Yes, should I? “Let me tell you something…you’re chasing that high and you can’t get it back.” Huh? “You’re chasing that high. Remember how you felt when you ate that first dog?” Yes…wonderful. “How did you feel when you ate the second?” I felt good, but not AS good as the first. “You see what I mean? You’re chasing that high. You need to stop at two because one was as good as it was gonna get. You’ve reached the point of diminishing returns and there’s no getting it back now.” Thanks weirdo.

Needless to say I ate that third dog and it made me feel pretty crappy for the last few innings. But it got me to thinking all philosophical and stuff and he really was right. Whoever that guy was he really knew what he was talking about. To this day that is the best advice I ever...I’m digressing here…the point is HOT DOGS!

Think about them for a minute. What a wonderful invention. So the meat industry finds it has all these by-products that are pretty foul and impossible to sell in their original form (think lips and a**holes here). So what do they do? They press them into the shape of a penis and tell you to slap it into a bun and then somehow convince you it’s manly to eat these things hot off the grill...and you buy it! You eat lip and butthole penises all the time because they're delicious!

I’m telling you all of this because I have an announcement to make. I haven’t yet come up with a location, date or format for it but…drumroll please… in the very near future keenkeith.blogspot.com is planning to host a hot dog eating contest paid for by revenue generated by the blog itself. All interested parties should contact me (Keith) at keithhattorijr@gmail.com so that I can get an idea of just how big an event I am planning. There are two local brewers who have agreed to make special brews dedicated to this amazing event.

My plan is to have this thing happen in early March. I’m hoping it takes on a life of its own. Because here’s the deal…I’m talking about hot dogs and beer. Please leave comments here or email and let’s go out and debauch ourselves with nitrates!

Santa Claus is real

Santa Claus is real because I say he’s real. Santa Claus is real because on Friday, December 23^rd he was driving from Happy Valley to downtown Vancouver, WA to buy the only toy coffee maker in the greater Portland area. He had looked at Fred Meyer. He had searched Target. He had been to Toys ‘R Us, The Learning Palace, Walgreens. He had even shopped at the gates of Hell (Walmart at 1:00 in the morning). Santa finally wised up and called the greatest little toy store he knows, Kazoodles. They didn’t have a toy toaster, but the coffee maker was right there on the shelf. So Santa got in his 2001 Subaru Legacy sleighdan and headed north for the 25 minute drive. When he showed up at Kazoodles Santa found an empty building where Kazoodles used to be. “Is this Christmas?!?!?!?!!” Santa yelled. Santa then used his iPhone 4s to find out where Kazoodles is now located. It was 10 miles away on the east end of Vancouver. So, Santa got back in his car and started driving to the other side of Portland’s wonderful sister city to the north. He drove the length from I-5 to I-205 and then headed north yet again (because if there’s one thing Santa’s good at, it’s north) and he exited at Mill Plain. What Santa didn’t know was that Mill Plain is a very busy road at midday on the Friday before Christmas…turns out Santa doesn’t know EVERYTHING. After waiting through a number of green light/red light sequences Santa got to the front and realized that he could have used the left lane and been through in one signal. Seeing this, Santa went ahead and blew through the yellowish/orange/okay-RED light and headed down Mill Plain trying to follow the pseudo-GPS built into his iPhone. He was doing this because a thief smashed out his car window and stole Santa’s 2 GPS units a couple weeks ago while Santa was playing poker in NW Portland. In any case, Santa drove to the spot on the GPS and found a bunch of businesses but NO KAZOODLES! Santa jerked his sleigh into the empty parking lot of a church and stopped to let it leak oil all over the place while he again called Kazoodles. “Yes, Kazoodles? This is Santa. Where are you? I’m at the church. I’ve gone too far? Oh good, will you be on the left or right? The left? Great. I’ll see you in a Christmas jiffy!” Then Santa found he couldn’t turn left on Mill Plain so he did the only thing he could…he turned right. Soon Santa realized he was in Washington so he could make a U-turn. So Santa found a left hand turn signal…which, shockingly, had a “No U-turn” sign. So Santa took a left, then a left into a parking lot, then made a back and forth maneuver that would have made Austin Powers blush, bayyybeeeee, then came bac k out of the parking lot to make a right followed by another right and Santa was on his way. On his way to the strip mall where he eventually located Kazoodles. He entered the store, bent over and grabbed the ankles of his furry red suit and, as only a defeated magical giant elf can do, handed over his credit card to charge $22.95 for a couple pieces of moulded plastic that will inevitably lead his 5 year old daughter into a life of paying $4 each for cup upon cup of addictive hot liquids. Santa then hopped back into his dented green sleigh and got back on Mill Plain. Where in the name of St. Nick did all these cars come from? Santa used the left lane only to realize that the right lane was a ½ mile long line for the freeway that Santa needed to get home. Santa was stuck. He couldn’t squeeze into this line at this point, and quite frankly it was longer than Santa was willing to wait anyway. Santa said the F-word. Santa didn’t know Vancouver well enough to find an alternate route, but he was sure gonna try.

