Yes, the dreaded muffin top migration. The muffin top hibernates during winter, and comes out in the summer to flap under the sun. Thus, in the same way that some people rely on a groundhog’s shadow to determine the beginning to spring, I rely on the appearance of a muffin top to warn me that hell summer is here. And apparently summer started early this year because today I saw not one, but two muffin tops:

Of all the songs these girls could have sung, they decided to go with Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back”—a choice that would have only made sense if the word “sexy” meant “total blindness.” The girl on the left had a spray-on tan that left her looking like she had been living in a bag of Cheetos for the past 10 years. Her friend on the right was wearing what I guess were “Daisy Dukes,” but looked more like “Make Me Pukes” on her cellulitey legs. Both of them were wearing camisoles that did not fit them, causing rolls of flab to form underneath their tops—and which were probably screaming, “Help me! Help me! I am being held against my will!”

As disgusting as the rolls, Cheetos-tan, and “Make Me Pukes” were, however, none were nearly as nauseating as the giant-ass muffin tops that were hanging out for the entire world to see.

For those of you who don’t know, a muffin top is a saggy layer of belly flab that is formed when a girl wears, like, a pair of jeans that are too small for her. But rather than putting on a pair that is actually in her size, the girl instead tries to stuff herself into a garment that does not have enough material to encompass her entire lower body. There is just enough room for her legs and most of her butt—but only because the jeans have managed to make extra space by pushing her belly out…where it must hang over the waistband in a sad mass of flab.

Muffin tops do not only occur when wearing jeans; they can form when a girl wears a skirt, shorts, slacks, or any other bottom-piece of clothing. Look at the girls I saw today: one was in shorts and the other wore a skirt, and both had massive muffin tops sagging all over the place. If the bottoms are too small, then it is inevitable that a muffin top will be born.

When you think about it, there shouldn’t even be such thing as a muffin top on something other than a muffin. What is so wrong with wearing clothes that actually fit your body? So you wear a size 48—so what? Most people can’t tell what size a person is just by looking at him, and especially not when that person is wearing clothes that fit.

On the other hand, we all know when someone is wearing something that doesn’t fit, and are never fooled by girls who insist on squashing themselves into bottoms that are two sizes too small. Yeah, you might think you’re rocking size 0 shorts, but you’re actually rocking a muffin top, so you might want to consider doing something like—gee, I don’t know—wearing clothes that are actually in your own freaking size.

My “friend” showed me that nightmare of a video clip where a Domino’s Pizza employee is seen wiping his booger onto a sandwich he was preparing, and then garnishing it with a shred of cheese he had put up his nostril. I guess the video I saw was the abridged version, and there is an “uncut” original somewhere that shows this guy and his coworker doing other nasty things to someone’s food. But you know what? I don’t care if there is an unedited version floating around on the Internet! There is no way in Hell I’ll ever want to see it. I didn’t want to see this sh*t, and I definitely do not want to see that sh*t…and as for the “friend” who showed it to me, he is officially at the top of my sh*t list. I am going to dedicate the rest of my life to making sure he is miserable because, by showing me that clip of those evil imps desecrating a staple of every fast food-lover’s diet, I will probably never order a pizza from a franchise ever again. No more Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, or DiGiorno’s (that’s what you get for bombarding us with your “it’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno’s” commercials)—I’m all about Red Baron and Tombstone pizzas now. I’ll even make my own pizza if I have to. It’s going to end up being a slice of bread drenched in spaghetti sauce and covered with shredded cheese, but at least it’s sanitary.

Boycotting these pizza franchises probably seems like an overly-extreme precautionary measure. After all, this gross video was of two insipid asshats working at a Domino’s out in Conover, North Carolina. If anyone were to feel the need to stop ordering pizza, it would be the customers serviced by the store those losers worked at because they were the ones exposed to contaminated food. I, on the other hand, am in Southern California—roughly 2,379 miles way from Conover—and order my pizzas from Pizza Hut, not Domino’s. My food is far, far away from the reach of those two nasty employees. And in any event, their crappy conduct should not tarnish the reputations of Domino’s Pizza or its workforce, or the reputation of any other pizza franchise.

