The Tale of the Catcoondillo

A short time ago I went back home to my parents' house to watch over it and make sure the pets didn't die while the rest of the family was out of town. During that time, my friend Luke and I spent several of those nights playing Lord of the Rings: Conquest and Magic the Gathering, draining cans of Dr. Pepper and gallivanting around town in his car. On one of those evenings we were on our way back to the house from messing around in Walmart when in his rear-view mirror I caught sight of a strange looking creature hobbling across the road under a street lamp. We were unable to decide what it had been, so I jokingly dubbed the creature a "Catcoondillo." As the name might suggest to some of the more clever readers, we couldn't decide if it was a cat, a raccoon or an armadillo. Luke thought this was quite funny, especially when I created a strange noise for the creature to make, but what he didn't know was that I have encountered such a creature before. And it wasn't nearly as whimsical.

Several years back when I was still in the Boy Scouts program, our troop took a camping trip to Brazos Bend State Park. In case you didn't know, Boy Scout troops are organized into individual groups known as patrols, and each patrol has its own leader, unique patrol name, and patch. My patrol was called the Flaming Arrows at the time, complete with awesome flaming arrow patch. I don't think I was actually the elected patrol leader at the time of this trip, but the actual patrol leader wasn't able to go. So I ended up being named temporary patrol leader for the Brazos Bend trip. This was kind of a big deal for me because until that trip, I had never been patrol leader before. I never had the guts to run for it, even though some part of me knew I could win it easily. Another thing the patrol leader gets to do is select an assistant patrol leader, and since this trip happened during the brief time that my best friend Ben was still with the troop, he was my first choice.

Now, I'd been camping many, many times with this troop before in various state parks, but one thing still bothered me about camping at Brazos Bend. It's a wildlife reserve that's famous for one particular type of inhabitant: the ludicrous amount of alligators who call the swamps there home. I still wasn't entirely clear on how camping in an alligator-infested swampland was a good idea, but we were also being promised a trip out to the George Observatory to look at Mars, which was the closest to Earth as it was going to be for a very long time.

The trip was fairly uneventful up until the night we were supposed to go out to the observatory. It was the standard camping experience around the site, my patrol was busy doing what the oldest present patrol always did, which was to sit around and do nothing. The younger scouts were marveling at everything and obsessing over building their own little fires and cooking on their own, and our neighbor patrol had realized that their chuckbox didn't actually have any cookware in it because the last person to clean it never put any back in, so they were attempting to cook their meals on metal plates. After watching them warp about six of them, we decided to let them use our stuff because we were good, responsible scouts like that. Meanwhile the camp nuisances, a couple of kids who we'll just call Thing 1 and Thing 2, were busy fighting with each other and irritating everyone else around them. It seemed like it was always Thing 1's goal to piss off as many people as possible before running to his father for help when we finally turned on him, even though that never did much to save him. Thing 2 on the other hand truly believed that we were all his bestest buddies even though we pretty much universally hated him.

I'd actually been nice to the guy once and he'd decided that we were besties for life or whatever. He became my obnoxious, awkward little shadow from then on. Every year the troop went on two week-long trips, one in the summer and one in the fall or winter, and the fall/winter camp was at a little patch of hell on earth known as Camp Karankawa. This desolate patch of mosquito-infested bog was parked next to the San Bernard river. While the rest of south Texas could be a comfortable, sunny, dry climate, Camp Karankawa couldn't give less of a damn. It had its own weather system and was capable of being miserably cold and stormy while surrounding areas were pleasant. The year after, when the troop had gone out there for Fall camp, it had already reached that point in the week where it was sinking in that this year was not, in fact, going to be any better than it was last year, and we were all cold and angry. We ate our lukewarm breakfasts of box-eggs, meat substitute sausage and box-everything-else and then trudged off begrudgingly to our merit badge classes, so it was about that time that I decided I was tired of being Thing 2's friend. Instead of just telling him that, however, I decided to just give him something to do that didn't involve pestering me. So I decided to tell him a little story.

Off in the back woods down a mostly forgotten little trail at Camp Karankawa is an old car. It's anyone's guess as to how it got there, but the patch of woods where it rests is eerily quiet. It's a perfect setup for a good ghost story. So Thing 2 and I took a little trip back there, and I told him the story of how a man was driving home about this time of year on an elevated strip of highway nearby when he fell asleep at the wheel. His car jumped the guard rail and rolled down the hill, crashed through into this little clearing and ejected him from the car. Then I told him about how the guy was still alive, but the camp hadn't been established yet so nobody could hear him yelling for help, and because his legs were broken from the crash, he died slowly and painfully there in the clearing until animals came and dragged his corpse away. The little weirdo bought the story hook line and sinker, and I helpfully encouraged it every time he thought he felt cold or saw a ghost walk past in the forest. Then, as we were walking back to camp, the heavens opened up and fate smiled down on me and we stumbled across some scout's missing merit badge class schedule. The badges were unimportant, but what I did notice was that the correlating course numbers were A1, 2B, 3, 4A and 5. Anyone with half a brain could see that those numbers simply told what areas of the camp's map the scout needed to be in for those classes, and while I could see that I also saw something else. If you were to speak those letters and numbers out loud in a certain way, it sounded something like "I want to be free for a while." Which is precisely what I told Thing 2. And then I convinced him that it was obviously a secret message from a certain ghost, and that there were probably other things like this around. He stared at me with big wide all-believing bunny eyes and I sent him off to find them. For the rest of the week he was scampering around collecting trash, bits of paper and rock, and other people's schedules in an attempt to solve the mystery of a ghost which I almost completely made up.

Back at Brazos Bend, however, there were no such conveniently creepy car wrecks to pin ghost stories to, so we were pretty much stuck with him. He wasn't even in our patrol, but his own patrol had made it clear how much they hated him and it also didn't contain me, his bestest ghost-busting buddy, so we got landed with him most of the time.

Finally, it was the part we'd all been waiting for. We were going to go to the observatory to look at Mars. We all packed up into the van and headed down to the George Observatory where we took our places at the back of the line and proceeded to sit on benches and railings and be bored out of our minds for an hour or two while the adults talked with the people at the desk. Finally the adults showed back up, gathered us all around and told us that we weren't going to be looking through the telescope because evidently we needed reservations beforehand to actually use the good telescope. Our alternative option was to wait in a really long line to look through the much less impressive little telescope, but nobody cared to do that. We'd already been out there long enough and another scout had gotten sick, probably because his dinner was cooked on a metal plate, and puked all over the place. So we packed up into the van and headed back to camp.

When we arrived there, it was immediately clear that something was not right in the camp. A strange haze and odd smell hung over the entire place, and something just seemed amiss. That was when somebody pointed out the smoldering remains of what had previously been Thing 2's fanny pack (he was the only scout in the troop who wore a fanny pack). We all thought it was hilarious until we realized that the smoldering chunk of burned crap it was sitting on top of was actually the remains of my patrol's ice chest containing all of our food for the next day. Evidently, someone had left a kerosene lantern burning on top of our ice chest when we left, and the local raccoon population decided they were in the mood for a midnight snack. When they couldn't get the ice chest open, they burned it to the ground because they're evil little creatures. I'm sure that's not exactly what happened, but at the time we were all pissed off because we had no food, and for all we cared the raccoons were some sort of animal mafia who had organized this from the beginning. We didn't even take solace in the fact that some raccoon out there had probably burned the piss out of himself when he knocked the lantern over. The fire was still burning in some places, however, and needed to be extinguished. So because my patrol was the primary victim of the raccoon arson, we had to be the ones to go fill the water tub and bring it back to camp.

Troop 325's water tub was a large metal basin that, when full of water, took at least two scouts to carry. Therefore, it was necessary for three of us to venture out into the night to fill it. Two to hold the bucket, and one to hold the flashlight. Naturally, Ben and I were voluntold to go out along with a third scout. Ben held the flashlight, I held the empty basin, and the third scout just kind of came along with us.

I remember what happened next like it was a scene from the Blair Witch Project. There was no moon that night, and the trail was extremely dark. We had gone out far enough that the light from the campsite couldn't be seen anymore behind us. We had just reached a large clearing around the area where the water faucet should have been when suddenly I hear Ben yell. I looked up to see where his flashlight was pointing, and there it was.

