Apparently, I Need to Write it Down

I sat down on Saturday night (be thankful that I'm not cool) and said to my wife something I have definitely said before:

"What am I blogging about? Shit-- I've had at least six different ideas in the last two days and I know I've said, 'Oh, that would be a good idea for a blog...' and now I can't remember fuckall any of them."

"Well," said the venerable Mrs. Apron, "you need to write these things down-- you don't have the memory of a... a..."

"A sixteen-year-old?" I suggested.

"No, not that," she said.

Then what? A tree-sloth? I don't know. I'm reasonably convinced that my mind is about on-par for where I am chronologically in life and gender-- slightly deteriorating, with some gaps and air-holes, cluttered with information that is largely irrelevant, and thoroughly involved in pondering the perplexing and pugnacious profundities of pussy.

But my dear lady wife is right: I do need to write things down, lest I forget them.

My memory for important things, like when I'm supposed to be working, and the order in which paperwork is to be completed during the 7:00am shift, is stunningly bad. I have wasted untold amounts of copy paper at work because I have photocopied 114 treatment sheets before signing off on them, having to throw out all the copies I made, sign off every single sheet, and start all over again with the photocopier. I can actually feel the searing glares of nurses burning the hairs off the back of my neck while I monopolize the aging Xerox machine. It's rather unfortunate.

Ridiculous trivia, though, I'm spot on for. Hit me up for some stupid, banal bit of nonsense, and I'll be right there-- as long as it has to do with airline disasters, bits and pieces of any Volkswagen Beetle manufactured from 1958-1979, "Monty Python", the Victorian era, or the Civil War and you'll get a spontaneous reply that has at least an 87% chance of being correct. I can tell you how many buttons Graham Chapman's vest had on it in the "Confuse a Cat, Ltd." sketch from Season 1, Episode 5 of "Monty Python's Flying Circus."

[Answer: 6 buttons (and he stammers slightly on the word "Stockbroker Syndrome")]

But, clearly, when I have to be somewhere, it needs to go into my phone with an alarm that goes off one hour prior to the event. I have never actually needed this reminder to remind me of an event I'd previously forgotten about, because I guess the mere act of putting the appointment in my phone is rehearsal enough to remember the event, but I'm sure the time will come when an alarm will go off and I'll say,

"Holy shitballs! That was TODAY?!" and I will be very grateful for modern technology and I will thumb my nose at the Amish who still insist on writing things down and sleeping with horses FTW ("for the warmth.")

Because I need to write down blog topics for the future, I've come up with some that weren't (obvs) the ones I forgot, but I'm hoping that, when my well runneth dry as wells sometimes do, I'll look back on this post and go, "Holy shitballs! There are some perfectly Apronworthy blog ideas RIGHT HERE!" Also, if any of these blogprompts appeal to you and your vanity, feel free to get thus inspired.

* SUPER APRON

This blog topic would center around the greatest what-if of all: What if I were a super-hero? I mean, I am, but one with a costume and powers and a girdle and such. What would my powers be? Would I look good in a wetsuit and a cape? Would I fight for good or evil, or both? Or would I be the sort of super-hero who is, um, a pacificst? If I were a super-hero, would I still think about pussy all the time? God, I hope so.

* FLIGHTS FOR THE DYING

I think this was an actual post that I'd thought of writing, and might have even discussed with Mrs. Apron in the car somewhere-- where paper & pen isn't always handy. My father's uncle perished in Israel a while ago, and ever since, my father has been engaged in supercomplex legal wrangling (mostly over the phone, but, recently, for four days in person in Israel) to sort out the very topsy-turvy nature of my uncle's will. When I mentioned my father's difficulties to an Israeli friend of mine, she expressed an interest in talking to my father because her own father passed away in Israel and she's having a hell of a time getting his affairs in order, too.

"What? Is dying in Israel that fucking complicated?"

"If it's such a hassle," my wife said, "nobody should ever die there."

"Right," I said, "El-Al should start a "Flights for the Dying" program, and have specially-outfitted planes with no seats, just mountings for ambulance cots to click into and they could ferry terminally ill motherfuckers to countries where dying is less involved. They could call these specially-designed planes, "Morad Flights."

That's funny because my grandfather's name was "Morad" and, in Hebrew, it means, "On the way down."

* SOMETHING MEANINGFUL

This wasn't anything specific, but I've started to notice that there is a fair amount of nonsense and horseshit on this blog, so I thought maybe I'd try to write something halfway meaningful one day. You know, give it kind of my best shot and then basically go back to being a retard.

* JEWISH HARRY POTTER

Um, this idea is stupid, but it just popped into my head, and I have kind of a reputation for saying whatever pops into my head, so here we go:

I thought I'd write a spoof of Harry Potter where all the characters are Jewish. Um, that's it. Hilarity, righteous indignation, and semitic offense ensues. And I get sued by the Anti-Defamation League. It's a hot party. Complete with lox and bagels.

EXPELIJEWMUS!

Corduroy Pillows Make Headlines and Other Donkeyshit

For some reason, when I got home from work on Sunday, MSN.com by HP Desktop was up on the computer.

It's as stupid as other default homepages-- like Comcast or Yahoo!News-- filling our brains with all manner of insipidity that makes us wish we were semiretarded farm animals, content to stand around in the mud and mire waiting to get struck by lightning.

I don't know why MSN.com by HP Desktop was up-- I haven't used my Hotmail account in at least three years, and, when I want news, I usually just end up making it up myself. And, speaking of which, I thought it would be fun to take the 7 "headlines" up on the MSN.com by HP Desktop and make up the stories that go with them, without actually reading the "real articles," because that's how I roll, 'cuz.

Remember: headlines real, content not. That is how the game is played.

BRAIN DISORDER BEHIND PICKY EATING?

Scientists have decided that the word "neurological" is precisely four syllables too many for the average human brain to comprehend, and so, at a conference held recently in the Poconos, the American Society of Neurologists voted unanimously to rid the American lexicon of the terms "neurological," "neurology," "neurovascular," and "neuropenis."

"We really feel that this is in the best interests of the average American, who simply cannot be expected to formulate, spell, pronounce, or even live in a world where terms like 'neurological' are present," said Dr. Adam Steinberg, a brain doctor from Madison, Wisconsin.

A local Gumby, standing in the middle of a street with a rolled up handkerchief on his head was interviewed about this latest linguistic development, and he said, "My brain hurts."

GET AN EARLY START ON CYBER-MONDAY

Marketing experts and brain doctors alike agree that setting your alarm clock one hour earlier than the next guy on Monday, November the 29th, will give you a super-competitive edge when it comes to online shopping on so-called "Cyber-Monday."

"We believe that these chances increase triple-fold if you decide to wake up three hours early and hit up Amazon.com and Overstock," said Yosef Paralympics of the marketing firm Lexington Steele, Ltd. Paralympics also advised bypassing the traditional "morning dump" in favor of snagging those limited-time bargains.

U.K. HIT WITH MOST SNOW SINCE '93

Meteorologists all over the United Kingdom are baffled by the recent snowfall that has hit England and environs recently, although they are unsure of whether this is the most snow since 1993, 1893, 1793... or you get the idea.

"We know those feet, in ancient times, walked upon England's mountains green, in 1808, so it wasn't then," said BBC Meteorologist Whaddwick Elesmere Boffington, "but, other than that, we're pretty well buggered."

The 12 CYBER-SCAMS OF CHRISTMAS

1.) An email sent to you through Facebook claiming that Santa's not fat, he's really pregnant, and asking you to buy him a bunch of shit at "Babies R Us." You should know this is a scame because, like, what-- he couldn't just give the baby all the goddamn toys and cribs and shit in the universe, because he's Santa-- even with a vag?

2.) The chain letter begging for money because Rudolph has leprosy and his goddamn light-up nose fell off.

3.) Any FB friend request from someone named "Judas."

4.) An e-coupon from Best Buy offering flatscreen TVs on sale. Dude-- they're filled with heroin and they are programmed to only play old episodes of "Maude."

5.) Just kidding-- there are only five Christmas Cyber-Scams. That's, um, the other scam. Totally fuckin' with you, those cyber-scammers are.

10 MOST OVERLOOKED SCI-FI MOVIES

1.) Some Star Trek piece of shit that got overlooked or whatever

2.) Herbie Goes to Nebulon-5

3.) Blackula

4.) Assault on Precinct 13

5.) That one Harry Potter movie that nobody liked. What was it-- the second one? That blew.

6.) Alien Autopsy (Unrated Director's Cut-- some hawt alien pudding in that jaun...)

7.) Howard's End

8.) 9 1/2 Weeks

9.) Ender's Game (if it's not a movie yet, it should be, and it should be overlooked, too)

10.) The episode of "American Dad" where Roger dresses like a chick.

MOTORBIKE CHAMP DIES AFTER WIN

"He died doing what he loved," said dead motorbike champ's former best friend, Raging Asshole. Dead Motorbike Champ's recently impregnated former fiance, Suicidal Sally, could not be reached for comment, because she was busy dying doing what she loved: sticking her head in a gas oven.

BING: FIND THE PERFECT GIFT FOR HER

How 'bout some edible underwear, a vacuum cleaner, and a snake-finger punch in the throat-- chicks dig that shit! Happy Holidays from MSN.com by HP Desktop!

Dead Last

We all struggle with mortality, I don't care who you are. Even garbage collectors and and secretaries want to leave something behind. Prostitutes leave behind scores of disease-ridden customers and sometimes legendary ass-prints.

I came to the conclusion not too terribly long ago that, when I graduated college I wanted to become a writer, not because I especially liked writing or thought I was that much better at it than the average F. Scott, but because I wanted to leave some small nugget of immortality so that I would not be forgotten.

Not an especially awesome way to choose a career, I know. But there we are. There are worse reasons to select jobs, I suppose. I mean, Christ-- Reagan did it for all the free jellybeans and blowjobs.

Anyway, a career as a writer was clearly not meant to be for me, and I've come to terms with the fact that, when I die, people aren't going to say, "Wow-- he was a really great writer. See, I know that because I have twelve of his greatest works propping up my third floor guest bedroom window." More than likely they're going to say, "I wish he would have eaten more-- we might have gotten another year or two out of him." They'll probably also say, "Well, he sure loved his mother," and "He always wore neckties-- why did he specifically request an open-casket funeral and dictate that his body be clad in only Bermuda shorts and hot pink nipple-clamps?"