Besides, the employees in the video clip were making oven-baked sandwiches, not pizzas, so maybe their grossness was limited to just the sandwiches. Who would order a sandwich from a restaurant that specializes in pizzas anyway? I wouldn’t. Getting a sandwich from Domino’s Pizza is like using an online dating service to find someone who isn’t butt ugly: it’s just not happening. All you’ll get out of it is a date with someone who looks like a leathery monster, and a ton of disappointment—which just so happens to be the same reaction you’ll have when you end up eating a booger sandwich.

Anyway…

Of course, let’s not forget the whole “it could happen at any restaurant” argument. Hey, I hear you, and I agree that there is a risk of consuming toxic food no matter where you go. And refusing to order pizza from a Domino’s, Pizza Hut, or Papa John’s is not going to protect me from the possibility of finding a pube or ass dirt in my meal. I know this, but it’s not going to make me change my mind about boycotting pizza franchises. Being aware of the risk that I am eating food that has been tainted by a crazy food server is not the same as actually seeing the employee tainting food. Once you’ve seen the latter, it is hard to disassociate that memory from the restaurant he worked at or the food he prepared. In this case, I cannot look at a pizza without thinking of how that guy wiped his booger on something someone ended up eating. It was so disgusting that I don’t think I’ll be able to eat a pizza without doing some CSI-type investigating first:

So not worth it!

Imagine what life would be like if McDonald’s served breakfast all day, and that you could buy an Egg McMuffin without having to wake up at 10:00 in the morning just so you could reach a McDonald’s before 10:30 a.m. That would be pretty awesome, wouldn’t it?

Now imagine going to McDonald’s at 7:00 p.m., ordering an Egg McMuffin, and receiving a sandwich that is the size of a big rig’s tire. That’s right: you, eating a giant Egg McMuffin at 7:00 p.m. That’s not awesome—that’s heaven.

And that, my friends, is the kind of heavenly-awesome experience I get whenever I read a news article about how some brilliant example of human intelligence thought it was a great idea to sneak into a zoo enclosure—only to end up having his dumbass chomped on by a wild animal.

The best stories are the ones that have pictures of these losers getting owned by the animals. Those gems don’t come very often—which is too bad, really, because they are full of generous amounts of amusement…so much so that I bet you could probably end world hunger, achieve world peace, and cure herpes simply by distributing copies of zoo-animal-bum-rushes-douche-bag news stories that have pictures of the actual incident.

Here, I’ll show you.

Man Tries to Convert Lions to Jesus, Gets Bitten

A man leaped into a lion’s den at the Taipei Zoo on Wednesday to try to convert the king of beasts to Christianity, but was bitten in the leg for his efforts…

Look! It doesn’t hurt when you pee anymore!

And here’s an article I found on CNN’s website this morning:

Polar Bear Attacks Woman at Berlin Zoo

A polar bear attacked a woman at Berlin Zoo Friday afternoon after she climbed a fence and jumped into its habitat during feeding time…

Uweeheehee! Who says Christmas only comes once a year?

Man, I love how these idiot douche bags always climb into the exhibits for animals with crazy-ass claws and teeth. You’ll never find a headline that says something weak like, “Tourist Crushed by Pissed-Off Galapagos Tortoise,” or “Flamingoes Peck and Poop Trespassing Visitor to Death.” It’s always “Tourist’s Affection Enrages Panda,” “Chinese Panda Mauls Teenage Boy,” or “Gu Gu Strikes Again! Panda Attacks Zoo Visitor.”

Speaking of Gu Gu, he has got to be the most badass panda in the world. He hasn’t mangled just one dumbass—he’s bitten the sh*t out of three! Three! And he must have been using some super ninja skills or something because I haven’t found a single mid-mauling photograph of him. Can you believe it? Gu Gu’s punished three douche bags, and all I’ve been able to find are pictures of the third guy lying in a hospital bed. What an awesomely awesome ninja panda of awesomeness!

Hopefully, the next time there is a report on Gu Gu beating on someone, there will be a picture accompanying the article. Are you kidding me? Of course he’s going to do it again! The fact that he has a track record is proof that he will have a fourth dumbass to chew on! And I imagine it will look something like this:

Hell yes, that’s how it’s going to go down. He’s the world’s most badass panda!
 

