Douche Bag: A History

As any good wordsmith knows, words have histories. (This is important to keep in mind if you ever time travel because words that we use today may have different meanings to the people in the time to which you travel.) For example, we use the word "nothing" today, and I'm sure you all know the meaning, but whenever you see the word "nothing" in a piece written by Shakespeare it is basically guaranteed that he was talking about vagina.

Nothing's history is very dirty indeed.

Since the definition of a word changes over time, people of differing generations may have a different idea of what a term actually means, and how it is being used. This was the confusion that I created over dinner at a semi-nice restaurant with my family.

Now, it needs to be known that, with my family, it is not dinner table talk unless parts of it would need to be bleeped from cable television. However, we are normally at least PG-13 when we are out in public. This was not one of those times.

It all started with me calling my daddy a douche bag. I am not sure what he said or did, exactly, that caused me to utter the word, but it's not important. What is important is that this turned into a very heated discussion over the definition of the term.

If you have ever had the pleasure of viewing this video about a guy who is way too obsessed with his Jagerbombs, then you have a pretty solid grasp on the current definition of the term "douche bag".

If not, here is my depiction of such a person:

Spikey hair, fake tan (which is made more noticeable by the raccoon eyes caused by the brainless guy's tanning goggles), and an Ed Hardy T-Shirt - which, for some reason beyond that which I can fathom, looks like a rock-hard cock and giant hairy balls (this shirt actually exists!).

Thanks, Breezy, for guest-doodling the actual cock and balls!

After giving my parents a quick explanation of what I meant by the word, my daddy replied with the history of the word.

So, to paraphrase, Daddy said that a douche bag was pretty much one of those red rubber hot/cold packs that you see parents putting on their child's head when the child is sick in movies set back in the day. Only, instead of being filled with water and heated or cooled for the comfort of the user, it was filled with some sort of liquid and used as a vaginal douche. Daddy even said that his mother used to hang hers on the door in the bathroom, as if it were such a commonly used device that there was no need to be ashamed of the damned thing.

(And, to make it all that much more legit, I found an actual picture of what he was talking about!)

The debate about the term was (of course) loud and probably obnoxious, because that's how our family dinners always are, and it wasn't until the end of the history lesson that we looked over to see this:

A bunch of old folks giving us death stares from across the restaurant. They had probably heard the whole douche bag debate! (Not to mention the fact that the old woman had probably just used one before dinner...)

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

From my experience living in dorms and apartments, I can confidently say that I've had my share of interesting neighbors. Yet, as much as I would like to say that Loud Sexer, Piano Playing Old Lady, or even Annoying Couple Who Chased Each Other Around On The Floor Above Me were bad, I have to say that my current neighbor tops them all.

I think this is a neighbor of whom even Mr. Rogers would disapprove, and here's why:

So there I am minding my own business (and harming none of my neighbors, might I add!),

when I begin to hear a loud thumping noise that seems to have no direction of origin, but is definitely enveloping my entire apartment in a fast heartbeat-like sensation. Not only could I hear the beat of the music being played below me, but I began to feel it (and not in the way that musicians need feel the music, either; it was more like the way a drum feels when its drummer angrily pounds out the fast part of the song and his drumsticks are moving so fast you can't even tell which drum he's actually hitting but somehow it still sounds awesome).

Hours went by and there seemed to be no end to the techno.

I began rolling around Emily Rose style, begging for death over techno.

I can handle some techno music, don't get me wrong, but this guy had succeeded in blasting his beats all day long, and well into the night. I wondered for hours what the hell he could possibly be doing that entire time.

I could only imagine this:

24/7 Rave.

Wrist bands.

Bright colors.

Fake orange tan.

Super low V-Neck exposing wiry chest hair.

Baby pacifiers.

Explosive patterns.

Short shorts.

Loud music.

By the time Breezy got home, I was lying lifeless in the living room, having been brutally murdered by the techno music that had invaded my soul.

Ok, so maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, seeing how my heart is still beating (even if the beat still causes me to act as if I am at a rave from time to time).

Sweet?

