Sometimes you end up getting two entire sandwiches comprised of bread, and meat, and nothing else.

Sometimes the only explanation the waitress gives you is that “The pictures in the menu can be misleading.”

And, sometimes the list of restaurants where I will no longer eat gets just a little bit longer.

1.  Those cars go really really freaking fast. Seriously.  You have no idea how fast they drive, how close together they are, and how kinda awesome it is to see in person.

2.  You can bring your own beer.  I’ll retype that for emphasis.  YOU CAN BRING YOUR OWN BEER.

3.  The people watching is second to none.

So, in lieu of a fully actualized story, I’m going to switch things up a bit and do a numerical summary of my day at the NASCAR race that hopefully captures this magical event:

-   Number of people in the parking lots tailgating, playing cornhole, grilling, and drinking:  Thousands

-  Number of lawn chairs we had to accommodate the four people in our group:  1

-  Number of bands we watched performing before the race:  2  (Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ and Foreigner)

-  Number of songs that I recognized, combined, that were performed by the above bands:  3

-  Temperature in my truck while in the parking lot:  approximately 90 degrees

-  Temperature necessary to easily separate the filling from both sides of an Oreo cookie, allowing you to make a quintuple stuffed Oreo (pictured below):  approximately 90 degrees

Quintuple Stuffed Oreo - 5x more delicious than a regular Oreo

-  Number of people wearing at least one piece of camouflage clothing:  too numerous to count

-  Number of people I almost didn’t see because they were wearing full camouflage:  3

-  Number of people who thought it would be funny to “dress up like a redneck” for the race:  3

-  Number of people who, after passing the above people, probably wanted to punch them in the face:  too numerous to count

-  Number of laps two of the people “dressed as rednecks” sat in their seats with their fingers in their ears because they didn’t know they needed earplugs:  about 15 (picture below)

Mullet wigs? Check. Ear plugs? Who needs ear plugs?

- After a mediocre foot-long corn dog last year, number of foot-long corn dogs I intended to eat this year:  0

- Number of foot-long corn dogs I actually ate this year:  1

- Number of mustard stains on my shirt from the aforementioned foot-long corn dog:  3

- Age of the people this photo-op display (pictured below) is probably designed for:  10

- My age:  31 (probably doesn’t help that Fatty McButterPants is also too big to hide behind Tony Stewart’s cardboard shoulders)

- Number of bathroom breaks I took during the 6 hours I spent in the grandstands:  3

- Number of my friends that will believe I only took 3 bathroom breaks in 6 hours:  0

- Number of relatives we ran into:  4

- Of the people that I knew were at the race, the number of them that I saw:  0

- Number of cars that blew up into an enormous rolling ball of flames:  1

- Number of cars that blew up into an enormous rolling ball of flames that also happened to be one of the two drivers I decided to support that day:  1  (Scott Speed escaped his car uninjured)

- Number of showers it took to get the lovely odor of exhaust fumes, motor oil, and burnt tire rubber off of me:  2

- Number of days after the race I was coughing up black stuff:  3

- Number of washes it took to get the greasy nastiness out of my clothes:  Surprisingly, just 1

- And finally…..of the probably 80,000+ people in attendance, the number of Asian people I saw all day:  1

After dinner, and before we went out to meet our friends, we were all getting ready.  I brought a change of clothes, knowing I would be sweaty and gross from having played volleyball that morning.  The ladies retired to their respective bedrooms to get ready and I went into the bathroom, the one and only bathroom in the condo.  While I was in there, I decided now was as good a time as any to….uh….”take care of some business.”  Okay, ya know what, we’re all adults here.  I had to poop.  There, I said it.  You do it, too.  As I said, I had been gone all day, and 3 meals later, it was time.  Anyway, there I was, in what seemed like total peace and quiet, “making progress,” when I heard a noise.  A very familiar noise.  A noise that immediately sent a chill of terror through my entire body.

I forgot to include one minor detail about my girlfriend and her roommate.  They each have a cat.  But, these are no ordinary cats.  These are very energetic, highly intelligent cats that are capable of such things as, oh, I don’t know, opening doors.  These cats also have their food and water bowls in the bathroom, the aforementioned bathroom, the one and only bathroom in the condo, the bathroom that I was currently occupying.  Any time someone goes into the bathroom, the cats want to be in there too.  They think they’re getting fed, or, at least, it’s a fun place to hang out and torment the people inside.

