If you ever want to bring the house down on karaoke night, all you need is a rocking tune, an energetic performance and a hairy dude in a poodle skirt. Trust me, it works.

It was Halloween night in 2004 and a bunch of us ducked out of a party and headed to a bar on the corner to grab a few beers and show off our costumes. I can’t recall what all of us wearing, but I’m sure that our friend Camo made a dashing woman, complete with a pink poodle skirt, blonde wig and a low cut shirt that revealed chest hair whose equal could only be found on Burt Reynolds.

So there we were, all dressed up and drinking beers in the back of a dive bar. The seven of us were the only ones in the place wearing costumes, which meant there we were plenty of sideways looks as we walked into the place.

Now karaoke is rarely a good idea, but for some reason after a few pitchers of Livonia Lite, those bad ideas start seeming like genius. So of course, impaired judgment somehow managed to get us to put our names in, settle our tabs and head up on stage.

As the opening riffs of The Darkness’ I Believe in a Thing Called Love came blasting out of the speakers, a hundred poker-faced trashers just stared back at us. Matt was on lead, jumping up on tables, singing his lungs out while Jeff, Do and I did our best on backing vocals and Camo danced his ass off. It wasn’t long before the crowd was into it, singing and clapping along.

And just as quickly as it began, the song ended and we stood there in silence, staring back at the crowd. That’s when Do grabbed the mic and said “Thank you! You’ve been a great audience! Good night!” raised the mic over his head and dropped it and walked out the door. The rest of us had no idea what to do, so we followed him. The few friends we’d left standing there watching us perform said the house came down. People were cheering and clapping and a waitress even suggested hiring us to entertain on the weekends.

We’ve followed the performance up a couple times. Do has done it best, rocking a strange neighborhood bar in Chicago one night after a Cubs-Tigers game, playing air guitar with the mic stand and gyrating behind an unsuspecting girl who was headed across the bar in front of him. Suffice it to say, I Believe in a Thing Called Love has become a bit of a tradition amongst the L-Town crew. One I hope doesn’t end any time soon.

Years ago (and seeming another life) ago, I lived in Oklahoma. Fresh out of college, it was the best job I could find.

So I’m down there one night covering a town council meeting in the heart of the Little Dixie section of Oklahoma, a village whose sole claim to fame is that it was the site of the last surrender by Confederate forces at the end of the Civil War. Of course, they prefer to phrase it as the site of “the last Confederate holdouts in the war of Northern agression,” but I digress.

So I’m there, covering this meeting, during which the dirt-covered, overall-wearing head of the public works department lobbied to buy a new oil pump for the “village truck,” and the clerk had to stop several times while reviewing the previous months’ minutes because she couldn’t read her own handwriting out of the official village spiral notebook. So really, for small town Oklahoma, nothing out of the ordinary happened. Of course, I hadn’t yet talked to the mayor, and I had no idea that I was in for down home, ignorant, but at the same time warm welcome to the area.

So after standing there chatting with the guy for a little while, I hand him my business card. He takes one look at it and says “Rusty Shackleford, well that’s a polack name,” I just stand there for a second, not sure of what to say and he continues. “Where are you from, you don’t talk like us.”

“Detroit,” I reply.

“Dee-troit?” he asked. “Well shit, I used to work in a Packard plant during the war. I lived in Hamtramck, that’s how I knew you was a polack.”

Well, it’s hard to argue with that kind of logic.

I’ve got some rednecks in my family and those rednecks have even bigger rednecks for friends.

Several years ago, Little Brother, Cousin Andy and their friend the Hippie went to visit Cousin Andy’s family on Walton’s Mountain. Many members of my family were there, including my parents and other assorted aunts and cousins for the annual fall festival. It was a whole big thing and Little Brother, Cousin Andy and the Hippie decided to go along and raise some Hell.

They spent the better part of the weekend hanging with Cousin Andy’s brother, Cousin Skippy and their friend McV doing redneck things like taking a smashed up Ford Bronco with the top cut off (they had rolled it months before, so why the hell not?) two-tracking over the mountain. They drank a lot of beer and all came back to the D saying “Git ‘er done.” It was a very dark time in my family.