This post is short but sweet. In the awesome way, not in the sugary way. Though, I did have a lot of sugar today, so it might fall under that category as well. I guess I'll let you decide. Enjoy.

Today was my last day of classes and final exams for the semester!!!

Here is how I celebrated:

embarrassing myself in front of people I've never seen before

doing gymnastics in the grass while singing the few words that I know from that one Alice Cooper song

(Yeah, that one; no need to Google it)

and destroying (I mean selling back) my textbooks with brute force and my sweet ninja/karate skills.

Oh, and I went to Barney's for happy hour with Cathy and Adam and got some yummy margaritas to celebrate being done with our Shakespeare final :)

By the way:

If you haven't voted in the super(hero) awesome poll on this page yet, make sure you do. It will most likely become a doodle soon.

To My Niece, the Ninja

Oh, Chels. I can’t believe you're turning 18! Soon we will both be considered adults, (how the hell did that happen, right?) and it makes me want to reminisce about our childhood days. So here it goes...

God, did we used to fight. It seems like most of my memories of our younger days are of us brawling in one way or another, and many times those brawls brutally ended with at least one of us in tears and running to my mom to tell on the other. I just have to tell you this:

I didn’t hate you; I just loved to torment you.

I mean, think about it. We had some pretty good times, though it would seem as though we hated each other’s guts.

I would always get so mad when you followed me around like we were in Ice Age and I was Manny the Mammoth and you were Sid the Sloth and just couldn’t take a hint.

It pissed me off when you tried to copy me all the time; you wanted to be like me so bad that you would even sneak stealthily into my closet when you thought I wouldn’t notice and ninja a bunch of my clothes! Then you would try to convince me they weren’t mine, like I wouldn’t know my clothes.

Or like when we played Barbies and I only had one Ken doll that we constantly fought over, so I chopped off the hair of my ugliest Barbie, dressed her in some of Ken’s clothes, and created what my Daddy might call Dyke Barbie. Then I made you play with him/her because I still wasn’t willing to give up the real Ken.

Or the other times when I would tell you that your Barbie’s house got robbed and take all the cool things you were playing with and put them in my own Barbie’s house.

That’s just good strategizing, it’s not my fault you fell for all of my bullshit.

But for some reason you still liked me; you still followed me around, still wanted to play Barbies with me, and still insisted on trying to be just like me. Like that time when I got a super awesome outfit that made me look like Jasmine from Aladdin and then you showed up wearing the same goddamn outfit.

And you still thought I was funny. So funny, in fact, that one day when we were sitting in my Daddy’s truck in a parking lot waiting for him to come out of a store I said something that made you laugh so hard that you wet your pants in utter amusement. Of course I thought it was comical and wanted to make fun of you for it, but my Daddy loved his truck and I knew he’d probably be a little upset when he noticed the piss all over his seat, so I kept my mockery to myself.

Until now.

haha I love you Chels ;)

Better Than Speed

I was so excited for a night out with the girls for what I thought was going to be a few drinks and some gossip, but when we got out of class that night the girls started acting all funny. They asked me if I had to go to the bathroom, as if hinting that they needed some alone time. Strange, I know. Don’t most girls go to the bathrooms in packs? I shrugged my shoulders and stepped into the bathroom – after all, I had just downed the amazing and giant red slushie that B Mo got me and vodka goes right through me.

After B Squared recued me from the bathroom stall – I was locked in! – we walked off of campus and to her car. There were a few more awkwardly quiet moments and then the girls turned around giggling. Shay Shay was holding a scarf and BSquared started taking pictures.

They proceeded to blindfold me, not forgetting to pose with me in compromising positions and take pictures. Damn it, didn’t they see the doodle about how surprises affect me? Did they want me to go Golem on their asses? I took a few deep breaths to calm myself and zombie-walked to the car – all the while being yelled at not to touch anything. How the hell was I supposed to find my way around without touching anything? Oh, yeah, I'll just walk over until I think I'm near the car and dive in! No thanks, girls, I’d like to keep my face just the way it is, not requiring reconstructive plastic surgery.