That’s when it happened. Santa’s sleigh found itself as the first car in the left lane at the red light before the freeway entrance. All Santa had to do was beat the thuggish looking gentleman to his right off the line and he would be free as a Christmas dove flying home on the interstate! The light turned green, Santa reved up all 4 cylinders of his sleighdan and found himself falling behind the car to his right. But like the peaceful bliss of a new fallen snow there beside him was a Christmas miracle. The second car in line was busy illegally talking on his cell phone which made him too stupid to realize that the light had turned green. Santa slid in behind Mr. Thug and found himself on that charmed and magical Christmas pathway, I-205.

So for those of you who don’t believe in magic…those of you who don’t believe in Santa Claus. Santa IS real. I saw his reflection in the eyes of a 5 year old girl on Christmas and he was shaped very much like a toy coffee maker.

NORAD Santa tracker: December 23rd from 11:30am - 2:00pm

Mobilt Bredbånd

The dark at the end of the tunnel

Coca-Cola has had a promotion going on now for a few years called My Coke Rewards. It’s actually an amazing promotion. Every time you buy a box or bottle of any Coke product you receive a code that you can enter on their website. Each code gives you a certain number of points which are then used as currency to purchase items from a wide assortment in their catalog. You’re probably thinking “oh, how neat…a way for you to get a crappy Diet Coke branded hat.” Well, you’re kind of right. You can get a crappy Diet Coke hat. You can also get an even crappier Fanta hat if you want. But you’re kind of wrong too because they have had some really amazing prizes available. In the past few years I have “purchased” a brand new pair of skis (which I sold on craigslist for $180), binoculars, a speaker for my mp3 player, a travel DVD player for use in the car, a yoga mat, gift cards to restaurants, and a few other things I can’t remember at the moment.

Well, the first thing I tried to get with my points was a Wii. It was the pie in the sky prize and it took a LOT of points to get it. I think it took 5600 points to get the Wii. Now you need to know that you get 10 points for a code from a 12 pack, 20 points from a 24 pack and 3 points from a lid to a bottle of any size. So if you’re going to get that Wii you need to have a plan…I had a plan. First and foremost I asked everyone I knew (including, at the time, my MySpace friends) to give me their codes. Most people didn’t think the promotion was worthwhile to pursue for themselves so I started getting codes from all over the place. It was fantastic, but I don’t know THAT many people so I needed other sources of codes. That’s when it hit me…why not check the local bottle/can returns at the grocery stores? It became a treasure hunt for Taela and me. We even started to make it a family outing to go looking for codes.

On one particular family outing we hit the local WinCo where I dropped Taela at the bottle return and stayed in the car with the kids. As I said…family outing. Taela came back with a few caps and box tops and I was pleased as punch. How pleased is punch? I have no idea. But as I was sitting in the car I felt a little rumbling in my tummy. We decided to press on to the next stop which was Fred Meyer. Freddy’s is awesome because their bottle return is at the outer reaches of the parking lot so homeless people use it constantly. Do you know what homeless people don’t have? That’s right…homes. Do you know what else they don’t have? That’s right…internet access. So what’s a homeless guy going to care about codes you redeem on the information super-highway?

So I’m driving the family down 82^nd avenue toward Freddy’s…maybe a 5 minutes trip and about halfway there my stomach starts rolling over some more. I need to poop and I need to poop very very soon. “Taela, I have to take a dump.” Caleb laughs. Tenley laughs but only because she’s 2 and she does whatever her older brother does. I don’t laugh. We drive 30 seconds more and I start to struggle a little bit. I’m clenching down pretty hard and I’m able to force the urge back up there and stave off the inevitable for a merciful moment. I look at Taela and say “I’m going to park as close to the door as possible and I’m going to run into the store. You have the keys and the kids.” She thinks I’m being funny. I’m not laughing.