Anyway, after a particularly long night of drinking and carousing, the five got up early, drank some beers and went looking for trouble. Their great idea — well mostly McV and Cousin Skippy’s idea — was to get some guns and head out into the country to shoot some stuff. It was a well thought out plan which basically consisted of McV shouting at them, “Get the beer, get the guns and get your asses in the truck.”

Little Brother, Cousin Andy and the Hippie were a little concerned; apparently they hadn’t drank enough yet, so this didn’t sound like the greatest idea. In Detroit, this kind of plan usually involves shooting a gat out of the passenger window of an Impala and then pouring out some King Cobra for your dead homies, so it wasn’t the way they were used to spending their Saturday afternoon. But in spite of their better judgment, they all hopped in the truck and away they went.

The quickest way to get where ever it was that they were going was to head through downtown, right through the heart of the festival. Also, it would give them a chance to check out the action, after all, it’s not every day that the streets of downtown Walton’s Mountain are packed with tourists.

So as they’re rolled through downtown, McV, steering wheel in one hand, can of beer in the other, saw a pretty girl walking by and decided to lean across Little Brother (who was riding shotgun) and yell at her while honking the horn. Lost in all this leering was the fact that a police officer was directing traffic, standing in the middle of the upcoming intersection.

McV, more concerned with the pretty blonde walking by, rolled right through that intersection and damn near hit the cop, swerving just in time.

Little Brother said he wasn’t sure if it was the beer, the loaded guns or whatever else any of them may or may not have been carrying, but McV did what you’d expect a young man who had just nearly hit a cop while doing about 15 other illegal things would do; he ran.

Now this wasn’t any kind of O.J.-style police chase through the bustling streets of Walton’s Mountain, McV ran just long enough to toss the beer can into the bed of his truck and instruct the Hippie sit on top of the loaded rifle and Cousin Andy hold the .45. Once he’d hidden the evidence under two terrified out-of-towners, McV pulled the truck over.

So Little Brother was now in full freak out mode, convinced that he was going to pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

The cops, because they weren’t total morons, were on to them immediately. The guys reeked of beer and were sweating like R. Kelly at a Girl Scout meeting — it was obvious that they were up to something. One of the officers ran their IDs while the other had to listen to a very convincing story about how they they definitely hadn’t been drinking that morning and that the reek of booze and the hundred empty beer cans in the bed of the truck were from the night before.

Little Brother had a lot to think about in those few minutes. Would our parents walk by and see them? Would the cops search the car? He said that he was absolutely convinced that he was going to end up in jail that day, but all’s well that ends well, because for some reason the officers let them go.

Little Brother isn’t exactly sure what happened — maybe they got another call or maybe they just didn’t feel like doing all the paper work involved in booking a bunch of out-of-towners — whatever the case, they were let off with a very stern warning.

As they climbed back into vehicle, the officer handed them their IDs and said to McV “If I see you driving through town again today I will stop you and you will go to jail.” There was no need for a warning, Little Brother said, there was no way in Hell they were coming back to downtown Walton’s Mountain any time soon.

In fairness, I should have known better than to let a trainee lead a class on his first site, but he said he was ready.

The trainee, not so affectionately known as Eggs (a play on his last name) was a large man from the upper peninsula who looked like he walked right out of the Hiawatha National Forest and into a newsroom.

He wore a plaid shirt (as close as you can get to flannel without it actually being something Paul Bunyan would have worn) tucked in to the elastic waistband of his black dress pants. He completed the outfit with white sneakers and gym socks. Journalists and IT guys are notoriously poor dressers, so he fit right in amongst the newsroom- and systems-types.

Eggs was a memorable character, often more cartoon than human. He brought a snake to his job interview to use during the demonstration portion (we all had to show that we knew how to teach, Eggs taught us how to feed his snake.) Another time he got so blotto during an after work game of flip cup (such things were the norm back then) that he spent the night sleeping it off under his desk. He was a former reporter and college rugby player. When I picked him up to leave for the site he had three suitcases and an oscillating fan.

So there we are, the lumberjack and I, standing in front of a very skeptical audience of disgruntled journalists from the stabbiest town in Ohio, trying to convince them that the new way of doing things is better. In case you’re wondering, for these folks, even if the new way actually is better, IT’S NEVER BETTER, but I digress.

