I know it’s been over a week since I last posted anything. There are several reasons why it has taken me so long, mainly being busy at work and traveling for Thanksgiving. Don’t worry though, I am not dead. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for my front passenger-side tire.
It was the Friday before Halloween. We were having a party at work and I was in charge of bringing something, which I remembered on Thursday night that I had forgotten. I decided I was going to get up a little early and run to Publix before work the next morning. Of course I woke up 20min late so in a panic I got ready and rushed out the door.
It was 6:15 in the morning, cold, and still dark outside. But I was going to be at work on time and I was going to have contribution for the party. I had beaten a lot of traffic and was making good time, but as soon as I pulled out onto the interstate I heard a loud explosion. I thought terrorists had mounted an attack on the Altimater when one of my tires suddenly had a blow out. After some impressive 3-wheeled evasive maneuvering, I got to the shoulder of the road. I got out to inspect the damage and saw that the front passenger side tire was completely gone. I walked back to pop the trunk and quickly realized that I never put the jack back in there after the last time I changed the oil.
It then came to my attention that in my panic to get out of the door, I had left in such a hurry the only thing I had in my pockets were my keys. No wallet. No phone. So, I just started walking. It was dark and it was cold and there were times that I tried making myself smile, not to bring levity to the situation, but to try and regain feeling in my face. On the plus side, this marked the first time I had ever gotten to see the sunrise as I walked to work. I thought that this must be what the pioneers felt like expect only with less vehicles whizzing by going 70+mph and more oxen.
After 45min of walking a cop pulled to the side of the road a good ways ahead of me. He got out of his car and approached me with one hand touching his still holstered gun and the other hand on the CB microphone attached to his shoulder, as if he were calling in for backup. He must have heard about the terrorist attack. He stopped walking and let me cover the remaining distance between us. I did so with both hands raised. He looked at me unamused. He asked, “Everything alright, son?” I explained to him the situation, about how I had had a flat and didn't have a jack and how I didn’t have a wallet or a phone. Then he asked me for my license. I tried to explain it to him again how I had left everything at home (no wallet = no license) without sounding smart alecy. He looked at me unamused.
He said that he had a jack and would help me but asked me to first write my name and birthday down on a notepad and to go ahead and get into the back of the police car. Have you ever ridden in the back of a police car? There is absolutely no leg room. I made the mistake of getting in with my feet crossed (not legs crossed like with one foot sitting atop the other knee, but with one leg crisscrossed behind the other) and could not uncross them. I tried the whole way he was taking me to my car. It wasn’t happening.
Apparently he had called in my information because when we arrived at my car he turned around and said, “You’re clean. I’ll have to come around and let you out.” He opened the door but because my feet were still crossed I couldn’t get out. And I was really struggling to squeeze out of there, I felt like a baby giraffe emerging from the womb. I finally freed myself but as I did my left shoe went flying off and landed in the middle of the interstate. The officer flagged traffic and I, with only one shoe and one sock, ran into the middle of the road to retrieve my escaped shoe.
After I had both shoes back on, the officer got his jack out for me and watched me as I changed my tire. As I put the donut on I made some witty joke about him not eating it. He looked at me unamused. I got the spare on and was off to work, only 1.5hr late.
I guess the best thing that came out of the situation was the adventurous part of me I talked about here not only got to witness a tire explosion, but be a part of one. It wasn't the experience I thought it would be.
The Archived Post Relevant The Office Quote.
Michael: Oh hey, Kevin, nice of you to join us, where were you?
Kevin: My tire blew out on the way here, Michael.
Michael: Huh?
Kevin: I almost died. I... I went into this skid---
Michael: Pop quiz. Kevin: ...What?
Michael: Why is today a special day?
Kevin: I almost died.
Michael: Today's a special day, because I am being honored as a... visiting... professor, special lecturer, emeritus... how did you, how did you...
Ryan: You will be a guest speaker... in my Emerging Enterprises class.
Michael: In business school, Kevin. Business school.
Kevin: Wow.
RIP, Tire.
Snakes on a Plane
Honestly, I have never seen the movie Snakes on a Plane. I’m not a big fan of scary movies. Really, I don’t even know if it is a scary movie but it contains three of the things I’m most scared of: snakes, planes, and Samuel L. Jackson. I’ve done a pretty decent job avoiding all those things throughout my life. I’ve never met Samuel L. Jackson. Though I did see Pulp Fiction once so I've also tried to avoid anyone with a Jheri curl that goes around executing people while quoting fictitious bible verses as well. And actually, that is probably good advice for everyone to follow. As for planes, I’ve only had to fly once but luckily that was to go to Honduras to build a fence for some orphans. I knew God would protect me. Then there are snakes, where I haven’t been so lucky recently.