We were face to face with a creature unlike any we had seen before. It was long and thin with a long tail like a cat, but it had a narrow face like a dog. It had strange scale-like coloration, a dark eye mask like a raccoon, a mouth full of needle-like teeth and two large, glowing green eyes. Either someone's incredibly ugly dog thing had gotten off its leash, or we had just encountered the Chupacabra, but whatever it was we didn't care. What we cared about is that it made a strange noise and started moving towards us. Now, Ben was holding a maglite with steel casing. I was holding a heavy metal washtub, and the other scout had a walking stick, and as Flaming Arrows, we did what we had to do.

We dropped everything, screamed like sissy girls and went tearing blindly through the woods back toward the campsite, because none of us felt like being devoured by some nightmare creature of the bog. We burst back into camp vehemently refused to go back out into the dark anymore that night. Finally, after the adults were sure that none of us were bleeding and we weren't hysterical anymore, one of them went down the trail to retrieve the wash bucket and flashlight. He came back and reported no strange creature, so it probably only preyed on scouts. We spent the remainder of the evening shining the flashlight around the camp and into the trees to count the pairs of raccoon eyes watching us and trying desperately to sleep knowing that some Yeth Hound creature still prowled the night nearby. There were no further attacks that night, and the only other disturbance was when Thing 1 decided it'd be funny to piss on our tent in the middle of the night. We were only able to sleep again after the adults had informed Ben that he wasn't actually allowed to force Thing 1 to do a thousand push-ups in the mud as punishment.

Looking back on the incident now, it's fairly obvious to me what happened that night. When I think back on some oddly colored creature with catlike features, a doglike face and an odd prowling nature, it's almost tempting to assume that it was actually just a fox and not some demonic entity bent on devouring our souls. I'm fairly convinced however that it was, in fact, the dreaded Catcoondillo.

-The Sarcastic Soul-

Technology Is Not My Strong Point

Ladies and gentlemen of my (mostly) imaginary audience, technology hates me. At one time, I was like many of you and believed that technology was nothing more than a classifying term for fields of study, or a broad term used to describe certain advancements. Or maybe even just a collection of gadgetry that permeates our lives every day. But now, I have seen the light. Now, like many schizophrenics and eccentric conspiracy theorists before me, I believe that technology is in fact, an entity. And this entity hates me with the fiery, white-hot intensity of a thousand burning suns. Its hatred of me is so deep-seated and loathing that I'm fairly sure that on Cybertron, there are sects of Transformers who are dedicated to the hatred of my very existence. And one day, I will be suddenly abducted by a band of them and dragged back to Cybertron where I will be crucified on a cross of Energon, and the Autobots and Decepticons will be united by their mutual loathing for me. Yes. Technology hates me so much that Optimus Prime wishes I was dead.

What I'm trying to say here folks is simply that if it's a gizmo, gadget, or widget, it will not work for me the way it's intended to work, and works for everyone else on the planet.

Before I go on, I'm gonna stop and just reiterate that you can direct all of your hate mail care of "ssoul.dmsdiscretion@gmail.com" where I will gladly take note that you took the time to email me, and then delete your message. I say this because I know at this point, at least one person in the world is scoffing to himself and composing an angry letter that's something to the effect of "Dear Sarcastic Soul, I am writing to notify you of several grievous errors you made in your depiction of Cybertron. First of all, you cannot construct a cross out of Energon, as it is incredibly rare and valuable. Second of all, Optimus Prime cannot possibly hate you, because he is the greatest hero of the Autobots who, by the way, would NEVER accept peace with the Decepticons over the death of-" and then I would cut you off. Because if this is in fact anything similar to what you're currently pondering, I'm just gonna take a shot in the dark here and guess that natural light and relationships with women aren't your strong points. By the way, spoiler alert for every Transformers plot ever: Optimus dies at least once. Every time. Look it up.

The reason I bring all this up, believe it or not, isn't just to enrage Transformers lore nerdlings. It's because lately, I have been reminded of this fact in more ways than I care to count and it's making me sad.

Take my car, for instance. Please. Take it. I mean, pay me for it first, but just take it. When I got it, I called it the Strawberry Fields Forever Mobile because the previous owner smoked like a chimney. In order to fix this issue, the dealer equipped it with a very, very strong black cherry air freshener. Problem was, it didn't smell like black cherry, it smelled like strawberries. For a very long time, even after I removed the air freshener. The scent eventually faded, of course, and over time it's earned a new nickname. The Duralast Kevorkian. Why? Because it helps ailing batteries to their deaths. Slowly. Through the equivalent of electrical strangulation. Except that the batteries aren't ailing until it's had a few days alone with them, so it's really more like regular murder instead of assisted suicide. It destroys a battery at least once every two weeks, and sometimes as much as twice in one week in the winter. Fortunately, the warranty on the batteries lasts a whole lot longer, so I get a free one every single time it happens! Autozone hates me too.

Then you have my computer. Oh sweet baby Jesus do you have my computer. I have never had any luck with computers. The first computer I ever bought was a Dell Dimension E310 desktop computer which was basically Dell code for "some crap we found in the warehouse and threw together one drunken evening." That thing caused me more grief than a funeral, and I hated it. In fact, I hated it so much that when I finally put it out of its misery and decided it was time for a new computer, I decided I was going to get the best computer money could buy. I wanted THE best, because I had been dealing so long with the WORST. So I saved for a little over a full year (in my unemployed pre-college years) and bought myself an Alienware Area 51 m9750 performance gaming laptop. $2000 for one laptop, but it was so worth it. Or so I thought. It ran wonderfully for about the first year that I had it, but then a dark truth began to emerge; about a year or so before I bought the laptop, the Alienware company had been bought out. By Dell. For those of you who have never owned a Dell computer, where the hell have you been since the early 2000's? But seriously, there's a little rule that exists with Dell computers. They will die. Within two years. And it will be catastrophic. Because Dell builds computers to die within two years. And my Alienware was no exception. This thing has had more hard drive failures, bluescreen crashes and catastrophic failures in the past four years I've owned it than any other computer I've seen.

Why do I bring all this up, you ask? Well, according to the angry Facebook messages on my timeline yesterday I'd say it's safe to wager that some of my more observant readers noticed a distinct lack of update. The reason for this is because I had an update written out earlier in the week, and decided to set the Blogger schedule option to auto-post it on Wednesday. Thinking I was being all clever with my making use of the technology available to me, I didn't bother to check the damn thing until I figured I would have a good number of views. By the time I realized it hadn't updated, it was late in the afternoon and I had absolutely no inspiration or motivation to write anything, and I couldn't remember enough of what I'd written the day before to re-write it. So it went unwritten. And for that, I apologize.

To tell the truth, I have no idea why I thought even for an instant that the auto-updater was going to work for me. That kind of thing never works for me. It's not any fault of Blogger's, it's just that technology is forever conspiring against me to make everything I touch turn on me in some kind of horrible fashion. This is the reason I don't ever plan to own a smartphone. I'm fairly sure that it would eventually transform into a little monster machine and murder me in my sleep.

I think one of the best examples of technology doing its damnedest to destroy my life comes from last semester at the end of finals week. I had been taking a creative writing course and I had two revised short stories I needed to turn in by a five o'clock deadline. I went to print them out, but my printer decided it was going to pick that day to run out of ink, so I did the next logical thing and tried to upload them to Google Documents. I had been using this service for the entire semester with no issues, so I expected things to go smoothly when I tried to use it again. Except this time, the damn thing was ready for me. Instead of uploading my document files, it actually destroyed the save backups for both of my short stories. I was able to recover one of them, but the other was completely gone. The only version of it I had left was the completely unedited one, and I had no time left to try and edit it again. I was starting to panic at that point, so I threw the unedited version onto a flash drive with my other story and booked it to the campus. I figured I'd just use the computer lab in the English complex to print them off, and then hand them in to the office. Except that the computer lab was locked. Along with every other computer lab. I had to frantically search the entire campus from the English complex to Narnia, sprinting from building to building until I finally found a functioning computer in the library computer lab. Which then took its sweet time booting up and logging me in, so that I'd already lost another twenty minutes on my clock by the time they were printed. And the printer smeared every page with gigantic black ink burns. Every single page looked as if the Satan of technology himself had scarred each page with some kind of dark omen in the form of a malfunctioning printer. As I looked around, nobody else's papers looked like this. Just mine. And because it was the only printer left that was still printing, I just ran with what I had. I went to grab the only stapler in the entire building and opened it. One single staple remained inside. Breathing a sigh of relief, I clamped it down on the corner of my partially destroyed packet. And the staple promptly bent, folded, and slid off the page. There were no other staples to be found. So I sprinted back across campus, up the stairs to the top floor and made it to the English office... Seventeen minutes late. Every employee in that office had packed up and left at exactly five o'clock, and I was standing outside of a dark, locked office at 5:17. So I slid my unstapled, ink-smeared, wind-creased, unedited story under my professor's desk and walked home.