At this point we’d been through a few of these classes and Eggs was itching to get his feet wet. When he asked if he could teach the next class I told him sure, as long as he was prepared. This meant making sure he had an outline and some sample stories to demonstrate how the system worked for the users. Usually I just grab a story from the AP as an example to show the users how to spell check, etc. Eggs said he had a file to use, so I turned the class over to him. Because the class was large, he had his desktop projected up on a very large screen.

Eggs was cruising through, not doing a bad job for his first time, when it came time to show the class how to use the spell check.

“So you go up here to the Edit menu and choose ‘Check Spelling,’” he said.

And as soon as he clicked on the spell check, highlighted in blue a few sentences in, was the f-bomb.

To his credit, Eggs was quick on his feet. “Oops. Let’s try again,” he said as he clicked on the button to skip that word and move on to the next. Sadly, it only got worse from there, as the next word was a word even more vile. If you’re wondering, it started with a C.

Still don’t get it? I’ll tell you when I SEE YOU NEXT TUESDAY.

So there I was, standing off to the side of the room watching this train wreck, not knowing what word would come up next if he tried to continue to use the spell check. There’s no way it could have gotten worse, right? Honestly, I was afraid of the answer to that question.

So I started to address the class, making as big a spectacle of myself as possible. I was moving around, talking very loudly and gesturing wildly with my hands. I was doing anything to distract them from the Andrew Dice Clay routine of a sample story that Eggs had put up on the projector.

As I spoke, he worked the file down to a place that had a words that wouldn’t turn your grandmother to stone and I turned the class back over to him. Everything else was fine from there on out, but you’d better believe I let him have it once the users had left the room.

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

“I’m really sorry,” he replied. “That was some of my fiction, I guess I didn’t realize it had that kind of language in it.”

“Are you kidding me?” I shouted. “How is it that you wrote something, but didn’t know that it had swear words in it?”

He didn’t have an answer and shockingly, for a completely different reason, he didn’t last much longer at our company after that.

Lesson learned. When in Tennessee, don’t insist that bourbon is better than whiskey (even if it’s blended Canadian garbage.)

I spent a long weekend in Memphis, purposely driving around shady neighborhoods looking for cool sites. I had no idea that the most exciting — and potentially most dangerous — event would happen at the hotel bar.

There I was, Friday night at the Holiday Inn bar, glass of Maker’s in my hand, hanging out with some fellow weary business travelers, when one of the guys at the bar asks for some Crown Royal.

“Sorry,” the bartender says, “we’re all out. How about some Maker’s Mark?”

Now at this point you should know that the five or six of us at the bar, this guy included, had spent the hour leading up to this talking sports and making a lot of jokes about each others’ choice in fandom. This guy in particular was a Tennessee fan.

So I say “He’s doing you a favor by being out of Crown Royal, Maker’s is way better.”

“Fuck that, I want some real whiskey,” the guy says.

Everybody is laughing, I think the guy and I are still joking, so I say “C’mon, man up and have a big boy drink.”

Maybe the steroids finally kicked in (this guy was a total juicehead) or maybe he just really, really, really loved his home state of Tennessee, because at that point the guy gets up, gets in my face and says “Fuck you. I’m not drinking any of that Kentucky piss water. I want some Tennessee whiskey.”

Now at that point I had a choice: I could politely remind him that Crown Royal is in fact a Canadian whiskey, distilled on the shores of Lake Winnipeg, at which point he might have given me the kind of handshake that made Canadian Club’s hometown famous; or I could apologize and buy the guy a beer.

Deciding that I wasn’t really ready to die, especially not on the worn, floral print carpet of a Holiday Inn bar, I chose the latter option. Just like that, all was right with the world as if this guy hadn’t nearly torn out my throat just minutes before.

I spend entirely too much time on Reddit.
If you’re not familiar, it’s essentially a news aggregate site a la Fark or Digg but with a much bigger sense of community.

Among the many great things people on the site have done is an annual secret santa gift exchange. I thought it sounded like a fun idea, so this year I jumped in.

