Yeah, it’s a cliche as old as time.

I was leaving the grocery store with a single bag. This bag contained two jalapenos and a half pound of shrimp. Since I bought it at one of those dipshit organic places where retards shop, it also contained a receipt for $87.22. I planned on taking it home and cooking up a spicy little number I like to call “Shrimp and Jalapeno completely expected”, since I don’t believe in surprises. As I was walking to my car, I heard a female voice say “excuse me…?”

My first guess was that it would be a meth addict asking for money. Second, I supposed it could be someone who needed directions. Third and fourth respectively were someone who had lost their child and someone with whom I had drunkenly sired a child four years ago and was going to introduce me to it. What it turned out to be was a chick hitting on me, and that would have been guess number 7,612 - right between being mistaken for the pope and having a mermaid ask to borrow a jar of triangles.

Let me say this to anyone who wonders about what makes chicks dig dudes. They have glands somewhere on their person that can see, smell, taste, and feel confidence. I was still riding the glow of having passed my latest checkride and I’ve been feeling pretty good about life in general since I quit my office job last year. I have also lost 20 pounds since I started purging and cutting myself in March and have a decent tan from being outside more often (I’m not bragging either - at my physical best I look twice as average as the guy standing next to me, so I don’t really bother with it). Luckily, women don’t seem to put as much weight on physical appearance as men do. If they did, I’d be living on an island with Gilbert Gottfried and Tom Petty, and we’d wile away the hours building cathedrals out of matchsticks and dodging the detritus being launched at us from the mainland. The only times I have ever been approached by women is when I felt good. It happens all the time all around us, yet men all over the world are baffled by it.

Just like a woman to only like the stuff we can’t fake.

In any case, I guess I had the swagger and the puffiness of chest or the pheromones or whatever, or maybe it was just gas. After she said “excuse me”, I turned and did the raise of the chin you do when you want to acknowledge someone, but secretly hope they don’t say anything else.

“My friend wants to know what you are doing for the rest of your life.” She said as she and her friend walked toward me.

By this time I was standing next to my car, and not having missed a beat, I did that thing where you have your back to the car and you put a foot flat against the fender so your knee sticks out. I slowly lit a cigarette and took one long drag on it. Then I squinted at them over my sunglasses and said in my most gravelly voice, “Whatever the fuck I want to, sugarbush.” I flicked the cigarette on the ground at her feet, jumped over the door into the bucket seat of my ragtop 68 GTO and roared out of the parking lot, leaving them both in a shuddering heap of desire and natural lubrication.

If you believe I did any of that, stop reading now and go feed your unicorn. For the rest of you, this is how it really happened:

“My friend wants to know what you are doing for the rest of your life.”

I spent a good ten seconds looking around for whomever they were talking to, and then sheepishly pointed at myself because I was the only person in earshot, but I thought maybe one of them had a Bluetooth earpiece in that I couldn’t see and I was about to have half a conversation with someone who didn’t even know I was there.

“Yeah, you. She told me to ask. She’s shy. I’m Blah Blah and this is my friend whatever. She’s curious about the rest of your life.”

“I…mm…got some groceries and now I’m going to pick my cat up at the vet and then I’m going home to make dinner for me and my girlfriend.”

Please note that I made an on-the-fly decision to add the note about my girlfriend. Not because I wanted to be all annoying and “I have a girlfriend”, but more to negate the gayification that came with admitting I have a cat. Also note that in answer to a question about what I was doing the rest of my life, I covered roughly the next half hour. I think that means either I’m a live for the moment rebel badass, or more likely I’m a closet fatalist.

One of them then noticed that I had on a shirt with the name of the place I work on it.

“Falcon Aviation? Is that where you work?”

“Yeah. For now, anyway.”

“Are you a pilot?”

“Yup, but I teach, mostly.”

“What kind of plane do you fly?”

“A blue one. Actually white with blue stripes. And I think a grey stripe.”

I said that to be a smartass, but they both seemed to accept the answer. That was a little weird and I started wondering if I was about to be mugged.