So I get into the left hand turn lane and wait for the signal. The pain starts coming back. I swear to God that traffic signal stayed red for about 12 minutes before we finally got the green. I think I yelled something at the signal itself along the lines of “why do you hate me!?!?!?!?!”. Finally the light turns green and I just floor it. I don’t remember if the tires squealed as I made my way into the lot but if they didn’t it was a miracle of modern science. I slammed into a parking spot near the door and damn near flew out of the car.

Decision #1: Run and risk losing lower body control or walk and lose time? I chose to walk briskly. I couldn’t remember exactly where the restroom was…as evidenced by my having parked at the entrance near apparel when the toilets are over by electronics. I never looked back at the kids or my wife, I just started walking toward the customer help desk trying to clear my mind, trying to remember where the bathroom was…singular focus…you can do this. As I neared the desk I remembered where I needed to go. I needed to get past the desk and over toward the other entrance. Fantastic…except…

Decision #2: Stop and clench down or make an all out sprint? I chose to stop and clench. This was a tough one. I must have squeezed every muscle in my body. Have you ever had to lift something that was so heavy you didn’t know if you could? Standing there I didn’t know if I could. I stood absolutely still and to the outside observer I probably looked as though I were seizing in some fashion. My toes were curled into cramped little balls in my shoes. My face was sweating. My fists were so tight that my fingers ached. And I was successful to the point that not even a turtle-head of poo slipped out. I had forced that urge back up once again but I knew I was running out of time. My body was going to explode and it was going to do it soon. I continued walking maybe 10 seconds longer and found myself under the “Restrooms” sign. You’ve got to be kidding me…

Decision #3: The hallway to the bathrooms was about 3 miles long…do I stop and clench again or just make a dash for it? At this point I was so close that I had to make the dash. It’s a scientifically proven fact, actually proved by Albert Einstein himself, that the nearer you are to the toilet the less ability you have to hold it. Porcelain is literally a crap magnet. When you see the light at the end of the tunnel your body goes into full expulsion mode. Why? I don’t know…ask God when you’re dead. So I start jogging down the hallway. I’m keeping control. Nothing coming out yet. I fart a little and it eases the pressure. I’m relieved. The end is in sight and I’ve held it all together thus far. I round the corner and find the men’s room. I’m literally praying to the Lord that there will be an empty stall. Stall #1 is occupied but #2 is open. I make a sprint to the open door…

Decision #4: Close the stall door or immediately drop my pants and risk someone seeing me take a crap? Now at this point I’m pretty confident I’ve made every correct decision. If this were a Choose Your Own Adventure book I’m thinking the best possible ending has me pooping in the toilet and I’m right there at the climax of the story. I’ve chosen wisely. Yoda would have been proud. I’ve used The Force and it’s led me to exactly the place I want to be. As I enter the stall I already have my belt undone and the top button on my shorts is also open. All I need to do is unzip, drop and relax the 1400 muscles that are now starting to cramp up. Remember that there is a guy crapping away in the stall next to me too so the choice is clear. I will close the stall door, latch it and then crap. This will cost me about 2 seconds of time and when was the last time that 2 seconds killed anyone?

Well, I don’t know when 2 seconds killed anyone, but I can tell you the last time 2 seconds caused a 30 year old guy to sh*t his pants. Decision #4 will haunt me forever…I latched that damn stall and frantically tried to pull my pants down, but as I started pulling my body simply couldn’t resist the magnetic pull of the bowl any longer. I felt the warmth start to spread as I desperately tried to wrangle those shorts down. It was as if time slowed. I could feel the release, the humiliation, the failure, I distinctly remember giving up. I had lost. Somehow, in a heroic last effort, I was able to stop the flow long enough to get my pants to my ankles and sit my bare, sticky cheeks down on the filthy seat beneath me. I was an indescribable mess but at the same time I had never felt so relieved. In that moment I was so relaxed it was like an out of body experience. It was ethereal bliss. There were simultaneous feelings of abject horror and zen-like nirvana. Unfortunately these bizarre contrasting feelings were fleeting and my nose reminded me that much of my body and clothes were covered in diarrhea.

I did what I could to clean up with toilet paper. I took off my boxers and after the guy in stall 1 left I hurried over and threw them in the garbage. I then grabbed some paper towels and wetted them and did what I could to, at the very least, not look like a guy who had just crapped himself. For those of you out there who don’t believe in God you should know that I just so happened to be wearing dark brown pants that day. If that’s not evidence of our creator I don’t know what is.

