#i saw cake farts in my formative years and now sometimes its all i see when i close my eyes. this will live next door

[preraphaelitepunk]

Fictober19 Day 25: Ducking Peckish

Prompt #25: I could really eat something.

Fandom: Good Omens

Characters: Crowley, Aziraphale

Rating: Teen (for brief discussion of vaguely phallic pastries)

Warnings: None

On AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/20843936/chapters/50389301

“D’you ever wonder what the ducks think about us?” Crowley bounced a frozen pea off a mallard’s head, enjoying the irritated squawk and ensuing scramble for the tidbit.

Aziraphale cut his eyes over at him, lips compressed. “I’ll wager I can guess what they think about you, my dear.”

“Come on, they love me.”

“I think you’re confusing the ducks with me. I love you; the ducks, I imagine, find you an infernal pest and only tolerate you because you bring food.”

Crowley grinned. That was the most amazing, wonderful, jaw-droppingly beautiful thing about this new life after the failed Armageddon: the ease with which they could say things like that to each other now. (The bit about love, at least; they’d always teased and poked at each other. For centuries, it had been their main form of conveying affection.) It wasn’t a panacea — they both still tended toward anxiety under stress, and Crowley still had to fight off the dark seduction of self-hating depressive episodes sometimes — but they were free, without fear of repercussions from their former bosses, and they were together. They were both absolute messes, but they were each other’s messes, and that made so much difference. He’d never believed happiness like this was possible. It scared him sometimes, how precious it was.

“Not really seeing the difference there, honestly,” Crowley said, shoving his sappy thoughts into the back of his mind.

Aziraphale chuckled and bumped his shoulder against Crowley’s. “Oh, hush, foul fiend.”

“Won’t hush. You know you love it, same as the ducks love us. D’you think they tell stories about us to each other?”

“What? They’re ducks.”

“So maybe they tell duck stories. Duck tales, sort of thing. After all, we’ve been coming here off and on for hundreds of years; they probably have ancestral legends about us, going back generations. How long is a duck generation, anyway?”

“I’ve absolutely no idea.”

Crowley pulled out his mobile and jabbed at it. “Five to ten years for a wild duck. Bless me, that’s nothing, poor buggers. So say we’ve been coming here for 350 years, give or take. Say 10 years for a generation, just to make things easy. That’s 3500 duck generations. That’s unreal. Their legends about us must be insane.”

“Again, my dear, they’re ducks. And I think you’ll find it’s 35 generations, not 3500.”

“Humour me, angel?”

Aziraphale sighed as he tossed a handful of chopped lettuce onto the water. “When do I do otherwise?”

“Right, so if we map duck mythology onto human mythology, they must consider us like gods or something. Not God gods, but like, Olympians or Egyptian gods. Lower-case gods.”

“Or mythical heroes, perhaps.”

“Ooh, I like that. I could be Odysseus, famous trickster. Though I’ve always fancied being Set — you know, from Egypt.”

Aziraphale frowned thoughtfully. “Wasn’t he considered essentially a demon?”

“Nah, s’more complicated than that. He killed Osiris, but he was also in charge of chaos and trickery and strangers. Plus, he was ginger.” Crowley landed a particularly choice bit of veg precisely equidistant between four ducks, smiling at the ensuing squabble.

“That does sound a bit like you,” Aziraphale admitted. “So for the purposes of this discussion, the ducks think of you like Set. What about me?”

“Thoth. Creator of writing, god of magic and healing.”

“Ooh, I like that.” Aziraphale considered this. “But ducks don’t have writing. They don’t even have hands; how would they hold a pen? With their beaks?”

“Point. And they don’t have fire, so you can’t be their Prometheus. Maybe you’re their Apollo, then. A shining golden god who brings light and art and beauty everywhere he goes.”

“Now you’re just being silly,” Aziraphale said, but he was blushing and cutting his eyes up at Crowley in that gorgeous way he had.

“Or Asclepius, god of healing. I’ve seen you sneaking in healing miracles on them. You’re really terrible at trying to be furtive.”

Aziraphale pretended not to hear that last bit. “Asclepius was the one with the snake, right? That would fit. That’s the last of the veg, by the way.” Aziraphale considered the plastic sack. “Does vanishing something count as littering?”

“‘Course not, angel. It’s vanished, not there any more.”

“But its atoms are still there, somewhere. I think. They might, I don’t know, contaminate the ecosystem.”

“Shouldn’t think so. Just atoms, not molecules or chunks or something. Its bits go into other bits, make something new. Circle of life thingie.”

“Good.” Aziraphale snapped the bag out of existence. “You know, I could really eat something about now.”

“You, angel? No, I can’t imagine such a thing.”

Aziraphale’s eyes narrowed. “Sarcasm is the lowest form of humour, Crowley.”

“Uh, gotta disagree with you there. Fart jokes, they’re lower than sarcasm.”

“Really, my dear.”

Crowley shot him a teasing sidelong glance. “If you like, I can switch to fart jokes any time. Got a whole slew of new ones courtesy of the Them.”

“I believe that will not be necessary, thank you.”