Apparently, I hadn’t closed the door enough for it to latch, so as I’m sitting on the toilet in what could be described as a “very compromising position,” I hear the click of the latch opening.  The door slowly cracks open and one of the cats slides in.  It walks immediately to me, sits down awkwardly close, and just looks at me.  The door was only slightly open but continued to swing open from the momentum of the push it received from the cat.  So here I am, in a very embarrassing situation, with the bathroom door wide open, and two women within 10 feet of the door, capable of walking past at any moment.

*not an actual picture of me on the toilet

I quickly debate my options.  Do I call for help and have one of them awkwardly stumble their way, eyes closed, to close the door for me?  Do I do nothing and try to finish my business in hopes they won’t walk in?  Or, do I make a death sprint to the door, pants around my ankles, to securely close and latch the door?  Death sprint it is.  I’m a fairly tall guy with very long legs, so it would normally only take me maybe 3 steps to get from the toilet to the door (it’s a pretty big bathroom).  In this situation, however, it took at least 10-12 shuffle steps to make it to the door, almost diving to reach it, close the door, push hard enough for it to latch, check it, check it again, then lock it.  At this point, the cat is locked in the bathroom with me and decides that right behind the toilet is the best place to be to hide from me after being scared by the noise and commotion it took to close the door.  Great.  But, after the potential embarrassment of the open door, having a cat in the bathroom was a walk in the park.

So, here’s to you, cat, for what could have been an incredibly awkward situation between myself and my girlfriend, or her roommate.  And here’s to you, ladies, for taking just long enough to get ready that you weren’t walking past the door at a very, very, inopportune time.

I forget which movie I saw but it must have been a fairly popular new release because it was in the largest room they have, probably seating between 200-300 moviegoers.  On this day, however, there was 1 other person, a lady that I could barely see sitting in the middle of the very back row, just beneath the projector window.  As per usual, I walked half way up and half way in, sitting in the almost dead center of the theater.  The young man who followed me in came almost halfway up, and almost halfway in, sitting one row below me and basically right in front of me.  Really?  That’s the seat you pick?  Jerk.  Now I can’t put my feet on the back of the chair in front of me because apparently none of the other 298 seats are good enough for you.  Below is a pretty accurate representation of his unnecessarily awkward proximity.

Had he just sat there for the duration of the movie, that would have been annoying, but he wasn’t going for annoying.  I think he wanted something else.  As soon as he sat down, he swiveled himself clockwise in his seat so that his body was facing directly to the right.  From this angle, he looked back and up at me, staring at me for approximately 10-15 straight minutes.  I looked at my phone, then back at him.  He was staring at me.  I pay extra attention to the trivia and commercials on the pre-movie slide show, then glance back at him.  He was still staring at me, smiling.  I read every word of my movie ticket, front and back, then quickly glance down at him.  Yep, still staring at me.  Of course not one single person comes into the theater during this ridiculous ordeal.

After what felt like an eternity he, having said nothing to me, turned around in his seat, got up, left the theater, and never came back in.  I know he didn’t come back because no one else came in for the entire movie, it was just me and the lady in the back row.  What in the world just happened?

So here’s to you, movie theater stalker, for creeping me the heck out.  I can’t even tell that story without getting the chills a little.  Guess who won’t ever go by himself to that theater again?  And for the record, no, I will not make out with you.

It started on my commute to work (of job #1, as I currently have 2 jobs).  As I’m driving through the normally very empty downtown Roswell I see what, from a distance, looks like someone pushing a very large baby stroller down the sidewalk.  Nothing to be concerned with here.  Until I get closer and realize that it’s not a baby stroller, it’s a rolling hospital bed.  And there’s not a baby in it, but a very old woman.  In fact, this woman is so old, that I’m pretty sure she’s dead.  I’m not joking or using this term as hyperbole, the woman had her eyes closed, was slightly curled into a fetal-type position, had a  bluish-gray color to her and possessed an overall lifeless look.  That lady was dead.  And she was being carted down the sidewalk of downtown Roswell totally uncovered.  There was a man in his early 30’s pushing her, a younger woman next to him who looked like she was crying, and an older woman, probably the man’s mother, on his right.  Both had their inside arms on the man’s shoulder.  They were pushing their dead grandmother down the sidewalk.  I’m going to retype that sentence to really let it sink in.  They were pushing their dead grandmother down the sidewalk.

But where were they coming from and where were they going?  As far as I know, there’s no hospital, no nursing home, no assisted living, no hospice center, or no funeral home anywhere in the area.  What the crap?  I spent the next half of a mile looking in my rear view mirror trying to figure out what I had just seen.  Needless to say, seeing a dead lady on the way to work is not a great way to start your day.  And it only got weirder.