Part of the thrill is sneaking around the Internet finding out about your giftee. You can go through their history on Reddit, do a quick Google search or hunt them down on Facebook. I did all of those plus, so when I ordered his gifts and they didn’t get to me by the time I was supposed to ship them out, you can imagine my disappointment. My gift isn’t much, but I was super-psyched to give it to him nonetheless.

My predicament is by no means unique, so people on Reddit suggest that if you can’t send your gift by the deadline, you should look your giftee up and send them a quick email. I didn’t think that was enough, so I wrote my giftee a letter. I also got him a 4gb flash drive and crammed it full of music so he had something besides just a piece of paper with nearly illegible writing on it. The text of the letter follows:

Colin,

Don’t get too bummed out. This isn’t your gift.

Long story short, I ordered your gift the day we were matched and despite assurances from the company that your gift has shipped (and was scheduled to be here days ago) that I haven’t seen your stuff yet.

I know what you’re thinking: “This is fucking horseshoe. What kind of fucking asshole did I get matched up with?”

I totally understand, and truth be told, I am kind of an asshole. Just minutes ago I told a customer that if he had any questions, to say them out loud a few times first. If they sound too stupid, not to call me.

A few years ago I actively cheered on a fight at a Sheetz gas station between a one-legged man on crutches and a guy who looked like the Iron Sheik. The Sheik won by sweeping the leg Karate Kid-style, but only after the one-legged guy landed several blows with his right crutch.

But the fact that I’m an asshole aside, I was really psyched when your name jumped out of the wide wide world of googlyfacespacetubes and shouted at me “Get me something cool you motherfucker!!!”

I put in a lot of work stalking you, finding out that you were an alter boy and that you like to dress up like a bike messenger or possibly some video game character I’ve never heard of. I spent so much time digging around that my wife got suspicious. I had to tell her that I was shopping for her so she’d leave me alone, which reminds me, I’ve got to go to the mall. Shit.

So I know I said long story short earlier, but I’m a writer, so I tend to bloviate. Fucking humor me, all right? I mean, I probably could have gotten away with sending you an orangered saying “Sorry fucker, your shit didn’t get here yet. I’ll package that bitch up and fire it off as soon as it does.” Oh, also you may have noticed, I tend to swear a lot when I’m uncomfortable, sorry if you’re alter boy ears are offended.

So where was I? Oh right, so I ordered your shit that night and got the shipping confirmation the next day. Everything was supposed to arrive between Dec 1-6, but here it is the 6th and I don’t have shit. I’m beginning to think the company shipped it by donkey.

In any case, the second they get here, I’m going to box them up and ship them back out to you.

In the meantime, I’m not sure what kind of music you like, but I know you’re into the DIY culture so I thought maybe you’d appreciate some punk music to keep you entertained for a few days. I hope it’ll suffice until the real gift arrives in a few days. If it doesn’t, well, free thumb drive. Also, my Reddit username is chet_lemon_party, so feel free to downvote all my comments and submissions, I’ll totally understand if you’re pissed.

Fuck New Trier,

joe.

p.s. Sorry I put that your gift shipped even though it didn’t really, I didn’t want you to go all emo thinking I’d forgotten you.

I’m lucky that my giftee has a sense of humor. A few days later, I got an orangered (Reddit translation: a message) from him:

So your letter got here today, and I nearly pissed myself laughing. I’m serious. I want you to think about that for a minute. I was laughing to tears. I fucking love you. The music’s playing right now, and damn right I like it. Also, although I never bring it up with family, I’m pretty atheistic, so no worries about offending me on that front. I can’t wait for the package and god damn if this didn’t make my week. Seriously, THANK YOU. cheesy as it sounds, this is one of the genuine acts of kindness I’ll never forget. -srs

Edit: So one of the two items I ordered for my Reddit Secret Santa giftee is here, but I’m still waiting on the other. Just to make sure my giftee doesn’t think I’ve forgotten about him, I sent him another letter in the mail. See below:

Edit 2: So his gifts finally arrived for my Reddit Secret Santa, hooray! I sent them out this afternoon. I hope he likes them.

We went to the Portland Beer Fest, which was pretty great. The highlight, of course, was my brush with Jimi Hendrix

On the way down there, we were almost accosted by Pete the Ginger, who was standing on a street corner trying to talk to people about green jobs. I told him that I was from Detroit and don’t care about green jobs. I just want my manufacturing jobs back. EG told me I was likely to get stoned for saying that in Portland.