“Listen, I gotta go, but it was nice meeting you both…but uhh…I’m guh PetSmart gedda cat.”

“Okay. I guess if you have a girlfriend then…”

“Yeah. It’s been like three years and I really like her a lot, so…you know. But hey, it’s flattering that you even noticed my 35 year old carcass, so gracias for that.”

“You’re 35?”

“Thirty five and a half, actually.”

I’m sure they started with the “eeeewww, he was all old. GROSSS.” Stuff when they got in their car, but I drove over to the pet store/vet laughing my ass off the whole way about the scenario where I flick my cigarette at them and drive away.

Earlier that day, the Veterinarian called me and said my cat needed some kind of shot or something and it would be $18 and I could pick her up at 4. Alrighty, I said. I went to the office and told them I was there for my cat.

Everybody was rushing around and they told me to wait a minute. I waited 30 minutes and then I asked again. They said they were very sorry, but they had some emergencies come in and they had to deal with those. Then a girl came in with a big golden retriever, and bitchily told them that they had forgotten to clip the dog’s nails. Guess whose canine pedicure took precedence over me getting the hell out of there?

So the dick switch was in the on position, and I asked “Hey, if you could just toss my cat out here or slide her under the door or whatever I’ll get out of your hair. This dog getting its nails done is not an emergency.”

After 45 minutes, they brought the cat out.

They then handed me a bill for $56.

I handed it back and told them that they had done something wrong. The girl went to check with the doctor and came back and explained to me that the shots were $18 each and they had to charge me $15 to “board” the cat for the day.

I decided to try a little reasoning. “Listen, I know you guys are all in a twist right now, but I’ve been waiting out here for very close to an hour, and if you could just drop that boarding charge, I’ll leave here very happy.”

Then I got the most infuriating response you can ever get from a sales clerk, and it is a great indicator that things are about to stop making sense.

“I’m sorry, I CANT. It’s already on the bill and I CAN’T take it off.”

Really, retard? Your $8 an hour worthless ass CAN’T figure out a way to do that? And you also expect me to believe you? You saying you can’t do something is going to cause a lot of problems. Sure you don’t want to change your answer?

“Yes you can.”

“No, really, we can’t take it off. Seriously.”

“Put me behind that computer for 60 seconds and I’ll prove it can be done. If I can’t do it, I’ll give you a cat.”

*sigh* “Just a minute, let me get the doctor.”

The doctor came out and showed me the charges. He also told me that I signed the form where I agreed to pay for boarding if I chose not to wait for them to be finished. This pissed me off because I hate shit that isn’t rational. Normally I wouldn’t waste this much time and effort on $15, but this place has made a hobby out of ripping me off, so they were in for a fight.

“Okay, so you told me to drop the cat off at nine, right? And I had to work at 8, so I dropped it off at 7:30. You then told me I could pick it up at 3, but I couldn’t make it here until 4. Did you expect me to wait in the pet store for seven hours so I could save the boarding fee, or was I supposed to take the day off work?”

(Doctor looks at his watch)

“I know what time it is, because I have been sitting here for an hour waiting for a beagle to get an emergency massage so I could get my stupid cat back, and now I’m asking you to knock $15 off the price because I had no other option but to leave the cat here AND I had to wait, not to mention the amount of money I spent here last month…”

“I understand Mister Scott, but we can’t…”

“Yes you can, and I’m going to prove it. Keep the cat. Make it your mascot or sell it or whatever.”

(Chuckling) “Well, we don’t have anyone here overnight…”

I was halfway to the door when I overheard him say to the girl behind the counter, “He won’t leave the cat.”

The hell I won’t.

I got in my car and drove home, excited at the prospect of cleaning dried cat snot off the ottoman for the last time.

Just as I was pulling into the parking deck, my phone rang.

“Mister Scott? This is so and so from Shamfield Pet Hospital. Dr. Fucknose wanted to let you know that animals that are abandoned will be put up for adoption and if a home isn’t found, they will be given to a shelter and could be destroyed.”