Last week, I came across a video news clip with the headline “Gallery Exhibit for Toddler’s Art.”

A young child with an art show? How could you not be intrigued by that? The kid must be, like, this century’s Van Gogh, Michelangelo is a party dude! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Heroes in a half shell! Turtle Power! or something to get that kind of recognition, right?

I clicked on the video link, expecting to see a little kid with a drawn-on handlebar mustache, wearing a beret and holding an artist palette while standing in front a backdrop of gorgeous paintings that could make even Chuck Norris cry. Chuck freakin’ Norris!

…And then I saw this:

Okay, that’s not art; that’s crap on a canvas.

Whatever the hell it is, it was made by Aelita Andre—a two-year-old girl who some are calling a child prodigy for creating what looks to me like doodoo art. Sorry, but that’s what it looks like…as does every other picture ever created by the average two-year-old. Seriously, when was the last time you saw a toddler draw something that wasn’t a shapeless smattering of random colors smeared all over the place, huh? He isn’t drawing anything; he’s just playing with paint. And it doesn’t matter what he’s using—crayons, markers, or colored pencils—he’s going to end up creating something that looks like a giant diarrhea tornado.

Aelita Andre is no different, and neither is her “artwork”—so why the hell is her stuff being showcased at an art gallery?

Because her parents are hippies, that’s why. And they call their daughter’s play-with-paint messiness “abstract art.”

Abstract art is not art—and the only people who will try to convince you otherwise is a German guy who paints pictures with his own feces, musicians who compose music out of weather noises, and whoever directed “Cirque du Soleil: Mystere.” It’s only art if the viewer can interpret some sort of meaningfulness in a piece that is completely meaningless on purpose. Why should anyone do that? You’re the artist who created the artwork, so you should tell me what message you wanted the art to convey. Don’t make me play “Where’s Waldo” and try to find the artistic value you want to be credited with. If you drew something that looks like it was created on a jacked-up “Magna Doodle,” then that’s how I am going to interpret it.

Obviously, I am not a fan of this genre, and this news story—if you can even call it that—is only compounding my disdain. What was nothing more than typical toddler doodling suddenly turned into works of artistic brilliance simply because the kid’s parents called it “abstract art.” And not only do people buy that description, they are also buying these messed up canvasses for as much as $1,500! Some parents wouldn’t even pay $1.50 for pictures drawn by their own kids, so imagine how douchie you have to be to pay 1000 times that much for a picture drawn by someone else’s child.

To top it all off, there is controversy over whether a two-year-old was actually the one responsible for this doodoo art. That’s right: some abstract art experts believe that little Aelita may have had help from her parents in creating her messes. A few even go as far as to say they are solely her parents’ work.

…Are you f*cking kidding me? Look at this sh*t! It screams “goo goo gah gah”! There is no question that a toddler created this crap.

“Lapis Lazuli (Dragon with Gem in its Mouth)”

“Lizard at Sunset”

“Mir Space Staton in Cherry Blossoms”

I, on the other hand, have been asked whether my “Paint” pictures were actually created by a child.

These experts should be focusing instead on whether these paintings can still be considered abstract art when the titles were created by Aelita’s parents. How did they know their daughter wanted to convey the Mir Space Station? Does Aelita know what the space station is? Can she even pronounce “Mir”? These are just canvasses their daughter smeared paint on, with titles they created to give off the illusion that it is art and not child’s play.

I imagine that some hippie fart-knockers are going to criticize me for being ignorant in failing to appreciate abstract art. They’ll probably say I’m too simple-minded to realize that the amorphous mess of colors actually has structure; that I’m not intelligent enough to see what is really being depicted.

Umm…really? I’m the stupid one here? You’re the guy who sees a terrier in a painting that cannot be interpreted as anything other than a giant diarrhea tornado. And there is a word for people who see things that aren’t there: it’s called “insane,” so shut the f*ck up.