Fortunately, I still made a B in the class because I've had that professor before, and she understands that technology hates me and took pity on me.

This is the reason I don't ever take online courses. I would fail every single one of them. My lecture videos and project files wouldn't download correctly. My finished assignments wouldn't save or upload. Exam time would come around and I would open the page only to get a window that said something like "Error 404 - Exam Not Found. P.S. We're watching you, asshole. Sincerely, Definitely Not Optimus Prime." And it might be just me, but I'm fairly sure that "my computer hates me and I'm receiving death threats from Cybertron" won't hold up very well when I'm trying to explain to the Dean why I have an F in an online art appreciation class.

-The Sarcastic Soul-

Ice Skating - An Episode From My Childhood

I know it probably seems like I've been doing a lot of these childhood bits lately, and that's because I have. And there's a good reason for it. My life has been fairly uneventful lately. I really do try to keep my blog posts current and cover topics that are more to do with my daily life and observations, but sometimes there's just no material to work with. And since I seriously doubt anyone who reads this wants to read a tirade over internet trolls and stupid n00b Brazilian League of Legends players, here's another one.

I have a cool party trick. When you hear most people say that, the images that come to mind are probably some involving contortionists, beer guzzling or bad impersonations of famous people, but mine is far more mundane than all that. My party trick is that my left front tooth glows under a black light. And while it doesn't really involve any effort on my part, for whatever reason it's really entertaining to other people.

Believe it or not, the glowing tooth isn't actually a result of spectacular oral hygiene. Not that I don't have spectacular oral hygiene, but that's not the point. The point is, the tooth glows because it's not real. It's an implant.

So now you're probably thinking, "Wow. You're twenty-two years old and you've already had a tooth replaced with an implant? Your oral hygiene must suck, dude" but that's not the case at all, and how dare you insult my oral hygiene. It's actually because when I was younger, I broke the real one. In half. And here's how that happened.

I don't really remember how old I was when this happened. It's probably because the excruciating pain, mortifying embarrassment and overall traumatizing nature of the event have probably reduced certain details into a partially repressed mush, which I'd imagine is a consistency akin to scrambled eggs. What I do remember though, is that I was young and it was my church's youth group trip to the Galleria to go ice skating. Most places in the United States and definitely Canada will probably be thinking, "Big deal. Ice skating. Where's the excitement in that?" But you have to remember, I lived in South Texas on the Gulf of Mexico, or as I liked to call it, the giant humidity bubble of don't snow here. Actually, the weather hardly changed at all down there. It basically operated on three different degrees of hot. There was mostly tolerable hot for most of the year, not quite so hot for the colder months, and dear sweet baby Jesus why the hell is it so hot out here for the Summer months. In South Texas summers, you really could fry an egg on a manhole cover. We tested it. You wouldn't want to then eat that egg, of course, because it'd probably taste like seven kinds of dog piss, cigarette butts and sewage fumes, but it would definitely fry all the same. So given that the only ice we'd ever seen was either floating in a glass of water or the extremely rare occasion that a shallow puddle froze over some night in December, the concept of getting to go ice skating was extremely exciting for us.

I was confident that I could do it. My dad, who'd lived in Michigan for a time, had tried to explain to me that ice skating was difficult and I shouldn't just assume that I was gonna be perfect at it the first time I tried it, but what did he know? I bet Link could ice skate the first time he tried. And besides, I knew how to in-line skate, and roller skate. Not very well, of course, but when your only means of practice were to try and keep up with your much more athletically inclined younger brother and cousin in the aforementioned sweet baby Jesus why heat, it's enough that I knew how. We did have a skating rink, of course, but it was expensive and smelled like cigarette smoke and sweat. Also, the only times I really got to go there were the occasional school skate parties. They'd open the place up to the elementary school on some given Friday and we'd all play silly, stupid games between periods of free skate time. One of those games was a lovely relic of a time when safety and the fragility of children were viewed more as "loose guidelines." It was called "Bat Tag," and it was exactly what it sounded like. One child was given a florescent orange plastic whiffle bat and set loose on the skating floor to chase down and bludgeon their fleeing classmates while the Chicken Dance was played loudly over the building's speakers. I can see how this might have been a good idea in a more controlled environment, but when you put an entire grade or two of elementary school kids on wheels and arm one of them, it becomes Lord of the Flies rather quickly. Plus they always fed us Zebra Cakes and coke, and while that's fine for most children, I had an allergy to corn syrup that caused me to become something that required an exorcism anytime I ingested it. So given the nature of the thing, it was only natural that after a while, my parents were mysteriously too busy on every given evening that was supposed to be a skate party.

There would be no bat tag at the ice skating rink, though. Just me, some friends from church, and an experience that the bipolar south Texas weather had denied us for our entire childhoods up until that point.

When we arrived, after everyone had their wristbands and ice skates and waivers signed (should have been a big red flag right there, but whatever) we were released onto the ice. The spectacle that followed was a sight that would have probably been familiar to anyone who's ever introduced a number of new kittens to an unfamiliar house. Some of them go right on about their business, playing and exploring and zooming around at top speed, while others immediately gravitate to the nearest wall which they cling to for dear life while they look for something to hide under. It was exactly the same on the ice. Half of us took to it like nothing, and the others did their parts to hold up the walls. I was one of the adventurous ones who actually set about learning to skate, but I did end up using the walls. To stop. Because how else are you going to do that? I had always used the walls to stop before at the roller skating rink, after all. I suppose it would have behooved me to learn to stop without them, but you try learning to stop moving while somebody behind you has a bat and is trying to reach you as fast as they can. I found it was just easier to use the wall, or in the case of ice skating, do a baseball slide to see how far you could get before you lost momentum.

I skated until my heels were blistered from my ill-fitted ice skates and I was clumsily tottering around, and it wasn't really a big surprise when I slipped, fell backwards and smashed the back of my head against the ice so hard that I saw nothing but blackness and flittering stars for a while. So I decided that I needed to take a break and escorted myself off the ice. It was well enough that I did anyway, because the Zamboni was released right afterwards to clean the ice and everyone had to leave anyway. After a while, it retreated back into its little box and the ice was left with a slick wet sheen that told me it was at least twice as slippery as it had been before.

Now, I've made note before of the grasp I had on common sense as a child. And that very common sense was telling me loud and clear that I should probably not go back out on the ice anymore for a while because I already smacked the back of my head, and now it's twice as slick. But for reasons I can't explain, I did anyway. And it was fine for a while. Just business as usual, tearing larger holes into the flesh of my heels and trying to pretend it didn't hurt like hell and that I really was still having fun zipping around in circles until I smashed into a wall to stop.

And it was one of those times that I smashed into a wall that some passing skater decided to teach me how to stop. I already knew how to stop, I tried to explain. I just crashed into walls. It worked well enough. But he wanted to show me how to stop the right way, which was evidently to drag one skate behind the other to slow your momentum. So I tried it. I'm still not sure if it was a bad patch of ice I hit, or if I did it wrong, or if the possible concussion I'd given myself was throwing off my sense of balance, but for whatever the reason, I failed his stopping technique spectacularly. And landed flat on my face.

I don't actually remember hitting the ice. I just remember popping back up from the impact and doing the initial systems check to make sure that everything was still functioning the way it should be. Which went fine, until I ran my tongue along my top row of teeth, and where my front one used to be I found only a small squishy thing which tasted like excruciating pain and blood. And then I started freaking out. I screamed bloody murder and then promptly closed my mouth because it hurt like hell when the air hit the exposed nerve, and I quickly skated back over to the seating area to get off the ice. The adults who were present kept asking what had happened, and in response I spit out a mouthful of blood and dignity and proceeded to bawl my eyes out from the pain. And it was at this point that all hell broke loose among the adult leaders. One of them attempted to pacify my hysterical state by giving me a cell phone to play games on, which actually worked for a short time because I wasn't allowed to have a cell phone and never got to play games on them. But after losing at Snake for the third time, my attention for the game was replaced by the sensation of screaming exposed nerve in my mouth, and I was hysterical again.