“Fair enough.” *click*

Fifteen seconds later, my phone rang again.

“Mr. Scott? Dr. Colonbrain said he will remove the boarding charge if you will come pick up your cat.”

“Are you sure? Because I was told that there was no way that could be done. You guys must have really pulled some str…”

(interrupting because I was being super mega-patronizing) “He also wanted to let you know that in the future if you leave the ca…”

(The sound of me hanging up on her) Like I want to listen to this bitch bleating about the way a boarding charge works. If Doctor Asshat wants me to know something, he can call and tell me himself.

Fifteen minutes and $38 later, the cat and I left the clinic, never to return.

Sweet merciful baby Jesus and all of the feathers that fall from his brow, did I REALLY have to convince them that I was going to abandon a cat just to make them take a $15 charge off the bill? Why do I feel like one of only a few dozen people left on the planet who recognizes the point where things stop making sense?

So after it was all said and done, I was making Shrimp and Jalapeno completely expected, thinking about how quickly others can influence the way my day goes. I’m sure there is a lesson to be learned there, but hell if I know what it is.

So here are a couple more flying videos. Flying is like sex, except louder. And safer.

I’ll do a not-so-quick super-general overview of the ratings you can get as a pilot in the most common order you will see them. If you are a pilot and I don’t get too specific with the descriptions, please don’t try to cite regulations and point out where I am technically incorrect. As of now, you probably don’t want to go toe to toe with me on Federal Aviation Regulations as I have still not gotten drunk enough to forget them and may smoke you with my voluminous knowledge. I’m making this simple so people who don’t fly can have a better understanding and can ask relevant questions to people who fly.

First, you’re a Student Pilot – this means you are being taught to fly by a Certified Flight Instructor (CFI). You may be allowed to fly solo, but you can’t carry passengers and you have a bunch of other restrictions until you pass your first checkride, which is the…

Private Pilot – this means you are qualified to safely drive a single engine airplane. You can also get a multi-engine private pilot rating, which means you can fly multi-engine airplanes up to a certain weight. If you are a private pilot, you can fly wherever you want (as long as you aren’t getting paid to fly), with passengers, day or night (assuming the weather is clear and you follow all of the rules that apply to you). If you decide you want to fly in the clouds, you’ll need an…

Instrument Rating – This means you have been found competent to fly your airplane without any outside references (yes, when you are in a jet and you can’t see out the window, the pilots can’t either), and you can safely depart, navigate, and land in whatever weather you are dumb enough to fly through. The rating that (usually) comes next is the…

Commercial Pilot – This does not mean you fly a 737. You can get a commercial rating in a single engine Cessna or a twin Comanche or whatever you want. All a commercial rating really means is that you can legally be paid to fly. You have to do certain maneuvers to stricter standards and have a deeper knowledge of all relevant subjects that apply to the aircraft and type of flying you are doing. If you are a true glutton for punishment, you can decide to be a…

Certified Flight Instructor – this is the checkride I finished on the 27th, and contrary to popular belief, the bitch of it all is not the test itself, but the billion hours of study and practice that is required to prepare for the ride.

Here’s the daunting part of getting your CFI rating. You basically have all of the books and reference materials you have accumulated during your training for Private, Single engine, Multi-engine, Commercial, and Instrument ratings. This is a stack of books about 2 feet high, and you have to lug it around with you back and forth to the flight school for a month or two while you are training.

You and your instructor practice everything you need to know for your checkride (which, as far as I know is everything there is to know about General Aviation, and they throw in a couple of books about learning theory and how to teach) in the air and on the ground. You’ll go out and practice teaching your instructor how to do stalls and steep turns and whatnot. That dynamic is difficult to get used to.

You’re flying with the guy who taught you most of what you now know, and he has been instructing for six years or whatever. This translates to “You probably aren’t going to teach him much that he doesn’t already know, and if he has any feedback for you, it’s going to be about the stuff you screwed up.”

