Benny goes down the chute
This is an old post that I’m re-issuing for your reading pleasure. I’m moving the site to a different server this weekend and that’s a big pain in the ass, so my effort in moving the site replaces my effort in writing a new post. See the great things I do for you? Yet you never call.
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During my freshman and sophomore years in college, I lived in a high-rise dorm at the Ohio State University. It was a twenty-something-story building with microscopic windows which were bolted shut. Floors 1-15 were administrative offices. The dorm floors, 16 and up, were composed of eight-person suites — four rooms of two, arranged around a common den and a common bathroom. Freshman year, we lived on the 20th floor. The next year, most of the same group of eight guys moved up to 21. We got our mail from boxes on 15. And mail, of course, went down the Chute.
My roommate, Ben, started it. For some reason, about a third of the mail in the box was for me, a third was for Ben, and a third was for Oberman Shakrobort. I think I might have known who Oberman was (my British calculus professor called role aloud, and when he wasn’t saying decidedly English things like “Bob’s your uncle,” he was stumbling over a name that sounded like “Oberman”), but Ben didn’t know Oberman at all. So when we got in the elevator to go up from 15 to 20, Benny slid Oberman Shakrobort ’s letters through the slot below the door, sending them to the bottom of the elevator shaft.
He always gleefully announced: “Down the Chute!”
And on it went, throughout our entire freshman year: four or five pieces of mail a week, every week. Ben so enjoyed the sounds of the letters flitting their way down through the cables and pulleys (they skittered and hopped with a sound like whispers) that he soon found that his down-the-Chute needs could no longer be satisfied by Oberman Shakrobort’s mail alone. Our own junk mail could not, of course, join Oberman‘s in the undoubtedly huge pile at the bottom (we might get busted that way!), so the Chute became Benny’s all-purpose trash can.
When fliers were tacked to our door, Benny walked with them to the elevator and said, “Down the Chute!”
When the trash can got full, Benny called the elevator and said, “Down the Chute!”
And when the cafeteria complained that students were stealing silverware and keeping it in their rooms for personal use, and then asked people to return it, Benny said, “Down the Chute!”
“Jeez, Ben,” someone (I think it was Tom) said as the flimsy spoon cacophonously made its way to the pile of Oberman’s mail at the bottom, “don’t you think that might be dangerous?”
“Fah-Q,” said Ben in his personal code. “Down the Chute!”
And then went the fork and knife.
Tom and Andy, the nerdiest of the rest of us nerds, began to study the Chute. They cracked open an audiocassette and tore the full spool from its innards. Andy grasped the free end of the ribbon winding off of the spool’s end and held it above the Chute. The two engineers-to-be then paused to calculate how long it would take the spool to unwind as it fell, accounting for various physical characteristics of the spool, like rotational inertia and angular momentum. Their calculations complete (and yes, they did write out actual calculations), they dropped the spool while holding the end. Somewhere below, it finally reached its end and dangled from twenty floors up.
“The Chute is deep,” Andy announced.
I roomed with Ben again the following year. Since we had a new address and mailbox, Oberman Shakrobort no longer provided us with Chute fodder. Ben was forced to improvise.
“The lunch tray will not fit down the Chute,” I told him.
“Nor would it be advisable,” Matt added.
The tray did fit. It fit very noisily. For days, people were talking about the “ruckus in the elevator shafts.” Ben laid off for a while, allowing Andy a chance to abuse the two elevators.
A lot of people don’t know that if you stick nails into a pickle, wrap the stripped end of a lamp cord around them, and then plug it into the wall, the pickle will buzz noisily and glow in the dark. Fortunately, Andy did know this. I have artistic black and white photos to prove it, his face lit with an eerie glow over a yellow-hot vegetable. After Andy electrocuted a pickle, seducing from it the fine aroma of burnt plastic, he would stick a string in one end and hang it at face-height in the middle of the elevator car.
“A fine thing,” I told him, gazing at the blackened turd in the middle of the elevator. We offered no explanation. We simply reached inside the car, hit all of the buttons, and sent the pickle on a round-trip tour of the dorm’s floors.
I can only imagine what people thought when the elevator dinged and the hanging turd greeted them wordlessly, like an accusation. When it made it to the ground floor, where the ID-checkers were doing their halfhearted duties at the doors, our phone rang.
“Andy Baker,” said someone that neither Andy nor anyone else knew. “Get that thing out of the elevator.” Apparently, Andy’s reputation preceded him.
After a while, Ben returned to the chute. Others got in on it.