Ah, still seeking immortality after all.

I was reminded this morning, though, that you don't have to be especially talented, or even good, to be remembered-- to be remembered even in the vaunted New York Times, no less. You can be perfectly mediocre, unpopular, and way past your prime-- as long as you're the last.

Folks, meet the Mercury Grand Marquis:

Forever memorialized in a rather long article in The New York Times on November 26th, this vehicle will be out-of-production soon. The "last of an era," it has been called-- the rear-wheel-drive, V-8 powered titan, a vehicular anachronism with its plush bench seat and column-mounted shifter, it is going the way of the dinosaurs. And it's about as fucking big as one, too.

Every year, a few grandfathers who didn't save their nickels and dimes as well as they should have (and, thus, couldn't afford a Lincoln Town Car) purchase this vehicle so that they can tool around neighborhoods at at least 9.4 miles-an-hour below whatever the posted speed limit might be, infuriating those hot-blooded, young creatures who drive behind them. The build-quality was notoriously poor, the technology archaic, and the design, well, thoroughly 1980s. So few Grand Marquis' are desired, in fact, the writer who penned this eloquent ode in the newspaper had to borrow one from a car rental agency.

It's a pathetic gas guzzler. It's a bit of history. It's an old fart on wheels. It's two couches and a steering wheel. It handles like a toy boat in a bathtub of applesauce. It's about as sexy as Mike Wallace's underwear collection.

And, yet, there it is: front and center. In The New York Times.

Why? Because it's last.

So, I figure-- why sweat immortality? It'll come to me, as long as I'm the last... something. The last underweight, Jewish, neurotic blogger with messed-up teeth, a sincere disposition and a propensity for inattention to detail and an ardent love of nice shoes?

Start those tributes early...

Well, Carve the Turkey and Choke that Chicken: It's... DEAR APRON!

Bitches, all's I gots to say is: thank your lucky, motherfucky stars for...

DEAR APRON:

I am a 38-year-old woman with an outgoing personality. However, when I first meet a man, I move slowly.

If I agree to a date, I meet him at a public place. After a few dates, I'll share my e-mail address so we can communicate more easily. And, Apron, that's when the trouble starts.

Over the past few years, several men have e-mailed me nude photos of themselves after I gave them my contact information. I'm not a prude, but I feel it was disrespectful. I broke up with each of them and deleted their photos from my computer.

Please lend me some advice and insight here. Until then, I'm considering remaining single forever. -- SEEN IT ALL IN SAN ANTONIO

DEAR SEEN IT ALL:

I'm sorry-- I thought that, you know, since you said you wouldn't fuck me for seven-and-a-half months, that this was the next best thing. Besides, it was a great game.



DEAR APRON:

With the holidays coming, I know I'll be spending time with my boyfriend's family. Every time I see his father (who is a poor excuse for a dad) he asks when I'm going to give him grandbabies.

This has gone on for five years. I am not even married to his son, and I don't plan on having any children. He makes me feel like I don't deserve his son if I don't have children. (My boyfriend already has a son from a previous relationship.) I have tried to answer him nicely. I have even tried to be rude, but he just doesn't get it!

I would like to know how to respond to him. I certainly do not want it to affect his family's Christmas, but I feel I should stick up for myself. Please help. -- WANTS NO BABIES IN NEW YORK

DEAR NO BABIES:

Well, if you've tried nicely and you've tried rude, then I'm kind of shit-out-of-luck, because there's not much in between there that I think will have any effect at all. Of course, there's always the outskirts of normative human behavior, which I am regularly exposed to at work at my friendly, neighborhood mental hospital.

Give this one a shot:

When you come over for Christmas, make sure you have a pronounced bulge under your frumpy-ass dress. Jubilantly tell your boyfriend's father that you are expecting twins, and make up some sort of horseshit about wanting to keep it a secret and whatnot. Everybody's going to be absolutely in heaven over the news. While everybody's assembling at the table, pick the seat at the complete opposite end of the table from your boyfriend's dad. Hopefully, he'll say Grace, and he'll inevitably throw in a special thank-you for the twins-to-be. When this happens, jump up from your seat and vault up onto the table. With one dramatic gesture, reach under your dress and pull out two life-size, naked baby dolls covered in a thick coating of vinegar, ketchup, applesauce, and fermented yogurt. Run down the length of the table at full speed, (being sure to crush any nice china and glassware under your feet) towards your boyfriend's dad and beat him mercilessly with the two mung-covered baby dolls until he is near comatose.

If that doesn't put an end to the questions, then you might want to consider getting pregnant.

DEAR APRON:

I'm a stay-at-home mom with a 10-year-old daughter. We live in a complex that houses about 250 people.

I'm a naturally friendly person, but also very private. When the weather is warm, I love having my shades up and my windows open. My daughter enjoys the fresh air, so she's out in the yard often. Because of this, some of my neighbors -- possibly bored -- take it upon themselves to "pop in" for a visit when they see we're home. I don't invite them over, and I don't want company. This happens more than once a day with the same people.

I have tried making excuses ("I'm in the middle of something," "I'm cooking dinner," "I have company"), but it doesn't work. I have also said, "We're just getting ready to leave," but it soon becomes obvious that we weren't going anywhere. People have gotten mad and they now label me a "snob" -- among other things.

I don't want to spend my life in the house hiding with my daughter, but I also don't want to entertain people who come over uninvited. Apron, I am not a snob. I just love doing whatever I'm doing uninterrupted -- even if what I'm doing is nothing at all. Please help. -- NICE, PRIVATE LADY IN ILLINOIS

DEAR NICE, PRIVATE LADY:

My heart aches for you-- having to make excuses for the express purpose of keeping unwanted people out of your home-- something I have mostly succeeded in doing for decades.

Honeyboo, you don't have to suffer through the indignities of making up lies or closing your blinds or hiding with your daughter (weird) or altering your life's schedule just because you don't feel like having uninvited people in your house. Haven't you ever heard of the 2nd Amendment? Get yourself a nice .38 and, the next time these dumb motherfuckers deign to come onto your property unannounced, well, just squeeze, pal.

Don't foget to say, "Happy Thanksgiving!" in between shots!

Remember the Jerky Boys?

Don't ask me what inspired me to write this post. It's just not worth it, because I wouldn't be able to tell you. At least, not without some unfortunate bit of extraneous food stuck in between two of my teeth.

You might find it difficult to stomach the fact that a pedant like me, with a Gilbert & Sullivan fetish big enough to give anyone with the last name D'Oyly Carte a hardon, (I'll excuse you while you go Google, um, that) is also a passionate fan of "The Jerky Boys," the moronic creation of Queens residents Johnny Brennan and his (apparently former) friend, Kamal, but, it's true.

I am.

Play "Tarbash, the Egyptian Magician" for me, or stroll down Memory Lane with me while listening to used car salesman Frank Rizzo expound on his salesmanship strategies to a potential employer, ("Look, you got this fucker, he don't know if he wants to buy-- this or that-- I push his face right in the fuckin' hood and I say, 'YOU BUY THIS FUCKIN' CAR, OR I'LL BREAK YOUR FUCKIN' HEAD!' Look, bring in a tank, I'll sell the fuckin' thing!") and I'm pretty much just putty in your hands.

Don't you want me to be putty in your fuckin' hands, Rubberneck?

I'm old enough that I can remember listening to "The Jerky Boys" on a goddamned Walkman (TM) while in the backseat of my father's Pontiac Bonneville on family trips to the beach, sharing the headset with my sister, the two of us howling until our stomachs cramped up and tears streamed down our cheeks.

It wasn't high comedy. Christ, it wasn't even low comedy. It was prank calls. But, if prank calls are the game, then elevating the game to a near-operatic level was what the Jerky Boys did. Creating twenty fleshed out characters, including the legendary Jewish stereotype, Sol Rosenberg ["my glasses and my shoes fell off and they shoved pinecones up my ass!"], that has made a popularity resurgence as Mort Goldman on "Family Guy" is no small feat. Johnny Brennan and Kamal created some of the most hilarious moments in telephone history. It's a shame that their relationship ended badly, though. Kamal wanted out in 2000, and, evidently, Brennan believed that this also meant that Kamal wanted his creative contributions (from 1989-2000) to be totally expunged from the history of the duo-- the Jerky Boys' website makes absolutely no mention of Kamal or the hysterical characters he created. Which is a pity. But I wouldn't expect less from two immature schmoes who were responsible for creating double platinum records simply by picking up the phone.

When my cellphone rings, and the number is unfamiliar, I never pick it up, and maybe it's because I grew up on "The Jerky Boys."

Either way--- leave a goddamn message, Sizzle Chest.

Look at Me: I'm Thankful (Again)

365 days ago, I let my small corner of the blogging world know that, on Thanksgiving Day, 2009, I was thankful for my undershirts.

Aren't I clever?

This year, I don't know what it is, but I'm not feeling especially clever. Or witty. Or funny. Or subversive. Actually, I don't know exactly how I'm feeling as I start to type this post, which is always a little dangerous, because I have no idea how this post is going to turn out.

And, honestly-- I kind of like that. It's pretty much the only risk I take in life. Besides speeding-- and I speed in a Volvo, so it's almost not even that risky anyway. Speeding in a Volvo is a bit like having bareback sex with a photograph of a prostitute.

Thanksgiving is a tricky time for renowned cynics and muttering bastards the world over, and I struggle with it, too. On the one hand, it's predictable and cloying-- inspiring some of us to pen odes to our undershirts. On the other hand, as a nation that takes everything, from its oxygen to its Blackberries for granted, a little dose of Rockwellism once a year couldn't really damage us too irreparably.

It wouldn't hurt this generation to bow its head and hold hands around that anachronistic thing called a dining room table-- not one little bit.

I've undergone a lot of changes between the Thankgiving of my 29th year, and that of my 30th. The smarmy, winking little brat in me wants to be funny and light this year, to poke holes in and poke fun at tradition and syrupy Little House on the Prairie idealism-- and the burgeoning adult in me wants to cry and hold my family, people who unbelievably seem to grow more distant and unfamiliar every week-- or is it month? I forget.

