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I just threw a booger at my wall, but that’s not related. 

I rode to the river the other day to do river things with my rva river crew.    While I crossed the little creek that takes you to 42nd street island, I encountered a guy that wasn’t as destitute as a bum, but definately operated in that spectrum of income where you pay no taxes.  No, I’m not talking about a CEO or a lawyer, I’m talking about the broke kind of person that doesn’t pay taxes.

He wasn’t really crazy whatsoever. Mostly friendly.   After a legitmate path-crossing “hello”, he engauged me in a conversation which clearly pertained to his jingling tokens of livelihood.    It was as if he’d been waiting all day to find somebody that was rational, yet approachable enough where he could voice a complaint that would be understood–and somehow travel up through the ranks in the invisble caste system that we all operate within to some great decision-making mechanism that could make a difference.

“Man, do you know that aluminum recycling has gone down to 50 cents a pound?”

I have to say that sucks… I’m legitmately empthatic on the matter, so I respond to this reasonable man, with a reasonable complaint that has no forum to share his grievences. 

“Man, that sucks, are you kidding me?”

“No, man it used to be a dollar fifty?”

“Jeez man, that’s nuts, that’s hardly worth your time.”   Thats right, I just reaffirmed a guy who is digging beer cans out of the trash, that his efforts are no longer with his time.

“That’s just soda money.  I can’t do anything with that.”

Duh.

I probably could have told him that the real money is in recycling brake rotors from the trash bins of automtive shops and stealing the copper wiring from condemened houses, but I didn’t want to give away all my secrets.   I kind of politely cut him off and wished him a good day.   He was gracious and moved on.  He knew I heard him out.

It is reasonable to say that this exchange did make a bit of an impact on me.   Lately I’ve been catching those little things that point towards our great economic downturn.   My bean burritos cost 40 cents more at the market.    I get fewer free drinks at my regular watering holes, and I don’t need to talk about the fact that I put $60 worth of gas into my little asian car last Monday.   None of that is terrible, but when the bums are complaining, then clearly we have a big problem.

Its fair to say the warning signs were there. I was unlocking my bike preparing to leave table 9 when I looked across the street and saw a dude on a bike with a serious headlight. 

This thing was like a mag light mounted to the handlebars. What a square. He was sitting at the redlight waiting to change. Square. He rolled past me on his crossover bike traveling at a mild speed, but spinning away at a high cadence with an easy gear. Square.

His taillight was wide. It didn’t just flash, it was animated, the lights flowed inward to help you focus on his seatpost instead of the road.

I decided to give him some room and run a bit ahead of me, because I didn’t want to touch his forcefield of saftey.

Unfortunately this guy was killing me. He was going slow, stopping at every stop sign, and eventually I couldn’t take it. So I got WAY over to the left and blew past him. I kind of snickered as I got around him.

From beneath the clouds a stern, lame middle-aged voice addressed me from behind. “Call it, Cyclist *pause* On YOUR Left.” Seldom do I ever receive a direct address, and certainly not as “Cyclist” I ride my bike a lot, but i’m no stinking Cyclist. Clowns like this guy are a Cyclist.

The only response I could think of was “fuck you”, but I recognized he had good intentions and decided to remain silent. That wasn’t enough for him either. He decided to provide me with a real-life example.

In the same stern, lame middle-aged tone he declares “On Your Left” Then he rode past me, stopped at the stop sign, hand signaled right, and rode away.

As I’ve been reflecting on this, I realize I’ve seen him before. I was walking past the market when he gave a kid a rash of shit for riding is bike in the oncoming lane (where the Cyclist was safely traveling) because there was a truck parked in the middle of the intersection. This guy shouldn’t be imposing such life lessons on people. He’s way too safe.

His children probably wear lifevests in the swimming pool. He probably had a vasectomy and still bangs his wife with a rubber. He’s probably the hypermiler you see on the freeway in a 95 civic driving at 55mph with his flashers on so that he can get 70mpg. He’s probably a lot of other things too, but mostly, he’s my neighborhood saftey nazi and I just don’t like him.

Guy on VCU Campus screaming “Thats my Bike! That’s my Bike!” – 27 (VCU–Franklin)
Reply to: pers-731292953@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-06-24, 5:00PM EDT

Bikeless Dude Suffering From Bursts of Hysteria,

If you were screaming at me, the guy on a rusty colored Raleigh, lets just say that Debo said it best: “It’s my bike, punk!”

In reality, it never was your bike. Perhaps you never had a bike and were just confused. Regardless I bought it from the dude that bought it new like 20 years ago, so it’s not your bike.

I hope that you get a chance to do some soul searching and truly ‘find your bike.’

Best of luck,

Dude with ‘your’ bike.

When I was 19, I worked at the Moneytree.   It was not made of wood nor covered in bills of any sort.  It was partly concrete and mostly dirty.  The only biomass that grew on the Moneytree was the mold that was cultivated in the stockroom.     