Of all the possible types of advice a person can give to another, the process of giving relationship advice is the most time consuming—which is kind of weird, because most people usually only seek advice when they are on the verge of breaking up with their boyfriends or girlfriends. I mean, unless your friend is an attention whore, he won’t call you for advice after he gets into an argument with his girlfriend over how her recordings of “Millionaire Matchmaker” have taken up all the space in the DVR, because he knows that is way too trivial to bother anyone with. No, he’s going to call you up (and maybe Dr. Phil) after he sees his girlfriend on an episode of “Millionaire Matchmaker” trying to score a date with some pasty-ass pervert and his receding hairline, because that’s some f’d up sh*t. What your friend should be doing is shining the “Bat-Signal” into the sky, but he probably doesn’t have one so he’ll have to make do with talking to you.

A friend who calls you for advice already knows ahead of time that the only way to resolve his personal drama is to end the relationship. He also knows that’s what you are going to advise him to do. He’s just calling to make sure that’s the best solution, and not just some emotional decision he came up with after watching “Millionaire Matchmaker.”

I’m all for helping friends who are dealing with relationship drama, but my willingness is not unconditional. Specifically, when it comes to relationship advice, I limit my friends to one opportunity per relationship. That’s right: if you are seeing Person A, you get one chance to ask me for advice, and you won’t get another one until you start seeing Person B. I know that’s stingy but, as I said earlier, people only ask for advice when their relationships are pretty much over. What more advice could I possibly give you after I’ve said, “you need to breakup with him”?

The answer is “none,” and yet, I still have to deal with sh*t like this:

Hanging up on a friend in need may be harsh, but I don’t care. I hate giving relationship advice to someone I had already given advice to on a previous occasion. Actually, I hate giving out relationship advice, period, but I really, really, hate (think hate¹⁰⁰) giving it to someone who is a Raggedy-Ass Relationship Advice Glutton, or Raggedy-Ass RAG.

A Raggedy-Ass RAG is someone who…who…okay, you know what? I’m going to honest here: I have spent the past three days trying to write a decent description of a Raggedy-Ass RAG, but I haven’t been able to come up with anything that was even remotely close to conveying how incredibly annoying these people are. They are the foulest beasts on the planet, and the only way I can explain them is by sharing with you one of my experiences in dealing with a member of their wretched kind.

I knew a Raggedy-Ass RAG who had been dating some douche bag she met while playing “Counter-Strike.” That was already a pretty crappy way to start a relationship, but it wasn’t enough of a red flag to make this girl realize he was a loser. She actually didn’t see anything wrong with him until he suddenly stopped answering her calls and canceled all the plans they’d made. His excuse was that he too busy working 20-hour days, seven days a week, to spend time with her—which was total crap because he worked for a company that collected recycled cans from those kiosks you see outside of supermarkets.

Clearly, this guy was cheating on her, and my Raggedy-Ass RAG friend knew it when she called me to get my opinion on how she should deal with a relationship that had made her increasingly unhappier.

It doesn’t matter whether your friend is male or female, young or old, gay or straight: all relationship-advice-conversations with a Raggedy-Ass RAG will follow a certain format. And let me tell you something: it is a testament to your patience if are able to survive having this conversation. It trumps standing in the non-appointment line at the DMV, going to a theme park on a weekend—I’m even willing to say it beats waiting for the “Breakfast Jack” you ordered at 10:00 p.m., which takes so long the drive-thru attendant sometimes tells me to park somewhere and wait (what’s up with that?). You must have super-human patience to withstand talking to a Raggedy-Ass RAG in need of relationship advice, or else you will find yourself beaten and broken in ten minutes.

For the first twenty to thirty minutes, the Raggedy-Ass RAG told me all the minute details of how she met her loser boyfriend—from the day they first noticed each other at the Internet Cafe to the present. This information was neither relevant nor particularly interesting, and I probably would have thrown myself over the balcony had I not been equipped with Balls of Titanium.

After the Raggedy-Ass RAG had finished with her introductory story, she spent the following two hours telling me every single problem she had with her boyfriend, repeating the ones she found most irritating two or three times. And I, in turn, responded with supportive comments and sympathy. Luckily, this wasn’t a situation where I had to pretend to feel sorry for her because she was complaining about stupid things, e.g. she hated the way he arranged his toiletries. A lot of the stories this girl told me were ones no one would want to experience in any relationship.

Once I got past the first two and a half hours, I spent the next hour giving her the only piece of advice there was: “you need to dump him.” After listening to her vent about her boyfriend for two and a half hours, do you think there was anything else I could suggest besides that? Hell no.