Finally it was time to make the walk of shame. I came down the hallway hanging my head. I carried myself a little differently, in part because I now had a shameful burden to carry with me and also because certain parts of me were now swinging freely as I walked…unencumbered by the now disposed of underpants. There at the end of the tunnel were Taela and the kids. The kids were laughing. Taela was smiling. “Did you make it?” she asked jokingly. “No.” She laughed. I didn’t laugh.

Cheap-O-Air

Well, we just got back from Disneyland. What an experience! But that’s not the part of the trip I’m going to tell you about. Be honest, you weren’t really looking forward to me telling you about which of the girls pretending to be Disney Princesses were the best looking anyway, were you? The most bloggable portion of the trip was the time we spent on the airplanes.

What I should say first and foremost is I’m cheap. I hate spending money I don’t have to. I’m famous for it in some circles. That said, my wife thinks I’m a frivolous spender which tells you something about her frugality. Having established all that you won’t be surprised to learn that we planned everything for our vacation on the cheap. How cheap? Well, I booked the flights on Spirit Airlines. What’s Spirit Airlines? It’s the airline that has absurdly low fares but then charges a fee for anything and everything you can think of. Oh…and which travel website did I use to book the flight? Cheap-o-air.com. Seriously.

This was our first experience with Spirit so we didn’t really know what to expect. We knew that we would have to pay for any checked baggage…and any carry-ons. Fortunately we were actually allowed one “personal item” for free. After much thought and debate I decided my personal item should be a change of underwear (in case the plane were to go down I didn’t want the news cameras to arrive to find me in soiled undies). Kidding. I was able to bring my laptop bag and Taela was able to bring a backpack that she referred to as her “purse”.

Next I had to call the airline to determine what it was going to cost to bring car seats and a stroller. I found the 800 number and dialed it. I got through to a lady with some kind of indeterminate accent. She asked for my “confirmation number”. Uh-oh. I was looking at the email from Cheap-O-Air and I gave her the “booking number”. Nope, wrong number. Ok…how about this one, the “reference number”. Nope. Crap. Then…silence… “Hello? Hello? Hello?” Nothing. Well, let’s hope the planes at Spirit are more reliable than the phone system.

I called back and got through to a man with a similarly mysterious accent. For no reason other than to make myself feel irrationally better I let him know that I had been cut off when I had called moments before. He either didn’t understand or didn’t care about that as he asked how he could help me. I said I had seen on the website there is a “nominal fee” for requesting particular seats on the plane. What would it cost to get all 4 of us sitting together? “Oh, sir, it is only $10 per ticket per flight.” Understand that we’re making a connection in Las Vegas on the way down and the way back. That’s 4 legs on this trip times 4 tickets times $10. That’s $160. We’ll pass on this one and assume that common sense will prevail when we board the flight. I mean they can’t possibly seat a 5 year old girl by herself, right? I rolled the dice and it worked out just fine.

Then I asked him if there was a fee for the stroller. “No there isn’t, you will have to leave it at the gate and it will fly for free.” How about the baby car seat that fits into the stroller? “If there is a baby for it then it too flies free.” Great! What about the booster seats for the other two kids? “Pardon me, sir?” You know, the booster seats. “Sir? I don’t understand.” You don’t know what a booster seat is? “No sir.” You know, the plastic seat a kid sits on in a car. If we rent one from the car rental place it’s $10/day and they only cost $18 brand new. Can we bring them as the kids’ personal item? “I don’t understand sir, please hold while I check on this information for you.” For the next 6 minutes I sat there and tried to think of a way to describe a booster seat to someone who has never seen or heard of a one. “I’m sorry sir, I cannot answer your question but here is the phone number for TSA.” TSA? “Yes, TSA, sir. The number is…” Well, at least the guy tried to help. I didn’t bother calling TSA since that would have been useless, but it turned out they checked the booster seats at the gate just like the stroller for no charge. Couple that with Taela’s family’s willingness to check our bags on their Southwest flight and this plan is set to save us $300!