We bought, sold, and traded music, books, games, comic books, and dirty magazines.   It fell under the pawn shop ordinances.   I had to fill out a police report for everything we purchased.  Basically it was a list of how much we actually screwed people by giving them 50 cents to a dollar for the cd’s they stole from KMart or their ex’s.  There was this one guy that came in all the time.. He had the best stuff–and I *knew* it came off the truck before it made it into the store.   I started to subtly put in requests.  “Oh man, I wish you had zelda.”    Next week…. 3 copies of zelda.     He hinted that he could “get me” a sweet leather jacket, but I never capitalized.

So yes, we certrainly bought stuff from people, but trading is what we really did– and to the Moneytree’s credit, we had the best exchange policy EVER.   7 days…Bring it back as many times as you want and trade whatever for something of equal value.  The reason didn’t matter.  You could just hate the music, beat the game, or read the book.   We had your money– so swap it out.

We were located across from a cheap motel and a pool hall.   Some guy seriously picked up and dropped off about 30 migrant workers everyday in a blue school bus.   Given the nature of the area, we saw our share of characters, but nothing prepared me for the most mysterious being I’ve ever encountered.

I allocated a lot of my workday towards watching the passing fox body mustangs and f-150s through the window.    We had ourself some fords in Owensboro.  For the record, I’m a Chevy man.

One such day, I saw somebody appear on the opposite street corner.   He was just there, then as traffic dissapated he jay walked towards our store.

How do you really describe the indescribable?   I don’t think you can, but I’m going to try.  I don’t have a photographic memmory, but this image is chiseled into both hemispheres of my brain.  If you can figure out a way to view the contents of my brain, you’re more than welcome to look.

He was a large man.  Not hulking, but a large man.  Maybe a spaceman, but wearing a plaid shirt tucked into some dickie’s grade khaki pants.   His shoes were big and black.  I had an amazing view of the profile of these massive shoes because walked like a penguin, with his feet more outward than Charlie Chaplain could ever achieve.

As he neared, he became even larger.    More of his features were revealed–not that he had many.  He was that amazing.

He was sort of shaped like this:  

8

An eight,  two eggs, or perhaps a small potato on top of a big potato.   I think potato man might be the best description.

Anyway, the potato man had no neck.  Zero neck.  He just had this big pumpkin like head on top of a potato body.   The only thing lacking was was interchangable facial features and big blue shoes.

He did have one add-on.  Perched ontop of his fleshy pumpkinpotato-head was a massive pair of glasses that were similar to BCG’s (Basic Combat Glasses/Birth Control Glasses)

He was about to enter the door.  I heald my breath and waited in bewilderment.     He was slow, but steady like a tractor.   I greated him.  As he began to extract the contents of a tiny paper bag, he spoke–slow, but steadily in this amazing voice that was like a slow southern sober WC Fields.

“Hoooow yall doooooin toodaay.   Gooood to seee yoouu aaagaiinn.”

I had never seen this man in my life.

He placed two cassettes onto the counter with a receipt and walked towards the country section.  Clearly, he wanted to trade.  Country seemed like a natural selection.  Slow, simple, happy.

After about 5 minutes of mulling through Hank Jr. and Waylon Jennings, he returned with his new selection.   I checked the date on the receipt, made a notation, and thanked him for coming.

He slowly bid me farewell, walked out the door, went to the adjacent street corner and vanished into thin air just as he had appeared.

I was amazed.   Was this guy forreal?  Or was it a trick, because he knew his receipt was at least 3 years old and my mind would be so blown that there would be NO WAY I could possibly confront him about it.

You can’t even entertain the possibility of not letting that man trade country music casettes.   If he gave me label from a soup can I’d still let him trade— as much as he wants.

He did come in again a few months later with some country casettes and another 3 year old receipt.

During a massive storm of social fallouts during one summer during one of the times I was in college, I decided to join the circus.  Okay, I didn’t exactly join the circus, but I decide to become a carni-folk and work at Cedar Point,  on the razor’s edge of this flat earth, nothern Ohio.

I’m not going to touch on the fact that I shared a 14 bunk co-ed apartment with 13 of the most retraded peopled I’ve ever met, or that I had already worked my way up to the squirt gun games with a microphone by week two.

This is about the shitty cold rainy weather, the14 hour shifts, the horrible food, and the nasty cold-stomach-illness-missing-voice combo I had when I attempted to gain the attention of Nef.

Everybody was proud of Nef.  Nef was proud of Nef.  He did it.  He had done it.  He was in it to win it.  He started spending his summers working at the Cedar Point games department when he was in high school.    Now he was going to the University of Michigan in the Fall and Spring, and was head of the Cedar Point Games department in the Summer.     He was an icon of what a carni, or in this case, Pointee is all about… the novelty business.   

On one dismal, voiceless day, my digestive track was stuck on the On position after a brief, but rigid diet of yogurt and themepark hamburgers.   I had to go.  Nobody was in the minibasketball booth to cover me, but I had to go… pronto.   I yelled at Nef to come relieve me.   Unforunately it wasn’t a yell.  I couldn’t.. My voice was shot.   I waved my arms to get his attention.   However Nef coudln’t see me from above his counter.   