“You’re no fun, angel. So what food can this infernal pest provide you with? Are you thinking elevenses, or the full meal experience?”

“Elevenses, I think. Perhaps some eclairs? I saw a lovely little bakery on our way over here; we could stop in and get some pastries to take home?”

“Your wish is my command, angel. If you want suspiciously phallic-shaped pastries filled with creamy goo —”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale blushed and lightly slapped Crowley’s arm.

“Well, they are a bit suggestive. The goo spurts out when you bite into it.”

“What kind of penises have you been seeing that you think eclairs are phallic?”

“Didn’t say they look realistic. Just vaguely phallic-ish, that’s all.”

“Honestly, you are a child.”

“Takes one to know one.” Crowley stuck out his tongue, then offered his arm. “Shall we?”

Resting his hand on Crowley’s bent elbow, Aziraphale said, “I’ve quite gone off eclairs now.”

“Come on, angel,” Crowley said as they strolled away. “It’s not like it’s any more suggestive than anything else you eat.”

Aziraphale squawked. “There is nothing at all suggestive about the way I eat!”

“Ha! I should film you sometime when you’re eating asparagus. Or cake, for that matter. The sounds!”

“Are you determined to ruin every food for me? I’ll be too self-conscious to eat anything in public ever again.”

Crowley grinned and put his free hand on top of Aziraphale’s. “I’m teasing. I’m sure nobody else notices; it’s just that I’ve been watching you eat for millennia.”

“And you only just now think to mention how disgracefully I behave? How I sound?”

“It’s one of my very favourite things, angel. Seeing you enjoy yourself makes me happy. And hearing  you enjoy yourself,” he couldn’t resist adding, just to see the blush deepen.

“You are a very naughty demon, and I have half a mind to banish you from the table next time I eat.”

“Yeah, you’d never. Not now you know how much I like it.”

Aziraphale gave him a grumpy sidelong look, but he was obviously trying not to smile. “Perhaps not. But you are under strict orders not to smirk at me while I’m eating. Even if it’s eclairs, or asparagus.”

“No promises, angel. I’d do anything for you, you know, but that one may not be physically possible.”

[Author’s note: Apologies for the Duck Tales reference. I could not help myself. Also, apologies for being really bad at titles: my brain insisted on combining an autocorrect joke with a pun. Obviously, I need more sleep.]

#fictober19 #good omens #good omens fanfic #ineffable spouses #ineffable husbands #fluff #general nonsense #aziraphale x crowley #ducks #eclairs are inherently funny to me #because i am apparently 12 years old emotionally

[chroniclesofawkwardness]

Bleeders (Them Shoes)

I.

We’re not supposed to talk openly about going to the bathroom. It’s such a sensitive subject that children have their own lexicon for describing two things every single person on the planet does (number one or number two). Even a well-known producer of toilet paper has danced around the subject by composing a song about a booty smile in an ad for their ultra-soft product. Hell, even adults sometimes get caught using euphemisms like taking a dump, dropping a duce, or recycling water. The bathroom is supposed to be one of the last vestiges of privacy in a world where privacy is almost certainly dead. Personally, I tend to be very mission-oriented in the bathroom; I’m not much of a conversationalist. Unless somebody walks in on me mid-stream, I can usually get in and out of the water closet without too much trouble. That being said, sometimes confrontation is inevitable.

I used to love working nights. More money. Fewer people. No need to set an alarm in the morning. You might say I had a higher expectation of privacy. Still, this expectation was shattered one Friday night several months ago, when I visited the same bathroom I always used during my last break before the end of my shift. We humans are nothing if not creatures of habit. 

There was no way for me to avoid him. The middle-aged man was standing directly in front of the trash can that was just inside the door. I was already in mission-mode. It wasn’t critical, but I still had to pee, so I wasn’t in the mood for exchanging pleasantries.

I read in a book one time that if you think someone is planning on attacking you, it’s a good idea to attempt to throw them off by asking an innocuous question such as, “What time is it?” The hope is that they’ll be so startled that they won’t carry out whatever devious plot had been dancing in their head. For a split second, I thought about asking this man that question, but I remembered I was wearing a watch. All I could manage was a weak, “How’s it going?” 

I got an answer I neither expected nor wanted:

Man, I blew my nose and it just started bleeding.

Trying to contain my shock, I quickly thought of another innocuous question to attempt to defuse the situation:

Um… Do you need medical attention? I can call security. 

I knew some people got really bad nosebleeds. I’d woken up with a few as a kid, so the last thing I wanted was another just-a-flesh-wound situation from Monty Python unfolding right there on the blue and white tile floor. In response, the man said something else that caught me totally by surprise:

No. It’s okay. It happens to all of us. Everyone in my family; we’re all bleeders. 

He just walked away.

I felt an aneurysm coming on, what comedian Lewis Black said you might experience upon hearing the words, “If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.” Fortunately, before the room started spinning, I came to my senses and remembered that I had to get back to work. My break should only last fifteen minutes. I chalked the encounter up to the randomness that I seem to attract on a regular basis and thought that was the end of the story. 