So by the time you take all of the written tests and get your endorsement to take the checkride with an FAA examiner, you have 4000 pages of reference material for aerodynamics, weather, regulations, systems, and teaching. In the interim 2 months, you have read and highlighted every page and neatly condensed it to a mere 3,761 pages of lesson plans.

The part that blew my mind was that a few days before my ride, I looked at that massive pile of books and realized that with the possible exception of certain parts of the FAR/AIM (big government publication that outlines every rule that applies to every part of flying every plane in every type of operation and airspace in the universe), someone could pick any book out of that pile, turn to any page in that book, and I could confidently teach a good 20-30 minutes on it from memory, and then I could bust out my lesson plans and teach/bore the living shit out of them for as long as they could sit there. I guess that’s when I had to admit to myself that I was as ready as I was going to get.

I’ll freely admit that when I started this process I honestly did not think that I was going to be able to get through it. I don’t know if it is a confidence thing or just the “no fricking way” feeling that came with realizing how much I had in front of me.

When it comes to self-doubt, there is no better feeling than proving yourself wrong.

After about seven hours of teaching and flying and teaching while flying, or “fleaching”, the FAA examiner assigned to me was satisfied that I could adequately give instruction in a multi-engine airplane without hurting or killing myself or anyone else. I was going to hug him, but he assured me that that was not on the checklist.

About three years ago, my dad (retired airline pilot) got his CFI rating and I went up with him the next day and my logbook was the first one he signed as a general aviation instructor. After my CFI checkride was done and I was blowing the ink dry on my temporary certificate, dad and I took off in the DA-42 and did a few maneuvers, making his logbook the first one I signed. Cheesy, but one of those things I’m very happy to have been able to do.

So now I’m going to be a flight instructor for a while and look forward to the next step in this aviation thing. I’ll be getting certified to teach instrument flying and single engine stuff, and eventually I’ll be at an airline. Don’t care which one, don’t care how much (or little) they pay, don’t care if I’m gone three weeks a month, don’t care if I get furloughed and have to go back to instructing, and I don’t care how hard it is to get wherever I’m going. I’ll be flying, bitches.

Check out my YouPube.com flying video (use your speakers, punks)-

Basically my life is as follows (and after you read this, you’ll understand why the creative well has been a bit dry) – Wake up at 6 or 7 am, make breakfast. Eat breakfast. Work out for an hour or two. Study flying stuff. Take a nap (I’m not lazy, nor do I think I have earned said nap. What I do know is that there is not a human alive who can read anything written by the FAA and stay awake longer than 2 hours). Make lunch. Eat lunch. Study some more or borrow an airplane and practice flying around with one engine. Come home. Make dinner. Eat dinner. Go to sleep.

So if the flying thing doesn’t work out, I think I’d make a decent monk. The flying Monk - what with all of the exercise and studying, but with none of that pesky enlightenment. I’d have the robes with the rope around the waist, but I’d have a silk scarf tucked in and I’d constantly wear a pair of ridiculously large Ray Ban aviators; my eyes hidden behind their mirrored surface, scanning the horizon for signs of poppycock, shenanigans, monkeyshines and/or carrying-on. If trouble was a-brewing I’d hop in my De Havilland Chipmonk (if you’re an airplane freak, that was funny. If not, then maybe you should skip your next communist party meeting and start learning about airplanes) and blast off to save the day.

I’ve lost almost 20 pounds, which I think I have to do if I expect myself to continue making fun of fat people in good conscience, and if you have any questions about single or multi-engine piston aircraft, aviation regulations, or what endorsements you need in your logbook for any stage of flight training, I know a guy who can answer them. His name is me.

I’m also broke again for the first time in six or seven years. I’m adapting to it, but for the record it still sucks. The main difference between me and most broke folks – or maybe I should say the difference between being broke and being poor – is that my reaction to dwindling funds is not to shit in the dark, shower using only cold water and try to make my own toothpaste so I can save $7 a month, but to figure out how to make more money. That’s pretty much the delineating factor when it comes to the difference between losers and winners.

