The Little Engine Tag: (That’s right. I’m starting my own tag)

So I did an award post a couple months ago, and a thought occurred to me while filling it out: why can’t I make my own blog tag thingy? For one thing, I’d make sure all the questions are actually fun and thought-provoking, and can’t simply be answered with a boring one or two word answer, which is often the case. Also, I’d get free publicity! And I’d provide all those suffering from writer’s block some much-needed relief.

(I hear writer’s block is at its worst in the spring. Okay so I made that up, but it’s probably true.)

So I went ahead and invented my own blog tag, and here it is.

It’s called the Little Engine tag, because why not? The picture above is to be included in all future responses to this tag, unless the blogger in question simply doesn’t want to include it. In that case I am powerless to stop them.

Naturally, there are some rules to this tag, namely:

1. Each answer you give to a question has to be more than two sentences long. Or at the very least, you have to make those two sentences meaningful.
2. There will be two bonus questions at the end, that the blogger gets to change to whatever they want to ask when they nominate someone else. The first six questions, however, are set in stone.
3. At the end you must nominate three to five other bloggers. Okay, so you don’t have to, but that would be nice if you could. (I want my blog name to spread on for all of eternity.)
4. You know how sometimes in quiet classrooms, they’ll be that one guy clicking his pen fifty times a second, and it’s annoying as hell to everyone else? Yeah, don’t be that guy. This doesn’t apply to this tag so much, but more to life in general.

Now, onto the questions, which are:

1.) What’s one of your biggest pet peeves?

(This question was designed to let you rant about something people do that bugs you. For example:)

I for one, hate when people call me “buddy.” It just always feels condescending, even when it isn’t mean to be. I also hate people call me “dumbass,” for more obvious reasons.

2) What is your favorite song at the moment?

(I included this question because I want to be exposed to more music.)

One song that’s been consistently in my head for the past six months is Where is my Mind? by the Pixies. I heard it on The Leftovers and I’ve been loving it ever since. It is the perfect song to bob your head to.

3) Who is your favorite blogger?

(Besides me, of course.)

Right now I’d pick The Mostly Confused Teenager, despite the fact that she hasn’t posted for a while. It’s just that many of her posts like “Those Crazy American Commercials” and “Being French,” are hilarious and well-written and I would like to get more of them, please.

4) What’s the nicest thing you’ve seen someone do recently?

(You can also write about something you did, if you want.)

There was a little kid in a wheelchair at McDonald’s the other day who went up to the counter alone and asked for an ice cream cone. The problem was that he couldn’t hold the cone and still steer back to his table at the same time, so my manager went over and helped him out, despite the restaurant being very busy at the time. This surprised me because said manager is usually a very rude, standoffish woman, but apparently she has a soft spot for handicapped little kids. (Then again, who doesn’t?) So this was a nice heartwarming moment in an otherwise terrible day.

5) What’s something you regret doing?

(Note: don’t pick something that you regret not doing, because those are usually more painful than funny.)

I regret buying an HP printer, because those are the worst, because I have never not had a problem with it since the moment I first set it up.

I also regret giving my friend one of my lottery tickets.

6) If you could take only three items with you to a deserted island, what would they be, and why?

I for one would take my High School Musical 2 dvd, because Troy and Gabriella are my OTP. Then I guess I’d take some scissors, in case I need a haircut. Oh, and a pen cap to chew on. 

Pfft, this is so easy.

Now for the bonus questions: (Remember, you can change these to something else if you write your own post.

7) What past fad do you think should make a comeback?

Personally, I hope planking becomes a thing again. I find it hysterical. Remember this, anyone?

8) How would you describe the perfect date?

Mine would be: drive in theater, with the movie being Stephen King’s IT: Part One. Obviously this would never happen, but hey, I could dream.

And now for the nominations. You could nominate anywhere from three to five people, or not at all. But because I’m trying to start a new trend, I’m going to nominating quite a few, and I’ll be calling them out by name.

• Engie, from Musings from Neville’s Navel. I know you’re busy with college and all, but screw college! This tag is much more important.
• Liam, from This Page Intentionally Left Blank. I know you’re busy battling pirates and sea monsters right now, but as they say, the pen is mightier than the sword. Likewise, this tag is mightier than anything you could possibly be doing, so drop everything and get on it.
• Susannah from Susannah Contra Mundum, because of your Lilo and Stitch GIFs.
• Gwendolyn, from Apprentice, Never Master, because you didn’t actually think you’d be able to get out of this post unscathed, did you?
• Shanti, from Virtually Read. I know you just did an award post, but technically this isn’t an award post. It’s an inconvenience more than anything else. 
• Katie, from Spiral Bound. You are my mortal enemy, and hopefully you’ll expose a weakness by answering my questions. 
• Confused Teen from The Mostly Confused Teenager, because the blogosphere needs you back. 
• Kedslover from Alternative Sunny Days, because you are chiller than an ice cream cone.
• Derek, from The Edwards Edition. Where you been, man? And don’t use life as an excuse, because I already called dibs on that one.
• Literary and Lovely, from Literary and Lovely. I approve of your use of calculators.
• Evi, at Adventures Through Pages. This is punishment for posting almost as inconsistently as me.
• Aspen at AKA The Author. I read you were sick with laryngitis, so I decided to make life worse for you by pressuring you into this. 
• Elm from Just Call me Elm or Something. If you were an actual elm tree, I probably wouldn’t chop you down unless absolutely necessary. 

Well, that’s ten people. Hopefully enough to spread this tag across the universe. I probably forgot someone really important to nominate, so if you’re one of those people I missed, I’m very sorry, and feel free to do this tag anyway, because you deserve it.

In Which I Complain About Literally Everything

This picture makes me green with envy

I hate the fact that, according to the new Oxford dictionary, the title above makes grammatical sense. Just because a bunch of idiots misused the word literally, doesn’t mean you have to change the definition of the word just to suit them. That’s like legalizing methamphetamine just because some people really, really like the drug. It simply ain’t right.

(And yes, using the word literally to describe something figurative is just as bad as doing meth. You all need help.)

Why do spiders build webs in places where they are bound to come into contact with humans? My family and I went away for a two days last summer and when we came back, there was a giant web right on the staircase of my front porch, with a big ol’ scary spider just chilling right on it. And I’m like, come on, Mr. Spider. Why would you pick this place to build your home when you know we’ll have to cross through it multiple times on a daily basis? You didn’t actually think this would work out well for you, did you?

I hate when I see a Top Ten List of something, and then I click on it to find just a list of those things with no explanation. For example, there’ll be a post like “My Top Ten Favorite Books,” and they’ll just be a list of titles that mean nothing to me. “Really?” I find myself thinking to the author of said post. “You’re not going to add at least a sentence or two to let us know why you liked this book so much?”