I was wrong. 

Fast forward about two months to approximately 9:00 P.M. on a Friday night in the dead of winter. You might wonder why I chose to go to the same bathroom again. I wouldn’t say the release was as cathartic as the one A Rumor of War author Phillip Caputo describes upon returning to Saigon, but like Caputo, I refused to let myself be defined by a bad experience. I went back to that bathroom because I had to. I had to know that I’d be okay, that I could experience my own literal release without the soundtrack of a stranger’s medical history to keep me company or make me sick to my stomach. 

I was standing at the sink washing my hands that night when who should appear in the bathroom but the man with the spontaneously bleeding nose. This time, his problem was at the other end. I barely had time to think before he launched into another bodily proclamation:

If I were you, I’d get out of here. Sorry for oversharing… It’s all this fiber.

Okay.

I went back to my desk wondering why I hadn’t just waited until I’d made it home to use the bathroom. There’s just something about the comfort of one’s home bowl. The freedom from judgment and the freedom of movement it affords are unmatched. I can stand as close to, or as far away from the toilet as I want, and I never have to hold it in, acting like everything is fine, when in reality I’m about to explode. What’s more, I certainly have more privacy than in a building with over ten thousand employees, and a housekeeping staff that clearly doesn’t give a fuck who they walk in on when they start their nightly tasks of cleaning toilets, occasionally emptying trash cans, and pretending to vacuum floors.

I haven’t seen the man with the penchant for nosebleeds and fiber consumption since the last of these two incidents, though I think of him whenever I spot a bottle of Metamucil on the shelf at my Kroger pharmacy.

Wherever he is, I hope he got the help he needed and left me out of it. 

II.

I don’t know why, but I’ve always had trouble getting shoes on and off my right foot. I could use a shoehorn, but I wonder if I’m too old to learn a new trick. When I was very young, I had a pair of braces for my legs, much like the ones a young Forrest Gump wore when he taught a young Elvis how to dance.

Unlike Forrest, if I’m going somewhere, I’m usually walking. Thanks to my pedestrian existence, I go through shoes pretty quickly, but I don’t always replace them in a timely manner when holes appear, or rocks get stuck in them. I’ve never been a big fan of spending money on myself unless it’s absolutely necessary, but this strategy sometimes comes back to bite me in the ass. A wholesale warehouse like Costco could be just the place to support my feet without breaking my bank. If I could be strong enough not lead myself into temptations all around, and wise enough to find my way without having to Hansel and Gretel that shit back to the entrance.  

Until recently, it had been years since I’d visited Costco. I hadn’t had a membership, so my only exposure to the Costco experience was in their bakery when a friend of mine and I went there to pick up a cake for a co-worker who was transferring to another department. My friend wasn’t happy with me during and after our trip because he was convinced I’d blown his chance to stalk the head coach of the local National Hockey League franchise throughout the store. All because I couldn’t find a pen to fill out the order form for the cake. 

I know it was him. The team is off tonight. We could’ve followed him around and gotten autographs, but SOMEBODY couldn’t find a pen. This is all your fault.

How can you be sure? All we could see was the back of the man’s head. Besides, if it was, the last thing he needs is a bunch of grown-ass, wannabe-Canucks fawning over him like teenage girls over Justin Bieber. Let’s just move on. I’m sure finding 500 ft. of aluminum foil or a 128 oz. jar of mayonnaise on sale will cheer you up.

I think my friend is still salty about the incident. 

Anyway, my mom had been talking up Costco for weeks prior to our visit. You’d think we were going to a place that held the promise of the Disneyworld of my youth, or a Barry Manilow concert of hers. It was so beautiful, she’d say, so full of the spoils of hollow, American excess (You won’t have to buy paper towels for six months. Isn’t that just wonderful?) that nothing could reverse the magnetic attraction to it that its patrons would naturally feel. Once we’d made our way through the massive sliding doors of this consumerist-culture theme park, a little old lady stopped us at the entrance and asked to see the membership cards we didn’t have. We could’ve easily overpowered her and run amok up and down the aisles, but we decided to play by the rules like blissful, ignorant cattle being led to slaughter, and stand in line for proof that we belonged.

Maybe the cattle secretly knew their lives would never be the same after they slipped inside the slaughterhouse. Maybe we knew our lives would change forever after we slipped inside Costco. We were just too excited about the possibility of buying whole peaches (whole fucking peaches!) in jars to care. I wish I’d asked the little old lady to take off her politeness mask so I could see who she really was. I feel the same way about Disney characters. What I wouldn’t give to be in the break room at Disneyworld on a Tuesday afternoon in the heat of July. I’d pay to see Mickey and Minnie Mouse without their costume heads, smoking cigarettes, carelessly farting, and dropping f-bombs like normal human beings. That’s a Disney fantasy I could buy into.