What I can't forget is that I am both the punk and the idealist, I am the smiling bugger and the thin-lipped grandfather-in-training-- always thinking, obsessing over what is right and what is expedient, and how to tow the line between the two. Or if I should. And what would it matter if I never decide to make the choice at all?

While I was writing this meandering mess, it popped into my head that I ought to be thankful for my sanity, a notion that has crystalized now that I work at a mental hospital. Sorry-- "crisis center," let's be politically correct, if we can stand it. I've now worked there long enough to see patients get discharged and re-admitted multiple times, and, even sadder, I've worked there long enough to see names from my ancient past, and not-so-ancient past, on the admitting sheet, and I have chatted with these gowned ghosts in the halls, and I know that, for one synapse misfiring, or not, it could have been me. Without the I.D. badge, without the keys. And that is enough to make anyone bow his brown-haired head at the dining room table.

Of course, I'm still thankful for my undershirts. Even the ones I've had to force myself to throw out between this year and the last.

Happy Thanksgiving, my dears.

I Guess That's Why These Crazy Kids Watch the Daily Show

When I worked my old job, a mere .3 miles away from my house, my wife and I got to spend lots of morning time together. We had a leisurely breakfast together, walked the dogs, and ensconsed ourselves on the couch to be lulled into a state of idiocy by Meredith, Matt, Al, and Ann.

The Today Show was a mindless routine for the two of us, and by far the most enjoyable part of the show occurs at around 7:14am, when Ann Curry is finished doing the 1.4 minute round-up of international and national newslettes, ending with a story ripe for bawdy, either just shy of the line or just over it commentary by Al Roker.

But that's about as good as the Today Show gets. And it's definitely all downhill from there.

Yesterday morning heralded Tuesday, my coveted and oft-squandered day off. Getting the car's oil changed was on the agenda, and it's my firm tradition to show up at Soly's garage at 7:28am, in preparation for his military-like arrival at 7:30am. This 67-year-old mechanic with a bad shoulder and a bristle-thick gray goatee changes the oil while we talk and joke in the garage, thumbing our noses at litigious and logical rules designed to keep motorists out of potentially dangerous garages. In order to facilitate my punctual arrival at Soly's, I woke up with Mrs. Apron at 6:10am, and we enjoyed a little bit of our old Today Show routine.

I had heard, on the local news that comes on before the Today Show, a blip about a startling initiation of aggression by North Korea, firing 100 unpleasant projectiles into a South Korean island, killing two South Korean marines and wounding dozens of others. That this unpredictable, unstable, and volatile nation was showing its most unsettling arm-flexing since the Korean War was indeed troubling to me, and I expected the event to be covered with proportional depth by the Today Show.

Well, clearly, I'm an idiot.

What was the top story yesterday, covered for a full nine minutes?

The location of Prince Fucking William and Kate Nice Legs Middleton was just announced.

Westminster Abbey. Wow, right? Never saw that one coming, did you? I had heard it was a toss-up between there, BBC Television Centre, the apartment where Terry Jones lived in 1968, and a public lavatory two miles south of Piccadilly Circus.

I guess common sense won out that time. Good show, old chaps.

I don't know why I was so incensed and so surprised by the inordinate attention being given to an announcement that was such frippery, such fluff, such ridiculum, and not only that, but one that was a foregone conclusion anyway. I guess they chose Westminster Abbey because all of the Southern Black Baptist churches in England were booked on their desired date.

I joke, because that's what I was trained to do by scads of unwittingly reinforcing public school teachers, but it's really not funny. My father loves to refer, in his semibroken English, to America as "the dumbest fuckin' retard country ever" and he may very well be right, but, if we are, the news media deserves its fair share of the blame by sliding retard sauce down our throats and calling it medicine.

It's easy for me to get worked up over this generation's obsession with Jon Stewart's reinvention of "The Daily Show," turning it from the simple, funny, relatively innocuous show it was during Craig Kilborn's reign (remember that?) into a ferocious, self-important political whirlwind where comedy often takes a backseat to grandstanding, but there is a reason for its dominance over traditional news, and I acknowledge and accept that.

Our local ABC affiliate newstation, Action News, does a regular feature on Tuesday mornings on "Dancing With the Stars." And I always stare at the screen, dumbfounded, as people who call themselves "news anchors" sit behind desks wearing suits have the utter temerity and lack of dignity to expound on a moronic television show, and pretend that it's news.

Pass the remote. I want to shove it up somebody's ass. If North Korea doesn't blow us all to hell before I get the chance to do it, that is.

In Honor of November 23rd

Talk about the most dicked over day on the calendar.

November 23rd, you really are a poor, sick, pigfucked little bastard, aren't you?

There you are, stinking up the place like a three-day-old turd-- fermenting there on the sidewalk, of absolutely no good or use or worth to anybody with half a brain. It's really... sad is what it is.

You're utterly inconsequential-- do you know that? And I feel really bad about it, but I'm not sure there's anything I can do to combat the fact that nobody, and I mean nobody, cares about you. Well, no-- I correct myself-- maybe there are some people who care about you-- but they're only the people who can claim November 23rd as their birthday.

Like.... um.... Emmett Ashford-- Major League Baseball's first black umpire.

And, er..... Hjalmar Branting, Sweden's Prime Minister (1920-1925). Uh... okay?

And let's not forget about.... oh, God.... uh... three very prominent and talented musicians:

R. L. Burnside, composer of the hit song "A Ass Pocket of Whiskey" (a title which, I'm sure makes sense if you have imbibed a ass pocket of same). Let's, too, not forget about Kurupt, the gentleman who is responsible for such melodious gems as "For All My Niggaz & Bitchez," "Same Day, Different Shit," as well as the film, "I Accidentally Domed Your Son."

Oh, and Miley Cyrus. Happy Birthday, hon, if you happen to be intensely Googling yourself alone in your underwear today as I have done on so many of my own birthdays come and gone.

But, November the 23rd, you are a sorry sonofabitch, and not just because of the aforementioned birthditude, but because you are the forgotten about redheaded stepchild of days. You are sandwiched in between two days of such extreme noteriety that you cannot help but be ignored.

November 22nd is the day that John F. Kennedy got his skull blown apart in Dallas. I mean, compete with that at your peril. Like, unless you happen to be the day of the fucking moon landing or Pearl Harbor or the day that Ozzy Ozborne put in his contact lenses in under forty-five minutes, you're gonna lose. And then we've got November 24th, known nationwide as the single busiest travel day of the year. Every poor, sodding bastard with two nickels to rub together is getting molested at some airport or another, suffering through indignities and getting regrettable semis all so that they can suffer through another dry turkey and inevitable sibling regressions the next day.

So, today, on November 23rd, I want you to pause for a moment and honor this day. Take an extra long time in the bathroom, have another Oreo, check out some unusual porn, read a 19th century biography of someone with outlandish facial hair, think about tipping the ugly barista at Starbucks for a change, put on clean underwear, for Christ's sake-- because, Goddamnit, it's November the twenty fucking third, and it's Harpo's motherfucking birthday, too, so it can't be all that bad.

HIP HIP....

HOORAH!

HIP HIP....

HOORAH!

HIP HIP....

Jesus, is this really my life?

In The News...

Because I'm the gayest straight man you know (that's going to be the title of my autobiography, when I stop blogging and start writing that for the two people in the universe who would be interested in reading it) I have been doing a G&S operetta from Thursday - Sunday, and am only now emerging from the flighty Victorian ether of fairy dust and pretty wit.

On Thursday and Friday, it was awake at 5:15am, work from 7am-3pm, then a 6:00pm call, 35 minutes of being caked with age make-up, and an 8:00pm curtain. Saturday was a matinee at 2:00pm, a brief reception for our esteemed conductor, who has completed the G&S canon, all 14 shows, with our company, and then another show at 8:00-- Sunday, 12:00pm call, final 2:00 matinee, strike, cast party, and now home.

I'm very happy to be home. I'm fucking exhausted. If this blog is even mildly coherent, it will be a miracle. If it's ever been mildly coherent, well, that would, too, be miraculous.

Anyway, I feel that, for the past week or so, I've been remarkably out-of-touch. My readers, apparently, agree, as this week has marked one of the only entire weeks in My Masonic Apron history where daily posts have gone without a single, solitary comment! As we queers say in ever G&S operetta ever writ, "Oh, horror!"

I go back and forth about how I feel about comments. On the one hand, it's lovely to hear from people out in the great yonder, it's fun to see your pithy, supportive, sexual, semantic, and vaguely threatening queries, quips, and quibbles quaint. On the other hand, I write because I like to write, whether you're writing back or not, whether you're even reading or not.

(And I know if you are-- unless you're one of those shifty Google Reader types. Damn you and your covert, untrackable ways...)

One of the funny things about being at work and then at a theatre for 87% of your day and evening is that you have absolutely no idea what is happening out in the real world, because you have no connection to a radio, or to a computer, and, if you're a good boy, your goddamn phone is shut off, too. I, as you well know, am a good boy and so I am totally bereft of news of goingsons and hubbubery both local, national, and international.

Since I've missed so much of the news, and since so much of the news isn't actually news, I decided I'd just make it up.

In Philadelphia...

It was decided this past week by Mayor Michael Nutter that Philadelphia is identified by such an amalgamation of unhealthy foods-- cheesesteaks, sugary water ice, carbalicious and sodium-engorged soft pretzels, Tastykakes. To combat this trend, Mayor Nutter announced that the new official food of Philadelphia is going to be... Rachael Ray's breasts.


"For their age, they look pretty bangin'," Nutter said at a press conference held outside City Hall, "they'll represent Philadelphia as a taut, round, firm place to do business, and, like commerce and tourism in Philly-- they're great when covered with a little E.V.O.O."

In National News...

The federal government has decided to alter the term "Unemployment Rate" to "Americans on Extended Unpaid Vacation Rate" in order to boost national morale. Instead of an extension in unemployment compensation, every out-of-work American is going to receive a complimentary plastic beach chair and a pair of Ray-Bans left over from 1980s FBI surplus.

In World News...

In recognition of Kim Jong Il's impending retirement, on Saturday, world leaders across the globe held the first ever International Wear a Jumpsuit and Expect to Be Taken Seriously Day. To protest the event, Kim Jong Il spent the day in a Borat-style green body thong.

And now, traffic.