A couple weeks ago, LB stopped by my office to pick something up. I went outside to meet her and before I had even gotten back to my desk my phone was ringing.
Me: Hello?
LB: Hey, y’all have like the biggest snake ever in your parking lot!
Me: …hang up on her to go outside and see…
The snake is no where to be found so I call LB back.
LB: Hello?
Me: You’re lying.
LB: No, it was there.
Me: Why didn’t you run over it?
LB: I couldn’t run over it. It was like a stump or a log or something.
Me: Whatever.
LB: Whatever.
Me: Love you.
LB: You too.
30 minutes later…
Lisa, our office’s equivalent of Pam before they inexplicably gave her a job in sales, walks outside through the door I booby trapped sans booby trap to throw something into the dumpster. She yells from outside, “Scott! Is this a real snake or are you playing a joke on me?” My buddy, Jamie, and I jumped up to run outside and there it was…the snake of all snakes. Had Godzilla and the Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters gotten together to procreate and their offspring emerged as a serpent, this thing would be that. All three of us stared in amazement. The snake meandered passed the dumpster, and under a coworkers car. When all of a sudden he lifted his head and slowly slithered up the inside of a tire and disappeared underneath the car. To clarify, not underneath the car like the snake was on the ground and the car was parked above it, but the snake was on the under side of the actual car suspended from the ground by touching car parts.
The three of us looked at each other. Someone had to go tell Helena that a snake was now treating her car like its own personal condo. That someone was not me, I stayed outside to be a part of the Snake Removal Team, but I did hear that Helena’s reaction was priceless. Apparently, without a moment’s hesitation Helena just gave her car to the snake. “He can have it.” she said. She was also in the break room on the phone with her mom, which she calmly hung up with before letting everyone around her know how she really felt about the situation, only with a lot more colorful adjectives this time. I’m proud of her for having the presence of mind to hang up with her mother first.
At this point the Snake Removal Team split into two divisions, the Outside Unit and Inside Unit. The Inside Unit went inside to call Animal Control. When Animal Control said they didn’t handle wild animal calls, one lady exclaimed, “I’m calling 911 because THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!” This is the same lady who upon learning about what was going on also said, “Nuh-uh! I’m going home. This place got lizards, and ducks, and now snakes! I’m going home before I get attacked.” For the record, I have never seen ducks at our office complex.
The rest of Outside Unit and I spent the next 1.5hr trying to get the snake to come out from underneath the car. Various techniques that were employed:
-banging the underside of the car with a fallen tree limb
-cranking the car and hoping the hot engine would flush him out (this idea may have worked had we given it longer than 6 minutes.)
-doing doughnuts in the empty part of the parking lot in hopes of slinging him out
-gassing it then breaking really hard.
We are not professionals. None of these were effective. I suggested going to the pet store and buying a rat, then tying a string to the rat and literally fishing the snake out. My suggestion was frowned upon, but I think only because there isn’t a pet store nearby.
In the end, we were not able to get the snake out ourselves and eventually took the car to a dealership where they put it up on one of those huge lifts and pulled the snake out. I have a picture.
If we had the luxury of using hobbits, we'd have been able to get the snake out, too.Dwight: I am fast. To give you a reference point. I'm somewhere between a snake and a mongoose. And a panther.
Semper Fi
Today is the 235th Anniversary of the Marine Corps. Hoorah! Also, today is my 3yr blog anniversary. While it is true that my buddy BP and I would sit around in class during high school and exchange possible escape routes out of the country should one of us ever be drafted into the military, I don’t think these two anniversaries falling on the same day is a coincidence. Here is why:
-The Marines help our country survive. I help you survive life.
-Full Metal Jacket is one of my top 5 favorite movies and if I had to pick someone other than my dad to be my dad, R. Lee Ermey would be atop the list, along with George Strait and Cliff Huxtable. I know Dr. Huxtable is black and I am not, but I am all about tearing down preconceived notions. Plus I could hang out with Theo’s friend, Cockroach. And I bet none of you could say you've hung out with someone named Cockroach.