I first saw them after I’d selected ninety-six pencils for four dollars, and forty-four bags of popcorn for nine. Snow tracks. They were pieces of rubber speckled with spikes that remind you of the bottoms of golf shoes. They were supposed to provide enhanced traction on snow and ice. I hadn’t yet bought myself a pair of winter boots this season, so I needed something to combat the unpredictable Ohio weather in the meantime. The snow tracks cost about five dollars and seemed they’d be a good fit until my boots came in the mail. I should’ve paid more attention to the actual fit. The package said they were for shoe sizes 3.5 to 7.5. I wear a size 8. Close enough, I thought.

I was wrong (again).

When I got the pencils, popcorn, and snow tracks home, I ripped the snow tracks from their packaging like a kid opening presents on Christmas morning. I was convinced I’d found an inexpensive, long-lasting solution to a transportation problem I’ve faced every winter. If cars could have snow tires, the snow tracks were supposed to be my pedestrian equivalent, my way of telling Mother Nature to suck it.

III.

Sex.

  Now that I have your attention, keep reading. 

I’m hardly the first person to point out that we live in the age of toxicity. Toxic femininity. Toxic masculinity. If you boy into those ideas, you’d have to behave as if you were walking on eggshells everywhere you went. When you’d go about your daily life, you’d have to be careful. In many scenarios standards (whatever those are) of conduct, language, and presentation (to name a few) have gradually shifted from what a reasonable person would consider acceptable, to what the most sensitive among us can tolerate. We’ve been invited to neuter ourselves because someone, somewhere might be offended by something we say or do. God help us if we were cross that arbitrary, ever-shifting line into the offensive. Our lives could easily be ripped to shreds on social media, or dissected for all to see in the court of public opinion without so much as a word spoken in our defense.

What does supposed gender toxicity have to do with bleeding noses, impromptu descriptions of impending bowel movements, shoes, Costco, and sex?

Keep reading.

The first day I wore the snow tracks to work, they were unnecessary. But I  wanted to try them out before the weather got nasty. After I put them on and started walking somewhere other than the carpeted floor of my apartment, I felt like a dog or cat that seriously needed its nails clipped. I felt like I could tip over at any moment. You could even say the clickety-klack sound the snow tracks made as I walked was reminiscent of a newborn pony taking its first steps. In a way, I was learning to walk all over again. I probably looked as awkward if not more so than a newborn pony, whose difficulty with steps could be easily explained, if not expected. Mine, on the other hand, was caused by an invention so questionable it belonged on a Saturday afternoon infomercial (the playground of the gullible) or in heavy rotation on QVC (the playground of the elderly). 

I was really wobbling by the time I got to work. I had to walk on a tile floor until I got to the set of stairs that meant I was mere feet away from the relative stability of carpeting. When I made it to the stairs without tipping over, I felt triumphant in my badassery. Not only had I told Mother Nature what she could go do to herself, I’d subjugated my favorite flight of stairs. For the briefest of moments, there was nothing I couldn’t do.

Each morning, like clockwork, I’d feed my coffee addiction by making the short trek down the hall to one of the break rooms on my floor. I went from being off-balance on the tile to feeling like my feet were stuck in quicksand on the carpet. I felt like Marv (Daniel Stern) in Home Alone as he got his feet repeatedly stuck in what looked like tar as he trudged up the steps into what he hoped would be a final confrontation with Kevin McCallister. I didn’t have traction where I needed it and had too much where I didn’t. I got my coffee just fine, but noticed a problem when I got back to my desk. 

Fuck. One of the snow tracks came off one of my shoes. Now I’ve gotta Hansel and Gretel that shit back to the break room, and hope no one picked it up. In that case, I’d have only one, which won’t do me much good since I’ve got two shoes.

This was my first indication that the masculine drive I’d displayed by trying to fit something on the bottom of my shoe that wasn’t designed to fit there may have been misdirected. Fortunately, the solitary snow track was right where it had fallen off, twisted and sad, outside the entrance to the break room. I picked it up and carried it back to my desk. I was relieved, yet slightly terrified at not knowing who among my thousands of colleagues had seen what, or when.  

Whole again, I decided to remove the snow track from my other shoe, lock them in one of my desk drawers, and thank my lucky stars that a hyper-sensitive person hadn’t found it. If they had, so went my worst nightmare, they could’ve easily mistaken it for a medieval torture device, a sex toy, or both. This could have triggered a massive HR manhunt. I was the only person I’d ever seen wearing snow tracks so it wouldn’t take security too long to figure out whose it was. I mean, seriously, how often do you really look at a man’s shoes? Even though I had the snow tracks under lock and key, I’d already been peacocking to my co-workers about conquering Mother Nature that morning. I assumed one of them would cave, and point the finger at me as soon as one of our woke-up-like-this, my-uniform-is-three-sizes-too-big security guards applied even the tiniest bit of investigative pressure.

I didn’t think about the snow tracks until I could feel safe trying to put them on again, shortly after 5:30 PM that evening. I couldn’t risk being seen in the workplace wearing socks without shoes, so I decided to visit the same bathroom where I’d encountered Mr. Nosebleed, aka The Kellogg’s Cracklin’ Oat Bran Man. I refused to let him get the best of me, even if the competition between us was playing out exclusively in my head. I know now that should’ve just risked being accosted by an everything-is-a-trigger-warning coworker by sitting out in the open to take my shoes off and attach the snow tracks to them. Against the better angels of my nature, I opted for the blue and white tile of old familiar. For the first time in this nearly seven-year stint with my employer, I went into a bathroom stall. I chose one that was handicapable accessible at that because I knew I’d need a fair amount of room to maneuver. 