“You don’t want to drop that huge fluorescent lightbulb down there,” our resident advisor told us, coming upon a sinister group poised above the Chute.
“We do,” Ben corrected him. “But it won’t fit.”
I'M GONNA BE SO DAMN LOADED
Check this out.
This isn’t a Photoshop job or a clever fake. This is a legit, fo-sho five-leaf clover I found the other day in my in-law’s hayfield while my son was being all manly by wading through the tall grass and picking flowers. I have to figure something big is bound to happen.
And yes, lo and behold, the other day it all started coming together when I got an email from a Mr. Ian Palmer (or, as the “From” line of his message read, “ian.palmer ian.palmer,”) in London. Here’s what it said:
The email went on to explain that this Thompson guy didn’t have any living family or whatever, so they got together at the bank and (and I quote), “It is therefore upon this discovery that I and two other officials in this department now decided to make business with you and release the money to you.”
Oh, snap. Me out of everyone on the planet. This kind of thing only happens when you’ve got some serious luck o’ the Irish. I would have been a fool to ignore it, so I decided to answer it, providing the personal stats that Mr. palmer ian palmer had asked for. I slightly modified them to fit what I perceived to be Mr. Palmer’s ideal demographic.
The next day, I woke up to find that Ian (ian.palmer ian.palmer) had answered my message. I was in business!
Well, I didn’t want to miss out on a once in life time opportunity.
The email went on to say that I should follow up with the transaction relentlessly to enable them to actualize it soon. Apparently, Ian’s client’s entire family lose their life’s, leaving the estate with no body to claim is balance. No body? Shit. That’s scary.
He went on to assure me that this transaction was all legal and legitimate and that he assured personally that “the funds actually exist.” Nowhere, however, was it explained why, out of all of the people on the face of the Earth, he chose an obscure retired union carpenter from Ohio to receive the funds. I’m just lucky, I guess.
The email concluded with:
Okay, sweet. I figured less was more, so I hobbled over to the computer using my cane and typed:
24 hours later, Ian responded, punctual as always. He said:
Oh, awesome. I was totally able to forget that despite his use of words like “actualize,” he can’t manage to fucking hold the Shift key down when typing an I.
So a little further down, I find out about my legal representation. I could only hope that he was as needlessly verbose, grammatically incorrect, and unnecessarily jargony as my new buddy Ian. Here’s what Ian had to say about him:
Ian then reminded me again that Pete doesn’t know that I didn’t pay my own legal bill. I figured this had some significance. They got together over fish and chips in a tea shop or some shit and Ian was like, “I finally found a guy willing to take all of this cash off of our hands. Sigh!” And Peter was like, “Jolly good.” And then Ian was like, “He’s a retired carpenter from Ohio.” And Peter was like, “That’s fully logical. Great show!”
Here’s more from that email:
So now I’m not supposed to talk to my bank, but that’s cool because they don’t know who my bank is yet.
And apparently we’re heading off into enemy territory or something. Or like, freeing the slaves. Something important, anyway.
So then I wrote back,
But then about an hour or so later, I realized my reply was pretty light so I sent him this:
It took another day or two until I heard from the lawyer (or “barrister,” right? I think they still wear those poofy wigs sometimes or something), a Mr. Peter Johnson, who wrote:
Ah, we get down to it. I didn’t want to give him the details just yet, so I decided to make him work for it.
But I wanted the money, so I needed an excuse that made sense. I tried to think like a senile retired carpenter, and so wrote:
I figured Pete would forgive my bigotry and the fact that I didn’t actually give a cell number because the people who respond to these messages in earnest surely say weirder shit.
But this was disappointing. After a while, I hadn’t heard from Peter. I was beginning to think I wouldn’t see my millions! But I figured it was worthwhile to email him again:
And still nothing. That was a few weeks ago.
This morning, I decided that whatever semi-literates are behind these things must not like to weasel answers out of people who are less than forthcoming. Maybe it’s a percentage game, and if one in fifty thousand just sends their account info, that’s who they go with.
So I figured I should give him what he wanted.
I have to tell you, I’m not optimistic. Five leaf clover or no, I’m starting to think I’m not going to see my money. My wife won’t get to go to Dollywood, but that may have something to do with the fact that I wrote early on that she was dead. Oops.
I do hope he writes back this time. He may suspect that 452 isn’t my actual account number, and when I get befuddled trying to find it, he may tell me to just call my bank. If he does, he has another thing coming. If I don’t trust my homosexual grandson with my money, I sure as hell don’t trust those Jews at the bank.