In other news, these colleges really need to hurry up. I’ve heard back from one of them already, (thanks, Oswego!) but all the other ones are taking their sweet ass time getting back, and the stress is literally killing me.

(God I hate myself.)

I hate how the biggest winter storm in years took place last Saturday, and it completely missed my house, probably just to spite me. I live about an hour’s drive from New York City, and New York City got record amounts of snow. So much snow, in fact, that this happened:

How much snow did I get? Less than an inch. And you can’t snowboard on a street with less than an inch of snow. You can’t even have a snowball fight without mixing some rocks into it. This leads me to wonder: did I piss off the Snow Gods or something? I’d love to know what I’ve done wrong to deserve this. 

Speaking of snow . . .

Whenever I go to the dentist, I end up waiting in the lobby for over an hour, and the only thing on the TV is either Judge Judy or Dr. Phil, and I’ve come to the conclusion that they are the two most unlikable people on the face of the earth. They’ve done more to make me care about my dental hygiene than the actual process of getting a root canal itself. If I could go the rest of my life without ever having to watch their shows again, I would die a happy man.

I’m serious here. Just the very existence of both those people makes my blood boil. WHY DO THEY HAVE FANS? I’ll never know.

How come I don’t get nominated for blog awards anymore? I know I made it clear that I didn’t want to do them, but I didn’t actually think you people would listen. 

I hate that I have no one but myself to blame for that last complaint.

I hate touching cloth and furniture after cutting my nails. 

I’m still upset that the woolly mammoths have gone extinct, because how cool would it be to have them around today? Thanks a lot, cavemen. 

I hate ending a post on an abrupt note.

Some Blogging Advice for All You Noobs Out There

This picture has literally nothing to do with the actual content of this post.

I apologize for using the word “noob.”

I also apologize for claiming to have read To Say Nothing of the Dog, in a post back in 2013. I have no idea why I ever claimed such a thing, but apparently I did. I even said, and I quote: “It’s almost impossible to summarize, so I will tell you this: the book’s great, the characters are unforgettable, and you will drop your jaw at least once.”

I was reading the post earlier today and I just shook my head and thought, “Why would I write this about a book I’ve never even heard of before? Was I a compulsive liar back then? Am I still a compulsive liar? Are there random chunks of my memory that have, for some reason, been taken out of my mind forever?” 

In other news, the daily prompt for today, as it turns out, is another winner of a prompt:

Key Takeaway

Give your newer sisters and brothers-in-WordPress one piece of advice based on your experiences blogging.

Now, there are many pieces of advice I’ve given over the years. Don’t censor yourself. Don’t listen to those obvious self-promoters. But the key thing I’ve taken away from the past year or so is to post consistently. 

There’s no need to post every day of course, but I think at least twice a week should be good. You could write less than that, but it probably won’t work out too well for you. 

“But Matt,” you say. “I only post twice a month, and I get lots of views and comments!”

Well congratulations, random hypothetical person who pops up in so many of my posts, you are an amazingly talented blogger. But keep in mind that you are the exception, not the rule. 

You can get away with going through a period or two of no posting. I didn’t post a whole lot throughout the summer of 2013, but then I came back with a bang soon afterwards and BAM! Gained a thousand followers in one month. (Half of these followers presumably scroll right past my post whenever they see it, judging from my stats page. Another quarter of them are spam bots.) 

But as I’ve learned, inconsistent posting is always accompanied by apologies and promises that you probably won’t be able to keep. And when you continue to go on long periods of absences, you start to lose the trust and patience of your readers, which as it turns out, are two things that are very hard to get back. 

So, uh, yeah. A lot of you newbies are probably posting pretty consistently right now, because you’ve just started the blog and you’re all excited over it. My advice is to keep it up. Just keep on posting, and if you do have to go on a hiatus, make sure to let your readers know ahead of time, so you don’t feel guilty about it. 

Also, remember to be the leaf. 

 

In Which I Spend New Year’s Eve Completely Alone

Frank Sinatra has very little to do with the content of this post.

New Year’s Eve is probably my least favorite of the holidays, if only because of how ridiculously anti-climactic it is. Even more so if you’re one of those idiots who wait outside Times Square for six hours just to watch the ball drop:

“. . . Four! Three! Two! One!!!” *thirty seconds of celebration* “Well, that’s pretty much it. Time to go home, kids.”

That being said, I’ve always done something for New Year’s Eve. My past memories of the holiday are filled with balloons, hats, and glasses designed as the subsequent year. (Those unfortunately went out of style once 2010 hit.)  Every year I’ve been doing something fun, something at least slightly memorable, but this year I started off 2016 in what most sitcoms would agree is the saddest way possible: alone.

This wasn’t due to a lack of options, however. I actually had two of them available: 1) spend the night at my aunt and uncle’s house, or 2) go to one of my friend’s house instead.

Pros and Cons of Option 1:

Pro: There will probably be m&m’s available.

Pro: My family will be there, and family is important, I’m always being told. Something about blood being thicker than water, or something.

Con: It’s undoubtedly going to very boring.

Con: No beer, either.

Con: I’d be the only teenager there, and I can already hear the judgement from my cool uncle. “So, you don’t have any friends, huh?” he’d say to me. And I’d be like, “No, I have plenty of friends, I just didn’t want to hang out with them right now,” and he’d be all, “Yeah, Matt, I’m sure that’s the case.” He’d pat me on the head. “I’m sure you’re the most popular kid in school.”

Pros and Cons of Option 2:

Pro: Beer.

Pro: Most of the people there are slightly more interesting than my actual family members.

Pro: The host has Super Mario Kart, and if I’m slick enough, I might be able to pull the ol’ snagaroony if I get the chance.

Con: There will be at least one person at the party who I simply do not like. That’s kind it.

___

So I was contemplating these two alternatives, and suddenly an idea hit me. What if — and I know this is going to sound crazy, but — what if I don’t go to either one? What if I spend New Year’s Eve alone? I could actually get some homework done for once, work on that novel I was supposed to finish, like three years ago. I could even watch TV that wasn’t the countdown to the ball drop in Times Square! It was such a strange experience, considering this possibility, almost like I was seeing colors I’ve never seen before.

(Was that a clichéd comparison? I feel like it was. The point is, I am a genius for figuring this all out.)

I doubt my parents would be willing to leave me home alone for New Year’s Eve, (My older brother was left at home once, ended up throwing a party and therefore ruining everything for everyone.) so I told them I was going to Option 2. I left the house just before they did and instead of going to said party, I went to a nearby gas station.

I walked into the gas station and bought some vitamin water and some candy, and the cashier asked me if I wanted to buy a membership card. I politely declined, and asked him if I could buy some blueberry-flavored wraps. He impolitely declined, and told me to get out of his store.

