9.10.07

Follow-up

I realize that I alienated a fair portion of my reading-audience with my blog about UPS the other day—but it has raised some eye-opening conversation since that translate to anyone in any social circle—so I think I should qualify my previous statements with the following:

The only people that UPS people hate more than non-UPS people is other UPS people. (And I don't think that this is exclusive to us.)

Seriously—we can’t go five minutes without bagging on each other and take no pleasure in each other’s company. Sometimes I feel as though the only reason we seek each other out is so we'll have something negative to say about each other when we part company.

But one of the Arnolds presented a specific case to me—which I’ll name, “The Santa Claus is Coming to Town Theorem”.

Tell me if this sounds familiar:

Someone who is loosely in your group of friends, but virtually of no consequence to you is suddenly a) turning 27, b) moving out of town, or God forbid c) coming back into town. All of the sudden your name is attached to a “Reply All” chain that makes it a plain assumption that you’re going to be at the bar that “everyone is meeting at”, despite not really knowing, and certainly not liking that person.

UPS people are brutal with this. I live three states away and am still occasionally lumped in on these ridiculous things.

”Dude—Timmy is coming into town, EVERYONE will be there?" Hmm...

Screw Timmy. Timmy’s number isn’t in my cell phone. Timmy means nothing to me. And yet I’m supposed to come meet up to “celebrate” the existence of someone who is so inconsequential to me that they could do anything short of lighting themselves on fire and it just wouldn't have an impact on my day.

And yet, people move their schedules around for these things--and sometimes it is on a weeknight. Granted, I'm the oldest 26-year-old in the world and never go out on weeknights--but some of my friends are genuinely busy! I mean—these people are as overworked as a deep-fat-fryer at the Claim Jumpe and still show up at every one of these things. This confuses me.

But what I really don’t understand is the people that “we” do this for. It isn’t the nicest people, or even the most widely-known people—it is just some strange potpourri of out-of-town individuals that for some reason have become beloved in their absence.

One group really stands out in my mind—I don’t want it to get personal…so we’ll just call them, “The guys that played soccer at UPS and a couple of their DB friends.”

Now don’t get me wrong—I’d go so far as to say that I genuinely like all of these guys to the point that I’d come to their “back in town” party with a fair amount of excitement, rather than the misery that I attend everyone else’s with. But how did these guys get so lucky?

It's amazing--particularly when I realize that the reasons that I like them so much are the exact reasons that I’m shocked they get tickertape parades every time they come to town: they’re pompous, perverted, sexist, incorrigible human beings—which obviously endears them to me--but has to limit their general appeal, right?

I know at least one of them is reading, so please enlighten me as to how the hell you’ve pulled this off...I'd love to train with you, Master Yoda—but back to the point:

Next time someone comes into town—and that may very well be me—please use some discretion as to who you’re inviting and why—the chances are I don’t like the person who is throwing the party, much less the 15 friends of his or hers that they assumed I’d want to spend my only night in town with.

And to the unnamed group of guys who used to play soccer--give me a call when you're in town--we'll go out and talk s$#@ about all of the people that throw you guys parties.


HOLY #($*$@#(&* @#$(*& @#$(* !)$*

For some reason, the ocean has just been frigid for the past two weeks.

I know a lot of Washington people are saying, “Uh—yeah—it’s the ocean.” But in southern California, it is generally pretty swimmable. (That is—if I could swim…) One of my friends explained to me that he was pretty confident that the temperature drop in the water (more than ten degrees) was due to the polar ice caps melted. Needless to say, this statement earned him a lifetime in the penalty box and he is no longer my friend.

But despite the cold temperatures, I felt like I should brave the water yesterday. The roommate and I had just finished two marathon games of bocce on the beach (split 1-1…I lead the now-ongoing series 3-1…but more on this in the future...) and were dumping sweat like Don Amaechi at the Republican National Convention. So I crawl in.

The biggest problem wasn’t the temperature—it was the lack of surf. Virtually no waves made wading into the Pacific more painful than normal, because God wasn’t forcing me to get wet. I was up to my waist before I finally laid out and dove in.