Ultimately, I was escorted out of the area (probably both because I needed medical attention and because I was causing a massive scene which I'm sure was costing the skating rink money in customers who didn't want to destroy their own teeth) and into the church van to go home. My best friend Ben gave up the rest of his own skate time to come with me, which I was highly appreciative of not only for the company, but because he had a copy of Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons on his gameboy color which I hadn't gotten to play yet, and he let me play it on the way home. I've compared his loyalty and behavior to a golden retriever before, but however accurate it may be I was glad for it at that point. By the time we were halfway back to home, the nerve had stopped hurting quite so badly. I still don't really know if that was just something exposed nerves do, or if the pain had caused my brain to fall into sort of a state of shock in order to cope with it.

We did actually find the other half of the tooth on the ice, which is kind of amusing in and of itself, but the break was so high and so much of the nerve was exposed that there was really no way to save the tooth. As a result, the rest of the tooth was pulled and a root canal was performed (which was a traumatic story all its own) and I was landed with a nice replacement tooth, and a neat stupid party trick.

I have gone ice skating several times since then, and I haven't broken anything since. In fact, the last time I skated at the galleria I was with my (now ex) girlfriend, and the only challenge I had to face then was resisting the urge to clothesline the irritating children who insisted on skating between us while we were holding hands. Had it not been for the fact that she thought they were cute and that it probably would have been not quite socially acceptable, I might have introduced them to a game called Bat Tag...

-The Sarcastic Soul-

Animals are not my strong point.

After devoting seven years of my life to the Boy Scouts of America program, spending countless nights camping and hiking, and earning my Eagle Scout award, pop-culture and disney-production logic dictate that I should have developed some kind of magical empathy with woodland creatures. However, I can assure you that this is not the case. I have actually recently come to the conclusion that I hate animals. Almost all of them. With a passion.

I came to this realization this week when it was Monday of my dog and house sitting week, and I was already wishing it were Saturday. Not because of the house-sitting part; I actually don't mind the cleaning and maintenance and the broken shower in the bathroom or anything else like that. What I don't like is the dogs. We have two of them, and they're approximately two halves of one idiot. And that's putting it nicely. Our female dog actually functions at a mental capacity that's somewhere between a lemming and an aluminum bucket. Which really isn't fair to the lemming. Their names are Scottie and Tillie, and they're Tibetan Spaniels. We got them from a breeder, and they have pedigrees and paperwork and thick contracts we had to sign agreeing that we would/would not do certain things to them. A common misconception with dogs, I gather, is that pure-bred breeder dogs are typically better, smarter dogs than your common ASPCA mutt. Well, after living with Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Bitch for these past few years, I can safely put that myth in the busted pile because it's a load of crap.

Scottie is a small black and white dog with an attitude problem that could rival most rebellious teenagers. We've never gotten along because he's been convinced that he's alpha over me since day one, and our relationship has never improved. We're not friends, and neither of us is willing to remedy that. It's not for lack of trying, mind you. I taught the little ass over half the tricks he knows, and we still hate each other. He's also got an irritating habit of claiming ownership of the house anytime my dad leaves for a while by crapping all over the place. Though, as long as we've been at war, he isn't the major problem.

Tillie is a blonde creature that was once a small dog. She's about 35 pounds of brainless dog fat (or more), and that's saying something for a dog that stands not even a foot off the ground. I'm fairly sure I've seen seagulls with more brain power than this dog. Unlike Scottie, she's impossible to train because she's just too stupid to understand basic commands. I'm fairly convinced she doesn't even know her own name. If you call Tillie she'll come, but she'll also come to "Scottie," "Dumb," any of the cats' names, and "Turkey Sandwich." I know this because I've tested all of them. Her special quirks include barking loudly and incessantly at everyone who walks in through the door (including people she already knows well) and somehow managing to give herself dreadlocks in her tail and her stomach fur.

Now, to be clear, I've never understood the logical reasoning behind owning a dog for a pet. Any dog lover will be quick to tell you that dogs are as intelligent as human children. They understand a small vocabulary of commands and function at a mental level which is similar to a three-year-old. From one standpoint, I suppose, this is kind of impressive to them. I mean, humans are technically the most intelligent beings on the planet. But then you have to look at it from the "did you listen to what you just said?" standpoint. Dogs are like three-year-olds. Perpetual three-year-olds. That live for about twelve to fourteen years or more. As three-year-olds. Have you ever lived with a three-year-old? Most people have, but in case you haven't, let me break down exactly what that entails. You have a small, noisy, messy creature who understands roughly a fourth of what you say, tends to ignore the commands it does understand, gets into everything, eats everything, and generally makes your life revolve around making sure it doesn't find some new and creative way to kill itself. It's almost like dogs and human children are programmed to be self-destructive and suicidal. The primary differences between the two is that a dog probably won't cause a screaming tantrum scene in the middle of Walmart or make the other passengers want to hijack the plane you're sharing and toss them out of the emergency exit just so they can stop the crying. Also, it tends not to be such a big deal if dogs eat Christmas tinsel as opposed to the child eating it.

As I write all this, I can already hear the dog lovers charging in to defend their beloved brainless beasts. "But you're just biased!" They'll say. "Dogs are so much smarter than that! You can teach them to do so many things, and they'll protect the family, and they're just so ADOWABLE!"

Yep. I'm biased because I hate dogs. You know who else is biased? People who love dogs. Why? Because they will willingly invite a halfwit creature who does nothing but make unnecessary noise, cause property damage, generate unbelievable amounts of crap and piss, add hundreds of dollars in food and vet bills to the family financial burden, and shed mountains of fur, into their homes. And why? Because dogs love their owners and they're adorable and fun to play with.

So let's weigh the pros and cons of this arrangement, shall we?

Cons: Stupid creature, noisy, breaks things, craps and pees everywhere (yard or house, doesn't matter, you still have to deal with it), expensive to maintain, makes your house look and smell like a wreck.

Pros: They're fun and cute.

You know what else is loyal, adorable and fun to play with and teach tricks to? A Tamagotchi. A plastic handheld egg with a screen and a little digital pet inside. And when the Tamagotchi craps on the floor, you can clean it with the press of a button and then beat it mercilessly to punish it and nobody calls the police. When it makes too much noise, you can mute it. And when it gets old and it isn't fun anymore and you want a new one, you don't have to wait around and watch the old one degrade slowly until it's a crippled sack of fur and bones that's just miserably waiting to die. You just take a needle and poke the reset button. Voila, new Tamagotchi.

Now, I'm sure the question on everyone's mind is, "So you're a cat person, then?" And the answer is yes. My cat is the only animal I have ever felt any kind of attachment to, and I love her to death. And I know. Dog lovers will argue with me until the cows come home about whether cats or dogs are smarter. And you know what? I don't care. Scientifically, dogs and cats are of a fairly similar intelligence. So similar in fact that it's not worth distinguishing between the two. However, I will say this: I have never seen my cat take off running at full speed, snarling and growling, to slam head-first into the door so hard the walls shake, just because the mailman put something in the slot. But I have seen the dog do that. And I have never seen my cat sit and rip chunks of its own fur out until it had a massive mangy bald spot on its butt. But I have seen the dog do that. Just sayin'.

I honestly think that, in preparation for owning a dog, somebody should modify a Roomba-type robot to wander aimlessly, replay the same three barking sounds over and over again incessantly, pause every now and then to leave puddles of some foul liquid or goo on the ground, leave a trail of fur as it motors around, and generate the oh-so-lovely odor of stinky dog so that it clings to every surface and piece of furniture in the house. And if the would-be owners can endure that for a few weeks without shutting the robot off or getting rid of it, they'll have a better understanding of what it's really like to own a dog.

And as for the people shouting "You can't just base all dogs on your experience because it depends on the breed of dog!" Okay. Fine. Show me a breed of dog that doesn't smell, bark, shed, drool, lick, slobber, eat, crap, urinate, dig, or require shots or vet bills, and I'll show you a potted plant.

Ultimately, if you're planning to get a pet, here's some advice. It's the 21st century. We have advanced technology now. There is literally no reason you should feel compelled to purchase and own an animal. So get an iPod app. Seriously. It's all the joy of owning a pet with none of the cleanup, house destruction, feces or foul odors. And when you leave to go someplace, you don't need to hire a dogsitter. Just close the app. If you're really deadset on getting a real physical pet though, I would suggest a pet rock. It's been a thing for years. Nobody's going to judge you. I promise.

-The Sarcastic Soul-

The Gang - An Episode From My Childhood

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, my childhood, particularly my elementary school years, was a gigantic collection of poor choices, stupid mistakes and memories I'd really just like to repress. However, as I have been as of yet unable to do so, I figured I'd share another lovely memory from my elementary school days with you.