I drove around for a bit, just to be safe, and then went back home and sat down in the living room. I had the TV playing at a low temperature while I basically just typed away into the laptop for two hours, taking short breaks to eat candy and drink vitamin water.

Also, I discovered some shrimp in the freezer, and promptly went about devouring it all.

It was awesome.

I think the moral of this story, if you could call it a story, is that there’s no shame in spending the holidays, alone. It’s actually much more fun than spending it with people. But if you do end up spending them alone, feel free to use this fact to provoke pity in other people. Hopefully they’ll give you food, thinking that it’ll make you feel better.

So, how did you (yes, you) spend New Year’s Eve? More importantly, how do you whistle? Because I cannot for the life of me figure out how to whistle.

And now to end this post with a literal bang:

In which I share with you the funniest joke of all time

There’s this site called “Anti-Joke,” that a few years ago I used to read. As said in the website, Anti Jokes (or Anti Humor) is a type of joke that’s set up in a traditional joke format. But it ends with such an anticlimax that it becomes funny in its own right. “The lack of punchline is the punchline.”

This site perfectly encapsulated my sense of humor at the time. I looked back at them today, and while some of them aren’t nearly as funny as I remember, there are a few that I still find hilarious. 

What did Batman say to Robin before they got in the car?

“Get in the car.”

Or:

A dog walks into a bar, and is promptly escorted out, as animals are not allowed inside.

“Matt,” you be saying. “These jokes are stupid. They have no punchline.”

I’d have to agree with you there, but that’s what makes it funny. The way it plays with your expectations is pretty much unheard of.

So here is the joke that, many years after I first read it, I still find it hilarious. I crack up during random, unrelated moments due to thinking about it. This joke keeps me up at night sometimes, making me laugh. I’ve told it to many people, and they always react in either two ways:

1. They find it to be stupidest, most unfunny joke they’ve ever heard, and they hate me for wasting their time. Or,
2. They find it just as funny as I do.

Hopefully you’ll fall in the second group, but if you don’t, I won’t blame you. Here it goes:

___________________

A man walks into a bar and pauses: at the other end of the bar, there’s this guy with a big orange head. Just kind of sitting there, mooning into his drink. So the man asks the bartender, “Say, what’s up with the guy with the big orange head?” And the bartender says, “It’s an interesting story. Buy him a drink and maybe he’ll tell it to you.”

So the man walks over and introduces himself and offers to buy a round. The guy with the big orange head says, “Yeah, I’ll bet you want to know the story, huh?” To which the man replies, “Sure, if you don’t mind.”

The man with the big orange head sighs and says, “You know, I’ve gone over it in my mind a million times. Basically, it’s like this: I was walking along the beach one day, when I stubbed my toe on something. I looked down, and there was an antique brass lamp. I picked it up and dusted it off a little — when all of a sudden this enormous genie pops out!

“The genie thundered, ‘You have released me from my ten-thousand year imprisonment, and I am in your debt. I will grant you three wishes as a token of my gratitude.'”

The man at the bar is agape. The guy with the big orange head continues: “So I said, ‘Wow, okay. Well, my first wish is to be fantastically wealthy.’

“The genie says, ‘Your wish is granted.’ And all of a sudden I have rings on my fingers and a crown on my head, and my wallet is full of money and a dozen ATM cards and the deed to a mansion in the hills — I mean, I was loaded!

“So I said, ‘Amazing! Okay, for my next wish , I want to be married to the most beautiful woman in the world.’

“The genie says, ‘Your wish is granted.’ And the ocean parts, and out walks this gorgeous woman in this beautiful dress, and she takes my hand and we fall in love and the genie marries us right there. It was incredible.

“The genie booms, ‘You have one wish remaining.'”

The man with the big orange head pauses and sips his beer. He says, “Now, you know, this may be where I went wrong. I wished for a big orange head.”

The Worst Types of People Who Go Through the McDonalds’ Drive Thru

Mcdonald’s breakfast is amazing, and I’m not even being paid to say that.

As my long term followers will know, I work at McDonalds. What they don’t know is that for the past four months or so, I’ve been working almost exclusively at the drive-thru, to the point where I almost miss the front counter.

Almost.

That being said, there are all types of people that come through the drive-thru, and some of them are pretty chill. The ice cream man went through it once (I bought a snow-cone from him, and my manager yelled at me afterwards for holding up the line), and this one lady threw a bunch of condoms at me. (“You’ll need them more than I,” she said, and I swear I’m not making this up.) 

But others are either a) terrible excuses for human beings, or b) just really annoying. And today I’m going to cover ten of those types of people who really grind my gears, starting with:

1: The people who hand you crumpled up money. 

I don’t know about you guys, but when I hand people money, I make sure said money is straightened out, for convenience’s sake if nothing else. I used to hand them crumpled up one dollar bills, but then my fifth birthday came up and I was simply getting too old for that sort of shit. 

Some people haven’t figured that out quite yet, and proceed to hand me a sweaty ball of crumpled up money, and it’s both disgusting and a hassle to count, especially when it’s busy. 

2) Customers who don’t speak to you unless absolutely necessary. 

Ugh, these people. When they pull up to the first window, I’ll usually greet them with a “hi, how’s it going?” and these people will just ignore me. They’ll simply hold their credit card/money out the window without even acknowledging my presence. 

“Ugh, how dare you speak to me?” their attitude suggests. “You are but a lowly fast-food worker, unworthy of my attention.”

3) People who start screaming when you ask them to speak clearly into the microphone. 

These people will say something that I couldn’t quite understand, so I’ll politely ask them to repeat it. They’ll then respond by SCREAMING IT AS LOUDLY AS THEY CAN. Surprisingly, this doesn’t help much. 

I think these people have an issue similar to the whole “Internet Tough Guy,” meme. They are so much more rude and obnoxious than they’d ever be if they were talking to me face to face. I know this because the people who scream and give me attitude through the speaker are usually so quiet and well-behaved when they get to window. 

4) When people ask for “a happy meal,” and leave it at that.

There are multiple different types of happy meals, and they all come with a selection of apple slices/gogurt, a choice of a drink and a choice of a toy. So when this happens, it could really slow things down, especially with the more grouchy customers.

Here’s some of the orders

• I’d like a happy meal.
  • What type of happy meal would you like?
• A. Happy. Meal.
  • *quiet sigh* The happy meal comes with a choice of [lists choices]
• Oh, I’ll have to mcnuggets.
  • Is that the six piece or the four piece?
• *long pause*
• The four piece.
  • “Okay, would you like apple slices or gogurt with that?
• Uh, just fries please.
  • It comes with fries automatically, but it also comes with a choice or apple slices or gogurt.
• “Apple slices or what?”
  • Gogurt.
• “What?”
  • “It’s yogurt.”
• Oh. I’ll have the apple slices.
  • Okay, and what would you like to drink with that?
• It comes with a drink?
  • Yes.