If one’s home bowl provides an unparalleled level of comfort, I don’t know why I expected the toilet in this unfamiliar, reasonably public bathroom to have a lid. As far as I knew, I’d taken a dump in a public toilet but once in my entire life. Avoiding stalls in public bathrooms had become one of my personal rules after seeing far too many movies and television shows where the hero inconveniently finds himself seconds away from a for-a-good time-call-Charlie invitation scrawled in expectant Sharpie on one of the stall walls. The exception that disproved my rule was only brought about by the extenuating circumstance of my having been on a plane for 8+ hours, trying desperately not to pass gas in a closed cabin full of strangers and recycled air. When the time came for me to finally let loose, it was dark. My mission-oriented self couldn’t see much in 2011, so 2019 me had no earthly idea what to expect from the moment the stall door slammed home.

I sat on the toilet to take off my shoes, only to be betrayed yet again by my right foot. I had to bend and contort my body into several unnatural positions just to take off my right shoe. Even if I’d returned to the practice of yoga as I’ve been telling myself to do for years, it wouldn’t have done any good. By the time I managed to pry my foot free, I was bent over on the toilet seat, face red, and gasping for air as if I’d just been through a CrossFit workout. Extracting my foot from my left shoe wasn’t any easier. I was thankful I hadn’t fallen in the toilet the first time, and I decided not to risk doing so again. I sat on the floor of the stall among crumpled up toilet seat covers with my back against a wall. I succeeded in removing my left shoe, but it was a Pyrrhic victory that left me sucking air again five minutes later.

I thought the hard part was over, but I soon realized that I hadn’t really accomplished anything. I still had to get the snow tracks on my shoes. I decided to try putting the snow track on my left shoe first since I always put my left shoe on first anyway. I didn’t have nearly as much trouble as I’d anticipated. This only served to imbue me with a false sense of confidence as I entered the battle on my right side. Standing now, in stockinged feet, I twisted and pulled that infernal rubber contraption every way I knew how. It wasn’t long before the confrontation reached a tipping point. In the heat of the moment, I looked down at my shoe and saw that the toe was bent in in a position from which it might never recover. 

Uh oh.

While admiring the shoe’s brush with death, I got so caught up in wondering how the hell I hadn’t destroyed it that I forgot to release the tension on the snow track caused by my desperate attempts to fit it over the bottom. Consequences be dammed, I kept pulling, and sure enough the shoe went flying out of my hand. I let out a simultaneous: 

dammit!  

as it flipped like a coin through the air. Even the staunch atheist in me prayed it wouldn’t land outside the stall. If someone had walked in to find my solitary shoe on the floor, I’d have had some serious explaining to do. Fortunately, it came to rest within the stall, right in the space between the floor and the bottom of one of the walls. It would’ve been easily visible to anyone who happened by. I scrambled to pick it up, and somehow managed to finally put the snow track on without losing a shoe, or an eye, in the process. Another Pyrrhic victory in hand, I did the clickety-klack catlike walk out of the building and homeward, praying I wouldn’t tip over like a little teapot along the way.

IV.

Education.

Not many things in this world make me truly happy. Whatever I’m doing, I’m often consumed by the notion that I’m wasting my time, and I should be doing something else. One exception is volunteering. I like to think that whenever I get out to give back to the community, I’m spending my time wisely, that my actions make even the smallest difference in someone’s day. Those feelings, those moments, are what make life worth living. That’s why I jumped at the chance to volunteer at a local shelter for youth in crisis.

I’d heard snow was in the forecast for that Saturday, so I put the snow tracks on my shoes, and called for a Lyft to take me where I needed to go. Upon arriving, my driver insisted that I get in the back seat. I complied. He said he was familiar with where I was going, and I babbled on about why I enjoy volunteering so much. I’ve given the same speech to two dozen or more Lyft and Uber drivers over the years. I don’t always mean to say the same things over and over, but at this point, I’ve got a streak going. 

As we pulled up to the shelter, my driver said something that caught me by surprise:

God bless you and your ministry.

Okay.

I don’t know why he thought I was religious, but I decided it wasn’t worth fighting about since so few things in this world really are. As I got out of his car and stepped onto the sidewalk, I felt the same naked feeling I had when walking back to my desk with a coffee a few days before. I looked down at my feet, and instantly knew what was missing:

Shit! My snow tracks came off again. They’re in the back of a stranger’s car, and he’s pulling away from the curb… 

I waved to the driver in a half-hearted attempt to get his attention. He probably thought I was waving goodbye, so he didn’t stop. I was dejected over the loss of my spikey companions, but I had a job to do. Need knows no season, after all. As the leader of our group for this particular event, I was the first to arrive. I asked our host to tell me more about the facility. Turns out, it’s a shelter where kids can go when their parents may have kicked them out of their homes, ripped up their birth certificates, or under any number of undesirable circumstances.  Typically teenagers, the kids there are in tough spots. I remember hating life as a teenager, but I was incredibly fortunate to never lose my home or my support system. I’ll never forget that. How could I complain about losing a set of bougie spikes I’d bought at a club where I was a member in the back of a Lyft that I paid to ride in by just tapping on my smartphone? The short answer is, I couldn’t.