Later that day, at my second job (at one of the world’s largest purveyors of fine coffee) I had a very strange encounter with a customer.  She was a middle aged black woman with short, spiky, silver hair.  For her age, she was very attractive, and if I were a middle aged black man I probably would have been interested in this woman.  However, I am neither.  Moving on.  She came in and was playfully flirtatious with me.  She ordered a drink for herself, the man she was with, and another woman who was outside at a table.  She payed by credit card.  As I returned her credit card she took hold of it between her thumb and index finger and with her three remaining fingers, she tickled the palm of my hand.  Yep.  The old palm tickle.  Get’s ‘em every time….

I think she was a bit shocked at how quickly I removed my hand from hers.  She made sure to reinforce her affection throughout her visit.  Anytime she needed something she would come directly to me, refer to me as handsome, and always make some flirtatious remark upon exiting.  I wasn’t really bothered by her actions but more surprised by the awkward forwardness of them.  However, later in the evening, I wasn’t so lucky.

We were about to close and a group of four women came into the store.  They looked to be students as they all had laptops, books, and notebooks, which they immediately spread out on a table.  One of them ordered a drink.  As I gave her the beverage, she picked it up, started to turn, stopped, turned back to me, and said, “Why are you so sweaty, it’s not that hot in here?”  Excuse me?  I was so blindsided by her question that I didn’t really know what to do.  I stumbled to reply, “uh, well, I guess it’s because the coffee makers and espresso machines put off a lot of heat back here.”  She accepted that answer, turned, and went back to her table.  I immediately walked to my fellow coworkers and asked them if I looked at all sweaty, to which they both replied “no.”  What the heck?  A) Why the crap do you think I look sweaty?  And B) who actually says that to someone?  Unbelievable.

I went to the restroom, washed my face and head with a wet paper towel, thoroughly dried off, then walked directly to their table where, by this time, they were very well settled in for some serious studying.  I took great pleasure in letting them know that, oh, I’m sorry, we’re going to be closing in 10 minutes, so you’ll have to pack up all your computers, and books, and notebooks, and papers, and all the food you brought from home, and the one drink you bought from us, and take this study group somewhere else.

So, here’s to you, Wednesday.  Just when I think I’m running out of material for this blog, you give me these three little gems.  It’s days like this remind me why I started this thing.

Shameless Plug:  I know a lot of you have told us “oh, I totally have a story I need to submit,” but ya know what….my inbox is still empty.  Come on folks, send in those stories.  I think a few of you even have photos to go with your stories.  We want to hear your stories so send them in on the submissions page.

Wait….what?

According to my most trusted weather forecasting website it was 91 degrees this past Saturday.  As I was driving into town at around 12:30pm I pass an incredibly old man standing on the side of the road holding a sign advertising the one day sale of a discount mattress store.  He looked like he wanted to die.  He could barely stand up straight, leaning forward and to the left a little.  His head was down and his mouth was wide open.  It was kinda like this, except the mattress store wasn’t kind enough to provide him any place to sit.

I was appalled.  Who in their right mind would ask this old man to stand outside in the heat of the day to hold a freaking sign?  I can’t imagine that he volunteered for that job.  Is it a store policy that the sign board holder must be the same age as the temperature outside?  I guess 91 degrees means a 91 year old sign holder.  Are you trying to get people into your store on sympathy?  If I buy 3 mattresses will you let that old man inside?

So here’s to you, mattress store marketers!  If you keep hiring guys like this you won’t have to worry about giving them a raise since you’ve probably already had at least 12 of them die from sun stroke or some heat related ailments.  I tried to see what, if anything, was written on the back of the sign but another vehicle was blocking my view.  If I had to guess, it probably said something like this….

I had pulled up to the gas station at a Kroger near my office because my truck was literally running on fumes.  It was fairly busy and I had taken the last available gas pump.  I inserted my debit card, as instructed, and immediately received a “See Attendant” message on the screen.  Odd.  Before I could even put my card back into my wallet, the attendant, sitting in her little glass box, yells over the PA system, “INSUFFICIENT FUNDS, NUMBER 6!”  It takes a second to comprehend what she just said and I look up to see that I am currently trying to use pump number 6.  Did she really just announce to the entire gas station that my card was declined due to insufficient funds?  Yes, she most certainly did.

I calmly approach the little glass box where she sits with a wry smile on her face.  It just made her day to announce to everyone that I’m broke and can’t afford to refuel my vehicle.  She leans forward and says once again, “Insufficient Funds.”  I inform her that there is no way that this is the case and ask her to try the card again for an specific amount, like maybe $20.  She takes the card, rolls her eyes a bit and with a smirk processes the transaction, expecting to once again inform me that I’m broke.  She was giddy with excitement.  But, to her surprise, the transaction was approved.  How about that?