That’s over a hundred words, and I haven’t even gotten to the toy selection. This gets particularly annoying during lunch, when every other person is getting a happy meal for their kids.

That being said, the best types of customers are the ones who answer all those questions for you. If you come through the drive thru and say, “can I have a four piece happy meal with apple slices, an apple juice, barbecue sauce and the [name of current toy]?” I will forever be grateful for your cooperation.

5) Parents who smoke with their children in the car.

It’s just like, come on, man. Giving your kids long-term health problems before they’re old enough to even know what a long-term health problem is? That’s fucked up.

I give these people an incredibly judging stare as I hand them the food/money.

6) People who complain to me about the prices.

If you’re upset about the prices, don’t complain to the cashier person, because there’s literally nothing s/he could do about it.

7) People who make obnoxious comments criticizing the drive-thru.

“Did you guys confuse the drive-thru for a sleepover?” one guy said to me the other day, when the drive-thru was going admittedly slower than we would’ve liked. Even if the drive-thru was going slow, this still strikes me a ridiculously weird thing to say.

“I’m sorry,” I said to him, “Did you confuse me for someone who gives a shit?”

Of course I didn’t actually say that, but I will forever wonder what would’ve happened if I did. I’d probably get fired, or something.

8) When people drive trucks with obnoxiously loud engines.

If your truck’s diesel engine is so loud that I can’t hear someone else’s order, that’s a good sign that you should never go through the drive-thru, ever. Go inside, you’d make everyone’s life a little easier.

9) Obnoxious teenagers.

Every once in a while a car will order something, only to drive off instead of paying. These cars are almost always filled with dumbass teens, and you could tell what they’re about to do because they’re giggling like idiots and they will talk to each other about what they’re about to do despite the fact everyone with a headset could hear the entire conversation. 

I like to imagine their conversations as they drive away:

“Yo, sick prank, bro!”

“Thanks, bro, we totally got them! We’re so hilarious and original.”

“Everyone loves us, bro.”

“Totally, bro. We rock!” 

*they then proceed to drive away, blasting terrible music with their windows down for all to hear*

10) People who are completely oblivious to the line of cars behind them. 

The other day there was a good twelve cars in line, and they had to wait for this one woman to order.

• “Hmm, what type of salads do you have?”
  • “We’ve got the bacon ranch salad, the southwest salad, and the side salad.”
• “What’s in the bacon ranch salad?”
  • *reads the entire list of ingredients for the salad.* 
• Oh. What’s in the southwest salad?”
  • *reads entire list of ingredients for that salad as well.*
• “Oh, well, how do they both taste?”

This goes on for a while, and it leaves me with a nice closing statement. A public service announcement, if you will, for everyone who goes through the drive-thru of any fast food establishment:

If you don’t know what you want, and you have the option of going inside, go inside. Please, just go inside. This way you could look at the menu and decide what you want without blocking other people from ordering, and slowing everything down.

 Also, if you’re just getting something like a soda, or a sweet tea, you could get it in the lobby much, much faster than if you were waiting in the drive-thru. 

I’m just saying.

Make my life a tiny bit easier, please?

Tragic Stories From My Childhood: The Time I Got My Card Flipped

Credit goes to http://www.upperelementarysnapshots.com/

I’m starting a new series of posts, ones that will probably be posted every once in awhile until they eventually peter out of existence, and it’s all about the things that happened during the last seventeen years of my life, told from my point of view.

I should warn you though, that some of these stories may be exaggerated or distorted. Memories aren’t perfect, after all. But I will try my best to keep things as accurate as possible. 

My first story will bring us back to when I was a wee little child, attending the second grade of my adorable little elementary school. My second grade teacher was Mrs. Rippa, (I hope you’re reading this, Mrs. R.,) who I remember hating her very much, mostly because she made me cry a lot.

To be fair, it didn’t take much to make seven year old me cry, because I was one miserable piece of shit back then. If you were to compare me to any Rugrats characters, I would’ve been Chuckie, no doubt. I was always worrying about things and thinking they were so much more important than they actually were.

To be fair to my former self though, kindergarten me was a total thug. Back then I was kicking ass and taking names, shoving weaker kids into the dirt and flirting with the first grade honeys. Something terrible must’ve happened between kindergarten and second grade, because by the time I was learning how to multiply single digits, I’d become a total wuss. 

Back in elementary school the teachers had a very unique method of discipline: the card system. There’d be a pocket chart thingy on the wall, and everyone would have their own little envelope-thingy (I’m not too sure on the actual names of these things, as I’m sure you can tell). If a student was acting out in class, they’d be told to flip their cards.

The cards went like this:

Blue: The best card. It shows that you have yet to do anything wrong and that you’re one well-behaved kid. Your parents must be so proud.

Green: A warning. Not the worst thing in the world. Just, y’know, don’t do it again. 

Yellow: 5 minutes off recess for you, you good-for-nothing nobody.

Red: No recess at all for you, and you go straight to the principal’s office. I’m not sure what’s in the principal’s office, but I assume there’s forced cannibalism involved, because every student was terrified of going there. 

So one day I was chilling in class, doing one of those stupid activities second graders do, like cutting snowflakes or some shit. Not really important. Anywho, I was getting into a real deep conversation with the girl next to me, Dominique. We were talking about how cracking your knuckles would cause arthritis, which was something my aunt had told me the day before.

(You’re gonna love my aunt, by the way. What she said was this: “You know, Matt, if you keep cracking your knuckles you’re gonna lose the ability to bend your fingers. And you’re going to go through your whole life with incredible pain.” She then proceeded to give many examples of things I would not be able to do because of said permanently-straightened fingers, like driving or typing or holding onto things. She told me I could no longer read books because I would be unable to turn the pages, which seems like an needlessly cruel thing to say to a seven year old bookworm.)

Our conversation was suddenly interrupted by a cold, harsh voice that cut across the classroom. “Matthew, flip your card. No more talking.”

I didn’t think it was possible to go from happy to shocked and upset so quickly. If I had to compare it to any moment, it would be that scene from Mockingjay when (scroll over to read) Katniss sees Peeta for the first time. At first she’s thinking, “Hells yeah, I’m reunited with ma boi Peeta Mellark, best baker since Rachel Ray,” and then as Peeta strangles her to death she’s all, “Hot damn! This ain’t even close to how I expected this to play out.”

But as a student I was nothing if not dutiful, so I proceeded to walk all the way across the room, head bowed in shame, to flip my card for the first time ever. 