Okay, the act of telling this Raggedy-Ass RAG “you need to dump him” only took a few seconds—so why did I say I spent an hour? Because the fun part took that long…and by “fun part,” I mean “annoying part”…and by “annoying part,” I mean “the part of a relationship-advice-conversation that I hate most.” This is the reason why I limit my friends to one chance for advice per relationship—it’s because I cannot stand this thing a Raggedy-Ass RAG will do immediately after being told she should end her relationship. The moment I gave her the advice, this Raggedy-Ass RAG responded with, “but, he’s…” and started telling me all the things she felt made him the best boyfriend in the world. That’s right: after telling me why her boyfriend makes her unbearably miserable, after she had spent hours describing specific instances where her boyfriend had done something that made her resent their relationship, after she had practically written a script for me and my only line was, “you need to dump him,” she was now trying to come up with reasons why my advice was wrong. Dumping him was not an option, not even when I repeated verbatim every complaint she had made about her boyfriend. She insisted she was 100% sure he was really working 20-hours a day, and that whatever unhappiness she was feeling was because of her period.

I see, so you just took up three and a half hours of my time to figure out that you were only miserable because you, a Raggedy-Ass RAG, were on the rag? Eat a dick!

A few days later, the Raggedy-Ass RAG called me because she was suspicious that her boyfriend was lying about his work hours, and wanted relationship advice. She went through the typical relationship-advice-conversation format, and told me the exact same stories about her boyfriend; I told her “you need to dump him,” and she told me my advice was wrong. After that, I stopped answering my phone whenever she called.

Great, now I am irritated after remembering how annoying that girl was. Who else has a story about talking to a Raggedy-Ass RAG? I know all of you have at least one! I want to hear it!

I used to commute 40 miles to and from school, and I spent a lot of that time listening to the radio. For the most part, whatever was being played was just background noise; on random occasions, however, I would find myself blessed with sporadic attentiveness, which allowed me to actually listen and digest what was being aired. It was during two of these random moments that I heard what can only be described as “Epic Fail” statements. These types of statements are created to serve some sort of purpose, but end up epically failing because the wording doesn’t make any sense.

KNX 1070: Shark Attack Story

KNX 1070 is a news station I listen to on my evening drives home from school. One night, the station was reporting on the decrease in the number of shark attacks. Fewer people were being bitten, and I assumed the radio news anchor was going to say it had something to do with global warming. But instead, I heard this:

“Blame it on the economy. Fewer people going to beaches mean fewer shark attacks…”

Of all the words the guy could have used, he chose “blame.”

There is obviously something “Epic Fail” about that quote. A person uses the word “blame” when referring to a person or thing he or she believes is responsible for some negative result. Blame Yoko Ono for the Beatles’ breakup, because breakup = bad. Blame President Bush for the current financial crisis, because financial crisis = bad. Blame the fast food industry for your obesity, because being obese = bad.

And blame the saggy-as-sh*t economy for fewer shark attacks, because fewer shark attacks = bad…? Umm…okay…

To be fair, I did try to understand the rationale behind the decision to use the word “blame,” and was able to come up with two theories:

Theory # 1: the guy who wrote this news piece had originally come up with something like, “credit the economy for fewer shark attacks.” He soon realized, however, that putting a positive word like “credit” in the same sentence as the word “economy” would be the ultimate betrayal, considering all the negative connotations associated with the latter nowadays.

Thanking this turd economy for anything is like giving that nasty Austrian guy an architecture award for building the sex bunker he used to imprison his daughter and the children she bore him. No one wants to give him anything other than the death penalty (I suggest putting him in a cage with chimpanzees that like to rip off people’s faces and nads), just like no one wants to give the economy anything but the middle finger.

Taking all that into consideration, the writer replaced the word “credit” with its antonym, “debit,”—which he then replaced with the word “blame.” The end.

Theory # 2: the article was actually written by a shark.

I am going to put my money on Theory # 2…

710 ESPN: “Clipper Nation” Commercial

Ever since 97.1 FM stopped doing talk radio, I’ve been tuning into ESPN to get my talk radio fix. Yes, I am that desperate: I will listen to a sports radio station despite the fact that I am not interested in sports. But I am interested in drama, and thanks to drama queens like A-Rod and Terrell Owens, I’ve been able to quit 97.1 cold turkey.