Piece and quiet
Yesterday, my 1-year-old daughter, The Bean, shambled into her bedroom and returned laughing her ass off while holding a pair of pink footie pajamas. Now, I think pajamas are hilarious, but this was off the hook. So I did what any responsible father would do. I draped them over her head and left her to run around, which made her laugh harder.
My son Austin, who was coloring, said, “Why are you covering The Bean?”
“She thinks it’s funny.”
And man, did she. Cackling, running, bouncing off of objects, cackling some more. At this point, the dogs started to chase her and bite her. She laughed harder and ran faster and it occurred to me that this probably wasn’t the safest endeavor. So I chased her, caught her, rearranged the babushka so that it looked more like a giant pink wig instead of a shroud, and sat back again, satisfied.
Austin said, “What’s wrong with that Bean?”
“I don’t know. Whatever it is, she gets it from your side of the family.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
So I decided to get my Flip video camera out before this spectacle ended. Unfortunately, neither of my children perform well for the camera. What was hilarious usually becomes mildly amusing, and some sort of misguided shenanigans typically occur. Austin used to chase the camera and I’d have to pedal backward and then hide in order to tape him, like a nature photographer trying to capture jungle apes.
So this time, on video, I put the pajamas over Sydney’s head. And this time, of course, she sauntered off without interest or hurry, totally ruining my video. Then Austin darted out in front of her and announced, “I’m going to pull them over her head.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Haha!”
“Hey! Don’t do that!”
“Haha!” And on goes the shroud.
The Bean accelerated, rounding a corner and tottering wildly like an SUV trying to make a tight turn. She was cackling like an asylum inmate as she headed toward a punch bowl we had lying on the floor in a box in the dining room for some reason. She hit the box, fell forward, and ran into a chair. Then she cried, loudly, and I had to swoop in.
So of course, immediately I’m all mad at Austin and have forgotten that I myself had her running around with the PJs over her head earlier.
I rounded on Austin. “Why did you do that? I told you not to do that.”
“She likes it.”
“She can’t see. I told you not to do it. Right after I told you not to do it, you did it. What’s up with that?”
“She thinks it’s funny.”
“She fell. She runs into things when she can’t see. You know that.”
“It doesn’t hurt.” Sulking now, defensive.
“Yes it does.”
“No it doesn’t.”
So naturally, I have to win this hypocritical argument with a 4-year-old, and the only way to do so is to be more hypocritical.
“So why don’t you try it?”
Now, we have no open steps in our house, and as he’s draping the pajamas over his own head, I’m already starting to follow him to make sure he doesn’t stumble over anything. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want him to walk into a wall or two.
“This is fun!”
He’s got his hands out, feeling for walls, and I’m pretty sure he can see through the pajama material. Cheater.
“Go faster.”
So now he’s running with perfect agility around all of the obstacles in the living room, darting around the coffee table, laughing, and finally he does run into me but I’m a reasonably soft encumbrance and all he does is flop backward, laughing more.
So he pulls off the blindfold and says, “See?”
So because I have to win this, I squat down and tell him all about how he could have hurt his sister and that if he does it again, he’s going into Time Out.
And so he starts crying. Like, way over the top. Heads back to the table and resumes coloring, still crying, putting on this big drama. “Why are you yelling at me?” and all of that. Meanwhile, The Bean has fully recovered from her trauma and has gone off to retrieve her pacifier.
Now, my mom got her this pacifier blanket thingy, so the pacifier is attached to this big blankie and when she walks around with the pacifier in her mouth, it’s like she’s wearing a very airy apron on her front as the whole works swings pendulously from side to side. Around the time Austin begins to settle down, she saunters past him on the laminate wood floor and uses it to performs a pratfall worthy of Jerry Lewis.
The blankie slips and falls to the laminate floor, one foot steps on it, and she immediately rotates 90 degrees in the air and lands on her back. And resumes crying.
So now Austin is blurting, “I didn’t do it!”
“I know you, didn’t do anything.”
But now he’s back into his theatrics. I calm one; I calm the other. I sit down at the kitchen table with him.
When this all began, I was trying to answer an email. Like, a quick answer. But every time I started, Sydney would come into my office and pick up all my papers, so I moved my Macbook out onto the kitchen table. Between all of these shenanigans, I’m typing a word or two to just try and answer the damn email. And for some reason, Austin likes to sit beside me and color when I “work” like this. So as his drama subsides, that’s where we end up once again.
I type two more words.