If anyone has any ideas as to how I can pull in an extra grand or so a month without doing any work, I’m all ears.

Although my day-to-day may seem like hell, I still have never once gotten up in the morning and said, “Jeez, I wish I could just go sit in a cube and take orders from a retarded manager to complete a project that should never have made it out of his ass.”

Someone sent me a very nice email last week telling me that they had been reading my site for a while and decided to grab life by the taint and own it for a while. I try almost daily not to sound like a cockgobbling homo, but it really did mean a lot to me to know that I had something to do with someone changing their life for the better. To the guy in Australia who is living his dream (and this time it’s not Judd, by the way), you have my respect and admiration for making shit happen instead of letting shit happen.

I’ve been watching the presidential race, too. I really don’t have much of an opinion on it. Most people become more passionate about this stuff as they get older, but I seem to care less and less. With every president I have seen since I was old enough to notice, I have heard the retarded warnings of imminent doom from the retarded worriers across the entire retarded political spectrum, and not once have I seen any of their retarded prophecies come true. I know that 99% of the people in this country have the brains and ability to do what they need to do to keep themselves and their families fed, medicated, and educated. I also know that about 40% choose not to do so and cost the rest of us money and time.

So until a politician runs on the “birth control for the non-motivated” platform and starts dropping chemical sterilization gas bombs into the homes of people who should not be parents, I don’t see myself getting too involved in the process.

Think really hard. Is there a single problem in this (or any) society that could not be solved if morons were prevented from bringing more morons into the world?

I hear the typical “Obama’s church has Muslim ties” and “McCain ate a live kitten on stage” and “Hillary has a vagina” stuff, and my only response is a feeling of apathy that is ironically intense.

I flew a guy up to Knoxville yesterday for a checkride and I was sitting in the little terminal idly commenting on the news with a couple of crusty old guys. Obama was blowing his “Hope prosperity change revolution freedom” number to a large audience, and one of the guys said “That guy…we elect him, and next thing you know the blacks are going to take over.”

Here’s what you do when stupid people say stupid things – ask them to explain it.

“Really?” I asked. “Blacks are going to take over? What do you think that will lead to?”

“It’s right there. All over the place. You just wait. You’ll see. This place is going to hell in a paper sack.”

So if I’m hearing all of this right, the blackening of America is a foregone conclusion that I’m too stupid to understand and soon we’ll all be getting Government issued rims for our cars and crack will become our currency.

Here’s a tip to use any time you form a hypothesis – ask yourself if it makes sense. The dignity you save may be your own.

I listened for a few more minutes and started to feel like I was going to forget how to read if I sat there much longer, so I went outside and watched airplanes land. I am really sort of glad that this guy’s cholesterol was eclipsed only by his blood pressure and he’d only be part of the voting population for a few more months. Not to say Obama is the best candidate, but if you think he is or isn’t, at least come up with a valid reason.

In feline news, I did not have the heart to have my cat put to sleep as punishment for not using the litter box. The Skirt disagrees with me on that one. At times I question it as well. I took her to the vet last week and they told me she had infections in every orifice and charged me $400. Ever since I bought into that $25 a month pet insurance scam, it seems that furry little whore needs something done every week.

“Yes, Mister Scott, your cat has a urinary tract infection and some kind of mung in her ears, and she’s constipated. We’re giving you some drops and some other drops and some oily stuff that you have to give her thrice daily. That’ll be a bazillion dollars.”

“Sweet. Glad I got insurance.”

“Well, the insurance did cover one of the vaccinations and the Swedish massage, but the rest is on you.”

“hmm. So I paid $25 a month for the past year…better known as $300, and it saved me…um…let’s see…carry the four…multiply by one…fifteen dollars?”

“Yes sir.”

“Awesome. How ‘bout you waive the fee and I give you a free cat for your trouble?”

“Haha. No, it doesn’t work that way.”

“Okay. Well, the way I see it, her being constipated just means fewer little piles of tootsie rolls next to the dryer for me to clean up, so keep the laxative and I’ll just buy the ear stuff.”