On the way back, we were accosted again, this time by a woman from Children International trying to get us to sponsor poor children overseas. Our conversation went on for nearly 30 minutes with her starting out trying to talk to us about dinosaurs holding laser guns and whatnot. It really made no sense, and it went on forever, until she got to her point that by donating $22 a month would allow a kid to be a kid, thinking about things like who would win in a fight, a monkey with a samurai sword or a raptor with a musket instead of worrying where the next meal was going to come from.

It’s a fair point, but the wrong sales pitch to make to a bunch of people who have neither the means nor the willingness to hand money (or as she suggested, credit card information) to a stranger in a dirty, green t-shirt standing on the corner. The look on EG’s face when the girl looked at her and her boyfriend and said “You could have a baby together!” was priceless. When I told her I don’t make these kind of decisions without talking to my wife first, she replied “You could bring a baby home to your wife.” KS loves it when I bring her souvenirs, but I don’t think a child from Bangladesh is what she has in mind.

The rest of the night was entertaining. Good company, good food. The real entertainment came when I got hungry later at night and headed across the street to Jack in the Box. As I pulled into the drive through I saw two women in skimpy bar clothes, obviously drunk, shouting into the microphone. It seems they wanted to order something but the employees wouldn’t serve people on foot. After a few minutes of them shouting at and pounding on the microphone box, they gave up and started heading toward my car.

While one girl stood there staring at me, kind of wobbling in her high heels, the other knocked on my passenger window.

Can we get in your car?

What? No!

They won’t let us order food if we’re not in car, please, just let us get in.

I don’t even know you.

I’m Heather, now can we get in?

Ummmmm….no, I don’t think so. Your friend looks pretty drunk, I don’t need anyone throwing up in my rental car.

She won’t throw up, I promise!

Yeah…I don’t think so, sorry.

The girl stomped off and tried the car behind me while her friend puked in the bushes. Classy, classy ladies.

That said, this weekend in an unassuming strip mall in Perrysburg, Ohio, I found the worst bar of all time.

The wife and I went there with some friends on Saturday. Before we got there, they told us it was a little sketchy. Seriously though, we thought how sketchy can a bar in a bedroom community like Perrysburg be? We used to hang out at bars that clearly displayed signs asking members of biker gangs not to wear their colors inside. There’s no way this could be anywhere near that, right?

Well, it wasn’t. As a matter of fact, it looked to me like as haphazardly a thrown-together bar as I could ever imagine.

The first thing I noticed was that the whole bar was probably as big as my freshman year dorm room. It was all of 400 square feet, maybe. The proprietor had painted the walls a deep red and hung a few neon signs up, but that was about it for decor. The floors, in fact, were the same gray, concrete slab that were laid when the building was constructed. There was no tile, carpeting or anything else.

None of that really bothered me, though, I mean I’ve hung out in places that were far smaller. Places so dark that you can’t see the floor — and God help you if you did, because judging by the way your feet stuck as you entered, mopping was a foreign concept.

Anyway, we weren’t even across the threshold yet when a young, seemingly high, young bartender shouted — and I mean shouted — “Hello!”

I wasn’t sure, was she asking us our order, was she carding us, I didn’t know, because she didn’t say anything else. She just stared.

Our friend JMT walked up to her and asked if she had any specials. No, the bartender said, but she recommended that we order two Budweisers and two Michelob Ultras. Really? No thanks. JMT ordered a Budweiser for her husband B and a Bud Lite for herself.

So far, besides a bartender who was either drunk or had been smoking a lot of weed just minutes before (or both), this place didn’t seem so sketchy. As a matter of fact, I was kind of impressed with their beer selection — the one listed on their menu, anyway.

As we were looking at it, the perky bartender walked away and another one approached. This guy had a lazy eye and the kind of perpetual smirk you only see on the faces of the mentally handicapped, clowns and child molesters.

Me: I’ll have a Dead Guy Ale.
Retarded bartender What?
Me:shouting over the crappy acoustic music being blasted over the amps in the corner Rogue…Dead Guy Ale.
RB: Is that on the menu? Show me.