The Bean begins to circle the kitchen table and nears the dog food. Because she’s really big on trying to eat it, I keep a close watch. She passes without incident.
I type a few more words.
On the second pass, things don’t go as well. Because she’s put the pendulous paci-blankie back in her mouth, she’s one big moving violation and never watches where she’s going. One foot steps in one dog food dish (empty) and the other foot goes right into the other (not empty). Everything up-ends, Bean falls to the floor, and dog food goes everywhere. And then both of the kids start crying again.
Me to Austin: “What?”
Austin: “She fell!”
Me: “O… kay.”
By the end of the evening, I still haven’t finished this one quick email. So when Austin is in the bathroom — always an extended endeavor when number two is involved (not “Number Two” a.k.a Wil Riker from Star Trek) — I sit back down and finish it. Next to me is this coloring masterpiece Austin has been working on throughout the day.
I’m just closing my laptop when he comes out and he starts to sit down and finish his art. But by now it’s 8:30, well past bedtime.
“Not tonight, kiddo. You can finish it tomorrow.”
And he says literally this; I know because I wrote it down: “But Daddy, I wanted to color while you were working, but I spent all my time pooping.” A pause. “That’s no fun.”
Still, rules are rules. He climbs up onto my lap. We sit there for a minute.
And I say, “Hey, I’m sorry I yelled at you about putting the pajamas over The Bean. I shouldn’t have done it either. We can’t do that, okay? And you especially shouldn’t do something after I’ve told you not to.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
The kid gets it. He’s smart. Later, he told my mom on the phone that he wants to come up to visit her so that Mom and Dad can get some peace and quiet. He’s unable to explain what “peace” is, except that it’s like a piece of something. Like maybe pie.
Right now, as I’m writing this at 7am, it’s quiet in the house.
I wonder if I’m allowed to have peace for breakfast.
Kids are messed up
I’ve found that when I write about my kids, several things happen:
1. My readers with kids think it’s great, and they get it all, and they relate, and they comment up a storm.
2. My readers without kids do nothing and probably don’t think it’s funny. I used to be like this. If you don’t have kids, chances are you don’t think kids are terribly interesting or engaging or funny, and you may just kind of be annoyed by them. This is why once you have kids, your childless friends disappear, then later reappear once they have kids and have been excommunicated from the cool world as well.
3. My dad gets all excited.
4. N.C. Winters and Trish argue in the comments, with a weird sexual tension. Although to be fair, that’s also true when I write about buying snow shovels or flogging circus clowns.
So, in an attempt to please all parties (and because I’m lazy, and also due chiefly to laziness, and also laziness is really the only reason) I’m going to offer a bulleted list of weird shit my kids have done recently. This makes it scannable for non-kid-fans, and also I’m lazy. Which goes well with my laziness, conveniently. And also, the list isn’t actually bulleted.
WEIRD THING #1: Bean parties
My daughter Sydney isn’t know as “Sydney” in our house. She’s known as “The Bean,” which finally fulfills my lifelong desire to have an offspring whose name starts with an article, like “The Beaver” or “The Gooch.” The name allows for many hilarious sentences, such as, “Monty! Stop licking The Bean!” and “That’s one belligerent Bean.” And naturally, it allows for Bean Parties.
Bean Parties are my son Austin’s invention. You have to go into the bedroom and hide under the covers until The Bean goes into the master bathroom. When she comes out, you have to yell, “Oh no, it’s The Bean!” and hide again.
Don’t look at me. I didn’t invent this game. Kids are weird as hell.
WEIRD THING #2: Kids’ observations on death
Austin [out of the blue]: “Daddy, you’re going to die before I do.”
Me: “Where did you hear that?”
Austin: “I don’t know.”
Me: “Why do you think I’ll die first?”
Austin: “Because you’re older than me. So you’ll die before I do.”
Me: “Well, that’s probably true. I hope it’s true.”
Austin: “Why do you hope it’s true?”
Me: “I… uh… anyway, that won’t happen for a long time.”
Austin: “So, before you die, you have to get me all of the Transformers in the world.”
WEIRD THING #3: Kids really do say funny shit
• After falling off of his bike: “Good thing I’m talented.”
• After being asked if he still collects toilet paper tubes: “Oh, I got out of that business.”
• Referring to McDonald’s fries, while feeding them to his sister: “This goes in The Bean.”
• Re: a “Kidz Bops” CD, wherein kids cover popular songs: “This is dumb music.”
• After overhearing my joke while passing a “Lube Stop” oil change center: “What’s K-Y?” (My answer: “It’s a dessert.”)