Besides, 97.1 didn’t have commercials like this one:

“…’Clipper Nation’ on 710 ESPN, where Clippers’ fans can talk about next year! Next year! Next year!”

It had everything you’d expect to hear in a radio commercial for a sports program: a narrator who was talking with his I-eat-raw-beef-and-crap-jerky macho voice, sounds of explosions in the background, and finished off with two echoes of the phrase “next year” that had been synthesized to sound chipmunky. This commercial was truly an homage to all things unoriginally manly.

The problem? This spot was being played, like, a week before the All-Star break—before the current NBA season was even half over! I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to advertise “Clipper Nation” as a program for fans to talk about next season when the team still had 35 games to play—but I am pretty sure that person was a crack head. A non-crack head would have realized the “Epic Fail” factor in that ad. I mean, “Clipper Nation” is a radio show that exists solely to provide Clippers’ fans a place to escape from being inundated with Lakers news, and gives them a forum where they can share their opinions with other fellow fans. It is a show devoted to a basketball team that plays in a city dominated by Lakers fans, and does its best to keep the fans motivated even though the Clippers aren’t, uh, very good…like, at all. At all. Even someone like me—who isn’t an avid basketball fan, and knows very little about the NBA and even less about the Clippers—is aware that the team is awful.

On any other day, someone would accuse me of being ignorant. After all, my criticism of the Clippers does not appear to be based on anything relevant: I didn’t study the team’s roster, analyze their games, or read a single news article about them. The only basis for my opinion is a commercial that I happened to hear…a commercial for “Clipper Nation,” which is a program put on for Clippers’ fans, and moderated by Clippers’ fans—i.e., people who have actual knowledge of the team. Therefore, just because the show begins calling itself a place for fans to discuss next season before the current season is even half over, does not imply that the team is so bad that they have no hope whatsoever this season. So I should just shut the hell up, shouldn’t I?

Or maybe you shouldn’t come up with “Epic Fail” statements. There’s an idea. And you can use it next year! Next Year! Next Year!

I know I posted a Pulse about this yesterday, but I am still extremely grossed-out by this…this…vomitty-madness-inducing, awesomely unawesome freak accident of unawesomeness!

If you are easily prone to throwing up, you should close your browser now!

My friends…I got a paper cut…on my big toe. *dry heave*

It all happened while I was enjoying a pleasant walk in my apartment…

The textbooks I leave on the ground are the ones I use most. However, I don’t have enough desk space for all of them, so I put them on the carpeted area near my desk for easy access. Book shelves, you say? What are those?

As I was enjoying my stroll, I passed one of my textbook piles. The book on the top happened to have one of those thick, plastic dust jackets which my foot somehow managed to graze as I walked along. And then…

I felt the gross feeling of the plastic sheet slicing my big toe when I passed. It didn’t hurt at all, but I knew what just happened…something about my internal organs sloshing around tipped me off.

Everyone who experiences the nasty slicey feeling of a paper cut always has to look at the wound–because from the time we feel the cut until the moment we actually see it, we are convinced that the slice sensation is the most disgusting thing ever felt. Looking at the wound is just our way of cutting down on the nausea.

Thus, I had to look to see what the damage was. I had to. If I didn’t, I’d run the risk of obsessing over the nightmare of having my toe cut open by a book cover.

*silence*

I couldn’t spell out the sound I made when I discovered I had a paper cut on my big toe. It definitely wasn’t an “I saw a mouse” screech…it was more like a barfing sound without the barf, mixed in with the noises made by a pod of whales.

I say this again: neither the cut nor the cutting hurt at all. My reaction was a response to how sickening it was to see a paper cut on my toe. Paper cuts do not belong on your fingers, and they definitely do not belong on your toes or any other part of the human body!

P.S. No, I’ve never seen the infamous paper cutting segment in the first “Jackass” movie; I always leave the room when it comes on. However, having multiple people give me detailed descriptions of what those guys did is practically the same. *dry heave*

When was the last time you received a chain letter in your inbox? For most people, that question can be rephrased as, “how long has it been since you graduated from high school?”—because, ideally, that’s when you’d expect people to realize that sending chain letters is extremely douchie.