But that doesn’t mean shit couldn’t still get awkward.

If I’m mission-oriented in the bathroom, I’m also a mission-oriented volunteer. I was so excited to get started that I didn’t even wait for more people to show up. I started attacking the living room almost immediately. I found several intermingled decks of cards and resolved to make each one whole again. After working my way through a few decks, I made my way to an end table in search of rogue Kings and Queens. The table had so many board games on it that I almost didn’t see the circular object on the floor beneath it. I thought it was a fallen game piece at first. I reasoned that if decks could lose their cards, games could lose their pieces. No matter how hard I try, a part of me will always be a leave-it-better than-you-found-it Eagle Scout, so I bent down to pick up the fallen piece. But it wasn’t a game piece at all.

It was a used condom.

I jerked my hand away as if I’d touched a hot stove, but I quickly realized that the damage had already been done. In one motion, I picked it up and threw it in the closest trash can. Inside, I was disgusted. Outside, I knew I had to remain emotionally unmoved. How could I expect a house full of teenagers and my fellow volunteers to keep their cool if I couldn’t? The short answer is, I couldn’t.

As the color of my face slowly returned to normal, I returned to my quest for prodigal cards. Along the way, I picked up a canister of Lysol and a rag and started disinfecting. In the midst of organizing the cards and board games, I came across at least five different remotes that had either been left to their own devices on the end table, or fallen between the cushions of the couch next to it. I picked up a random remote to examine it; I couldn’t believe it had just one button. In that instant, I felt technology had come full circle. I simultaneously felt longing for the days of A, B, Select, Start, and a directional pad on a Nintendo controller from the 80s, and gratitude that I wasn’t overwhelmed by the option paralysis of my first and only X-Box controller from the early 2000s.  

Somehow, in the midst of my button daydreams, I managed to turn on the television. I panicked, though not as intensely as before.

Great. This is the last thing we need… If the volunteer coordinator catches us with the TV on, we’re screwed. I don’t want anyone thinking we were being lazy, even if turning on the TV was an accident.

I looked out the window through the falling snow for signs of any important-looking adults. Once satisfied there were none on the horizon, I decided to turn off the TV with the same one-button remote I’d used to accidentally turn it on. I messed around with the button for a few seconds, and though I couldn’t get the TV to turn off, I did manage to jack the volume up to 60. To make matters worse, Netflix soon followed with its unmistakable Dum-Dum opening sound.

Fuck me. It’s bad enough that I turned the TV on, but now it sounds like I’m making myself at home surrounded by kids who don’t have one. I’ve already seen at least one Children’s Services worker in the house today to check on one of the kids. If I don’t turn off this damn TV right now, this could get ugly. No one wants to hear Maude Flanders scream “Won’t someone please think of the children” in a place where they’re supposed to be safe.

Since I couldn’t get the TV to turn off, or at least make a selection in time, Netflix did what Netflix does, and started playing the trailer of its featured show. As luck would have it, the feature that Saturday was Sex Education. I’d seen the trailer myself that morning, at home. But thinking of the hormonally-charged residents of the house, and my all-too-recent close call with a condom, I considered seeing it here to be the mother of all ironies. It’s a show about teenagers’ discovery of their sexuality, exacerbated by the fact that one of the teens’ mothers is a sex therapist. I knew this, of course, but I wasn’t horrified until the therapist spoke the trailer’s first words, to her son, which sent the following blaring throughout the house at volume level 60 in a British accent. 

I'VE NOTICED YOU’RE PRETENDING TO MASTURBATE, AND I WAS WONDERING IF YOU WANTED TO TALK ABOUT IT.

As she (unintentionally) bellowed that call to puberty to anyone within earshot, my entire time as a volunteer flashed before my eyes. Everything from my first event sorting food at the Homeless Families Foundation, to having an Uber driver tell me his GPS said I was in the middle of the highway, came washing over me. I was convinced that a hyper-sensitive adult, or some freshly-minted preteen who’d only recently embarked down the path of life’s most awkward phase, would ruin it all for me. I tried feverishly to turn the volume down as she spoke, but my fingers wouldn’t follow my commands. They just blindly grouped that stupid, singular button.

Shit…. Shit…. Shit….. No… No…. No…. Nooooooooo!!! We’re fucked now, for sure! They’ll never ask us to come back! Great job, Mr. Leader. 

Somehow, after a minute that might as well have lasted three years, I managed to turn off the television. I looked outside at the intensifying snowfall, and remembered my snow tracks were long gone. I was pissed off for a second, but I remembered that all I needed to do was ask someone for a ride in real life instead of just tapping a button on my phone. It’s redundancies that save you. 