-I often spend time mentally choreographing elaborate fight scenes with the strangers around me while in public. It started when I first saw the movie Cobra staring Sylvester Stallone. Ever since then anytime I’m waiting in line at the grocery store I’m always aware of who is around me and what I would do if someone suddenly brandished a weapon. Right now, my go-to move would be to dive behind the cashier counter and while using it to shield me from any stray bullets, secretly pump a fist full of the cashier’s hand sanitizer, then pretend to surrender. After luring the terrorists into a false sense of security by appearing to allow them to restrain me, I will surprise them by using the hand sanitizer as a pepper spray like agent as I rub it in their faces thus rendering them momentarily helpless. As they’re defenselessly flopping around on the ground, I’ll subdue them until proper authorities arrive.
-I once owned a pair of blue jeans with the American flag on them.
Unfortunately this is all I have. I know it isn’t much but I only noticed this correlation of such important dates about 20min ago and I knew if I didn’t commemorate it right now, it would never happen and we all know that would be too much of a tragedy. On the bright side, at least this year’s bloggerversary commemoration post is somewhat more masculine than last years which featured a wordle.
God Bless America!
The Archived Post Relevant The Office Quote
Michael: That is by far the best way to strengthen your core. This machine, you sit on a stabilizer ball, you put your feet into the power stir-ups, you reach up and you grab onto the super rod, and you twist, and you twist, and you twist. It strengthens your entire core. Your back core, your arm core, the Marine Core actually uses it. I think that's how they got a core.
My Athletic Lowlight
Yesterday, Tyler Stanton posted about his athletic lowlights. I wrote a probably too long comment detailing my lowest moment in organized sports. I thought I would post the comment here because that is how long the comment is and also because I am lazy and this gets me a post out of the deal too. This is pretty much that exact comment with only two changes: 1) this prologue. Because prologues are fancy. 2) The text altered just a bit because I’m always mindful of copyright laws. I know the words were originally mine, but I wrote them on Tyler’s site and I’m never quite sure how blog word ownership works. Someone should really write a point by point blogging handbook to help us all out. They could call it Blogging: What is the Point?
Update: My suspicions were confirmed when I clicked over to Tyler’s site this morning to read other’s athletic lowlights. Someone had replied to my comment: “i'm going to be honest...i was offended that you would put a comment this long in the comment section. but it was worth the read. well done.” I’m not sure how to take this. First I offended him but then he complimented me. This is the yin and yang of all blog comment replies. But he does have a point, so I want to take this opportunity to publicly apologize to Tyler for hijacking his blog comment space. Tyler, I am sorry.
Though honestly, Tyler will probably never see this because he is a big time blogger (my greatest blog crowning achievement to date is that time I wrote a guest post for him) while I am not, but this is all the effort I’m willing to put forth because like I said I am lazy. Plus, all this writing in italics is making me dizzy, so on with the actual post.
My freshman year, I was a 180lb offensive lineman that never saw the field because we actually had a good team (that year.) About the 8th game of the season we went in at half time up by more than a few touchdowns. During the halftime speech, Coach Lazenby looked over at me and said “Moore, you’re going in. Don’t OLD SPICE your pants.”
Flash forward. We were on the field lined up to receive the second half kickoff. I was the center for the return team. Out on the field, a flash of brilliance hit me, I thought ‘this team is down by a lot and will probably try anything to get back in the game’ so I turned to all my teammates and shouted the warning, “Watch for the onside! Watch for the onside!” In that moment, I felt about as good as 14yr old me had ever felt about myself. I was about to see my first action ever on a high school football field and I had the presence of mind to advise my teammates of possible oncoming shenanigans.
Their kicker approached the ball and it came off the tee headed straight for me! I watched as the ball bounced off the ground right before bouncing off my hands then back onto the ground. It was like rather than trying to catch the ball, I tried to protect myself from it. I just stood there as I watched the ball lying motionless on the field. I finally came to my senses and was about to fall on the ball but I was suddenly leveled. I was hit so hard the first thing that landed on the ground was the back of my head.
The other team recovered the football and when I got the sidelines Coach informed me that I had in fact OLD SPICED my pants.
If you have a story that would help me feel better about myself, please share?
The Archived Post Relevant The Office Quote
Michael: Football is like rock and roll, it's just bam-bam-boo... And basketball is like jazz, you know? You're kind of... Dupee-doo, dupee-do. It's all downbeat, it's in the pocket, it's like... Dupee-do, dupee-do, dapee-dah...