B Squared was really concerned about me not figuring out where we were going for the surprise, so she decided to risk all of our lives-and the lives of those unfortunate enough to be around us - in an action packed adventure that would easily kick the bomb-on-the-bus scene in Speed’s ass in terms of suspense. At least that is how it felt to me, the blindfolded backseat passenger.

At one point, B Squared asked me if I was wearing a toe ring, and when I confusingly replied, “No”, she promptly decided to park the car and get out, saying “In that case, we’re going to need to make a stop.”

I sat in the backseat, still blindfolded, imagining what could possibly be going on. It had been at least five minutes or more and B Squared hadn’t yet returned to the car. I began to fear for her safety.

After what seemed like hours of driving wildly across the city, we arrived at our destination. Unlucky for me, this destination involved a ridiculous amount of stairs and before agreeing to guide me up those stairs the girls insisted that I sing. It was almost frightening. If I didn’t sing I would probably be left at the bottom of the stairs, sad and alone and unable to find my way up without touching anything. Yet, being put on the spot like that – especially since I had no idea where I was or how many people would hear me singing – made it impossible for me to think of a song to which I knew the words.

The girls threatened to leave me if I didn’t sing.

So commenced my murderous rendition of the opening scene of the Lion King.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh shavenyahhhhhhhh ba ba beeeeeeeecheeee baaa baaaa. Ven ya oh nay….” (and so on.)

When I reached the top of the stairs, the blindfold was removed and I stepped through a clusterfuck of pink streamers into my own apartment – which had been transformed into a bachelorette party, complete with a banner and a penis cake!!! The girls were there: B Mo, Shay Shay, B Squared, and Pookie! They had snuck into my apartment while I was in class earlier that day and decorated! I was so excited as I realized once again – I LOVE SURPRISES!!!

And then Breezy jumped in front of me from out of nowhere and sprayed me with sticky silly string and I repeated my favorite joke of our engagement, “The wedding is off”. Oh, we are so full of love.

No Parking

My shoulder has been killing me all day today. Alright, it's not literally killing me, no need to over exaggerate. But it hurts. It hurts so bad that I can barely move and I have found myself popping pain pills like Tic Tacs in order to stifle the pain. I am not positively sure what could be the cause of this crippling pain, but here is my pain killer induced theory. Enjoy.

I was at the airport dropping off my MoMo so that she could catch her flight back home, when all of a sudden...

A giant bear came out from around a car parked against the curb. It had blood dripping from its razor sharp teeth, deadly claws, and bloodshot eyes. It yelled angrily and clawed at the air, threatening to take off my face with each rage-filled swipe. MoMo and I screamed like little girls on the playground running from a cootie-covered boy who was trying to give out wet kisses.

The screaming only seemed to further piss off the giant bear, because he grabbed me by the shoulder and lifted me up into the air. He began shaking me like a Polaroid picture, only much more violently. So, I guess it was as if the bear was a part of Jigsaw's fucked up mind/death games in the movie Saw and the Polaroid contained the answer to the puzzle that would save his giant bear life.

Just when I thought my shoulder would be ripped off for sure...

The part-time airport security guard who thinks he's tough shit because he's wearing a uniform came running up and yelled at the bear. I was totally prepared to see him pull out a tranquilizer or a gun or something equally helpful in saving my life, and closed my eyes so that I wouldn't see the projectiles coming toward my face.

Instead he merely yelled, "Hey! You can't park here! This is pick up and drop off only! No parking!"

I opened my eyes. "You have got to be shitting me," I said aloud. My life was at a near end, and all this douche bag rent-a-cop could think of was to have me move my car?!

But then I was dropped to the ground and, upon dusting myself off and checking to make sure my shoulder was still attached to my body, I turned to see...

The bear get into his red pickup truck and drive off toward the East exit of the airport.

"Wow," I said to MoMo as I walked back up to the curb. "That rent-a-cop is good."

That is my theory on why my shoulder feels as though it has been ripped off - because it nearly was!

... Or I guess I could have just slept funny.