As I made the walk, I felt all the eyes of the class on me. Some people laughed. Others made that obnoxious “Ooooohhh” sound that kids love to make. I, meanwhile, was trying very hard not to cry, a process which would pretty much always fail. I’d feel the tears swell up and I’d think, “goddamnit, eyes, this isn’t even that big of a deal. You better not start shedding tears over this.”

Then my eyes would be all like: “Nope! It’s tear city for you. Have fun looking like a total wuss in front of everyone, crybaby.”

And I’d be like: “Come on, eyes, don’t do this to me.”

And my eyes would just start leaking an obnoxious amount of tears out into the world, further ruining my reputation as a hardcore thug.

I haven’t even mentioned the worst part yet: later that day there’d be an Open House for the school, in which the parents would visit the school and be in the classrooms and whatnot. Mrs. Rippa had kindly informed us that if anyone had their cards flipped, those cards would stay flipped until the following morning, so any parents attending Open House would get to see what a failure their child was.

So as you can guess, it was in my best interest to get my card back to its original blue before the day ended. But this was harder than it seemed. 

My options, as far as I could see it:

1) Sneak over and unflip my card.

2) Hold the class hostage until Mrs. Rippa agrees to unflip my card, and also to make me the line leader for at least a week. (Because if you have the chance to demand line-leading privileges, you take it.)

3) Run away and never come back.

But I knew none of these ideas would work. #1 might have, but I knew if I was caught I’d likely get a yellow—possibly even red— card, and I couldn’t risk that. So I went with secret option number four: I decided to beg.

I know, I’m not proud of the fact. Later that day I went up to Mrs. Rippa and tried to persuade her to unflip my card. I tried denying the fact that I had talked at all, and when that didn’t work I tried apologizing and then I’d never doing it again. When that didn’t work I decided to blame it all on Dominique, but alas, it was to no avail. 

It may seem like a scumbag move to try and wrap Dominique into this, but hey, I might as well have had a gun pointed my head, I was so desperate. Besides, Dominique would later do some terrible things to me, so I don’t feel too bad, looking back. Also, I’d like to remind everyone that I was only seven at the time, so y’know, don’t judge.

Anywho, I spent the rest of the day in a bad mood, despite various attempts by other people to cheer me up. When I went home I confessed to my parents, breaking into tears and whatnot, and they weren’t actually upset at all. Presumably because, well, it’s just a stupid card.

But it wasn’t stupid. That card flipping system was an ingenious system of discipline through the use of public shaming. I applaud the people who invented it, while also hating them for all the misery they’ve caused. 

So how about you, readers? What punishment did your elementary school teachers use? Especially if you went to Catholic school, let me know. Because I know many adults who went to Catholic schools, and the stories they have are just horrifying, especially when compared to the wimpy card-flipping system some schools like mine had. 

I don’t know about you guys, but I for one will always be afraid of nuns. 

More Than I Can Chew: Chapter 16

So, for the last twelve hours of so I’ve found myself wondering, “Why has no one liked Chapter 16?” I mean, I didn’t expect to see a whole lot of responses, considering the five month break in between chapters, but I expected at least one like, or something. After investigating to see what the problem was I figured it out: I never actually posted it. I scheduled it for the twenty-eighth instead of the twenty-seventh. I guess I’m just not that good at this whole “math” thing.

Sorry about that. Here is chapter 16. Enjoy.

Wyatt

“So, do you think I could beat up James?” I asked. “I think I can. I mean, he’s like, real spooky and all, but he’s got no muscles whatsoever.”

“Nope,” said Kathy.

“Seriously? You’ve seen me in a sleeveless shirt before. I am a sight to behold.” This brought a smile from her, which I took as confirmation that I should keep going. “Did you know how I was kicked off the football team last year?”

“Because during the halftime you stole the opposing team’s school flag?”

That actually did happen. Except this was during the Varsity team’s game, so I wasn’t playing. This was at our rival school, however, (Diesel went there) and I was dared by my Senior friends to steal the schools’ flag during the game. Maybe it was because I was partially drunk at the time, but I decided what the hell. Kathy was still in her ultra-rebellious mode at this time, so she agreed to provide me a getaway car, and it worked out great. Sure, I got kicked off the football team and accidentally started a brawl, and I had to drop the flag because it couldn’t fit through the car door, but at this point the upperclassmen had started to know me not as Kathy’s little brother but as the Great Wyatt Mellonsky himself. Good times.

“Not just because of that. Turns out I was so intimidating that all the other players were afraid to go near me, and the coach had to let me go. It just wasn’t fair to the other teams.”

“Mhm.”

“True story.”

“Oh, I believe you.” Kathy kept on driving.

I took a deep breath, looking out the window as the silence swallowed everything. I tried looking ahead to find Diesel’s car, but I couldn’t see anything.

The group had split into two cars, with Kathy, Sean and I in one and Diesel and Adrien in the other. Kathy had reluctantly agreed to the whole thing, not before telling off the both of us first. “You two need to get your shit together, okay? No more complaining, no breaking things, no shooting people in the chest. The moment you start to get all emotional, or pull some spur-of-the-moment crap on me, I will call Mom and Dad and I will bring you straight home. Understand?” We had both understood.

Basically, the plan was: Diesel and Adrien would walk into Fiona’s house, and then Diesel would text me to come in at the right time. With me pointing a gun at them, Adrien would light the money on fire while they watched. Fiona didn’t know it was counterfeit, supposedly, so she’d be pissed.  This was all Adrien’s plan, and I was actually sort of impressed.

Sean and Kathy would wait in the car for back-up. If they didn’t hear from either of us in ten minutes, first Sean would call Fiona in the hopes of figuring out what was going on, and if that didn’t work the two of them would swoop in, SWAT team-style, and rescue us. But hopefully they wouldn’t have to resort to such methods.

Diesel turned right onto one street while Kathy turned right on the next one, where we stopped halfway down and pulled over to the side. “That’s her house.” I pointed at the back of a large white house with a porch and an in-ground pool in the backyard. I couldn’t see any movement inside.   

I held the BB gun in my hand (Sean had reluctantly given it back), waiting for Diesel’s text. We waited, and waited, until at least two minutes had gone by, and finally my phone vibrated.

Wyatt, I am not going to ask again, please answer back—

I deleted it without reading the rest. “Just mom,” I said, and everyone went back into waiting position. At least a minute went by before I got another message, this one from Diesel.

Now.

I opened the door and stepped out. “Wish me luck, guys.”

“Don’t die or anything,” said Kathy.

“I’ll try not to.” I was about to leave, but then I decided to add one more thing. “And Kathy?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. For everything.”

She was a little taken back, which I expected, but she also smiled, for what might have been the first time since she picked me up from school that morning. “Give ‘em hell Wyatt.”

And with that I started running across one yard and jumped the fence into Fiona’s. I looked up at the windows for any signs of movement, and saw nothing.