I had some unexpectedly good (some might say bougie) French toast, coffee, and conversation at a place called The Crest after sprucing up the house and locking down the TV. At the conclusion of our meal, I called for a Lyft to take me home, and I managed not to fall in my own parking lot once I got there. 

My winter boots came in the mail on January 14, 2019, twenty-six years to the day my dear uncle Dave died. I’m not sure where or when he is, and I miss him like crazy sometimes. But I like to think that if he watched my struggles against Mother Nature and Father Time that weekend, he was laughing his ass off.

That’s another fantasy I could buy into.

[fascistslooklike-blog]

The oldies

Mike Pence looks like he chose the wrong grail. mike pence looks like wax and powdered milk. Mike pence looks like the ghost of Christmas yet to come. But the part of Christmas where you are at Best Buy trying to return a DVD copy of the second season of CSI:Miami that your uncle got you. Mike pence looks like you were painting a fence and accidentally painted a stick bug. Mike pence looks like a ghost of a shart. Mike Pence looks like if Slim Jim decided to make a vanilla flavor meat stick. Mike pence looks like someone tricked him into smiling once and he's been trying to undo it ever since. Mike Pence looks like he is sustained by children's sadness. Mike Pence looks like an over cooked Lima bean. Mike Pence looks like one of those cyborg people in the opening credits of Westworld. But if the 3D printer stopped working and they put him in the discard pile. mike pence looks like the villain in a caddyshack sequel Mike pence looks like if a tapeworm was wearing a human Halloween costume that came from Spirit Halloween Store. Mike pence looks like that cat turd that's been behind the litter box for months and you're just now finding it Mike Pence and Jeff Sessions look like the evil millionaire brothers from an 80s movie that try to buy and demolish an orphans summer camp to build a Walmart super center. But more molesty. Mike Pence looks like he has Lego hair. Mike Pence looks like if Trump was living A Christmas Carol and got to the ghost of Christmas yet to come and offered him the job of VP. Mike Pence looks like a GoodValue candy cane that had all the red licked off it then dropped on the carpet. Mike Pence looks like the shi tzu ate a bunch of tinsel and then pooped. Mike Pence looks like he has an edited version of A Christmas Carol where he just watches the scene with tiny tims empty chair on loop. Mike Pence looks like a wet little Debbie zebra cake. Mike pence looks like someone that figured out a way for the wet bandits to sue Kevin for all the mental anguish. Mike Pence looks like his favorite holiday dish is miracle whip sandwiches. Mike Pence looks like his favorite holiday tradition is sitting quietly and considering poor children and laughing to himself. Mike Pence looks like he volunteers to bring dessert to family holiday potlucks and then just brings frozen milk. And then it's just for the adults. Mike Pence looks like someone that gathers his family around the Christmas tree for holiday stories and just reads the Bible quietly to himself. Getting angry if his family stops watching him read to himself Mike Pence looks like someone that watches the first half of How the Grinch Stole Christmas(up till the grinch gets back to his cave with all the gifts from whoville) year round. Mike Pence looks like a ketchup packet that's been licked clean. Thought I was being chased by Mike pence earlier. Turned out to be bird poo on my back windshield. Mike Pence looks like if you only used that useless white crayon from your 96 pack of crayolas (with sharpener on the side!) Mike pence looks like one of those crappy bully ghosts that were mean to Casper. Mike Pence looks like one of those long cotton swabs that they use at the health department to swab your junk and check for STDS. But guess what, it already had STDs on it Mike Pence looks like one of those fish that live in caves and evolve into translucent assholes. Mike Pence looks like he still has a CRT tv on purpose. Mike Pence looks like he gets a secret boner every time someone mentions Hitler. Mike Pence looks like he would be excited to have Jeff Sessions around so they can talk about all their favorite jams. Like poor people crying. Or how people lose control of their bowels when you electrocute the gay out of them. Mike Pence looks like his favorite book of the Bible is Mein Kampf. Mike Pence looks like he moisturizes his "skin" with salt. Mike Pence looks like ten seconds into a Dr Pimple Popper video. (Don't look that up if you aren't familiar) Mike Pence looks like his patronus is wet toilet paper. Mike Pence looks like he has that Benjamin Button disease but instead of getting younger he's just a piece of shit. Mike Pence looks like he hates music. Even bad music. Just doesn't see a point. Mike Pence looks like he had all the mirrors taken out of his house so he would stop scaring himself. Mike Pence looks like he would have "pray the gay away" stickers made if he didn't think using stickers was gay somehow. Mike Pence looks like he finds egg shell texture paint offensive. Mike Pence looks like he sniffed really hard once and his upper lip disappeared. Mike Pence looks like he is always smelling a fart. And that makes him happy. Mike Pence looks like if you started to tell him a knock knock joke he would just hand you. Card that said "no soliciting" and walk away. Mike Pence looks like his favorite food is flour Mike Pence looks like he has never heard a punchline to any joke Mike Pence looks like the kind of guy that