As a child, I attended school at A.P. Beutel (pronounced boy-tel) elementary. The way the classes are arranged at Beutel, kindergarten, first grade and second grade classes are taught in the main building, while third and fourth grades are taught in a separate wing known as the Tally building. Naturally, in the mind of a new third grader, it was something of a major life achievement to move from the little kids building to the Tally building. You get new classrooms, new playgrounds, and a new hall. Actually, the Tally building was exactly that. One long hallway with several classrooms, one boys bathroom, and one girls bathroom. Both bathrooms were at the very front end of the hall, with a fairly large gap between them and the first set of classrooms. So it was only natural that a bunch of stupid stuff would go on in those bathrooms. Like using the brown paper towels and half the soap in the dispenser to make the ceiling look like a bat cave, or skipping class to mess around with friends. Or that one time a particularly stupid classmate ran screaming hysterically from the bathroom and all the way down the hall after scaring the piss out of himself playing "I believe in Bloody Mary." One particular oddity in the bathrooms, however, was that in the larger handicap stall at the back of the row was a door. The door was a thin piece of plywood painted to match the colors of the walls, and was kept locked by a simple lock. There were often stories and rumors and the like about what was behind the door, but to my knowledge, nobody ever bothered to open it and see.

...Until my third grade year.

One thing you have to understand before I go on with this story is that I was never a popular child in school. I was something of a strange child, due to my astonishing naivete, sheltered home life and complete and utter lack of social skills. As such, I had only a very small group of friends, most of whom were also outcasts. There was a boy named Cameron, a girl named Sarah, and another boy in a wheelchair named Neil who was only part of our misadventures some of the time. I was undoubtedly the leader, though, in my own mind at least. We would spend our lunchtimes sitting at the far end of the table with a sizable gap between us and the rest of our classmates so that we could talk about nerdy outcast things and not be bothered. At recess, we'd go to the same spot every day that was far away from the regular play equipment and we'd play Pokemon. Not the video game, mind you, we weren't allowed to bring gameboys or trading cards to school. Instead, we'd play real Pokemon. I was always Ash, Sarah was always Misty, and Cameron was Brock on the days he cooperated. Cameron really always wanted to be Agumon, but we weren't playing Digimon, God damn it, we were playing Pokemon. We tried to let him play Agumon once or twice, but it never really worked out because digimon and pokemon don't fight the same way. Especially when it was Cameron Agumon versus our invisible make-believe pokemon.

With the way our little merry band of outcasts functioned, it was no wonder that when we caught word of a gang hanging around the school, our little brains took it too far. Lord only knows how or why we ended up with this knowledge, and to tell you the truth I don't remember the particulars of the story. I simply remember overhearing a teacher saying something about a gang on the school grounds. I think she was talking to another teacher, but it didn't matter. All I heard was "gang hanging around on school grounds" and it was too late. Aside from being an outcast, another important fact you need to know about third grade me is that because I had so few friends and such a naive idea of how the world really worked, my brain was programmed to function in terms of video games. I spent the vast majority of my time playing them as a child. I probably spent all the time I should have been spending making friends, playing outside and learning how to function playing video games instead. My favorite game by far, however, was Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It was fun, and I thought Link was the coolest guy ever. Ten year old kid suddenly learns he has this epic destiny, takes up a sword and charges off to battle the forces of evil? Hell yeah. I wanted to be that guy. In my mind, I was that guy. So upon catching wind of this alleged gang activity at the elementary school, naturally I couldn't just let it go and ignore what I'd heard. Would Link let these evildoers go unpunished? Of course not. He'd grab his Kokiri sword, hunt them down and smite their asses. Which is exactly what I suddenly felt inclined to do. I was the only one entrusted with this knowledge I was granted by eavesdropping in a hallway. It was my destiny. I didn't have a sword but a stick would work, and I didn't have a slingshot because Mom wouldn't let me have one, but I'd have to do without.

So off I went to tell my secret destiny to my outcast friends. Naturally they believed me. I mean, I heard a teacher say it. How could that possibly not be true? So that day at the lunch table, we became the A.P. Beutel equivalent of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. We spent our recess periods scouring the playgrounds for clues and signs of gang activity. Ultimately, we ended up with a collection of paper scraps, a pile of Bud Lite crown bottle caps, and a mountain of cigarette butts. (Because y'know, smoking and drinking beer were only things that gang members did. You can thank the Chicken Club and other anti-drug, anti-gang organizations for drilling that particular message into my naive little third grader head.) Once we'd gathered our little collection of trash, we were convinced. The gang was not only using the playground for their illicit activities and villainy, but they were in the school. They had obviously infiltrated the school and were using it as a base of operations, and we were the only ones who could stop it.

So we told our teacher. And we got laughed at. Not directly, of course, but still. And then she told us to go sit down, and that we shouldn't worry about things like that, and no gangs were at the school. Which was of course entirely accurate, but I wasn't going to be stopped by the ignorance of grown-ups. Obviously she hadn't paid enough attention to the clues. It was enough, of course, to stop Sarah and Cameron who gave up the chase then and there, but they didn't have a destiny. So as I sat at my desk, brooding and wondering how next to pursue this evil gang now that the teacher had ignored my warnings, I decided I needed a place to mull this over without the distractions of the classroom. Off to the bathroom I went.

And that's when I discovered the secret door in the fourth stall.

It had been there, all along. Staring me blind in the face, and I just hadn't made the connection. If a gang were in the school, where else could they possibly be? It was so obvious! Nobody ever went into this door. Nobody even knew what was behind it, or why it was there. So I decided to find out. For the sake of my classmates, my disbelieving teachers, and my destiny. So the next day, I brought a paperclip with me on my bathroom trip. And after a while, I tripped the latch and the mystery door opened.

The inside was not exactly what I was expecting. It kind of looked like my grandparents' attic, with plywood on the floor and walls. There was a bucket and a mop in there, and a folding card chair. There was a hanging light with a pull chain, and a bunch of other miscellaneous junk. I climbed inside tentatively, and to my surprise, the door actually led straight to an identical secret door directly in front of me. I crept over and opened that one, and promptly found myself in the girls bathroom. Fortunately, I was still weirded out by most girls at the time and their bathroom was a forbidden zone, so I quickly retreated. More fortunate than that, the stall I emerged into was unoccupied at the time, though I can only imagine what might have happened had that not been the case. It was dark in the little room behind the secret door, and I was afraid of the dark, so I quickly retreated back into the boys bathroom. However, as I closed the door to latch it back, I thought I caught a glimpse of a brown bottle... It had to have been a beer bottle. That was it. That was all the proof I needed. I immediately ran to the one person I knew I could trust with this information: the principal. Mrs. Vickers and I were very well acquainted. I spent part of almost every single day in her office when my teachers needed a break from my emotional outbursts and other disruptive antics. I even had my own special chair where I could sit and do my work and play with her Magic 8-Ball. That chair would have to wait today, though, because I had a special mission. I burst in and told her everything I'd gathered like a good little sleuth. I told her about the beer bottle caps and cigarette butts on the playground, and about hearing about the gang, and most importantly, I told her how I picked the lock on the secret door in the bathroom and found a beer bottle in there. The look on her face was one of concern and confusion, so she told me very reassuringly that she would look into it and sent me back to class. Satisfied with my job, I marched back down the hall and back to class, which I'd been gone from for a very long time by that point.

Now, looking back on this incident with my adult mind, I can only imagine what must have been going through my principal's head at the time. Here is this kid who's notorious for telling exaggerated, mostly untrue tales which could probably be called delusions of grandeur. He spends every day in this office for distracting behavior, refusal to do work, breaking pencils, crying, etc. And yet, despite the story and the delusions and all the nonsense, he claims to have found an empty beer bottle in the school. The only thing she could have done was to actually look into it.

I made a couple more excursions into the secret room after that, but the following week I found the door fitted with a shiny new deadbolt lock which required a key- an obstacle that exceeded my lock picking skill at the time. There was no more mention of the gang, and for all I knew, I had been victorious. In reality, I had seen a bottle. Of chemical cleanser. It was brown, but it was also plastic. There actually had been a conversation about a gang at the playgrounds, but there was never really a gang. Just a bunch of hooligan middle-schoolers hanging around on the playgrounds when school was out.

So that's the story of how I eavesdropped on a teacher, blew things out of proportion, hunted down a non-existent gang, made the faculty unnecessarily nervous, and had the janitor placed under investigation for alcohol use on an elementary school property.

I am so sorry.

-The Sarcastic Soul-

Hold on to your pants, kids, 'cause it's about to get political up in here.

So, remember way back in my very first real blog post how I said I was going to try and keep this away from controversy and politics?