“Well, come on. If it was you, you’d want to move your bowels”

“Yes, that is true. In fact, I’d like to move them right here and now to express my displeasure. But the difference between my discomfort and hers is that I am human and I have worth.”

“Haha.” (I love how they think I am not serious)

“Whatever. So do I give her an injection or administer all of this stuff rectally?”

“Oh, no. It is all oral.”

“Do you have the other kind? I mean, I’m getting it in the ass, so it seems like…you know…circle of life and all of that.”

They sent me home with a veterinary pharmacy and later that night I gave her the first dose. She was snoring in the corner, so I loaded all of the droppers, pinned her empty head against the wall and gave her a gut full of antibiotics and whatever it is that makes cats shit. It was surprisingly easy.

What I didn’t count on was the cat’s ability to learn and avoid.

The next time I gave her the meds, she was much less cooperative. She gagged and spit and foamed and left 3 cc’s (or $40 worth) of medicine sprayed on the walls and ceiling of my closet. I need to decide if I really hate this cat more than I enjoy the challenge of overpowering her 7 pound frame.

Every time I do it I have to use a new plan, but it always turns out the same. I wrapped her in a towel and held her stupid nose, but she learned to push it out with her tongue. Now she has a yellow oily goatee. It has come to the point where The Skirt has to immobilize her while I shoot it down her esophagus with a super soaker and then hold her under water until she swallows. The only logical next step is to put her in the freezer for a few hours beforehand so she can’t move as fast.

We had a tornado come through town the other night. I know you were collectively fearing for my safety as evidenced by the single email I received from a guy I assume is your spokesperson after what I assume was a 36 hour candlelight vigil and prayer circle.

The Skirt and I were watching a movie and it suddenly went crazy. There were trees and pieces of metal and stuff flying all over the place, everyone was scared, and it was deafening. Then her phone rang and we put Twister on pause and someone told us that a tornado had broken a bunch of stuff about three blocks from our house. We had no idea anything was even going on. It was raining and there was a little hail, but it was far from the worst weather we had seen here. My dad called and I asked him if he knew how to get a stop sign out of my skull. He then told me to call my brother and tell him that I was okay, which I did not do because it was midnight and my brother was asleep. Further, I guessed if he saw the news the next morning he’d assume he would have heard something if I had been killed.

But I also thought it would be kind of funny if I had been killed and my brother didn’t find out for a couple of weeks.

“Sorry we missed you at the funeral.”

“Whazza? Funeral?”

“Yeah. Your brother’s funeral last week. Did you have to work or something?”

For instance, you could argue that a cilantro and onion sandwich (two food ingredients that I think should be outlawed when used uncooked) would taste delicious, and I really can’t argue much with that, as I know that lots of people like to eat food that tastes like soap and ammonia. I’m basically outnumbered on that and I accept it.

On the other hand, when I go to a museum and I see crappy artwork that everyone is gushing about, I feel just fine calling it crap with some confidence. This has nothing to do with my own background in art, either. It either took skill or it didn’t.

I don’t like Chipotle (McDonald’s version of Mexican food) at all. However, I do make a paste out of smoked Jalapenos, molasses, and vinegar that you could spread on anything you want to see me eat. I would eat Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ diaper if you put enough chipotle paste on it*. My problem with Chipotle (the restaurant) is at once painfully simple and a mystery to those around me who like that place.

It is as follows – Their food doesn’t taste good.

I gave it the rule of three; I ate there three times to be sure that I wasn’t mistaken, and sure enough, it was bad twice and below average once. Add to that the fact that you can go to a dozen tastier cheaper messican joints within a mile radius, and I am left with zero reasons to eat at Chipotle.

Music is a big one with me, too. I don’t think it takes any musical training to know when one kind of music is better than another. For instance, I was horrified when I turned on the radio for the first time in about a year and realized that while I was asleep, robots had taken over the world and replaced our music with something slightly more horrible than the crap we listened to in the 80s.