Underneath Fiona’s back porch was an old door that led into the basement. I knew this because I’d had to sneak out of this door on more than one occasion, last summer.

I opened it, slowly pointing the gun ahead like I was some sort of secret agent. This was the storage room; the real basement was just outside the next door, some five feet away. I could see the light beneath the cracks on the other side. Knowing I’d be blinded once I opened the door, I went ahead and did it anyway, opening it quietly in case everyone was upstairs.

The first thing I saw was Adrien sitting down against the wall, barely moving. I thought he’d been in bad shape after the kidnapping, but this was so much worse. Both eyes were swollen and black, his nose was bleeding furiously, down his chin down his shirt to the floor. His upper lip was swollen and upon further inspection, at least one of his front teeth was missing. The sight made me sick to my stomach.

Fiona was kneeling next to him with a first aid kit, blabbering nonstop. “I am so sorry he did this to you, I never planned for any of this to happen, I just—”

“Fiona?”

She looked at me, and immediately stood up and backed against the wall. “Wyatt, please. This was all James and Diesel’s work. Okay? I didn’t want them to do this.”

Except she was lying, because Diesel obviously wouldn’t have done it; he just wanted to go home, like everyone else. I told her this, but Fiona just shook her head, confused.

“Diesel started this whole thing. He threw the first punch. No one asked him too.”

“Shut up.” I looked to the right, where the staircase was. “Where’s James?”

Someone kicked the door behind me, the one I just walked through, and it slammed shut. I spun around and shot the gun blindly in that direction. I either missed James or the BB just wasn’t painful enough to bother him.

He tackled me to the floor, my head landing on the side of the couch. If it had landed on the wooden floor I might’ve died. James took the gun away from me and smacked me across the face with it, all while Fiona was screaming at us to stop.

I kicked him in the stomach, then kept kicking until he backed off, then I somehow managed to get back to my feet.

The rest of the room was unfocused, unimportant. The only thing that mattered was James, that lying backstabbing piece of trash that I had somehow thought would make a good employee. He was still backing up uncertainty when I slammed his body against the wall, punching wildly. The gun fell somewhere, I didn’t care. I just wanted to give James a broken nose, two black eyes and a missing tooth. Maybe even a splinted shin while I was at it.

“WYATT!” Fiona’s shout was just loud enough to snap me out of it. I looked over to find her standing there, with the BB gun pointed at me. Her hands were shaking. “Walk slowly towards your brother and sit down.” Or I will shoot you, her eyes said.

“Just shoot him anyway!” said James. His face wasn’t nearly as messed up as it should’ve been.

“Shut up, James,” she said, keeping her eyes on me. She looked about five years older than she did this morning.

James, unfortunately, was one of those people who did not like to be told what to do.

“What did you just say to me?” In a tone that meant he knew perfectly well what she just said to him.

“Please, James, just go get Diesel.”

He looked like he was about to argue further, and despite my anger at Fiona I didn’t want to see that happen. “Yeah James,” I said between heavy breaths. “Scurry off.”

“Shut your mouth, Mellonsky, before I kick your ass again.” I had a really obvious comeback in mind, but I decided to hold it in. With that, James stormed up the stairs.

“So. . . what is Diesel doing, anyway?” I was trying to sound casual and perfectly calm here.

“He’s keeping a lookout upstairs, just in case you decided to come in through the other door.”

“How’d you know I was coming?”

She looked at me like I was crazy. “He told us.” Then she seemed to remember the circumstances, because she yelled at me to sit down next to Adrien. I looked over at him as I sat down, mostly just to make sure he wasn’t dead.

“You okay?”

Adrien just shrugged, looking straight ahead with an almost bored expression.

I turned back to Fiona. “So what exactly did Diesel say when he got here?”

“He said. . .” she hesitated, then went on. “That on the way over, he found out that you were following them, and that Adrien had no intention of actually letting this whole thing go. And then he punched Adrien in the face, knocked away his crutches, and James brought him down here and did the rest. I didn’t want either of them to do that, okay?”

“Okay.”

She nodded. “And then Diesel told us that Wyatt would probably be coming through the basement door any moment now.”

I sighed, banging my head back against the wall. “Diesel too.” Of course. He was willing to help them kidnap my brother; he wouldn’t just randomly switch sides after that. I am an idiot.

Was anything he said true? James having creepy romantic feelings towards Fiona? The counterfeit money? I wasn’t sure how to feel if the money turned out to be legitimate after all. Proud that my ten thousand dollar gum business was real or upset that I’d probably never get it back? I’d have time to ponder that later.

A loud noise, the sound of furniture being knocked over, came from upstairs, startling the both of us. James came running downstairs, his face furious.

“Diesel’s car is gone,” he said.

“What?” Fiona and I said at the same time. Fiona gave me a look, then kept talking. “Why would he do that?”

Instead of answering, James punched the wall, which struck me as a very pointless gesture. Finally he managed to regain some semblance of composure. “He took all the money with him too.”

In Which Many Shocking Revelations are Made

Damn straight.

Lately, I have discovered through the use of research, logic, and a complete disregard for privacy, many horrific truths belonging to the bloggers who follow me. Because I am a man of honor, I will not be able to sleep tonight without having revealed these secrets to the world. I’m sure some of you will simply dismiss me as a crazy conspiracy theorist. But I think before doing that, you should read the wise words of a user on urban dictionary:

A conspiracy theorist in today’s society is considered a lunatic who makes stories or “false” alternatives up for attention, when in reality, a conspiracy theorist is one of the only beings today capable of critical thinking and actually considering the supposed “truth” handed down to them from the government.

It’s really sad how today’s people are brainwashed to think that everything someone says is true just because they are in charge, and they are taught to never ask questions, and to think that they could even consider calling someone who doesn’t follow blindly like the other sheep, is ridiculous.

This anonymous user on the internet has spoken. If you don’t believe me, you’re merely a sheep being brainwashed by the government, and you need to wake up.

The first thing I noticed is that many of my followers are not who they say they are. For instance, Gwendolyn from Apprentice, Never Master is quite clearly Jennifer Lawrence in disguise. You could tell since they’re around the same age, I think, and you’ve never seen the two of them in the same room together.

This one may be slightly less obvious, but after much investigation I’ve concluded that Engie, at Musings from Neville’s Navel, is also not who she says she is.

Take the ‘i’ in ‘Engie’ and replace it with an ‘r’. Rearrange the letters and what do you have? Green. John Green, Engie’s true identity. And where in the United States, exactly, does John Green live? That’s right, Indiana, the same state where “Engie” has claimed to live her whole life. She may have tried to throw us off the scent by pretending to dislike his work, but she hasn’t fooled me.