No more playing games.  The clock was ticking…. I discretely hid my money bag behind something in the booth and jumped over the edge.   This certainly got Nef’s attention.  He waddled towards me at a furious pace.

Nef looked up at me and began yelling.  “What the hell are you doing?  Get back in your booth!”  I tried to explain the series of causes and effects that led me out of the booth without his prior notification, or me implementing coverage, and most of all, how I was about to blow a hole throw my Cedar Point rainsuit.

These reasonable facts were considered ludicris by Nef.  His rebutal was brief, yet profound.  “Would you rather lose your job?!”

I looked down at him and refuted, “Than shit my pants?!.. Yes!”

Nef finally relieved me for a few minutes to deal with my situation.  He also never took any displinary action towards my outrageous behavior.   Luckily, I had enough sense to quit a few days later.    I just wasn’t cut out for the theme park industry.

P.S.   Fuck you, Nef.

I went to 3 monkeys and ordered a chicken sandwich.   It was pretty good… It had cheese, bacon, and some pesto goopy green shit dripping from it that really gave it some character.   I started flying through the thing. I needed a chicken sandwich like I needed to pay my rent on the 11th.

I made it about halfway and decided to take a break so I could drink some water and take in the scenery.  Then I noticed something odd my about my sandwich.  It was served on two top buns.   I was in denial at first because it seemed so silly.  A restaraunt doesn’t have money to throw around on frivelous details like using half of 2 entire buns for one sandwich.     So I tried to explain it to myself.  My fisrt thought was “No you dummy, its not a bun.  Its a roll.. You know one of those kaiser roll things.”   I believed it for a minute until I started thing about bread law.  

Bread Law 1:  All Bread starts as dough
Bread Law 2:  All Bread dough is goopy
Bread Law 3:  Goopy bread dough must sit on top of something while grows into adult bread.
Bread Law 4:  Despite many opportunities for arcs, bread will have at least one flat side.

Damn.   This really put a damper on things, but then I began to wonder.  What if I’m some asshole millionaire and I don’t want a loaf of bread. What if I want a sphere of bread?   My first though was, What if I hang the dough from a string and bake it.    Well mostl likely this will fail due to dripping, whose root comes from Bread Law 2.   If you manage to get a tight enough dough it would be somewhat possilble, but you’d probably end up with a pear shaped bread due to Newton and his gravity.       So my only hope for a sphere of bread is if Sir Richard Branson decides to start Virgin Space Bakery, and launches a series of GE Breadmachines into orbit.    That of course will be expensive, and you will have to be an asshole million air to afford it.  It will create a new novelty for those that get really into exclusivity.    Spherical bread parties will be reserved for the elite until the monumental day when Heff decides to throw one.

Naturally after working through all of that in my head, I finished my sandwich.    Then I looked up and realized I was centered between 2 identical tv’s playing one of those 30 minute informercials about a push broom with a 90 degree handle.  Amazing.

And all of this is clearly a sign….for something, but what does it mean?

Dear Unknown Chick that Lives In my Apartment Building,

I went to the basement to put my clothes in the washer. You had your empty basket staged in front of the dryer. I had a vibe that those clothes had finished drying long ago. That didn’t matter yet.. I still had to wash my clothes.

I waited 30 minutes or so for my clothes to wash then I went back downstairs. I already knew that when I returned your laundry would still be sitting there in the dryer–continuing to wait for you to pick them up at your convenience. 

It’s a Saturday afternoon, so I’m sure you decided to run to Target real quick and buy some silverware with some colorful plastic handles and a new picture frame to show off a picture of you and your girls throwing gang signs at Buddy’s from an awesome Friday night. Maybe not. You could have gotten drunk in your apartment watching your Season 2 Sex in the CIty DVDs and just forgot. I just don’t know.

Now since this is an apartment building with 4 washers and 1 dryer, a different social code applies than what would be observed at a laundry mat. I have no no qualms waiting an acceptable period of time… I did.. so did your laundry, but I have an agenda too and it requires that my clothes be dry before I get much further down it.

Your dry laundry went past the acceptable window, and I dumped it all in your laundry basket that was strategically placed in front of the dryer. Thank you for letting me know where to put your dry clothes. I think you probably should have left two baskets because it was overflowing. I was nice enough to put that heaping basket of chick laundry on the broken dryer nearby.

Obviously you came downstairs and got your panties in a wad (the dirty ones you’re wearing, not the ones in the basket) because some dude touched your ‘goin out shirts’ and your clean underwear. You probably screamed “What the fuck!,” and then without hesitation opened my running dryer door so that I would lose 4 quarters worth of dryer activity and have a shitty wet pile of clothes to complement my loss.

So… despite the fact that breached the code of idle dryer time, you naturally declared me in the wrong and tired to punish me. So let me just let you know something:

Some of your socks fell into the trash can, and I had to dig them out and put them back in your basket.

Sincerely,

Rational Male with Wet Laundry.

Natually I had to put that here

http://richmond.craigslist.org/mis/552601029.html