So here’s to you, gas station attendant, for having an obvious look of disappointment as you hand me my receipt and I proceed to fill my vehicle with $20 worth of gas that I can, in fact, afford.  What do you do for fun?  Do you go down to the unemployment office and ask people what they do for a living just to see their reaction?  I can say without a doubt that you, ma’am, are one of my least favorite people of all time.

At first glance I assumed several things about John:

A.  John is probably in transit to or from a place where he exercises, like a gym, or a park, or the middle of the woods where he is being hunted by the US Army.

B.  He wears a headband during the aforementioned activities to keep sweat and blood off of his face, and to make himself look way more awesome than he already does.  This is something that I, myself, have been known to do.

C.  His convertible sedan with a vanity plate was probably a mid-life crisis related purchase and is definitely not the best choice when trying to evade capture from an Army special forces team.

He looked like this, but way less awesome

The light turned green and we both proceeded through the intersection.  As I turned again I saw what had me laughing for a solid 5 minutes.  John was not coming from the gym and the headband was not exercise related in any way.  In fact, the headband was being used, unsuccessfully, to keep John’s front-to-back comb over from flying around while he drove his convertible.  For the next mile and a half everyone in the car laughed as John tried over and over to tuck a long strand of hair under his headband only to watch it pop back out and stand straight up in the breeze for all the world to see.  It was awesome.  To give you an idea of what it might have looked like, I’ve whipped up a rendering of the event with my wicked awesome Photoshop skills below.

That’s right.  It’s Rambo.  In a convertible.  With a bald spot.  And a comb over blowing gracefully in the wind.  We weren’t, however, anywhere near the ocean.  That part is totally fake.  Everything else is pretty spot on.

So here’s to you, Mr. Comb Over, for making the 2 mile commute to Chick-fil-A the best part of my week.  I don’t want to deny anyone the pleasure of witnessing what I saw, but seriously John, just throw on a hat.  It will make your life a whole lot easier, and you won’t have to make homemade headbands out of your shirt sleeves anymore.

On one of my more recent trips to Twain’s the usually crowded shuffleboard tables were available, so my friends and I decided to play.  I walk up to our table and the rather attractive blonde at the adjacent table notices I’m about to start playing.  She saunters over to me, almost resting her hip against mine.  She looks up at me and says, “Do you play shuffleboard often?”  What?  Is this girl hitting on me?  Did someone dare her to use the cheesiest pick-up line possible?  Will she follow up by asking me my sign?

She proceeds to tell me that she’s “kind of a pro at shuffleboard” and that if I need her to teach me how to play, she’d be glad to instruct me.  And she was totally serious.  This girl wasn’t hitting on me, she was trying to intimidate me.  She had a certain “anything you can do I can do better” tone to her voice.  She wanted me to ask for help so she could show me how good she was.  I mean, I don’t want to toot my own horn, but if you’re “kind of a pro” at shuffleboard then I’m a three time Olympic gold medalist.  I’m world class, baby.

So here’s to you, ma’am (that’s a first) for being way too intense about a mere bar game.  It would be best if you stepped away and went back to the game already in progress at your table.  Also, your husband and his brother at the other end of the table are starting to give me the evil eye.

1.  Half of the house is missing.

2.  There’s a little yellow piece of paper on the door declaring the house uninhabitable, unsafe,  and therefore condemned (it’s pretty small but you’ll have to take my word for it).

3.  The yard is immaculately manicured.

Almost two years ago a very very very large tree came crashing down on this house in the middle of the night.  Miraculously, no one was hurt, but the house was no longer safe for the family to continue living there and they were forced to move.  So for two years this half of a house has sat wide open, protected only by that blue tarp.  And at least once every two weeks, the guy that used to live in this half of a house comes and cuts the grass, trims the bushes, picks up limbs, and does overall lawn maintenance on this abandoned, condemned property that he will probably never live in again.  Mind boggling.

I appreciate that there isn’t yet another abandoned and overgrown property on my street, but seriously dude, what a colossal waste of your time and energy.  Even if you do rebuild the house, they’re going to have to start by razing this property, pouring a new foundation, and basically starting from scratch.  If this happens, I can guarantee they’re going to tear up the entire yard in the process.  All that hard work wasted.

Here’s to you pointless landscaper for making sure the remaining half of your house still has loads of curb appeal.  I promise I’m not at all bitter that you keep your yard looking nicer than mine even though I actually live in my house.  I promise.

Jerk.