And yet, that’s not the most shocking thing I’ve discovered about some of my followers. Did you know that when he isn’t writing, Liam, Head Phil spends his time as a masked vigilante? Yep, he fights crime among the gritty streets of New York using nothing but his fists, and of course his extraordinary ability to control paper clips with his mind.

(That’s right, Liam, you have been outed. Your family and friends are probably in grave danger, so I suggest moving them to a safe area for a while and faking your own death.)

In other news, The Legendary Miko is a crazed serial killer/kidnapper. There are warrants for her arrest in thirty-seven and a half countries across the world. In some indigenous tribes in Africa, the term for “Devil” and “Trickster” are synonymous with “Miko,” thanks to her enormous influence and reputation. Of course, she’s made no secret of her deviousness, so I can’t say this surprised me.

Alina doesn’t go shopping for food. Instead she goes outside with a very sharp stick, which she uses to kill squirrels and eat them raw. Her neighbors are very confused and disturbed by this behavior, but they accept her nonetheless, due to her great taste in TV.

It also needs to be said that the Plotwhisperer is allergic to shrimp.

Susannah Martin is an evil villain who is currently planning to take over New York City and to defeat Liam, Head Phil, her arch-nemesis. She hates paper clips with a passion.

Nirvana is an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987.

Chloe at Free as a Girl with Wings is a werewolf, but she’s very self-conscious about it, so don’t tell anyone.

And that is all, for now. If you follow me and haven’t been mentioned here, that just means you either don’t have any huge secret, or I just haven’t found it out yet. If it’s the latter, be prepared, because you will be exposed.

If I Could Just Talk to Spiders, My Life Would be So Much Easier

Cartoon spiders are so much cuter than real life spiders.

I don’t usually do The Daily Prompt, but today’s seemed easy and I knew what I wanted to write mere seconds within reading it. Today’s prompt is:

Literate for a Day: “Someone or something you can’t communicate with through writing (a baby, a pet, an object) can understand every single word you write today, for one day only. What do you tell them?”

As you could tell from the title of this post, I picked spiders. See, just half an hour ago, I saw a spider walking near my bed and threw a shoe at it. I missed, and the spider is now nowhere to be found. I feel like this happens a lot, so if I had the chance to write to said spider, I would say something like this:

Dear Spider,

I’m sorry for throwing my shoe at you from across the room so many times. I admit, it was a little harsh, but you gotta understand, you are creepy. You have so many eyes, and so many legs, and the fact that you eat your prey by trapping them in a web, crawling over to their helpless bodies and sucking the blood out of them, doesn’t make me feel any safer in your presence.

But I’m sure you and your kind have great personalities, all things considered, and I’d be okay with having you hang out in my room, as long as I knew for sure that you wouldn’t try any funny business, and by that I mean:

• No biting me. (This goes twice if you’re poisonous.)
• No crawling within three feet of my presence.
• No hiding in any of my clothing, especially not in my pants pockets. *shudders at the thought*
• No giant webs that take up half the room.
• No sudden movements in my direction.
• No taking embarrassing pictures of me and posting them online.
• No listening to music without headphones.
• No fires.
• No writing Doctor Who erotica fan fiction. That’s my thing.

Of course, if it’s a really, really cold one day, I guess I’d be fine with you creating fires. And if you happen to be radioactive then by all means, bite away. Otherwise, you’ll have to follow these rules. Failure to do so will result in death.

Have fun not trying to bite me,

Matt.

Click here to see the other entries for the Daily Post.

Confession: I Don’t Like Sports

Or more accurately, I am not a fan of watching sports, and I never was, really.

I’ve tried very hard to get into sports, particularly because such a large percentage of my family and friends are obsessed with them, and I was made to feel pretty bad about myself just for not knowing certain (admittedly kind of obvious) facts about the NBA, or the NFL.

Someone would ask me a question like, “Who’s your favorite professional football player?” And I would be thinking Come on come on, think of an NFL player. You have to know at least one. Didn’t Michael Jordan play football once? Not sure if that counts. What about that guy, Ben Roffleburger, I think that’s his name, did he play football? Or was that hockey? Eh, screw it. Roffleburger it is.

“Ben Roffleburger,” I’d say, feigning confidence.

Needless to say, I was made fun of a lot for that mistake. Using the power of hindsight, I decided that for now on, whenever someone asked me who my favorite player was, I’d say J.J. Wilkes. Never heard of him? That’s because he doesn’t exist, or at least, there is no J.J. Wilkes in the NFL, as far as I know.

You see, for whatever reason, sports fans (or at least the ones I know) take an unhealthy amount of pride in their knowledge of the game, so they won’t be willing to admit they don’t know who certain players are. So when I say “J.J. Wilkes,” in an obvious, well-duh-of-course-he’s-my-favorite-player kind of tone, they’ll just go along with it.

To be honest, I think I’ve done a good job at pretending to know what I’m talking about in recent years. In ninth grade, I managed to keep this up for a surprisingly long time with this one guy sitting next to me Geometry. He would always start off by saying something like, “Yooo, did you see the game last night?”

I would read his tone of voice and respond accordingly. “Yeah, I was so pissed.”

“I know right?” He’d then keep talking about the game, while I’d nod and make a bunch of general statements until the class started and we had to be quiet. He eventually figured out I had no idea what I was talking about, but by then it there was only two months left until summer vacation, so I didn’t really care.

Lately though, I’ve been wondering why, exactly, I used to be embarrassed of not liking sports. I guess it’s because of some sort of mental conditioning, in that I’ve been told again and again by the people I grew up with that basically, sports are the greatest thing ever and I’m weird for not loving them. If you were to tell my brother that you preferred to read a book rather than watch a basketball game, he’d look at you in the same way I’d look at someone who just sneezed in my face. It was only a few years ago that I realized 1) my brother is stupid, and 2) you should watch whatever you want, and only if you want to, regardless of what people may think.

Also, sports are really boring to watch. Well, I guess hockey isn’t that bad, but baseball or golf? I’d rather die.

I’d prefer Game of Thrones. Instead of teams we have houses, and instead of ridiculously rich people who throw a ball around for a living, we have a bunch of ridiculously rich people who start wars for a living. It’s better in every single way.

Day in the Life as a Public High School Student (Don’t Worry, This is Interesting!)

So, a lot of my blogger friends have written posts like “A Day in the Life of a Home-schooled Student,” or “A Day in the Life of Private School Student” or something cool like that. And I thought, hey, why I don’t I do the same thing? Sure, going to public school isn’t quite as interesting or unique as going to school abroad or having it at home, but I feel like some people might still be interested.

I mean, not every public high school is the same, so even though some readers may be going to one, they might be surprised to see how another one works. And all you adult readers out there may be curious to see how schools have changed since you were students. So yeah, keep reading.

5:45 AM: I wake up, press the snooze button on my phone.

5:50 AM: I wake up, press the snooze button on my phone.