Yeah... Good times.

Now I'm going to completely pretend I never said that for a little while, because I'd like to bring to light a particular piece from what I assume was a newspaper. Just some good old fashioned American sentiment. Who doesn't love that? Right? Here's the picture:

Now, I got this image off of Facebook when a friend of mine shared it. Because it was published, name and all, over one of the largest and most active social networks in existence, I think it might be safe to assume I'm allowed to use it here in a nameless blog nobody reads. However, because I'm not entirely sure about that, I've taken the precaution of blacking out the author's name and home town.

Because I'm not the type to slander or otherwise demean people in ways that I might be sued over, for the sake of this post we're going to pretend this article wasn't written by a real person. Instead, we're all going to pretend that this letter/article thing was written by an imaginary character of my own creation. I'm allowed to slander my own creations without legal repercussions, and I can always work out the psychological repercussions later with my therapist. So now we need a name for my imaginary person so that I can accurately refer to him throughout the rest of this post. I'd like to call him Captain Douchenozzle McPointyfingers, but since that's probably going to get old about the third time I type it out, we're just going to refer to him as Skippy. Why Skippy? Because Skippy is the name I would give to a small dog. The kind of dog that acts tough behind a fence or a window, barks at anything that moves, and really, truly seems to think that if he makes that barking sound just one or two more times, it will change anything at all about his current situation.

So Skippy here makes a whole lot of comparisons in this little letter which are a little bit on the monstrously biased and ungrounded side. I could literally sit here and pick apart his entire letter comparison by comparison, so I think I'm going to proceed to do exactly that. Now, I'm going to make one thing clear here which I'm fairly sure I've mentioned before. My political naivete is astounding. Politics can be fun to discuss, but I tend to avoid the nitty-gritty, and I don't really actively keep up with issues. So instead of pretending to be a political mind, I'm just gonna go ahead and flat out say that I suck at politics. Fortunately, Skippy has given me plenty of material to work with here which is less political and more just flat out ignorant.

Let's start with this one: "If we [meaning white people, I guess] dislike a black person, we're racist and if a black dislikes whites, it's their 1st Amendment right;"

Well, actually, a white person disliking a black person isn't racist. It's just a person disliking a person. I mean, I dislike my neighbor for blasting crappy rap music through my walls, talking loudly on the phone and going out to check his mail in a wifebeater and a pair of basketball shorts that are three sizes too big. And he's white. The important thing to note here (and it's a common misconception) is that just because a black person tells you you're being racist, it doesn't necessarily mean you're being racist. In today's world, "racist" has become a term which means "you and I are different colors and you are doing something that inconveniences or otherwise does not make me happy." It's used by people of all races, and it's kind of lost a lot of meaning. As for a black person disliking whites, that's actually racism. I don't really know where Skippy pulled that whole 1st Amendment thing from, but I'm fairly sure being racist doesn't have anything to do with freedom of religion, speech or the right to gather in peaceful protest, unless there's a fire hose involved. I mean, I've read over it a few times, but I guess I'm just missing the part where it says "And also, black people have the right to hate all white people without being racist. We're cool now, right?"

Moving on, here's another of my favorites: "the government spends millions to re-habilitate criminals and they do almost nothing for the victims;"

Skippy, let me explain this one by taking an example from the wonderful world of nature, and the workings of predators and prey. Let's take a good predator, like a big venomous snake. Now, our snake is hungry and since he isn't fortunate enough to live in a tank at Petco, he's actually gonna have to go hunt for food. Today he's feeling rabbit because he's had shrew the past four times and he's getting a little tired of it, so he finds himself a nice rabbit burrow. Now, do you think he goes in to tangle with Momma rabbit? I mean, he's big enough to eat her, sure. Might not even be hungry for a really long time if he does. But no, of course he doesn't do that. He waits for Momma rabbit to leave the burrow and hop away for some alone time, so she can drink a pool of fermented berry water and drunkenly curse the name of Daddy rabbit for leaving her alone with twenty-something babies for that skanky hare from across the meadow. Once she's gone, the snake slips in and noms on some baby rabbits before making his escape. Why does the snake eat the little morsel baby rabbits instead of the big drunken momma rabbit? Because if he eats the momma rabbit, he's gonna have to find a new rabbit hole because this one won't be filled with delicious bite-sized baby rabbits anymore. See, the same applies to the government's spending in terms of dealing with criminals. In a country that's already so deep in a debt hole that we're about to hit China (who will promptly ask where all of their money is that we owe them) we don't exactly have a lot of money to be slinging around. Yes, they spend millions on dealing with criminals and don't do much to help the victims. They can only afford to focus on one side of that coin. They can spend it to help the victims, but that's like the snake eating the baby rabbits. There will always be more. Without an end. It's treating the symptoms, not the disease. And I wouldn't feel too bad about the victims, because we live in America, and in case you haven't ever watched television on any given channel for more than ten minutes, we're practically swimming in independent insurance companies. Y'know, those people whose job it is to help victims of crime? Yeah, those people.

Here's another shiny one: "in public schools you can teach that homosexuality is OK, but you better not use the word God in the process;"

First of all, Skippers, if you're teaching that homosexuality is okay, you probably won't be using the word God in the process. Last time I checked, every version of the Bible (including the fake ones like the Jehovah's Witness book) pretty much states that homosexuality isn't cool. So unless what you're telling the students is "God totally isn't cool with this, but you can go ahead and do it anyway," it isn't likely you'll be facing this issue. Second of all, I really don't remember anyone ever even mentioning whether homosexuality is or isn't okay in school. In case you haven't noticed, it's kind of a hot-button topic. There are a lot of people who disagree on the subject, so for public school teachers to say one way or the other is kind of grounds for having their employment status re-examined. What they can teach, however, is that bullying people for being homosexual is wrong. Thirdly, if Rick Perry's politically suicidal campaign ad on YouTube taught us anything, it's that Rick Perry really shouldn't be allowed on YouTube. But what it also taught us is that there is some kind of wide-spread belief that all religion is banned from public schools. Except it's not. While directly teaching religious material might not be okay, students are still allowed (and encouraged) to celebrate religious holidays, pray before meals, and other things of that nature.

Living a matter of blocks away from the Walls unit where the executions take place in Texas, this next line is topically relevant to my life! "you can kill an unborn child, but its wrong to execute a mass murderer;"

Before I even start on this one, I'd just like to point out that in this case, the "its" needs an apostrophe. Slight fail on both the author and the editor's parts. Grammar aside, I was up until this point under the impression that this was written about America as a whole. Not about roughly half of America while the other half either disagrees or are on the fence about it. I guess that wouldn't have made as snappy a title. Killing an unborn child... Hoo boy. Here we go. Everybody's favorite topic. Okay, so this is the part of the show where I get a little bit opiniony, so if you're easily offended by views on the topic of abortion that probably don't match up with yours... you probably shouldn't have even read this far, actually. So, using the term "kill an unborn child" is kind of making a whole lot of assumptions here. And we all know what assume means. Makes an ass of "u" and "me." It assumes that everyone either agrees or should agree with your opinion that a fetus is, from the moment of conception, a child. Or even human, for that matter. But here's the rub, sports fans: Until the 26th week of pregnancy, a fetus is incapable of thought. It may have a heartbeat, and it may have a somewhat human-esque shape, and it might even have fingernails. But it can't think. It's alive, yes. But it's only alive in the same sense as any other organ in the woman's body. I mean, think about it. It's a little collection of cells which feeds off of its host's nutrients and is only "alive" as long as she is. And so is her appendix, assuming she still has one. Both can be removed, and neither one will care. I think I've provided a valid enough exception to the dichotomy that I can stop before I offend any more people. Now moving on to the mass murderer thing... since when? Now, I may have been hallucinating from lack of sleep, but I'm fairly sure that on the night that Seal Team 6 (trademarked by Disney, Lord have mercy) put a bullet in the brain of Osama Bin Laden, I saw news footage and livestream video footage of a MASSIVE crowd of people cheering, waving American flags and chanting "USA! USA!" in the streets of many major cities across the country. You know what they were doing? Celebrating the execution of a mass-murderer. Yep.

And moving into the radical side of things: "if you protest against President Obama's policies you're a terrorist, but if you burned an American flag or George Bush in effigy, it was your 1st Amendment right."