So I pointed to where it lists it on the menu. The guy glanced at it and walked over to the cooler. He dug around for a few minutes, stands up and looked at the bottles of beer on the shelf. First just kind of stood back and scratched his chin with his hand like he’s Isaac fucking Newton postulating on the theory of gravity. After a few seconds of that, he stood on his tippy toes, squinted and put his face right up to the different bottles. I guess he didn’t see it up there, because he turned and walked back over to us with that stupid smile on his face.

RB: Sorry, we don’t have it.
Me: Fine, I’ll have a Boddington’s.
RB: Do we have that?
Me: Ummmm….it’s on the menu. And you’ve got a giant neon Boddington’s sign on the wall.
RB: Show me on the menu.

Again, I point. Again, he walked over to the coolers and went through the whole routine. Again, he walked back with that shit-eating grin on his face and told me he they didn’t have it.

Me: Seriously? For fuck’s sake. Fine. I’ll have a Stella. I know you have it because I see the tap right there.
RB: OK, sorry about that.

So he returned with the beer — which was skunky as hell by the way — and asked the wife what she wanted. She doesn’t drink beer, and after that whole debacle, there was no way she was ordering a mixed drink from this idiot. She asked for a reisling.

Again, he had her point at it on the menu. Again, he walked over to the cooler and dug around. Again, he came back and said they didn’t have it. The wife wasn’t as patient was I was, however, and she just gave up on the idea of having a drink at that bar.

The guy was nice enough (I guess) to give me my beer for free for all the trouble. More likely he didn’t know how to run the cash register. I’m convinced he can’t read. What a fucking joke.

Suffice it to say, we didn’t stay for a second drink.

Bogey: ok so, I need clarification on something.
Me: ok
Bogey: this is about guys: is it true (and I’ve been told this by several guys) that if you’re going to use the urinal, you need to have at least one urinal between yourself and the guy next to you?
Me: yes, absolutely
Me: that’s why, if you go into a restroom and there is nobody at the urinal, you always use the one on the end
Bogey: ahh
Bogey: right
Me: because that ensures that if it fills up, you only have to pee next to one guy and not two
Bogey: now what if the urinals are full? is that when it is appropriate to use the stall? because some of my friends have told me that if you DO use a stall, you have to give up some of your man card.
Me: naw, if all the urinals are full, it’s ok
Bogey: haha ok
Me: but that’s only if the urinals are all full
Me: your friends are right, if there are urinals open, but you go into the stall, you get the corner cut off of your man card
Bogey: hahaha
Bogey: but see, Ryan has told me exceptions of the rule…like in places you can’t help. liiiike the Palace or Comerica where they have a trough
Bogey: and you’re kind of limited to space.
Me: nope
Me: no exceptions
Bogey: yeah, he always waits
Bogey: if it’s going to be full of wang
Bogey: lol
Me: oh, and i think the joe is the only one that has a trough any more
Bogey: yes! that’s what I’m thinking of.
Me: but even so, there are no exceptions.
Bogey: you crack me up
Me: if it’s a trough, and there’s space, you have to use it
PM Bogey: yeah
Bogey: that makes sense.
Me: if it was good enough for our fathers and grandfathers, it’s good enough for us
Bogey: lOL
Bogey: well that’s what i mean, even if there’s a trough, you have ot man up and stand next to some dude if it calls for it
Bogey: although you NEVER look over.
Bogey: that’s just wrong or something
Me: yeah, it’s like an elevator
Me: you look forward and STFU
Bogey: and the whole reason this was brought up was because I was telling Michelle about my bathroom visit and how the boss was talking to me while I was going., it was hella awkward.
Bogey: LOL.
Me: wait, what?
Me: hahahahaha. seriously?
Me: i don’t even let my wife talk to me while i’m in the bathroom
Bogey: I ran into her on my way to the bathroom
Bogey: and she said hi and all that jazz and then followed me into the bathroom
Bogey: we went into our respective stalls and she proceeded to TALK TO ME WHILE I WAS PEEING
Bogey: I mean, I don’t even do that with my girl friends iif we pile into a bathroom in packs.
Bogey: exactly.
Bogey: let alone your BOSS.
Me: wow. just wow.
Bogey: yeah it’s not right.
Bogey: some people can’t pee if they’re talked to. I’m not that kind of person, but I don’t feel like talking about work stuff while I”m doing my thang.
Bogey: OMG
Bogey: I just told Ryan all this and he asked me which rule about urinals since there are mulitple
Bogey: wow, guys are weird.
Bogey: “if you are peeing in the far left urinal why the fuck would someone pee in the one next to you if there are 4 others”
Me: exactly
Me: if you are peeing on the far side
Me: it is the next guy’s duty to take the urinal on the far other side
Bogey: wow
Bogey: the things you just know as a guy
Bogey: lol
Me: subsequent guys must fill in the spots, doing their best to leave room between themselves and others
Me: yeah, i don’t even know who taught me this
Me: i think it’s like birds just knowing how to build a nest
Bogey: hahaha