Honorable Ink

Yesterday, I went to get bagels this morning for my wife and I, because that's what Jewish guys my age do, apparently. We dress in brown corduroy pants, sweater vests, tool around in our Volvos and get bagels.

When did this happen to me? I don't know.

Anyway, as the raven-haired tartlette behind the counter rang me up, I noticed that she had a tattoo on her wrist. It was a short, Hebrew word, which I couldn't make out, because, while I can read Hebrew, I can't translate it, and I certainly can't do it when it is on a non-stationary wrist and upsidedown.

In case you didn't know, tattooing oneself is a defiance of some of the stricter tenets of the Jewish religion, so why any Jew would think it would be a good idea to get a tattoo, of something Hebrew no less, is a little beyond me, and it's a little annoying, too.

According to Jewish beliefs, tattooing the body is tantamount to desecration, and a Jew who performs this act may not be buried in a Jewish cemetery.

But that chick I saw walking along Fashion Ave in NYC did it-- Hebrew all up and down her arm.

Maury Povich, at least according to "Cash Cab", has done it-- a star of David on his wrist or something.

My brother-in-law, who isn't even Jewish to begin with, did it. Hebrew up and down his rather improbable bicep.

My wife warned me that I would come off as a hypocritical curmudgeon if I wrote a post about Jews behaving badly, seeing as bacon is my favorite food group.

"Yes," I said, "I acknowledge the point, however, I don't eat bacon for the alleged purpose of honoring the Jewish religion. I think these people who tattoo Jewish shit on themselves think that they're paying some sort of homage to our faith, when really they're just sticking their index fingers in the butt of Judaism."

"Nice," she said.

I'm a tremendous hypocrite-- I know that. I own that. I don't mind. But the things that I do aren't done for any other reason other than that I like bacon and saying "Goddamnit." I don't operate under any delusions that I'm being somehow respectful when I do it. If you're so proud to be Jewish-- walk around with a fucking yarlmuka on or grow your hair out into one of those ridiculous looking Jewfros.

Don't forget, you silly dumbshits, that it was the Nazis who tattooed us. Or, should I say, "Never forget."

Recollect Yourself, I Pray...

...And Be Careful What You Say,
As the Ancient Romans said, Festina Lente."

Thus begins one of my bits of lyric from the G&S operetta "Iolanthe," in which I am appearing this weekend.

"Festina lente" is, indeed, a Romanesque phrase-- old Gilbert was a man who knew his classics, and knew them very well. In the context of the 19-minute-long Act I finale of "Iolanthe" it is an admonition sung sternly by the Lord Chancellor. Literally translated, it means "make haste slowly," which is good advice, for those who know how to take it.

Speaking as one who's never done anything slowly, including drive, think, eat, react, study, speak, judge, blog, walk, evaluate, or make haste; you might think that festina lente might be my New Year's Resolution this year, or at least something I might have my wife screen-print on a t-shirt for me. Maybe. I don't really wear t-shirts, though.

Some people, I think, respect me for saying what's on my mind. This propensity, though, is a double-edged sword, of course because, while I often speak the truth and speak it earnestly, a fair amount of bullshit also tends to spew forth from my oral cavity, clouding an otherwise unoffending conversation with ridiculum and/or patent idiocy.

If you've hung around this particular locker room for longer than a week, you know what I'm talking about.

On Tuesday night, my wife and I were out to dinner with an old friend visiting from out-of-state. We were giving him a place to crash while he was on a brief business trip, and he reciprocated by taking us out for Thai food. It was a delectable meal-- complete with precious corncake appetizers to start and mango sticky rice as the subtle, pleasing finale. Conversation was light and appropriate, considering that I was at the table, punctuated by only the occasional awkward silence, which most conversations in the world are at one point or another.

During the course of the meal, I excused myself to visit the restaurant's restroom. On the wall was a poster for Thailand, featuring some hot chick dancing in some outlandishly-hued costume. Underneath her, it said, "THAILAND: Asia's Most Exotic Country." I wondered briefly how exactly one quantified that-- how do you figure out a nation's exoticness quotient when compared with other nations. Sure, Thailand is most likely more exotic than, say, Poland or Bulgaria, depending on your definition of "exotic," but is it more exotic, necessarily, than Indonesia or Singapore? Surely there are hot women dancing around in brightly-colored outfits there, too. I know there are in Indonesia.

Anyway, while I was peeing in the bathroom of this Thai restaurant, an idea popped into my head and I started cracking up. There's nothing that makes you feel more like a mental patient than standing at a urinal, holding your dick and laughing. I've seen mental patients do just that, and they look pretty crazy while they're doing it, so I must have, too.

I'm sure this happens to you, too-- an incongruously funny thought will materialize in your head, often at an inopportune time, and it's just really funny and you have to exercise all your willpower and knowledge of decorum to avoid sharing it...

Well, I returned to the table, composed, and I casually informed my wife and our dinner guest that Thailand is, in fact, the most exotic country, and I told them that I learned this from a poster made by the Thailand Tourism Board. Actually, I said, "Taiwanese Tourism Board" because I am an idiot. But I managed to keep the funny thought to myself and we engaged in some more polite, adult conversation while consuming our mango sticky rice. However, after we left the restaurant, immediately, after the door closed behind us and we were out on the street walking back to the car, I blurted it out.

"So, when I was in the bathroom, this great idea for a sketch popped into my head. So, it's an asian restaurant, right? And there are couples and people eating quietly at the tables-- it's a nice place, you know, dignified and what have you. After a few moments, a middle-aged businessman, conservative type, gets up to use the restroom. Well, he opens the door and there's this super-sexy geisha-type in there, in a kimono and everything, and she's like, 'Oooh, herro, big boy.' And it's implied that they do whatever two consenting adults would do in a restaurant bathroom, and he comes back to the table, you know, like nothing happened. And this guy and that guy get up to use the restroom, you know, same thing happens. And then the camera cuts to a woman who gets up from her table to use the ladies' restroom. She goes to the door and opens it, and there's this enormous gorilla in there who screams, 'GRRWWWOOAAAAHHH!' and he attacks the shit out of her."

Festina.

Fucking.

Lente.

A Book Review (Sort of)

If you're struggling with what to get me for Hanukkah (I suppose former follower 191 won't be getting me anything-- hmpf) I proffer, with great humility and anticipatory thanks, the Complete Series of "Homicide: Life on the Street."

$112.49 on Amazon-- free Super Saver shipping. Noice.

I watched "Homicide," the truly excellent series detailing the struggles, heartaches, frustrations, failings and transcendence of the Homicide detective's squad of the Baltimore City police department. A year out of college, I took the ferry with two friends to Fells Point, where much of Homicide was filmed. It's hard to forget grainy, handheld images of Richard Belzer and Andre Braugher tooling around the bumpy, pothole-stricken streets in their incongruous white Chevy Cavalier-- for some reason the auto of choice for B-more detectives in the 1980s-- beating down the doors and following the scents of some of the most disgusting, shameless and brutal murderers Baltimore had to offer.

And it doesn't get much better than an earthy, poignant, if somewhat challenging to understand monologue from Yaphet Kotto-- one of the acting titans who always looks just right with a badge pinned to his blazer pocket and a .38 on his hip. If I were killed, I'd probably rather Yaphet Kotto investigate my murder than any real detective.

It was only recently, though, whilst bumming around Borders actually looking at books, which is something I don't think people really do anymore (I used to go to Borders looking at/for women, but I'm married now, thank you) that I found the book that started it all: "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets" by veteran reporter and writer David Simon, who went on to create "The Wire" which has officially been seen by everybody, including a 16-year-old student of mine with Aspergers, but me.

(You can buy that for me for Hanukkah next year.)

David Simon, for one year, was dubbed "Police Intern" and was given unfettered, unprecedented access to Baltimore's Homicide squad, to see, hear, record, and report on everything-- from its widow's peaks to its beer-bellies to its pimples. And there's many of each to go around. But, underneath the swearing, the frustrating, endless pursuits, the mindfucking that goes on in the interrogation room, the combativeness and competition between detectives, the personalities, there is the quiet diligence, the ruthlessness, the devotion to the job that shines through on each page. Detectives who will spend hours on their hands and knees, sifting through leaves in trash-strewn alleyways for a shell casing, who will zero in on a suspect and who will not yield until every investigative avenue, theory, story, possibility and improbability is pursued to the hilt.

Yes, sometimes, when it is 98 degrees in the squadroom, they take off their pants and lay down on top of other detectives who are passed out on the couch. They sexually harrass the elderly cleaning lady. They fuck with each other endlessly. The humor is almost all profane and morbid-- it is easy to joke over a dead body. A head wound is described on page one as "a slow leak." A nurse describes a deceased gentleman to a detective as "A-D-A-S-T-W."

"Arrived Dead And Stayed That Way."

What else can you do but laugh?

The suspects, in inner-city Baltimore, usually young, black men, are referred to as "yo's." Their girlfriends, yoettes. Easy cases are "dunkers." The detectives refer to each other as "bunk." A detectives purchases his supervisor an egg sandwich on a bagel. The supervisor asks what he owes the detective.

"That's okay, bunk. I'll get you next time."

An eleven-year-old girl is brutally sexually assaulted and murdered-- it's never solved. A young police officer gets shot twice in the head and is blinded for life. It's revealed through a barroom conversation with a young female juror after it's all said and done that it's only through a miracle that the jury deigns to find the shooter guilty and sentence him appropriately.

"It's Memorial Day weekend," she told the officers stunned coworkers after the trial, "everybody pretty much just wanted to go home."

After he was shot and was recovering from brain surgery in the hospital, Gene Cassidy, the young officer freshly blinded, wandered into another patient's room in the middle of the night. Lying in bed was a fourteen-year-old child recovering from a car accident. Cassidy, gowned and bandaged and blind, shuffled over to the kid and said, "You're under arrest." The child advised the officer to go back to bed. Cassidy said, "Okay," and wandered down the hallway.

Ghosts and apparitions weave in and out of "Homicide" and mix amongst the living-- bodies, stories, detectives, survivors, families, lawyers. Through it all, there is humility, humanity, and humor.

Edgerton and Pellegrini come up against two Dobermans.

"Go on, Tom," says Edgerton, laughing. "You can take 'em."