Uh. What? I'm really curious as to when exactly protesting against a president's policies has been considered terrorism. I mean, unless your preferred method of protesting is setting off car bombs or mailing off envelopes full of anthrax. More than likely, this statement was directed at one specific incident, and that's not really enough to base a statement like that on unless you directly reference said incident. Also, yes. It's legal to burn an American flag. Because it falls under freedom of (symbolic) speech. And yeah, it's messed up. This actually might have been a good point if it weren't paired up with one that made no sense. Half credit for this one, Skippy. I mean, the audacity. People doing things which are morally wrong just because they're technically not illegal. How utterly uncharacteristic of the entire human race. ...Oh, wait.

"we have eliminated all criminals in America, they are now called sick people;"

Well, actually they're not. They're still called criminals. How do I know this? I attend school at Sam Houston State University. Which is a school primarily focused in Criminal Justice. It isn't focused in "Sick People Justice." It's Criminal Justice. People who go to hospitals and doctor's offices are sick people. But even people who go to hospitals for crimes they committed because of illnesses are still called criminals. They're called "criminally insane." Keyword: Criminal.

Here's one of my personal absolute favorite parts of this letter: "parenting has been replaced by Ritalin and video games;"

You're kidding, right? Oh, Skipperdoodle. You poor, naive little person. Parenting has not been replaced by Ritalin and video games. Parenting hasn't been replaced. It's just degraded on a large scale. I mean, I feel like you were close to being on to something here, but you're aiming at the wrong target on this issue. Parenting isn't the root of the problem here. The parents are. I mean, let's face it. In a country were over 50% of all marriages end in divorce and most of those divorces leave unhappy kids, it's already not a good situation. But when you throw in the part where most of the people we're expecting to raise these kids (or for us cynics, expecting to ultimately fail horribly at raising them) are a generation of selfish, entitled brats who didn't grow up beyond sexual maturity, it's kind of a no-brainer. But that's one group. I know for a fact that there is still an enormously large number of families who are strong, functional family units raising good, functional kids without the use of drugs. Blanket statements are a no-no, Skippy.

Next up: "the similarity between Hurricane Katrina and the gulf oil spill is that neither president did anything to help."

Yeah. Okay, so instead of commenting on what the presidents did or didn't do, because I know nothing I try to justify or point out will satisfy you, here's what I'll say instead. Skippy, let's assume you're right on this one. And you know what? You're so right, that the next time Mother Nature decides that her period is especially bad this week and she's just gonna curb-stomp some poor part of the country, we're not gonna wait for the president to do anything. Instead, we're gonna pick up our shiny red emergency phone, and we're gonna call you, Skippy. And we're gonna say, "Skippy! Come quick! A nuclear earthquakesplosionicane just vomited Godzilla all over New Orleans and California at the same time! Use your infinite wisdom of how our presidents don't do anything and save us, Skippy!" Oh, what's that? A nuclear earthquakesplosionicane and Godzilla sounds a little more extreme than an oil spill or a hurricane? Well, when the entire country suddenly turns its eyes to you and waits for you to do something about a natural disaster going on RIGHT NOW, I'd imagine it feels pretty much the same. So good luck to you when that call comes in, Skippy.

So in conclusion, yeah. You know what? There is a lot wrong with this country. And you were almost really good at pointing it all out for us there, Skippy. It isn't perfect here. In fact, it's pretty heavily flawed. But you know what else? I'm gonna go ahead and wager that when you had to take a dump this morning, you didn't have to wipe your ass with your hand before heading off to a job that paid less than five dollars a day. And I'm also willing to bet that you don't regularly go two or three days at a time without eating 'cause that's just not something you can afford to do right now. But judging by the fact that for a whole lot of places in the world these are daily challenges, we're doing pretty damn well despite the flaws. Though, I would gladly invite you to go spend some time in one of those less fortunate countries, if you're still not convinced. Just don't die from Malaria or anything 'cause y'know... we could have fixed that over here. Just sayin'.

-The Sarcastic Soul-

Dungeons and Dragons - College Edition

So as I was staring blankly at the pages of a textbook in my attempts to study for my finals, I realized something. Most if not all college students fall under certain archetypes with their roles in classes. As a geek, I’m fairly sure I’ve developed portions of my brain which are specifically dedicated to relating almost literally anything to D&D or Star Wars, so naturally I applied these archetypes to classes from Dungeons and Dragons. The results were terrifyingly accurate.

The Grunting Gym Mirror Addict - Barbarian.
There are many, many reasons I could list to explain why I don’t go to the gym. I mean, I live on a college campus. I have a student ID. I get into the damn thing for free and I have full access. But there are so many reasons why I’d rather spend an hour slamming my head in a door that I can hardly count them. One of the foremost reasons is because I am a short, skinny white kid who probably has no idea how three fourths of the machines in that gym function. (I stick to the rock wall. It’s easy enough to figure out how that works, and at least I don’t embarrass myself there.) Another primary reason, however, is this guy. The guy who never leaves the weight area, but makes extra sure that nobody forgets he’s there. I honestly don’t understand why every gym has to have at least one of these types, but at the same time, I kind of do. I mean, what’s the purpose of maintaining a body that screams “I probably drive a big truck and think I’m better than you” if you can’t use it to demoralize all the unfit losers who are trying to use the gym to better their own lives? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being fit. And there’s nothing wrong with being fit and being strong. Any guy who says he doesn’t want visible abs at least a little bit is probably lying. But I’m talking about the kind of guy who probably consumes nothing but protein shakes, supplements and children so he can go to the gym and grunt at his reflection. Loudly. Listen, guy. Nobody cares. I totally understand that if I slighted you, you could probably break my spine. But I’ll be the one laughing when you can’t reach to scratch your own head.

The Class Clown - Bard.
Everybody knows this guy. This is the guy who always has some witty, comical and ultimately derailing comment to make about almost everything that comes out of his professor’s mouth. It’s nearly impossible to go a semester without at least one of them unless your major is incredibly boring and full of incredibly boring people. Always going out of their way to be the center of attention (when it isn’t going to get them in trouble, usually) these kinds of people adore the spotlight. I am that guy. Here’s an example. In my creative writing class this semester, one of my classmates wrote a short fiction piece that had their character waking up with a head injury in the middle of the school’s body farm, and no clue how they got there. In case you don’t know what a body farm is, it’s a secluded tract of land where rotting corpses of real human beings are left out in various conditions, positions and containers so that criminal justice and forensic analysis students can study how the body decomposes in different ways. It’s a place where therapy will never make you okay again. So anyway, my professor was fascinated by this story and had us all do a spontaneous activity where we closed our eyes and imagined that we had just woken up. We were in a forest with no idea how we came to be there or where exactly we were, and the first thing we see is a rotting human corpse. “Now what is the first thing that comes to your mind?” she asked. Without missing a beat, I immediately answered “I’m a werewolf.” Class derailed. Laughter ensued. Everybody. Knows that guy.

Campus Evangelist / Christian Frat/Sorority Recruiter - Cleric.
In every semester I’ve suffered thr- erm, attended, I’ve met at least one of these people. Now, bear in mind when I say “Campus Evangelist,” I am in fact not referring to that guy who shows up in robes with a plywood cross affixed to the top of a curtain rod who loudly informs everyone that they’re all going to hell. Nobody likes that guy. If there were a D&D class called “Shouty Obnoxious Asshole,” sure. He’d make the list. That class would probably include features like a 60 foot Aura of Projected Embarrassment, and the “Summon Unintimidating Bodyguard” spell. Basically conjures a dude in a cheap suit with sunglasses and a King James version who’s programmed to nod stoically every few words or so. But no, I’m not talking about that guy. I’m talking about that person who’s absolutely convinced you don’t have enough Jesus in your life today. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m a Christian, and I’ll state that proudly and firmly. But I’m also of the mindset that not every single sentence that comes out of my mouth has to be about my faith, or the apparent lack thereof in the person I’m conversing with. These are the people you don’t want to be Facebook friends with because they’ll make damn sure you never see what your friends are up to, because they’re too busy transcribing the book of Psalms verse by verse in their status updates every ten minutes. That is, unless they’re pausing to become a fan of Jesus, which will end up in your feed as well. They’re also usually blessed with an uncanny lack of a sense of humor, killing all of your own humorous statuses with the precision of a sniper using scripture for ammunition.