doesn't see a problem using "bing bing Ching Chong" when ordering Chinese food. Then get mad and ask how that's racist. Mike Pence looks like he orders his coffee by saying thing like "I like my women like I like my coffee...aryan". Then he just drinks hot water and talks about how stiff it is. Mike Pence looks like he loves to make home made ice cream. But really he just relates to rock salt mixed with ice on a spiritual level. Mike Pence looks like he says things like "the only good minority is the 1%". Mike Pence looks like the inside of a coconut. Mike Pence looks like a sculpture my child did in first grade Mike Pence looks like he really loves third wave ska, except for all the guitars and horns and drums and stuff. Mike Pence probably used to look like a young Brad Pitt. But then he saw a man kiss another man and it shocked him into the apparition he is now. Mike Pence looks like he looked into the Ark of the Covenant. Mike Pence looks like he chose the wrong grail. Mike Pence looks like he got voted into office because he was running against "beheading all of your loved ones". And people just thought they were picking the lesser of two evils. Mike Pence looks like he says "now we all like a good joke, but this is going too far" every time he passes a mirror. Mike Pence looks like when you leave grits in a pot too long then go to clean it and they all come out in one pot shaped lump. Mike Pence looks like he doesn't understand why everyone is upset that Trump likes women pee on each other. As long as it wasn't two dudes. ‪Mike Pence looks like he eats healthy. He only absorbs the life force of athletic children. ‬ ‪Mike Pence looks like he loves winter. Because when he goes outside the cold air keeps its host body from rotting. ‬ ‪Mike Pence looks like he's excited to see a broadway musical telling the life story of Martin Luther King but featuring an all white cast. ‬ ‪Mike Pence looks like he meant to shed his people skin a while back and just can't get around to it. He's just an ashy reptilian ‪Mike Pence looks like he gets up to "public bathroom antics". But feels like it's ok because he makes up for it by torturing gay youths. ‬ Mike Pence looks like he was born 8 months premature. ‪Mike Pence looks like he only watches Full Metal Jacket with his shirt off and all alone. ‬ ‪Mike Pence looks like he blames all his angry confusion on the first time he saw a man with a ponytail.He has sexy fever dreams about that guy‬ ‪Mike Pence looks like he saw a ghost rider comic and wondered why people kept drawing him on fire. Mike Pence looks like he would use the urinal right next to you even though there are 2 empty ones on each side of yours ‪Mike Pence looks like Michael Graves was his favorite Misfits singer. ‪Mike Pence looks like he would love to take a hot bath but is afraid he would just turn into a dead skin bath bomb. ‪Mike Pence looks like he dozes off each night mumbling"ANCIENT SPIRITS OF EVIL TRANSFORM THIS DECAYED FORM TO MUM..um MIKE PENCE"#thundercats‬ Mike Pence looks like Senator Kelly from Xmen after he turns into a mutant and becomes water ‪Mike Pence looks like he got "his" and "hers" pillows for him and his wife. And sometimes...He makes her sleep on the "his" pillow. #kink‬ ‪Mike Pence looks like he googles porno by typing"STRAIGHT sex where female human isn't allowed to talk or be seen and is actually male"‬ Mike Pence looks like he is a huge fan of male competitive endurance tickling. Mike Pence looks like a racist unmasked Scooby Doo villain. Mike Pence looks like he irons his tshirts. Mike Pence looks like he is stoked to become president in (vegas odds) one year when Trump is impeached. Mike Pence looks like the stains you would find on a mattress on a hotel if you used a black light? Mike Pence looks like the whitest part of the outside of the box of generic saltine crackers Mike Pence looks like grated parmesan cheese when viewed at 500x under a microscope. Mike Pence looks like the black sheep of the Quaker Oats family. Mike Pence looks like he likes his steaks "extra well done". He's probably one of those people that will send it back if it's not burned enough. Then puts ketchup on it. Mike Pence is so white he doesn't have to wear a robe at a Klan meeting Mike Pence looks like he doesn't cast a shadow. Mike Pence was surprised to find white rice in a box of Uncle Ben's Mike Pence shocked that Colonel Sanders actually not a Colonel. Mike Pence looks like he cans his Christian farts like your grandma cans tomatoes. Mike Pence won't display the Rosary because it resembles anal beads a little too much. Mike Pence looks like an off brand Q-Tip. Mike Pence looks like he thinks there should be reasonable allowances for abortion. Like if the fetus is gay. Mike Pence looks like he has his original "host body" stuffed in a closet somewhere. Mike Pence looks like drywall's wet dream. Mike Pence looks like the starches his own shirts just by wearing them. Mike Pence looks like an albino albino. Mike Pence is the type of guy who would get angry watching the Andy Griffith show because Barney never pistol whipped Otis drunk ass before (un)locking him up. mike pence's only problem with baby powder is that it isn't white enough. he still rolls in it nightly. Someone once told mike Pence he smelled like a "jizz fart" and he got offended cause he thought they said "jazz bar" Mike Pence marinates his steaks in Liquid Paper. Mike Pence looks like a taco bell dollar menu option: a stack of flour tortillas with a side of sour cream. Mike Pence looks like he respected Sarumon the White until he saw him standing a little too close to those dark-skinned Uruk-Hai.