5:55 AM: I wake up, press the snooze button on my phone.

(This goes on for a while)

6:15 AM: I get out of bed. I don’t have to take a shower because I took one last night (#prepared) and I recently got a hair cut, so bed hair isn’t a problem for me. I sympathize with the long-haired people in the world. You guys have it rough.

6:20 AM: I pour cereal in the bowl and realize that there’s no more milk left. I think back to any terrible deeds I may have done in the past to have deserved this, and can’t think of anything. There’s no time to make anything else, so dry cereal it is.

(Man, my life’s terrible. Feel bad for me.)

6:28 AM: I’m waiting at the bus stop, freezing and half-asleep at the same time. There’s this one obnoxious kid who listens to rap music and raps along with it (loudly) in the morning, but because the sun hasn’t come up yet I can’t seem to tell where he is.

6:40 AM: Bus comes twelve minutes late, and it becomes clear why once I see the busdriver. Oh god. It’s Elvis.

Elvis is a substitute bus driver in our school district, and has been since around for a long time. We call him that because he looks like what Elvis probably did in the last few months of his life. He’s notorious for being a horrible driver and for just generally being an unpleasant person. Personally, I just think he needs a hug. There’s no way I’m going to give him one, though.

Even though Elvis kept hitting the curbs, and he left the lights on, I still managed to spend most of the ride asleep.

7:05 AM: I get to school, stop by the library, get a pass for lunch (because I’ve got physics homework to do, bitches) and then go to the cafeteria to get some apple juice.

7:17 AM: My first class is AP English, with my possibly-murderous English teacher. This class is a breeze, because he basically just talks about symbolism and metaphors and whatnot in this book we’re currently reading, A Separate Peace by John Knowles.

8:05 AM: Pre-Calculus. This class is weird because the teacher simply doesn’t care if the students are paying attention and never checks the homework; she just continues teaching regardless of whether anyone is actually listening, which is new for me. Maybe this is her way of preparing us for college (where apparently, the professors don’t give a shit about you) but all it’s done for me is let me slack off. I spend this time working on my physics homework, which I still haven’t done.

9:00 AM: Financial Math. This is an easy class, with a really obnoxious, uptight teacher. The only way to get her in a good mood is to ask her about couponing. She loves coupons and uses them all the time, and she loves to talk about how much she saves and what she bought with them. It’s weird.

(I apologize to my Financial Math teacher, if she’s reading this. It seems unlikely, being as she should have no idea about this blog, but with my luck she probably will.)

Anyway, she wouldn’t let me make up a test today, because I missed the two days where she allowed us to do it after school. I missed the first day because I had to go to work immediately after school, and I missed the second day because I was unexpectedly sick with food poisoning. Apparently, this wasn’t a good enough excuse.

(To be fair, I made up the whole food poisoning thing. But there’s no way she could’ve known that, which means that given what she knows, she’s intentionally punishing a student for being sick.)

9:47 AM: U.S. History: I get lunch on my way to class, which is usually a turkey sandwich from the cafeteria, some goldfish, and this soda called Switch that tastes weirdly amazing. I always take the cheese off the sandwich, because it is the most appalling excuse for cheese I’ve ever seen.

We played a game of school jeopardy preparing for a test the next day. Not meaning to brag or anything, but we tied. For last place, with zero points. (We bet all in, and we lost.)

10:35 AM: This is my actual lunch period, which I spend in the library doing physics homework. Or more accurately, I spent this on my phone, looking through any notifications (“hey, Nevillegirl just responded to my comment!”) or looking through all the books despite the fact that I have two late books already and I know I can’t check any of them out. I end up sitting next to two friends of mine. One of them made a list on twitter of his twenty best “bros.” The other one, let’s call him John, is upset because 1) he wasn’t on it, and 2) most of the guys on that list are not friends with him at all.

Also, there was a fight in the cafeteria, which I missed. I’m not actually upset about it though, because I’ve never been interested in school fights unless I personally knew one of the kids involved.

11:18 AM: 3-D Ceramics, which isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds. It’s tough to describe the project we’re doing in there, because even I don’t entirely know what it is. Something to do with glue and paper. Oh well, I’m still rocking a 98 average in that class. Somehow. There’s a lot of time to talk in that class, and the primary subject of interest is usually Ebola, and how it’s going to totally kill us all.

12:10 PM: This is my physics class. I hate the subject, but like the teacher. He kind of looks like Santa Clause, yet there are occasions where, for demonstration purposes, he will sprint across the room with a speed you never would have guessed he was capable of running. I have a theory that he is actually Usain Bolt in disguise.

1:00 PM: P.E. class, where instead of actually exercising, we have to take a test on Ultimate Frisbee. What the hell, school? Why do I have to study for a test for gym? I don’t know how it used to be or how P.E. is like in other places, but I think we can all agree that this is stupid.

1:42 PM: Gym ends. A friend of mine in the locker room is selling candy for a school club of some sort. (Fun fact, people in various clubs walk around selling candy to raise money, which means that I can go around spending my money on chocolate bars and skittles instead of, y’know, healthy stuff.)

1:43 PM: I think about staying after school for Physics extra help, but I really don’t want to, so I get on the bus instead.

2:10 PM: I’m at home, and get a surprise text from my boss asking me if I could work today, 6 to 10. This is always a tough decision for me, because on one hand: i hate my job, but on the other hand: more money! Money’s great. They’re like thin green pieces of happiness.

Everything up from 2:10 to 6:00 PM is a bit of blur. I remember watching the season 4 finale of The Wire (saddest episode ever), and later falling asleep and waking up at 5:40 PM, but I don’t remember when exactly that happened.

6:00 PM: I go to work, at McDonald’s, where the customers are weirdly difficult today. Mcdonald’s customers are usually polite, but today they were ruder than I’ve ever seen them. One woman and her son were pissed off because they had to wait more than a minute for their food, and I had to explain to them that 1) the place was extremely busy at the moment, and 2) we were understaffed at the time, so she’d have to wait a little longer than usual. She then demanded to speak to the manager, who told her the exact same thing. The mother interpreted this as him (the manager) giving her attitude, made a huge fuss and then actually called the McDonald’s headquarters or whatever it’s called with the sole intention of getting him fired. Which was upsetting, because he was my favorite of all the managers.

Luckily, for every obnoxious, entitled brat of a customer, there’s another nice one who restores hope in humanity.  A guy who used to manage a Buffalo Wild Wings saw the whole thing and gave the manager his number, so he could be a witness if he ended up getting in any sort of trouble over this, because that’s the type of guy he was.

10:13 PM: I am back from work, exhausted. I get some homework done, came up with this idea for a blog post, wrote half of it, and then went to sleep.

To end this post, here’s a picture of a giraffe.