"No, that's all right."

"They're just animals. You're a man with a gun."

Pellegrini smiles.

"Go on. Show 'em your badge."

"I think we can wait," says Pellegrini, walking back to the car.

But they never wait long. In a world where "I didn't see nothin'" is the phrase these detectives are confronted with most frequently, they're always there, chasing down impossible leads and making sure some people know that they definitely saw something. Edgerton reminded a young uniformed officer of that one day when he singlehandedly chased a suspect and tossed him for information. The young officer expressed surprise that a homicide detective would go after someone alone like that.

"You only got six bullets," the uniform said.

"I don't even have that," Edgerton laughed. "I forgot my gun."

"YOU WHAT?"

"Yeah. I left my gun in my desk. This job is ninety precent attitude."

Well, Dress My Family in Denim &/Or Corduroy Underoos, It's... DEAR APRON!

It's the moment you've all been waiting for. No, not that royal faggot's wedding announcement, not the day when we can legalize tarring and feathering BP Executives, not Sarah Palin getting intimately acquainted with a Kodiak bear, no, it's not any of that. Unfortunately for you, it's just...

DEAR APRON:

My dear friend "Shelby" has been involved with a man for three years. "Mr. Secret Agent" is always on the go and can visit her only occasionally because of all of his international business travels. She told me he is from New Zealand and plans to return there when he retires in a few years.

Something about him just didn't feel right to me, so I did some Internet sleuthing and discovered that Shelby's "successful businessman" was born right here in the U.S.A. He has no passport, is using an assumed name, works as a janitor, has filed bankruptcy twice and actually lives in a trailer.

Shelby is overjoyed when he comes to visit her, but I am getting tired of hearing his lies. I know she'll be hurt, but don't you think she deserves to know the truth? I'm concerned he may extort money from her. What should I do? -- 2 GOOD 2 BE TRUE IN WASHINGTON STATE

DEAR 2 GOOD:

Wow! Isn't the "Internet" AMAZING!? Really, you can find out just about anything you want about a person via the "Internet." I love it when people capitalize "Internet" like it's some kind of brand-name. I'd be willing to bet that the only people who capitalize "Internet" are at least fifty years old. What do you think, 2 Good? Are you post-menopausal? Well, you don't have to answer-- I'll bet I can find out with some good ol' fashioned Internet sluething of my own...

(A few clicks and clacks later...)

Hmmm... seems that your real name is Ethel S. Merriweather, of 3521 Stanton Street, Beulaville, AL, 35004. You're 58 (ooh, maybe I'M 2 good 2 be true!), married to Dale, with three children: Jennifer, a 34-B paralegal with shoulder-length, chestnut hair (27), unemployed auto mechanic and part-time glue-sniffer tow-headed Roddy (31) and Tranh (7). Hey! Good for you guys for adopting!

According to the Google Earth image, you and Dale are the proud owners of one metallic green 1994 Ford Aerostar and a 1977 Plymouth Volare (oooh, choice) and it looks to me like you need to repaint that left 1st floor window shutter, Ethel. Maybe you can do that instead of spying on your friend's secret agent lover from New Zealand.

DEAR APRON:

I have a suggestion for people who are stuck for gift ideas. Several years ago, I asked my mom for a very special Christmas gift. I asked her to write down her life story -- things she had done as a child, the experience of hitchhiking from New Mexico to Tennessee during the Great Depression, and all the other experiences of her life. She did, and I printed it for her. That year she gave each child, grandchild and great-grandchild a copy. It was the best Christmas present ever and one that's still cherished by us all.

Both my parents are gone now, but we have Mom's wonderful stories to remember. Without her book, those memories would be lost forever. I encourage everyone to record their family history and memories for your loved ones to read. You'll never regret it, and it will be enjoyed for generations to come. -- ANDREW IN JOHNSON CITY, TENN.

DEAR ANDREW:

I'm confused-- where is the gift idea?

DEAR APRON:

I have been married to "Ben," a wonderful man, for seven years. We have three children. We get along well, but I have one complaint. It's about sex. I'm always in the mood but he isn't. We both work full-time jobs and take care of the kids and the house.

My best friend tells me I have the sex drive of a male and her husband wishes she was more like me. I am not a nymphomaniac, but I'd like to be intimate with my husband more than every other week. When we're together, I almost feel like it's a chore to him.

Is there something wrong with me? I have never cheated on Ben, nor have I considered it. I feel this is an issue in our marriage, but he thinks I am overreacting. -- WAITING FOR MORE

DEAR WAITING:

"Is there something wrong with me?"

God. I love it.

This is, hands-down, my favorite rhetorical question of all rhetorical questions. It ranks up there on the podium with "Am I being irrational?" and "Is this rash something to worry about?" I mean, really-- what do you want to know? What do you want from me? Do you want me to gently stroke your 34-Bs or your chestnut hair or your ego and say, "No, honey, there's nothing wrong with you-- it's the way everybody else looks at the world," or "No, it's not you, it's me,"? Honestly, you people really never cease to amaze and inflaccidate me.

Yes, there is something wrong with you. You have three children, so you've obviously done it at least three times. Give your husband a break-- the guy works for a living, you know. Jesus. Have you ever tried masturbation? It's a lot of fun for the first couple of years.

DEAR APRON:

I have already decorated my office for the winter holidays, but my co-worker says before Thanksgiving is too early to display a snowman. When do you decorate for the holiday season? -- FESTIVE SOUTHERN GIRL

DEAR FESTIVE:

Ah, a good question. You decorate for the holiday season immediately after staple-gunning paper cut-out Santas to your coworker's face and before calling for the ambulance.

Reading This Blog May Be Hazardous to Your Health

You've heard by now, no doubt, because you're a cultured, sensitive, informed individual that the feds are rolling out some new images to augment the existing Surgeon General's warnings, that have been plastered on cigarette packs since 1964.

The images include, in no particular order:

* A freshly-autopsied corpse

* An individual smoking a cigarette through his tracheotomy

* A withered, nasty-looking, shriveled up old fucker

* A pair of diseased lungs

* An artistic rendering of someone shoving a cigarette into his arm, a la heroin (clever)

* An artistic rendering of a mother blowing cigarette smoke into her newborn's mouth

* An artistic rendering of a smoker on puppet strings (presumably worked by big tobacco)

* Some nasty teeth and other nasty shit

I'm not going to go through and talk about all of them, because there are thirty-six of them, for Christ's sake, but I think you get the idea by now. Of course, one would have thought that smokers would have gotten the idea by now, but, evidently not, because, according to the American Council for Drug Education, there's 47 million cigarette smokers in the USA, officially making us the stupidest country in the universe.

Now, before you accuse me of being judgmental: fuck you.

Okay, moving on...

I am very much in favor of these new warning pictures, but not, perhaps for the more traditional reasons one might come to expect from traditional people. Do I think these pictures are going to stop people from smoking? No. I support the U.S. Food & Drug Administration's campaign because, let's face it, we're in a recession, and the jobless rate in this country stands at an unsettling 9.6%, and this is a great opportunity for advertising specialists, graphic artists, and models who get paid to lie on metal tables pretending they've just been autopsied to make some serious bucks.

I mean, Uncle Sam's no skinflint, and I'm sure the people at work creating these new warnings are being handsomely compensated-- and as well they should be. I am a bit curious, though, about one thing-- apparently, there are 36 new warnings, but I read that only nine are going to be chosen.

I mean, however are they going to choose between this one:

and this one:


Seriously? That's a tough call in my book. The more conservative part of me likes Ad 1 because the gentleman depicted there is in a shirt and tie, nice, traditional, 1980s era eyeglasses-- clearly meant to be an accountant or a local-level politician. I particularly like that they chose to have him wearing a wedding band so you look at it going, "Oh, no-- his poor, middle-aged wife!" I would be tempted, though, to vote against this particular ad because it seems like he can't quite make up his mind about whether he's having a heart attack, or a stroke, or a brain aneurysm, or all three. And it's like, dude, make up your fucking mind, you know?

Ad #2... well... what can I say? If smoking cigarettes means I'm going to have facial hair like that, then forget it.

The other reason, though, that I am staunchly in support of this new advertising campaign is that I am convinced that there is a significant portion of the population in this country that is illiterate. So, if you can't read, then the text-based Surgeon General's warnings are not going to be very effective for you.

I mean, look at this:

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy

Are you serious? "Emphysema"? "Complicate"? "Surgeon"? Be fair-- how many people do ride the Greyhound with who can understand, let alone pronounce 0r spell those words? If we have any shot in hell at defeating the tobacco companies, we've got to appeal to the fastest-growing majority in this country: illiterate dumbshits. McDonalds caught on years ago, with their implementation of picture and number-based menus.

God, I love me my Number 7.

Oh, and, by the way-- you should know that continual reading of My Masonic Apron is indeed hazardous to your health and could contribute to any number of fatal and/or socially undesirable diseases, and has been shown in clinical studies to cause Autism. (And you thought it was pregnant mothers eating sushi-- stupid.) For those of you, though, who cannot read (of course you're here-- where else would you be?) here's brief pictorial representation of what happens to people who read My Masonic Apron on a regular basis:




Remember: you've been warned.

My A Game

So, yesterday, you were treated to me decidedly being on My D- Game. I might as well have just typed out my shopping list-- most of which you wouldn't have understood, because my wife and I sometimes engage in this retarded lingo that only we can understand, because we are insular and do our best to eschew normal modes of communication.

Hence: the poop text.

Actually, I don't know-- maybe in this moment in the 21st century, the poop text is the norm. But, sometimes, when we're, um, pooping... we, uh, send each other... text..... messages.

My trusty old standby to send to her when I am engaged in the act is:

"It smells in here."

Fortunately, now that I have an almost-full keyboard, I can get more, how do you say, "jiggy with it" by expounding almost endlessly on the quality, consistency, and shape of my, er, leavings. Of course, poop texts do not always have to be about the poop or the poop experience itself. In fact, they often are about entirely irrelevant subjects. Like, reminding her to-- well, no, I guess they're pretty much always about poop.

That's why they're called "poop texts," moron.

Right. Got it.