Earlier this afternoon a co-worker of mine sent around a link to a Craigslist ad posted by another former co-worker of ours. It was epic. On the unintentional hilarity scale it was a 12 out of 10.

One of my co-workers even blamed me for the ad, thinking I had written it. I guess I should take it as a compliment, although I don’t think I could ever be that clever.

Anyway, in the ad she mentions that she is looking for a meaty, lumberjack-type, so I decided — and I have no idea how I come up with these things — that it’d be funny to pen a fake response as if it was written by captured al Qadea leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed from his cell at Guantanamo Bay.

I’ve quoted the ad below, but if you don’t feel like doing all the scrolling, here’s a link. Click here.

Here’s the original ad from Craigslist:

I’m sick of going to bars and meeting guys. If you qualify and are interested send me a picture and a little about yourself. I’ll decide if you get a response and a picture because I’m sick of you and your gender disappointing me all the time. Also! If you know someone that meets these qualifications, I’d love to hear about them.

I promise you, I’m really not this “scorned”, I’m just in a state of being fed up and I refuse to believe there is not a fun educated man that likes to drink beers with perhaps a beard and a belly out there. And I don’t want to settle for the 3 guys that do call me that are pretty much the biggest losers ever. Also perhaps from my standards you can get an idea of the “great guys” I’ve had the pleasure of dating, it’s pretty funny.

Must have:
Transportation
College Degree (or within 1 year of graduation)
Sense of Humor
Goal Oriented
Belly
Job
Can support ones self – I’ll support me, can you support you?
Live within 20 miles of Royal Oak

CANNOT, and I repeat CANNOT:
Smoke Pot more than about 5 times a year (preferably not at all but it’s the millennium)
Do any other drugs
Be racist or a homophobe
Sound like a 9 year old girl
Be a vegetarian (unless, you are allergic to meat and it’s fatal)
Judge others for having money or not having money
Be so overweight that you are incapable of having sex. How do you know? Can you straddle you? Under 325?
Be divorced
An alcoholic – specifically but not limited to having bed/ closet wetting tendencies
Have anger management problems
Have had a boob reduction
Used to think he was gay
Ex or current addict to anything i.e. drugs, alcohol, work, hosiery fettish.

All of the below are negotiable:
Tattoos – cannot be of trailers… yes, trailers. If they are visible, they have to at least be badass. Nothing like… a trailer, a rat, a martini glass, a pumpkin, the word poop, etc. You may be laughing, but these bastards are out there.
Between the ages of 24-33
Living with parents, you better have a damn good reason.
Piercings

Perks:
I like beards (but nothing “sculpted”, your sideburns should not look like a Lazer Tag symbol)
Glasses

About me:

I am a 24 year old white female, shoulder length blond hair, green eyes, great skin, 5’8”, overweight and good eyebrows. I have a bachelors in Journalism and another bachelor in Communication. I worked at a software company for 2 years traveling the US and Canada. I recently left my job and Ann Arbor to live in Royal Oak, work at a Telecommunications company as a Project Manager and started Cosmetology School (aka beauty school/ hair school). I’m very goal oriented and if that threatens you in any way, good riddance Stranger!

Here’s my deal – I work/ go to school 13 hours a day M-F. I will make time for you, if I like you (keep that in mind for the future, I’m not too great with subtlety). I live with 3 guys. If you don’t think you can handle that, move on now. Also, I’m always surrounded by 6 guys at all times. And! I can tell you ahead of time that yes, I have a lot of guy friends, and yes, I’ve hooked up with some of them. But only because I haven’t found you yet!