And yet, here I am, staring at a chain letter I received from someone I have not seen, spoken to, or heard from since high school. High school! That was nine years ago!

For those of you who have never received a chain letter, or have forgotten what one looks like because none of your former classmates are douche bags, I’ve put together a small refresher course.

First, all chain letters have corny subjects such as, “THE LOVE STORY OF THE CENTURY!!!” or, “Love is real! Embrace it! ~~’~@” And it has to be corny^extreme, because everyone knows the douchie eat, drink, and breathe corniness.

After the corny subject comes some corny material: maybe a “true” story that someone ripped off from a Nicholas Sparks novel, or a poem that has words which don’t make sense to include, but the writer threw them in anyway because he needed help rhyming. You know what I mean, right?

Seeing you makes my heart flutter,

I find myself speechless with no words to utter,

I just bought a tub of “Country Crock” butter.

It doesn’t matter what the form is—the story is always the same: a girl, G, has given up on finding true love because all her previous boyfriends treated her like crap, and she is now a traumatized mess towing two tons of baggage.

Suddenly! G sees a shooting star and decides to make a wish—not for world peace or a trillion dollars, but for true love. Yes, she wishes for true love even though the preceding ten pages were about how she didn’t believe in it. Not only is G a traumatized mess towing two tons of baggage, she is also an asshat.

Then, like all unoriginal love stories, G’s wish comes true: she meets a boy, B, they fall in love and live happily ever after…with her two tons of baggage, some unicorns, roses, cotton candy, goose-down pillows, and anything else that is typically associated with chick flicks and princess-tea-party themed birthday celebrations.

The story may be over, but the corniness has just begun. Now you get to experience your own love story like G because, if a traumatic mess with baggage can find love, then you can too! All you have to do is follow some instructions based on the story’s theme. Since G found true love after making a wish, you will be instructed to make a wish too.  

And if the story wasn’t enough to convince you, then I’m sure this piece-of-crap ASCII picture of a shooting star will!

The ASCII art comes standard with every chain letter. We’re supposed to believe that thing is a shooting star, and not the mass of gibberish it actually looks like.

Unfortunately, wishing on a shooting star isn’t enough; you will also have to forward the chain letter to x-number of your friends. Only then—only after you have told people that you are so pathetic and desperate that you are willing to resort to corny-ass chain letters just to find a date—will you be able to find true love like G.

And that is how I ended up receiving a chain letter in my inbox. I think I should return the favor to thank this person for sending it to me. I have even crafted my own chain letter just to show how much I appreciate having some of my e-mail account’s storage space taken up by such trash.

Once upon a time, a pathetic loser tried to find love by forwarding a chain letter to everyone in her address book.

Make a wish, douche bag.

Send this out! You know you want to!

We all know about the war on terror and the war on drugs, but did you know we are also fighting another war against something less well known, but equally evil? It might even be more evil because no one is aware of its existence. The thing I am talking about, this other war we are fighting, is against this:

No, not burn victims. We are fighting a war against Pen Borrowers…I just decided they were not worthy of being drawn with circles and squares, and instead drew one to look like a doodoo monster. He’d be Pizza-the-Hut’s cousin if Pizza-the-Hut had one—he’s Doodoo-the-Hut.

Waging war against Pen Borrowers is necessary. You Pen Borrowers, man, you guys have no honor. Only 1% of your kind has the decency to return a borrowed pen in the same condition as when it was loaned to you. The remaining 99% can’t do so without mangling the crap out of someone else’s ballpoint.

This awesomely awesome pie chart of awesomeness clearly illustrates the risk involved when dealing with a Pen Borrower. As you can see, there is a 50% chance that you will get your pen back—with the other 50% being the probability that you won’t get anything back because the Pen Borrower did a Bernie and made off with your Bic. Get it? Bernie? Made off? Bernie Madoff? So you’ve heard that one 100 times—so what? I’ll bet it wasn’t in the context of pens, which means my joke is still fresh!

Of the 50% chance you will get your pen returned to you, there is a 35% chance it will be chewed up, a 14% chance the pocket clip on the cap will be bent or missing, and a measly 1% chance the Pen Borrower wasn’t a doodoo monster and actually took care of your pen.