Let me qualify that. In the 80s, the music was crap. Mister Mister, A-Ha, and all the rest jammed synthesizers and those guitar/keyboard things and sang crappy lyrics and we lapped it up like so much pablum. I don’t know exactly what pablum is, but it sounds like something you’d lap up. You can’t even say pablum without making a lapping noise. Try it.

Seriously, I’m not typing another word until you try it.

No, do it out loud. I’m not kidding. Don’t ruin it for everyone else.

Okay.

The crappy music of the 80s was mercifully euthanized by the grunge stuff that came out in the 90s, and we briefly enjoyed some actual musical talent, songwriting, and folks who could play instruments. The fact that grunge sort of gave birth to that pathetic emo/goth garbage is forgivable in light of the fact that it basically nuked the hair bands overnight.

Why, then, is the bulk of today’s music worse than that of the 80s? Two reasons – first, I am getting old and I am required to start bitching about “that damned noise” at some point, and second, NO ONE IS PLAYING INSTRUMENTS ANYMORE. In the visual world it is the same garbage that came out of the general population having access to digital photo editing software and calling themselves designers. In the music world you take an unremarketable (marketable, but otherwise unremarkable) girl or guy and have him or her record lyrics. Any lyrics will do. Then you email those lyrics to a producer who can electronically make it sound like someone is singing. Then the producer turns on his Mac and adds a bunch of electronic drum beats and other noises and whammo – you have synthetic pablum. Or robot music.

You might ask, “Oh really, mister bloggeybutt? Then what do you listen to that is so great?” Really it’s not that I think the music I listen to is the best in the universe; just let me share a situation with you that has happened more than once.

I put some thought into the music I choose for an occasion. Most of my friends and family are bright, educated, and tasteful when it comes to food, music, art, and so on. If we’re hanging out having dinner and wine, I’m all about some Sonny Stitt, Oscar Peterson, or just about any other brand of old smoky jazz. That stuff just kicks ass. If we’re grilling steaks and drinking beer, you can’t beat some old Chicago (not the sappy love song crap, the stuff from when they were a 28 piece brass band), a little Porcupine Tree, Umphrey’s Mcghee, Leo Kottke, or whatever else fits the situation.

Now let me tell you what truly boggles my mind. When somebody (usually a chick (sorry ladies, I just don’t know a single dude who would turn off Tool in favor of Nicklejump 3 Blind Six or whatever)) makes a music decision and we suddenly hear Fergie spelling her name for the trillionth time. Are you serious that you’d rather listen to that recycled shit than actual music? I really don’t want to be thought of as a music snob, but I think my youngest friend is 30 years old and when Kanye West is squeezing his sonic feces through the speaker grill like some kind of nightmare Play-Doh Fun Factory and I am in a room full of grown-ups, I want to run away and rearrange my friend roster.

“We just want some party music”, they say. SERIOUSLYOHMYGOD. Does Fiddy Cent mumbling “bottlefullabub, come gimme a hug…” make anyone with an I.Q. greater than 60 feel better than the opening guitar riff from Chalkdust Torture? If so, how is that possible in a universe where the tender baby jesus loves us and wants us to be happy? “That’s why they make chocolate and vanilla, Dusty. Some people like other things.”

I understand. However, this is like saying “Some people just prefer to eat boiled hog dick flavored ice cream” and not expecting me to ask for an explanation. Not only does robot music suck, but this week’s moronic hit is played on the radio every fifteen goddamn minutes. How does that make it better and not worse?

Think of music like food. Two types of humans like really simple foods like chicken fingers, spaghetti-o’s, and Pizza Pockets. Retarded people and children. Yes, and stoners (they count as retarded people). They like it because everything else is unfamiliar and they know they can get their simple menu anywhere they go and it won’t make them have to think or otherwise expand their horizons. Shit. I think I’m back on the comfort zone thing again.

Everybody is dumb. Let’s just leave it at that until I think of something else to bitch about. I’m changing the subject.