Sometimes I get concerned for your emotional health. I feel I have to say that. I mean: look at yourself. You're sitting there in your moderately-enticing underwear (at least, I hope you are) clicking through all the sites in your routine, and you come to mine at some moment in your morning, afternoon, or evening's rituals. And what do you think to yourself when you read a post that starts out by guilting itself over yesterday's piss-poor (see what I did there?) only to turn into some less-than-sophomoric jag about poop. And texting.

I mean, yeah, it says some unpleasant things about me-- but, what about you? Don't you have better things to do whilst clothed only in moderately-enticing underwear?

And what about the hygeine issues surrounding poop texts? I mean-- I wash my hands a lot, but, can we just allow our minds to wander in that direction for just one moment? Isn't that fucking disturbing? I guess you'll never be asking to borrow my phone.

But, trust me, if you did-- you'd see lots of strange things in the text history. Pooperiffic things. Exchanges between a husband and a wife, a man whose degenerate behavior has definitely spread, like some sort of bacterial bowel ailment like C-Diff (if you're not in the healthcare field, look that one up, but DO NOT Google Image it) until the behavior has totally seeped into her brain and has made her act this way, too.

Poor child. She even reads my blog, too.

But not whilst pooping.

Here's a List, Because I'm Rushed:

Hi! If you were expecting something coherent, or substantive, or well-organized, or worth your time and energy, then I don't know what to tell you. You're an idiot. Why would you come here for that? Go watch "The View" or stick a shampoo bottle up your hiney-hole. Jesus. What am I-- 7-Eleven? Come on.

I've got about nine minutes for this here particular blogging adventure and, trust me, it's gonna be short, ugly, and tough to look at. And that, motherfuckers, is what. she. said.

Things that make me panic:

Being constipated

Having diarrhea

Having to spell "diarrhea"

Being late

Being early

Being on-time

Being spoken to.

Speaking in public.

Speaking to people one-on-one.

Speaking to people on the phone.

Making plans to socialize.

Canceling plans to socialize.

Socializing.

Checking out women.

Checking out library books.

Checking my windshield washer fluid.

Checking my bank balance.

Czeching the Republic.

Shopping.

Making dinner.

Making love.

Cleaning the house.

Cleaning the body.

Looking into my rearview mirror.

Being thought of mistakenly as a pervert.

Being thought of correctly as a pervert.

Tacchycardia.

Looking for my favorite pair of socks and not finding them.

Being asked to accomplish tasks.

When people have faith in me.

When people have no faith in me.

Knowing that it's time to go to sleep.

Thinking about death.

Doing the laundry.

Um... there are things I'm forgetting, but I'm panicking because I have to leave the house in two minutes.

Oh-- right: forgetting things.

Got it.

Please, Make Me Stop

I think I'm addicted to blogging.

And I know I'm addicted to coffee.

I don't like being an addict, and I suppose, having these two pesky little addictions, this is what I am.

Hi, I'm an addict and occasional asshole. Nice to meet you. Is there a 12-Step Program for me?

No, probably not.

I tried to give up coffee in graduate school, while I was taking (ha ha) an Intro to Addictions course in the psych department, because, as someone getting a MaEd, you are required to take one grad-level class outside of the education discipline. This class consisted of being lectured at by a very attractive professor, attending AA meetings in the community, and/or watching episodes of "Intervention."

Hi, welcome to my favorite grad school class. Nice to meet you. I am an addicthole.

Grad school was not the first or last time I tried to quit drinking coffee. I first tried in 2002, right after college. Fail. Then again, a couple years later. Fail. Then I tried to cut down to every other day. No. How about, just on the weekdays? Nuh-uh. Just on the weekends? Well... how about a couple packets of NO! Then, after a bout of heart-racing and several trips to the cardiologist's office (where every guy in their mid-twenties wants to be) I tried to do half decaff/half regular. Don't ask me why that didn't work-- probably because it was just too damn hard to always stock a bag of regular and a bag of decaffeinated grounds in the house, because, let's face it, that's way too hard for someone like me to do.

Plus, I didn't like saying, "half-caff" at Starbucks, because it made me sound like a retard who should be wearing a scarf, beret and an earring. I don't go like that. I'll say, "Please leave lots of room" but that's all I want to say to a barista. Anymore verbiage and I seriously start to hate myself.

Oh, and I also can't stop blogging. It's Friday as I write this now. The one for Saturday I pre-wrote an hour ago, and this one is auto-scheduled for 7:18am EST on Sunday, and I'm already thinking about what Monday's is going to be about and when I'm going to write it, since I have an orchestra rehearsal from 10am-1pm Saturday, then work from 3pm-11pm, and then work from 3pm-11pm again on Sunday. Sounds impossible, but there will be new content on Monday morning for you, just as sure is there will be coffee, sugared up and pissed off, surging through my veins and crashing against my temples when'er the sun doth rise.

God, I love being an addict.

And What's With This Masonic Shit Anyway?

I had a blog before this one, but I killed it, and it's dead. I cut its nuts off, and they rest, in a state of unsettling decomposition, inside a little velvet-lined gilded box on my nightstand.

This blog got bornded on Friday, March 13th, 2009, if you can believe that. We're just about at 611 posts or so, for those insufferable pedants who like to keep track of such things, and I'd like to say that "we've come a long way together" but, um, it's been largely a lot of the same around here. Fortunately, you probably hadn't noticed, until I was kind enough to point it out to you. I guess you won't be coming back here anymore. But, before you let the door hit your tight little ass on the way out, I think I at least owe you a post about the name of this here bloglette.

My Masonic Apron.

What the fuck is that about anyway?

Well, I don't know, really. Blogs need to be called something, don't they? Especially "anonymous" blogs. Because, if it wasn't anonymous, I could stick my name in the url and we'd be all gtg and shit, but, you know I can't do that. Because, in 2009, I worked with children. And, in 2010, I work with psychotic people. So, we're going to keep me in the shadows a little while longer, if that's okay with you. Because I don't want my nuts ending up inside some velvet-lined gilded box.

Anyway, when I was thinking about what to call this blog, one of my favorite Monty Python sketches of all time popped into my head. No, it's not the motherfucking dead goddamned parrot or the jesuschristing gay lumberfuckingjack.

Sorry. I just get so... you know.

It's the sketch that leads off Episode 17-- the Architect Sketch, which I first saw at age 12. In this sketch, John Cleese, a burgeoning, young and enthusiastic architect shows off his scale model of a block of apartment flats to two prospective investors, Terry Jones & Michael Palin. Unfortunately, Cleese is a bit manic and homicidal and the apartment building he is proposing is actually an abattoir, complete with "rotating knives" and "the last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily soundproofed. The blood pours down these chutes and the mangled flesh slurps into these..."

Whereupon he is cut off, in the polite, goodnatured fashion that British people have cut other British people off in for centuries. Cleese leaves in rage-filled, frustrated embarrassment, also an English tradition, and in comes another architect, Eric Idle, to have a go with his model, which falls apart and spontaneously catches fire during his presentation. His proposal is unanimously accepted by Jones & Palin's characters, because Idle's architect character is, say it with me now: a Mason.

And they all do a super-cool, secret Masonic handshake that gets done again in a super-cool, secret, slow-motion BBC Action Replay.

Can you discern why I was not universally liked by other twelve-year-olds?

So, Masonic business was funny to me, because I learned about it from Monty Python. I mean, it is funny, just like the idea of the Church Police is funny, and just like men wearing women's clothes is funny. When I went to New York City with my long-defunct best friend to visit the grand lodge of the white knights of the masons or whatever the hell it was called, I was on the verge of cracking up the whole time we were there, because of Monty Python.

That sonofabitch.

Apparently, there is this great, vast mythology surrounding Masons that goes back a long way. George Washington was a Mason, and he was pretty cool, even though he looks like an elderly lady. My wife's uncle is a Mason, apparently. He is short, overweight, bald except for a Hershey's kiss swirl on top of his head, and his voice is a mixture of Pee-Wee Herman and Buddy Hackett. So, I don't know what's so cool about being a Mason, but it can't be that cool.

And I've further urinated on its real estate by defaming their most sacred symbol, the masonic apron, by making that the title of this here bloggery.

What kind of monster am I?

How many self-respecting masons have Googled "My masonic apron" in some misguided attempt to learn how to fold or wash or starch or embroider their own towelette and found their way to this blasphemous, pornographic, Jewish little blog? Many. I have no doubt. Masons Google themselves a lot. I read about that on the handmirror of a Korean prostitute somewhere.

Okay. Um... I don't know exactly what the hell this post was, but it's done now, I swear. I'm good. You can... you can go now.

Make a Wish

When you deal with little children, you break your back to ensure that they're happy, at whatever personal inconvenience of yours, or those around you.

It's a capital offense, for instance, to disturb the sleep of a baby-- at least, it is in my neck of the woods, and I suspect that it is in yours, too. And I'm not entirely convinced that it's displaced youngest child syndrome at work when I ask, "Um, why?" Why must I receive a detailed text message from my eldest sister with instructions about how I am to enter the house in which I was raised because my nephew is asleep?

"When u come over today; mom says to go around to the side of the house and tap lightly on the side door-- DO NOT use your key inside the front door in case the baby's sleeping, and DON'T CALL the office number. Thnx."

I didn't go over anyway-- I just wasn't interested. God forbid I should fart and wake the kid up.

When we were children, my parents broke their backs trying to please us, and they usually did, even though they combined to raise three of the most impossible to satisfy children that ever came around these parts. We're... particular, each in our own way. One thing they always did for each of us, to make us feel special, to make us happy, was decorate the dining room when it was time for our birthdays. When we were younger, they would surreptitiously stash decorations-- streamers mostly-- in the hall closet and, when we would feign sleep on the night before our birthdays, they would stay up late, draping the now long-gone dining room ceiling light fixture with streamers, twisted just right. Occupying the bedroom downstairs, I could hear the plastic stchrtch of the Scotch tape dispenser two rooms away as my mother and father worked together.

As we grew older, maybe perhaps we chanced to think that this tradition might stop. But, as my eldest sister turned thirty, and then forty, and the dining room was still decorated, with matching plates, napkins and cups, we knew that this was for good. Very good. Now my wife and I do it for each other, in our own home. And, last night, we went over to my family's house for my eldest sister's forty-third birthday.

Forty. Three.