With the water being so cold, and the waves being so small, I initially said to myself, “Okay—you’re cooled-off—head back into the beach…” but for some reason I was compelled to try to swim out a little further and try to ride what little waves there were into the shore. I know you can’t see this coming, but in hindsight, this will be considered a poor decision.

A roller came through, cresting too late to bodysurf, so I treaded water with the wave and just rolled with it. There is an odd feeling that everyone who has swam in the ocean has experienced, where you feel like your feet should be back on the bottom of the ocean, and for a split-second you wonder whether the wave just hasn’t hit a trough or whether you’ve been swept into the rip-tide (commonly, and incorrectly referred to as the “undertow”.) (No, I’m not pretending to be surf-savvy now that I live here—I remember this mistake from high school biology.)

Well—it turns out that it wasn’t the rip-tide—it was a high-trough…this is normally a relieving experience…not this time.

Why?

Because the wave brought me down right on top of a stingray.

Okay…

I’m not a tough-guy (in fact my girlfriend calls me a baby because the Dolphins make me cry) but I tend to think I have a pretty high tolerance for pain.

SWEET MOTHER OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY.

I crawled back to the shore, and up to my blanket, still not 100% certain as to what had happened, and my entire foot began to convulse—the top portion of it soaked in a stew of blood, salt-water and sand.

I’ll spare you the details, but the next two hours involved:
-Me bleeding and screaming
-Roommate and lifeguard carrying me off of the beach
-My screaming in the car to the point that my roommate almost drove me to the ER.
-Phoning the Boo’s mom (a doctor) for advice.
-Her telling me to “Pee on my foot”
-Soaking the foot in vinegar
-More screaming
-The Boo and her mother coming to my place
-Boo forgetting that I'm allergic to Codine and therefore couldn't take the Vicatin that they'd brought for me.
-Screaming
-Me popping a cocktail of orange juice (to keep from passing out from the pain), six ibuprofen and two Benadryl
-Me biting my own arm to get my mind off of the pain in my foot
-Boo’s mom tying a tourniquet around my foot, then going to work on a wound that turned out to be a ¼” cut on my second smallest toe, but was causing pain as high as my knee.
-Me succumbing to the aforementioned cocktail, falling asleep for 45 minutes, and waking up feeling almost 100%

In hindsight—it could have been a lot worse. I could have been alone on the beach, Boo’s mom could have been a hair stylist, and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air could have stuck with the original mom instead of the much more likeable mom they brought in for the last couple of seasons.

All told—I got stung by a stingray that was about 6” in diameter (I did see the thing) and suffered two hours of pain…oh—and learned that while the chances of me drowning are far-lower during a low-surf, they are much higher that you get stabbed by one Satan’s representatives in the tide pool community.


(Hey—I’m getting more-sensitive—500 words about stingrays without a single Steve Irwin joke!)

Football Notes...

Hmm...

-I'm going to keep picking against Washington--at this rate, they'll win the National Title.

-Loggers beat LaVerne 21-7, but lost their starting quarterback.

-LSU--Yes, they deserve to be #1 right now--USC has proven nothing, but has a chance to this weekend.

-Oregon is not that good--and Dennis Dixon CERTAINLY isn't that good--but they played well, more power to them...

-UCLA--better than they're getting credit for---but don't worry, poor coaching will screw them in the end.

-Ohio State is primed for an upset this week. Hmm...who are they playing again??

-The Bills punt returner is the fastest person I've ever seen.

-TO produces. He's just unreal.

-Amazing finish to the Broncos game--just fun to watch.

-Finally--Randy Moss had a near-perfect opening to his career in New England. I'm really shocked--the guy is completley unathletic.


(Sorry if I added this after you guys read this...but I meant to include:

McFly's College Football Top Ten
1. LSU
2. USC
3. California
4. Florida
5. Oklahoma
6. West Virginia
7. UCLA
8. Texas
9. Penn St.
10. Nebraska



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