Still reading? Great, read on!

Although everyone says this is a “neat quality” about me, I beg to differ. I was raised by 3 men and a mom who didn’t wear a bra. I quote movies like all your guy friends. And no, I don’t quote things like “The Notebook”. I quote movies like Caddyshack, Billy Madison, Anchorman, Tommy Boy, SuperBad, etc. You get the point. I don’t cry over ANYTHING unless I lose someone I love. I also talk like a “SuperFan” here and there. Don’t know what it is? Don’t bother asking, I’m not interested in you. I also call everyone I know Tiger or Baby. Could be annoying?

Socializing is my hobby. I know a shit-ton of people and I love going out and having fun. My friends range from the most smartest, elite, snobby people ever to broke ass, perverted, poor drunks.

FAQ: Why is it that you sound so amazing, yet you’re single and posting on Craigslist?

Well, I could stand to lose about 75 pounds and I’m always surrounded by 6 guys (like I said). For the past two years I was traveling every other two weeks to odd destinations and couldn’t keep up with dating. So now that I’m in ONE location I’d like to think that I have a better shot. Talk about being bound for a life of single – was never home and when I was, I was surrounded by 6 dudes. (I do have chick friends btw)

FAQ: Do you talk about marriage and babies all the time?

Marriage and babies sound great… However, I’m in absolutely NO RUSH to do either of those things. I’m open to suggestions and when it’s right, its right. I don’t care if it’s next year or 15 years from now. He just better be amazing.

FAQ: Are you looking for something serious? Committed? Exclusive?

Yes and No, If I think you’re amazing, you’re damn right I’m going to snap you up. If I think you seem like someone I could have the occasional dinner and make out with, so be it. I’ve never had a one night stand, and that’s not what I’m looking for. So anything from serious to occasional, but definitely not wham-bam-thank you ma’am.

And here’s my response:

From: khalidlovesamerica@hotmail.com

Hey Babe, (see what I did there? I’m funny, I made a Paul Bunyon joke. Not that I think you’re an ox or anything. Shit. Nevermind.)

I saw your ad on Craigslist and I’ve got to say, I was taken immediately with you. I think I may be the bearded, ax-swinging, flannel-clad man you’re looking for.

First, my name is Khalid, but I go by Kevin or KSM. I’m average height and a little overweight (but definitely agile enough for a roll in the hay.) Depending on the season, my location and who is chasing me, I’m always rockin’ a different form of facial hair. I’m a big, scruffy bear though, and I love to cuddle!

As far as schooling goes, I attended Chowan College, a small Baptist school in Murfreesboro, North Carolina, for a semester before transferring to the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and completing a degree in mechanical engineering. (source: Wikipedia)

From there, I did some freelance work overseas. Mostly tactical planning and whatnot (the details aren’t important, you may have read about them in the New York Times) before coming back to America at the behest of the Bush administration.

You mention that you worry guys may be threatened by the fact that you’re always surrounded by an entourage of dudes. That wouldn’t bother me a bit, so long as you don’t mind all the people who surround me. When I was overseas, it was, well, I wouldn’t call it a harem, but you get the idea. Nowadays, I’m hanging around with more dudes, but that’s not really by choice, if you know what I mean.

I saw that you mentioned you like the idea of marriage and kids, but aren’t ready just yet. That’s just fine with me, it’ll be a little while before I’m ready to get married too. I’m not exactly sure just how long yet, but I’ll know soon. In any case, once I’m ready to take that step, I’d really love to settle down with a nice, American woman and start a new life — legally, with a shiny, new visa — here in America.

So I’ve gotta be honest, I didn’t make it through your whole ad (it was REALLY long and wordy), so I don’t know if you answered this already. But seriously, I’ve gotta ask, how is someone so awesome not already in a relationship? I mean, it seems like all the blonde, attractive, awesome girls have been scooped up? I’m looking for someone awesome. I think I’m pretty awesome. We could be awesome together. What’dya think?

Hopefully I will hear from you soon,

KSM.

P.S. I attached a recent picture from just before I came back from overseas.