Pink streamers. Pink and black spotted paper cups and plates. Pink table cloth. And there she sat, the angelfood cake covered in white icing and funfetti that she had requested from us in front of her, bathed in the light of a single candle, wishing for a full three minutes. My sister. Long, fine, blond hair parted down the center, falling in front of her ears, elegant wire-rimmed glasses gently sliding down the tip of her nose. My parents in their sweatshirts. My wife in her double hoodies, well-prepared for the frigid conditions of my old home. Me in one of my father's sweatshirts, somehow still continually ill-prepared, or resistant, or in denial, or forgetful, or impervious. Willful. Stupid. Arrogant. Silly.

The baking of the cake involved a lot of willfulness, stupidity, arrogance, and silliness. A fight with my wife. A loud one, a painful one. We're married-- it happens. Time constraints, poor planning, poorer communication-- confectioner's sugar. Pressure. Heat. Family.

It happens.

We're all in love with each other here, so it's no big deal, and this pain is part of what makes us whole, I suppose. Family birthdays are notoriously melancholy around here, and maybe it's because they revolve around memories and things or feelings that we're trying to get back to that maybe aren't possible anymore. It's hard not to get disappointed when the demons you're chasing were just so darn good.

Happy Birthday.

30 Minutes at Home

What can one do when one has 30 minutes at home? After eight hours of negotioting one's way through a myriad milieu of psych patients, one laughing uproariously as he swings a shit-filled "Attends" diaper over their head like a cowboy might swing a lasso, one crying for no apparent reason, another attempting to pick a fight with two broken arms and a brain full of cobwebs, an hour-long, sunglare-filled commute home (plus a pitstop at Chipotle to bring home bulging burrito dinner for self and goodlady wife), a half-hour in between work and alleged play-- rehearsal for gay operetta that nobody will come to see. A rehearsal that will begin with another car door slam at 5:45pm and one more at 10:45pm (if we don't fuck up that badly).

What does one do?

One blogs.

Hi. I love you.

Blargh.

Oh, and Happy Veteran's Day. Um... there's lots more I'm forgetting. But, today, there's just no time.

AAAAAAAAAAH!

Or, as Cathy would say, "AAAAAAAAAACK!"

My swimsuit doesn't fit.

Ready? Aim? Shave!

There's a war out there, my friend.

And I'm not talking about this namby-pamby, heard-it-all-before shit going on in Afghanistan and Iraq. I'm not talking about Northern Ireland or Bosnia or even the Sierra Leone or Tibet. No, an epic and volatile struggle for power is happening right under our noses. And under our chins. And along our jawlines. Not to mention our pubey-pubes, if we are so inclined.

That's right, kids, I'm talking about the Razor War.

Oh, you haven't heard about it?

Well, apparently, it's been raging like an irritated patch of neck skin since 2003, and it's a war being fought by razor companies Schick and Gillette.

Now, I, frankly, never was really aware that there was a Razor War going on in the world, but, apparently, I'm ignorant of a lot more than that, so my own personal obliviousness shouldn't be too much a surprise but, ever since my wife informed me of this state of warfare, I have become, shall we say, piqued?

Product war itself is nothing new. Pepsi vs Coca Cola, Chevrolet vs Ford, Aunt Jemima vs Uncle Ben, Honda vs Toyota, Vagisil vs Dyosport, Wagner operas vs getting hit in the face repeatedly with a cast-iron Ebelskiver pan... you know. But it can truly be said that there is no consumer product war going on than the fight for razor superiority being waged in magazine ads everywhere, fought long and hard by Schick and Gillette.

Now, when I first heard that there was a war going on betweeen these two razor companies, I immediately put my money on Schick, thinking they were German. I mean, "Sccchiccck," right? But, after a cursory investigation (the kind I conduct most frequently) I realized that Schick was not German at all, but English! A subsidiary of a long-forgotten company called Wilkinson Sword, established in 1772 to manufacture-- you guessed it-- swords! Oh, and guns, typewriters, bayonets, gardening tools, 850cc motorcycles, and an in-line four cylinder engine for a quaint British motorcar called "The Deemster."

The fact remains that, through its alterations, mergers, and acquisitions, Wilkinson Sword has always been interested in sharp pointy things that have the potential to draw blood, harkening back to that ancient, English desire to repress its thumping, palpable desire for sex and violence.

Ever read "Hamlet"?

While sword production itself ceased in 2005, Wilkinson Sword (through its threatening, Germanic-sounding brand-name, Schick) has been busily trying to gain ground in the razor war against its faggy-sounding competitor, Gillette. Though sounding French and, therefore, gay, Gillette is number one in razor sales globally, though, for some reason, Schick has cornered the Japanese market. I think there's a racist joke in there somewhere, but I'm too tired to help it materialize. You're welcomed to have a go at it in the comments section.

Anyway, I've been thinking about this so-called Razor War for a good long while now (and by "good long while now" I mean "as I type this sentence") and I think Schick and Gillette are going about this all wrong. See, they're waging this war by inventing new razory-type products and devising new, clever advertising campaigns, full-page glossies in my car magazines (yes, I read car magazines-- surprised?) and tired, careworn reinventions of the same old thing. While I have never served in the armed forces, my father has, and I think I know a vicarious thing or two about warfare, and I am convinced that Schick and Gillette are going about this Razor War thing all wrong.

I think they need to start actually killing each other.

If you think about it-- it's the only sure way for one company to gain world supremacy over the other. Honestly? There's only so many times you can reinvent a goddamn blade that cuts your fucking hair off, right? Eventually, they're going to tire of that shit and they're not going to know what to do next. It is obvious to me that the answer lies in bloodshed. Now, Schick, formerly Wilkinson Sword, a goddamn manufacturer of weapons of death and destruction for over 200 years ought to have figured this out by now, and I'm a little disappointed that they haven't. But it's not exactly a notion that one hits upon whilst sitting cross-legged in a drawing room sipping Prince of Wales tea at 2:30 in the afternoon.

Seriously, though, how cool would it be to see executives and sales managers from Wilkinson Sword and Procter & Gamble (Gillette's O.G. Pimp-Daddy) cutting each other like motherfuckers in the street in order to gain another share of the safety razor market? Heavily armed squadrons of Schick razor developing technicians rappelling through plate-glass windows to surprise-attack Gillette executives during a board meeting! Bring back the swords and bayonets!

THAT, motherfuckers, is war.

Don't Wanna

Someone once told me, as I was complaining endlessly about an unpleasant task I had set up for myself to do one day, "Don't do it-- we spend so much of our lives doing things that we don't want to do-- paying bills, visiting our inlaws, wiping our asses, getting the car inspected-- why should you have to endure one more annoying thing that you don't want to do-- just because you think you should? Fuck that."

Just. Don't. Do it.

Hmpf. Pretty revolutionary, don't you think? As advice goes, anyway.

Trouble is, nobody actually said that to me. It's just sage-like advice that I pulled out of my ass (after wiping, of course). I do this sometimes-- give myself advice, like an old friend might, if I ever asked an old friend for advice. Which I don't, which is a shame, because that's essentially what old friends are for, and I do have a couple left. But I'm far too busy with my spinning little life to pay them much heed. You know, there are bills to pay and cars to get inspected.

Anyway, I give myself advice every now and then, and, invariably, I heed it not. At least I don't pay some clipboard-toting shyster to give me advice that I will then ignore. Of course, good therapists don't give advice. I learned that in college, and not much else, I'm embarrassed to say.

Yesterday, after a thoroughly annoying day of working with some of society's less fortunate, less desirable, and less assimilated beings, I got to fight through forty minutes of just-out-of-school traffic only to arrive at the doorstep of my middle sister's shabby apartment on the outskirts of the city. Broken red moulding disgraced the threshold and, as I leaned back against the wooden railing propping up her doorstep, it bent unceremoniously and threatened to cave beneath my not-very-impressive weight. I texted her, as she requests, probably because her doorbell is broken.

"I'm here."

My sister, who has had her iPhone surgically implanted up her ass, usually texts back in under two seconds flat. After four minutes of freezing my tibbles off in the cold rain, I called.

"Hi. I'm here."

"You're where?" she asked.

"I'm at your doorstep. Can you let me in, please?"

"What are you doing here?" she asked, obviously put out.

"Well, I was supposed to see you last Monday, and you postponed until this Monday. And now, it's this Monday."

There was a brief pause.

"Oh," she replied with customary eloquence, "well, I thought you were going to, like, confirm."

Like, confirm, huh? What is this, like, a doctor's office?

Instead of that biting little remark, I said nothing, determined to be a good boy.

"Well," she said, "it's too cold to go take the baby to Starbucks."

"Um, I know-- I don't care about going anywhere, I can just come up and say 'hi.'"

"Oh, yeah, sure, we'll come let you in."

And so began what was one of the more traditionally awkward twenty-six minutes of my life: meeting with my sister, on her turf. Where my mother and eldest sister are not around to conduct air puff residue tests on all of the baby's toys and sanitize his every corner. This apartment is not the happy medium I hope for my nephew. He toddles and doddles around the living room happily, putting discarded Starbucks coffee cups into his mouth that have been lying around on the floor, he gleefully chases a yellow, plastic ball that goes careening towards the vast tangle of wires and cords connected to her modem. There is shit. Everywhere. And she puts on some sort of digitized bastardization of Mickey Mouse that he pays attention to for sixteen seconds, and then wanders off in search of other stimulation-- I don't know, like, where it's supposed to come from.

And neither does he.

And neither does she.

Maybe he'll pick up some wisdom from the pithy quote on the side of the Starbucks cup, if they're still doing that-- but I doubt it. He is, after all, fourteen months old.

I'm tired of doing things I don't want to do. I just want to take my nephew away, to a diner somewhere, for bacon, eggs, and well-done hashbrowns-- like my father did with me-- once the kid's old enough.

mnkjdrweoi-00000---7777dfkjnd3

Hey, sorry for that weird text you just got from me that just contained random letters, symbols, and numbers.

Or that pocket-call where you got to hear my car's turn-signal clicking for three uninterrupted minutes while I chatted inanely with my wife and/or practiced singing the Lord Chancellor's "Nightmare Song."

See, I got this great phone-- well, actually, it's not that great. It's a Motorola Q and, with its auxiliary battery, it weighs approximately seven pounds-- BUT, it has a full QWERTY keyboard, which I've been pining after for a while. Pining so loudly and incessantly, as I learned to do as the youngest of three children, that my father, in order to shut me the fuck up, gave me his old phone-- the size of a small aircraft carrier.