The Pothead/NORML Representative - Druid.
The population of (real) hippies and flower children may have dwindled to near extinction since the seventies, but one thing that definitely hasn’t is pot. You would honestly think that in a town with a state university that focuses primarily on criminal justice, and where almost every third citizen either is or knows a cop, the weed usage would be a little less… everywhere. But it isn’t. While most potheads are smart enough to keep it relatively discreet, there’s always that one dude who wakes up, gets stoned and then comes to class. They’re easily recognizable by their vacant stare, inability to answer any question (or sometimes even speak) and, if the class is after lunch, the five Chic-Fil-A chicken sandwiches they arrive at class with. While moderately irritating to some professors, I personally find them somewhat amusing. Maybe that’s just my bitter, cynical side enjoying the impending failure of yet another idiot (even if they really don’t care). The really annoying ones, however, are the NORML crowd. NORML, or the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, has found a comfortable home on college campuses. Especially those at state universities where the vast majority of the student body is only there because mommy and daddy told them to, and would rather be doing literally anything that isn’t productive. The NORML guys, however, are predominately vocal about their affiliation, and will take any opportunity to talk to you about it. No matter how much you don’t care. And no matter how much you clearly state that you don’t care. And no matter how often you interrupt them to restate that you don’t care. And no matter if you ask them if they’re high right now, and you could have fooled me, and I’m not signing your stupid petition, and no I’m not joining your damned group, and I don’t care if I get a free t-shirt will you PLEASE JUST LEAVE ME ALONE YOU POTHEAD CRETIN I HAVE A CLASS TO GET TO.

Idiot Japanophile - Monk
These guys have been around since high school for most of us, and they’ll probably carry on into adulthood until they realize that nobody takes them seriously and they have no friends. I’ve intentionally forgone adding Fighter as its own archetype here because the weeaboo community sort of makes up for both. College is a time of (relative) freedom for people in this country. A lot of people get tattoos, or drive tricked out cars, or dye their hair. Other people wear fox tails, ridiculous leather outfits and claim to have mastered martial arts styles which I’m fairly sure don’t exist. From what I’ve observed, there are three types of weeaboo skulking around my college campus. Firstly, there’s the fighty guy. This is the guy who probably goes home after class every day to binge on way too much Naruto. He probably owns at least one katana, claims to know multiple styles of martial arts, and will aggressively argue with you until the cows come home whether the last season of Bleach was better than your favorite movie or sitcom. They tend to attempt to emulate the stoic, uncaring nature of their favorite anime badass and usually end up coming across as extremely creepy because of it. Second, there’s the sage. This is the guy who’s like a walking fortune cookie. He likes to think he’s wise and knowledgeable because he can rattle off trite, blathering prattle that he thinks sounds like Asian proverbs. Here’s a hint. Google any one piece of proverb-esque advice he gives you, and it’ll probably come up as an inner monologue line from some obscure, poorly translated anime series. Lastly, there’s the full-out weeaboo. These idiots have usually completely lost touch with reality. They’re the guys wearing collections of faux fox tails on the backs of their pants. They probably speak mangled Japanese, definitely own more than one katana, and think that pulling a lower eyelid down while sticking their tongue out is going to insult you somehow. Dude. For the last time, your name isn’t Yushimaro. It’s Carl. And if you tack the word “san” on to my name one more time I’m going to beat you. If you’re that obsessed with being Japanese, you should probably look into what real Japanese warriors had to do with their katana collections when their fathers hated them.

Teacher’s Pet - Paladin
You know that person who sits in the front row of every class, always seems eerily into whatever is being taught, and always has the right answer? That person who’s always just a little bit too eager to helpfully remind people they shouldn’t be texting in class? You would think that the desire to win every teacher’s affection would have died off around maybe middle school, but evidently it persists. And it’s only downhill from there. Found most commonly in groups of freshmen who haven’t yet been spirit-broken and corrupted by the college world, these types tend to get along more with professors and faculty members than other students. Fortunately, these delusions only last until around the end of their second year when they suddenly realize that they have very few friends, and competing for the professor’s affection is pointless because literally nobody else is trying.

Health Nut/Outdoorsman - Ranger
While grunty annoying gym guy can be extremely irritating, he’s not the only type who turns physical fitness or healthy lifestyles into a thorn in my side. The health nut or outdoorsy types can be equally as frustrating to be around, but for entirely different reasons. These are the types of people you frequently see jogging the nature trails in the local park, or hanging around the sign-up sheet for the upcoming rock-climbing trip. They eat, live and look so healthy that you’d swear they weren’t actually in college or taking any classes. While they aren’t the grunty narcissistic kind of annoying that grunty gym mirror guy is, they have an uncanny ability to effortlessly make you feel terrible about the way you live your life. While you’re living in a small dark space surrounded by clutter with a kitchen full of frozen meals and starch, this dude probably lives on trail mix and organic powdered essence of healthy lifestyle. While you get most of your social interaction through the internet and the occasional trading card tournament at the card shop down the road, that guy probably strums a chord on his campy guitar and summons his woodland animal friends to lead him off to the nearest gathering of hot girls who think he’s the most sensitive, amazing guy ever. Screw that guy.

The Cheater/Walking Blackmarket - Rogue
The punishments and consequences of academic dishonesty have always been fairly strong, but they’re only getting stronger as the years go by. To even think about cheating, you have to be a complete and total idiot or self-destructively desperate. Or, you have to be this guy. The perfect balance of resourceful, bold and lazy, every campus has at least one of these types. Whether it’s plagiarizing an essay, reusing old projects from past classes or just flat out sneaking a study guide into the exam, these are the types who somehow manage to get away with it. Before the final banning of the use of cell phones as calculators, I had a math class with a guy who spent the entire semester using his iphone for one. After the final exam which I ultimately failed horribly, he informed me that the “calculator app” he’d been using all semester was actually an app for a universal math problem solver which showed work and everything. He aced the class. Another side of this type is the guy who hangs around on test day with a backpack full of scantrons and bluebooks to sell for an unreasonable fee. In almost every class, at almost every level of college, there is always a group of students who are unpleasantly surprised to learn that they have an exam today. And where those people are, the rogue is there to sell them overpriced scantrons at upwards of a dollar fifty apiece. And even though on any other day they’d rage at paying the price of two packages for one sheet, a desperate student and his money are easily parted on exam day.

Mister Serendipity Himself - Sorcerer.
So it’s the first day of class, and you’ve just met a person who seems pretty awesome to you. Funny, charismatic, great conversationalist, attractive. Pretty cool person, right? Watch that person. Because throughout the remainder of the semester, you will watch him sleep or goof off in every class he doesn’t skip, do a grand total of zero studying, and still somehow manage to pass the class with a better grade than yours. How? I don’t even think he knows. He’s just that guy. He’s just naturally good at whatever he picks up, and hardly has to put any effort into anything to achieve results which are probably better than what you got after two weeks of study or practice or whatever. And you know that girl you’ve been hitting on for months? The one who’s been flirting back and you’re planning to ask out this weekend? Yeah, he just noticed her, so you can pack it in and walk home because you’re done there. She’ll choose him every time, and most of the time she can’t even explain why. He’s like a vampire, except he probably doesn’t kill people and he doesn’t have to supernaturally hypnotize women to make them love him. …So he’s like a Twilight vampire. So he’s really not like a vampire at all.

The Bookworm / 4.0 Student - Wizard
For some people, it doesn’t all come easy. For some people, every accomplishment takes work, focus, determination and lots of study. I have one of these in almost every class, not just one every semester or so. These types of people follow a path in college I can’t even fathom. They have a neurotic, obsessive NEED to maintain a flawless 4.0 GPA or their entire world will melt down. Frequently perfectionist types (or just people who have chosen to pursue an extremely competitive or narrow job field) these people study harder and longer than anyone else around them. They pull off miracle A’s in classes I struggled for B’s in, and they still somehow find time to be social and not go insane during the process. They’re the people who know the entire syllabus for every class, the entire schedule (and all the updated and changed ones afterwards) by heart, they keep their every single action of every day in a planner and they seem to be succeeding at a plate-spinning act which would make circus performers gawk. That might be because most circus performers never went to college, but that’s just a minor technicality. I honestly envy these people for their drive, but I can’t imagine pouring so much effort into every single class for a perfect 4.0 every semester. I find it difficult enough to put that much effort into a couple of classes, much less all of them. And it’s not even because I don’t care or I don’t try hard enough. It’s absolutely baffling. As I’ve found, however, these people are some of the most fun to pick on. Here’s a little experiment for you college people to try out. Anytime you have a class in a big auditorium, and you know one of the people around you is one of these neurotic types, walk into class on any random day and slap a scantron and a pencil down on your desk. You’ll likely get worried murmers from people around you and other people starting to pull out scantrons as well, and when 4.0 or Bust notices what’s going on, be prepared for a psychotic break. Make sure you call the joke off before they hurt themselves, though. 

 

-The Sarcastic Soul-