Three hundred bucks…sounds worth it, doesn’t it? Well, the first flight was pretty routine. We had 4 seats in a row. The kids were excited for their first flight. It was great. Then we caught our connection in Vegas. Our seats were close but not right next to one another. I was able to get a lady to trade her seat so we sat two and two. We were in the same row but had the window and middle seat on either side. It appeared that nobody would sit in either aisle seat so we would be next to each other again but at the last minute a guy that must have weighed 350 lbs. sat down next to Taela. That was the last time I saw she and Tenley until we landed in LA. I think you’re still sitting over there and I miss you.

Then we went to Disneyland for five days. Yay!

For the trip home I got us back to the airport a little rushed for time. We were at the front of the check in line. Then a greasy looking guy with a gold chain tangled in his chest hair came up and stood beside us as if he were ahead of us. I used my shoulder to step in front of him and he moved uncomfortably close behind me. I looked at him and said “What are you doing?” He answer: “I’m on the 4:00 to Vegas”. “Me too.” After that I never remember seeing the guy again, but that’s the kind of class you get on Spirit. We made it through the security checkpoint quickly. We made our way to the dumpiest terminal gate I’ve ever seen. It was under construction and there were exhausted looking people everywhere. I couldn’t find an airline employee to save my life. When I finally found one I couldn’t tell if it was a man dressed like a woman or just an overweight, over made-up, over-shaped-eyebrow woman. There was no intercom so they just started shouting for us to board.

We were able to get 4 seats together again on this flight. Fantastic. We made our way on and quickly realized that this flight was damn near empty. There were probably 30 people on board flying from LA to Vegas. Of the 30 there were definitely 3 strippers. The lady sitting directly in front of Tenley was on the phone during boarding: “Yeah, it was busy last night. I gave 5 dances, but I’m not complaining about the money.” There was a young black woman in leopard print 6 inch heels. I don’t know if it was because of her lack of leverage balanced atop those stilts or just her lack of upper body strength but she was literally incapable of lifting her designer bag up into the overhead bin. Someone had to help her.

Just before take-off a flight attendant got on the intercom to address the 30 of us. “Is there an Allie Whozane onboard? Allie Whozane?” It took me 5 seconds to realize she was looking for “Ali Hussein”. Oh great. Ali Hussein went to the front and spoke with the pilot for a moment. Now every single person on the plane is trying not to let their inner racist out. The lady sitting in front of Taela turned around and started laughing about the look on my face. That would have been awkward except that we had already established that she was the lady who talks incessantly about nothing.

Some examples:
- She loves grape licorice. She bought it at CVS Family Foods…no, Ralph’s Supermarkets.
- She suggested to the stripper in front of Tenley that she go to a specific talent agency she highly recommended
- Her son is in the entertainment industry. He was the 8 year old kid in “Don’t Be a Menace to South Central When You’re Drinking Your Juice in the Hood.” He’s now 23.
- Also to the stripper in front of Tenley: "If you believe in yourself and your dream you'll go far." It's nice to know that Disney's "dream" message is permeating society at all levels. No, I promise you're not a walking cliche. Most strippers in LA and Vegas make the big time.

Well, Allie Whozane didn’t forcibly overtake the pilot and we landed just fine in Vegas once more. We had a nearly 4 hour layover and then crammed into the flight to Portland. I’m not a particularly tall guy…we’ll say I’m 5’10” which is, for all intents and purposes, true. My knees were smashed against the seat in front of me. How they fit us into this tiny little space I will never know. During boarding a man said to his wife “why is that overhead bin closed, is it full?” She didn’t know any more than he did and she told him so. I said “there’s a fee if you ask them to open it.” “Ha ha ha ha ha ha,” he laughed.

I kept nearly mercifully falling asleep and then something would inevitably wake me up. Between the lady behind me hacking and hacking as hard and loud as humanly possible, the person behind Taela who raised and lowered the screeching arm to their seat over and over, the two young black women in the row in front of us loudly rehashing their drunken trip to Vegas and my attempts to keep from cutting a huge fart all over the nice lady from San Diego I was seated next to I just couldn’t nod off for more than 30 seconds.
Would I recommend Spirit? I suppose it depends how much you value the money. The 5 of us including our 10 month old were able to fly round-trip from Portland to Los Angeles for less than $600. However I will also say I heard all of the following on our various flights:
“If you want to move forward to the empty seat with more room there is a $25 fee.”
“Next time I’m going back to Southwest.”
When I asked what on the drink cart was free the answer was “I can give you a cup of ice.” I accepted.
“What’s that smell?” At some point I just couldn’t hold it any longer. Sorry, nice lady from San Diego.