I've nicknamed it "The U.S.S. George Washington."

Anyway, it doesn't exactly have a QWERTY keyboard. It more has a WERTY keyboard. The Q key and, hence, the exclamation mark, is a little fussy. So fussy, in fact, that you almost have to stand on it with both feet in order to make a Q or a q or a ! appear in a text message. If you get a text from me with a Q, you know I've worked very hard to give it to you, so be appropriately grateful.

Because this thing is more gargantuan than any of the other seventeen cellular telephones I've owned since my first one in 2002, I have no case large enough to carry the fucking thing, and having it in my pocket is a little like walking around with a small safe. So I went to Radio Shack, because nobody else does anymore, and they sold me a vinyl (Volkswagen used to call it "Leatherette") case for the phone to wear on my hip, which exacerbates the asymmetry of my body. The phone barely fits in this enormous holstery thing and, unfortunately, whenever I walk, or sit, or stand, or drive, the phone makes bleep blop bloop noises and I know it's sending incoherent text messages to my friends, enemies and Pol Pot's step-niece, Eunice.

I don't know how to lock the keyboard, so this is going to keep happening, I suspect, until I'm eligible for a legitimate upgrade, in March.

So, until then, enjoy hearing from me on an increased basis, even if it just amounts to a load of horseshit, even more smelly and indecipherable than usual.

34u84y8fdsFFFFf (notice the distinct lack of Q, q, and !)

Pardon Me, But There's a Condom on Your Antenna

For all the declamations and declarations about the crassness and crudeness of modern society (maybe some people are actually reading this blog after all...), I think we're still pretty civilized and polite, as a general rule. Sure, when we're online, hidden behind our clever screennames and our cutesy avatars, we let our collective hair down perhaps a wee bit too much, but, when we've got to face each other one-on-one, I think we're basically all over our P's & Q's, because, when you get down to it, most of us who have lived this long were raised by good mommies and daddies.

And it shows, you little punim, you.

Now, those of you who know me in real life know that this whole Mr. Apron thing is a a pretty shrewd facade. Well, of course, there are some facets of Mr. Apron that I share-- the petulent love of a good obscenity, especially a trusty old pornographic portmanteau-- like "vomcock," the shameless self-deprecations, the, um, limestone-solid vocabulary. The, uh... big...... nose.

You can see it from there, can't you? Don't lie. I don't care.

However, while my mouth may be as big as a toiletbowl on this toilet bowl brush of a blog, in real life it is about as pert and petite as a Lego lady's purse. It takes months of knowing you before I can crack a joke, it takes me a long time to warm up, getting comfortable is very difficult for me, and speaking my mind is almost an impossibility because I am far too busy predicting and inventing and obsessing over all of the ways you are going to judge me.

I'm, you know.... shy.

Guys feel silly calling themselves shy. Shy is for girls. It's for gays. It's for, I don't know... ponies? Puppies? "Oh, she's shy," a middle-aged woman says to a 5-year-old girl after a white poodle shrinks from her proffered hand. 30-year-old men aren't shy. Unless they're really poodles.

But, here I am: shy. As my mother and I are fond of saying: it is what it is.

I started a new job at the end of August, and I've moved from children to psychiatric patients in one fell swoop, which admittedly was a big transition, but I think perhaps an even bigger transition was going from having one coworker, who was also my boss, to having forty-or-so coworkers in a given shift-- and at least four of them at any given time, are my boss(es)/supervisor(s). So, the first month of my employment, I was constantly introducing/being forced to introduce myself to people, sometimes more than once, you know, because nobody remembers a shy poodle the first time they meet her. Introductions for me are painful, because I can smell people sizing me up, and I can smell their judgments. And they can, I'm sure, smell my fear, emanating from my impossibly large pores. I am petrified of saying the wrong thing, or getting tongue-tied, or looking at someone's breasts, or having a booger dangling or an eye twitch or sneezing in someone's face or saying something inappropriate, or racist, or patently inaccurate, like, "Hey, did you know that the world is flat-- just like Pam Anderson's chest?"

For the first little bit of time that I know you, I am painfully, awkwardly, incomparably shy, and careful not to offend, or single myself out, or draw attention to myself with some sort of bizarre comment or statement-- unlike the ones I make here, um, every day. So, imagine my consternation when, in the employee parking lot on Friday, I observed a condom, filled with I don't know what, attached to the antenna of Bob, the maintenance man's, Chevrolet Equinox.

"Oh my God," I said, looking around for, you know, somebody else to see it so they would have to go tell Bob that there was a moog-filled condom tied to his car antenna. Only, there wasn't anybody else around which, of course, meant that I was going to have to go do it myself.

Now, Bob is an older man, maybe in his mid-sixties. He wears hearing aids. Immediately, I started obsessing.

"What am I going to say? He's going to think I'm nuts. Worse-- he's going to think I put it there as some kind of sick practical joke. What if he doesn't hear me right? What if he hears, 'Bob, I've got a condom for your Aunt Fanny.' and he punches me in the face?"

Well, I found Bob cleaning up the activity room on the Acute Unit. I took a deep breath and walked up to him, as calmly as I could. He was mopping the floor, and I tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to face me and I wrinkled up my brow and scrunched up my eyebrows as if I was about to give him news of a freshly deceased kin.

"Um, Bob-- you drive a Chevy Equinox, right?"

"Yes," he said, craning his neck so he could hear the punchline better.

"Well, there's, um, what I believe is a... a... condom, um, filled with-- uh, anyway, it's, it's actually tied to your, um, your antenna."

Pause. I waited for him to hit me in the face. Instead he looked thoughtful for a moment until he replied,

"Humpf. That's the second one this week. Thanks, fella."

Well, Sour Some Pickles and Elect Some Dickholes, It's... DEAR APRON!

In celebration of democracy, in celebration of demockracy, in celebration of tea parties and Halloween parties and political parties, and dress-up-your-dog-like-a-fairy parties, and dress-your-fairy-up-like-a-dog parties, let's put the party firmly in our pants, where it goddamn well belongs, and shake it till we break it with another incest-friendly edition of...

DEAR APRON:

A male cousin sent me an invitation to his wedding. I have met his fiancee a few times at family reunions and weddings, and she seems very sweet. The problem is my cousin sexually abused me for many years when I was younger. I have no desire to attend his wedding.

Am I obligated to send a card or a gift? I don't want his fiancee to think I don't like her, but it makes me sick to think of celebrating his marriage after what he did. What do I say when other family members ask why I'm not going? Am I obligated to tell her what he did? -- NEEDS TO KNOW IN TEXAS

DEAR NEEDS TO KNOW:

Well, I have to say: big time props for you. This is the first wedding etiquette letter I've ever answered that is even remotely interesting.

I mean, usually they're banal and insipid whinings about how Aunt Frieda doesn't get along with my second nephew twice removed by cystectomy, but we've already made the seating chart and Aunt Flo's dripping all over the damask tablecloths and the officiant never told us how much he charges and we need a Gluten free alternative for Cousin Bethesda because she has several of those made-up diseases.

Thank you for writing a letter with some actual balls. Oh, I'm sorry-- is it not right to say the word "balls" to someone who was molested by his male cousin? You should just send him a giftcard to Target.

DEAR APRON:

I could never figure out why "Margaret," my wife of 20 years, married me. After our wedding she tried to give me an image makeover. She'd buy me clothes I left hanging in the closet. She'd contradict and correct me in public. In general, she'd find fault with almost everything I did. She put me down often, and if I reacted, she would either claim it wasn't what she meant to say or tell me, "You do it, too." I finally gave up and left her.

Margaret has an excellent reputation, so people try to pry into why I left her. When I tell them I won't bad-mouth her, they tell me she says plenty about me. My response is, "Then you know all there is to know, don't you?"

Two women close to my age, plus one college-age girl, are trying to pursue me. I'm afraid if I don't leave this area, Margaret will allege that I left her for one of them.

Your thoughts, please. -- KEEPING MUM IN CLEVELAND

DEAR KEEPING MUM:

My thoughts? Why, I'm so glad you asked.

My thoughts right now are centering around a foursome, obviously. And, co-starring a smooth, nubile, chestnut-haired, firm-breasted college-age girl, combined with some sexually educated and assuredly voracious middle-aged women-- it would most likely be a foursome that would require some significant quantities of Saran Wrap, a deck of playing cards, two-and-half quarts of Nutella, and several feet of bungee cord.

Oh, and Margaret's a fucked cunt. Next?

DEAR APRON:

My husband and I have been together for two years, and he still doesn't know my mother's last name (it's different from my maiden name), nor does he know the names of all of my siblings. He doesn't think it's a big deal. What is your opinion?
-- NAME GAME IN KNOXVILLE, TENN.

DEAR NAME GAME:

I'm sorry-- he doesn't remember the names of your mother and your siblings, or he doesn't know them?

If he doesn't remember them, then I think he needs a battery of psychiatric tests to rule out early-onset dementia.

If he doesn't know them, then you should tell him what their names are and stop concealing information from him, you fucked cunt.

Your name wouldn't happen to be "Margaret," would it?

DEAR APRON:

My husband, "Lance," is making a career change and has been offered a great opportunity. He is very excited about it. Because his experience in this new field is minimal, Lance asked for letters of recommendation from some professionals who are familiar with his work. He was hoping the letters would provide insight into his abilities that his resume lacks at this early stage.

The problem? All three of the letters he has received contain glaring mistakes. They are all from college professors and on letterhead stationery. While they do offer glowing recommendations, one letter omitted an important word in a sentence, another misused a common word, and the third refers to Lance as "Ms."

I told Lance the letters do not reflect negatively on him because he didn't write them. But he thinks they will give the impression he associates with sub-par representatives of the field. He refuses to ask for new letters because he doesn't want to offend the writers by pointing out the errors. Should Lance use these letters? -- STUMPED IN TALLAHASSEE

DEER STUMPT:

Im sorry tht Vince is havin suck a tuf time wit this rekomendashin shit.. i here hes a lazee fag, so u shud just be happe that thes pepl are wiling to lye abowt him and say hes a gud wrker and doesnt snif sharpies in the suplie closit.