Let’s break these numbers down, shall we?

        I. Chewed-Up Pen: 35%

Tell me, Pen Borrowers, what makes you think I will want my pen back after you put the end of it inside your mouth, bit down onto it with your plaque-coated teeth, and covered it with chomp marks and your bacteria-riddled saliva? Because it’s my pen? Because it happened to belong to me? Not that anyone would be able to tell I owned it after seeing you molest it with your molars.

If I were younger, stupid, and wanted everyone to like me, I probably would keep my mouth shut if a Pen Borrower returned my pen back after they chewed it up. I’d rationalize the decision by thinking: hey, it’s just a pen. One of these costs my parents, like, 20 cents! That is a small price to pay for the possibility of lifelong friendship with people who don’t talk to me unless they need to copy my math homework.

While that would have been the case when I was in junior high, that is definitely not the way it works now that I am older, a little smarter, and a lot less interested in making friends with the future crack fiends of America. If you try to give me back my pen covered in your teeth marks, I’m going to say something.

This is even more likely now that I have to pay for my own pens—and being friends with a doodoo monster is not worth 20 cents.

        II. Broken or Missing Pocket Clip: 14%

The Pen Borrower who likes to fiddle with the pocket clip on the pen cap is a dying breed—good riddance! The world will be a better place when you and the rest of your doodoo-ish kind disappear.

And by the way, just because there are fewer of you guys in this world does not mean I’m okay with giving you a pen that looked like this:

 …but was returned to me looking like this:

It doesn’t matter whether I use the clip or not. There is a stigma attached to owning a pen that has a messed up or missing pocket clip, and it’s called “looking like a doodoo monster.”

        III. Nothing Wrong with Your Pen: 1%

I rounded up to 1% from the actual number, which was 0.6%. No point in discussing this one because it won’t be happening in anyone’s lifetime.

***

I’m sure some people may think I’m being petty for making such a big deal over a pen. Okay, so the Pen Borrower stole, chewed, or messed up the pocket clip—who cares?

It’s the principle, dumbass! The principle! Yes, I know a box of pens doesn’t cost a lot–that’s why I bought them in the first place! What’s your excuse?

My sister and I were at the Los Angeles International Airport, and while waiting for our flight we decided to loiter in the “Duty Free” store. If you’ve ever been to a “Duty Free,” then you know that the largest displays are always the ones for liquor and cigarettes. And those displays are typically at the front of the entrance, so that every potential customer has to walk past gigantic “Couvoisier” bottles and “Malboro” boxes before they get to the tiny rack of neck pillows (which do not work and should be avoided at all costs).

Anyway, while my sister and I were walking around the store, unable to avoid the intrusive liquor and cigarette towers, I noticed something interesting: most of the items sold at “Duty Free” cost a lot more than they would at other stores, which made the tax-free perk pretty unperky—unless you were purchasing liquor or cigarettes. Those were actually underpriced, and some of them even had deals. On that particular day, the store had a promotion where you could get a free carry-on suitcase if you bought two cartons of cigarettes. And it a pretty nice suitcase too.

Although I’m not a smoker and I don’t drink very often, the cigarettes and liquor were so cheap that I was actually tempted to buy some (and then get my free carry-on). What if I suddenly became a chain-smoker and alcoholic? The sale could be over by then! I had to take advantage of it now, right now, before it was too—

…Wait? What? Did I just freak out over deciding whether to buy liquor and cigarettes? Okay, maybe the booze wouldn’t necessarily be a waste of money, but the cigarettes? I don’t even smoke! So why was I so bothered about missing out on a deal to buy some?

And that was when it occurred to me: “Duty Free” was up to some sort of trickeration! It was trying to kill us all with tax-free, underpriced, cigarettes in hopes that we would be duty-free-of-life!

See, I even have proof of “Duty Free’s” evil intentions:

Bow Chickah Cough Cough!

“Smokers die younger”! Clearly, this is evidence of the “Duty Free” plot to kill us…and apparently, while we are young!

But what about those of us who are strong and can withstand lung damage in our youth? I’m sorry, but your health cannot save you because “Duty Free” has those people covered too:

(The funny part about the display was that the “Senior Service” cartons were located right below the “smoker’s die younger” “Davidoff” ones.)