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That’s all I have. Those of you without kids can resume reading now. And N.C. and Trish? You’re both married. Knock it off.
I've literally lost my mind. Anyone seen it?
The recent flurry of activity surrounding my “Um, words…” post has led me to believe that:
1. My readers are huge nerds,
2. My readers are argumentative, and
3. My readers have unresolved and throbbing sexual issues amongst themselves.
So because I believe in giving the people what they want, I opted to rent us all a hotel room in Chicago and stock it with a bunch of padded foam Gladiator weapons and cheap sexual lubricant. But then I found out that room service there has a mandatory tip for the delivery guy and I was like FUCK THAT and slapped together the following language abuse post on the word “literally” instead.
Understanding the correct and incorrect uses of the word “literally” allows the sophisticated nerd to have private nerd glee at unexpected and delightful intervals throughout the week as people misuse it. Someone says it wrong, you laugh inside, you feel a little dirty because THIS is how you get your jollies, the moment passes, the offending parties go on and say something else stupid, and the circle of life rolls on.
So let’s just get the definition out of the way, shall we? “Literally” means that the phrase it refers to is exactly true, with no hyperbole. I think of it as a “metaphor buster,” confirming that what you’ve got is definitely not to be taken figuratively, as merely a figure of speech.
Metaphor (or simile): “This car seat is as hot as the sun!”
Actual meaning: “This car seat is really, really hot!”
But now let’s toss that metaphor buster in there by adding “literally”:
Non-metaphor/simile: “This car is literally as hot as the sun!”
Actual meaning: “This car seat is approximately 5500 degrees Celsius!”
Got it? Good. Now let’s take a look at other examples of how people have used “literally” in a way that, taken literally, literally confuse the living shit out of me.
• Kristen Stewart from the movie Twilight recently reported: “I get to do something that literally if I didn’t get to do, I would implode.”
Oh, shit. Well, thank God she was able to get into acting, because can you imagine if she imploded? She’d be all tiny and dense and shit. And if she got fat first, she might have had enough mass that her implosion would cause a black hole. Whew, crisis averted.
• From a random blog, about the Olympics: “Anyways, that opening weekend we literally vegetated on the sofa for 48 hours straight, it was kinda awesome.”
This would actually be kind of awesome, when you think about it. I hope they had dip. You wouldn’t have to leave the couch at all, because you could be like, “Hey, Carl, you need your leg anymore?” Of course, if you were a habitual meat-eater, you’d probably be pissed because this scenario would be like hanging out with hippies all the time. Hopefully one of the veggies would have brought a bong before becoming fully rooted.
• In early 2008, it was reported that Bill Clinton “literally shocked his audience” by criticizing Obama.
What a cocksucker. I’d be pissed. I wonder how he did it. Do you think it was Joy Buzzer style? Is that literal enough? Or did he use electricity. I’m thinking it would almost have to be that. 110 volts from a house line right up the ass of every attendee sitting in a metal chair. “You like Obama? Well sit on this, you fuckers!” BZZZZZ! No wonder the man got a second term in office.
• On a random news report: “The popularity of this program has literally turned the city upside down.”
Fuck, I’m not going there. Can you imagine using the toilets? And you’d better have a good grip when you went outside or you’d fall right the fuck into space. I’d stay inside and turn my grid of ceiling lights into a Dance Dance Revolution game pad.
• When Britney Spears started getting fat a few years ago, a doc warned that she was “literally on a roller coaster to hell.”
A roller coaster to and through Hell would rule as long as the ride didn’t break down in the middle and you got stuck doing some tedious ironic punishment, like habitual flatulents being farted on by Satan for all eternity. Barring that, I think you could make a lot of money off of a ride like that as long as 1) you could dig deep enough, 2) you paid Satan off from stealing souls through the cameras along the track, and 3) you were in no way affiliated with Goofy or Donald Duck.
• Let’s close on a truly barbaric one. A mall Santa reported that “I’ve had children just literally tear my heart out.”
These stupid kids today, let me tell you. They see Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ONE FUCKING TIME and suddenly they’re all Mola Ram 24/7, ripping their chubby little hands into the chests of everyone they run into. And Santa? Really? How is eviscerating Santa going to help? Sure, you appease the gods enough to bolster the fall harvest, but Christmas becomes at least 70% less holly and jolly. I think that’s a net loss regardless of how many starve. Sacrifice a fucking goat already. They’re fairly useless.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get a second pair of shoes because I am literally beside myself with anticipation of the response I’m going to get to this post.