5 Steps to the Exit Checkpoint System.
This list is less for entertainment and more for practical purposes. Because sometimes life gets real, y’all. Also, like I said yesterday, I haven’t felt very bloglike, so I thought I would use today’s post to try and get my groove back. Like Stella.
I am pretty forgetful. In my lifetime I have lost my wallet more than a few times, locked my keys in the car several times, once with the engine still running, and while walking, I regularly forget to put my right foot down before picking my left up which results in me falling over. It’s easy to blame gravity when this happens, but deep down, I know it was my forgetfulness.
Luckily, I’ve never forgotten anything too important. Like one of my children, for example. But I think that is mostly because John is still somewhat immobile so he usual stays in my field of vision and whenever I take Ada to the park I make her wear shoes with little noisemakers in the heels so they squeak every time she takes a step. This way, if I do misplace her, I can use the sound of the squeaks as a homing signal.
It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything too absentminded. Well, actually that’s not true. I took the car to fill up with gas around 1130pm the night before we left for the beach a couple months ago and ended up locking the keys inside the car which also contained both car seats, meaning LB couldn’t come get me. So, it was around midnight and I had to ask a total stranger if he would give me a ride and he did. Also, he did not kill me with a hatchet, which is probably obvious at this point but still worth mentioning because I am thankful for it and this is November, so it’s topical. It was all very nice of him, both giving me a ride and not hatcheting me.
Ok, so except for my near possible hatcheting experience, it’s been a long time since I’ve lost my wallet, locked my keys in the car, and so on. There is a reason for this. It is what I call my Exit Checkpoint System. It is a practice I first learned many many years ago from my good friend, Bud, and since implementing it, I’ve never left my wallet somewhere or lost my keys again.
How does it work? Easy, any time you’re ready to leave from somewhere, stand and say aloud the following things while simultaneously, and most importantly, physically touching them while in your possession*:
1. “Wallet check” – if you have your wallet, you can buy anything else you might forget.
2. “Phone check” – with your wallet and cell phone, you are unstoppable.
3. “Keys check” – this completes the Holy Trinity of the checkpoints.
4. “Zipper check” – just making sure you’re zipped, a real dignity saver.
5. “Zit check” (optional) – may not be applicable for everyone and is typically only performed when a mirror is accessible. The Zit Check also encompasses food in between teeth, nose hairs, etc. It’s really more of an appearance check to make sure you don’t have an embarrassing cowlick or something of the sort.
*Note that saying “Phone Check” and seeing your phone lying on the table is unacceptable and the Exit Check Point System cannot be blamed in the event of a phone left behind. It must be in your possession.
It is very simple, yet very effective. I have no doubts that if you are forgetful like me the Exit Checkpoint System will revolutionize your life. As long as you can remember to use it.
The Archived Post Relevant The Office Quote
Dwight: The bigger the key chain, the more powerful the man.
I haven’t felt very bloggy lately.
It’s going on two weeks since I’ve posted anything. I just haven’t been in the mood. I blame it on that depression brought on by the shortened days. I can’t think of the name of it, but I am pretty sure it is a real thing. And I think I have it because there have been some pretty great work stories that have happened recently that I need to share, yet just haven’t done it. The stories involve a snake, me in the back of police car, and me winning $200. I know it sounds like I was on a Japanese game show, but I assure you none of those things are related.
Hopefully, I will get them down soon. I am trying to decide between going ahead and writing them so I don’t forget even though I don’t really feel like it so they will undoubtedly be sub par and sub par for me will almost certainly be pretty dreadful so I’d hate to put you through that, or just keep waiting. As you can see, I’m torturing myself for you. I may be a terrible blogger, but at least I am a thoughtful one.
While I am deciding on whether to write a really bad post or wait a few more days and writing a slightly less bad post, I thought I’d leave you with something that always makes me laugh:
The way she tries to cheat by stopping the Professional Grape Stomper Lady then makes that face while getting a few more quick stomps in right before toppling over gets me every time. If it makes you feel better about laughing, the internet has tracked the Grape Lady down and she was fine and is currently working for a news station in Albany, NY. The lesson we can take away from this is: Do not cheat, or you could puncture a lung. Also, you can't hide from the internet.
The Archived Post Relevant The Office Quote
Michael: Um, let's see. "Seasonal affective disorder! A depression that includes weight gain, fatigue, irritability, brought on by the low light of winter."
Darryl: Thank God we only had a baler to deal with.
Lonny: Yeah, that dim light is a [pain], ain't it?