I lived in Mannheim, Germany for about a year after I graduated college. I was too immature to fully appreciate it, but I still remember it as one of the most growuppy periods of my life. I also met some good friends. Thomas and Klaus and I hung out and drank beer and had a great time while I was there. We called Klaus “The Shredder”, and we’re still trying to remember exactly why. It was either a late night hookup with some chick, or the raging case of herpes that followed. When I moved back to the states, they came out to Atlanta to see the Olympics in 1996 and I haven’t seen either of them since then, save the occasional email.

This past week, Klaus was in town and we went to dinner and talked about old times. We hadn’t seen each other in twelve years, but it was pretty much the same. He had a couple of days left in the States so I asked him if he wanted to go flying the next day. Usually when you ask people that, they either say “No fricking way I’m getting into one of those death trap tiny airplanes”, or they are not idiots. Klaus was all about it in his broken English way, which is much better than my broken German. “Oh yes, this would be very great. I am very looking forward and will have camera on charge so it is ready.”

Yesterday we rented a plane and flew around for about an hour. Klaus is 6’5”, so he had to squeeze in a bit. He had never been in anything smaller than a 50 seat regional jet (I told him I’d take him for a ride in one of those later this year), and it was windy so I handed him the barf bag I keep in my flight bag. We took off, and he was taking video as we climbed out, saying “This is…wow. So great.”

We flew around a little and circled some stuff he recognized from the last time he was here, and then I let him fly. “Move the stick to the left and we’ll go left, right to go right, pull back to go up, and push forward to go down. Your plane, Shredder.”

For the next ten minutes we went left, right, up, and down and Klaus laughed his ass off while I tried to take pictures of him flying. He could turn and hold altitude, and was really pretty good at the basics without my having to say much. He just laughed and flew the crap out of it, soon being renamed “The Shred Baron” because I am creative like that. I asked if he was having a good time and he said, “This is most fun I have in my whole life!”

Couldn’t have said it better myself, Klaus.

*daps to Georgina for the recipe – sorry I misspelled your name

So I’m walking down the street the other day and a bum says “What can I do to make your day better, sir?”

“Absolutely nothing; my life is on rails right now, but thanks for asking.”

“You sure you don’t have anything for me?”

“Not a thing, man. Sorry.” (I wanted to do that thing where I reach in my pocket and cleverly pull out my middle finger - “Oh, I guess I do have a little something. Here ya’ go.”, but then I’d have to run away and I didn’t feel like running)

“Come on, brother. I don’t even have a job. Can’t you help me out?”

“Oddly…” (and this was quite liberating to say) “I don’t have a job either. In fact, if you have a couple bucks I can borrow, that’d be stupendous. I’ll pay you back as soon as I get on my feet.”

Now Colonel Rottentaint was confused and just a tad angry. I’m talking to a person who decided to become a government funded philosopher and bother people for table scraps, and how dare I encroach on his dignity in such a manner. Really? I’m not the one who approached you to ask for something I don’t deserve, dickbag - that was you. I don’t know what your public school guidance counselor taught you, but “Refuse Reexamination Engineer” is not a paying job, no matter how good you are at it. So save the indignation for someone who thinks you are worth a shit.

On the rare occasions that I engage a homeless person, I honestly do not have a problem giving them food, clothing, or whatever basic human need they have (within reason – no reacharounds. I’ve been burned one too many times with that one…and the burn doesn’t go away). Although giving anything to anyone without them working for it is the reason that that the homeless population is growing, denying a hungry person food is something even I can’t do. I’m working on it, though.

Another thing I tend to do (that will probably end with my lifeless corpse being found in a gutter) is offer helpful tips when they tell me their problems, which they do without fail or request. Back to our bridge camper and his plight…

We were near the local shelter where they go to get free stuff and get out of the rain. That happens to be about a block from where I live, making it somewhat unpleasant to walk around in my own neighborhood. And yes, it is my neighborhood, not theirs. I help pay for it.

“Man, sheeeeeit. What’s with you? Listen, I tried to get into Peach and Pine (the name of the shelter, I guess) but I didn’t get here in time. Now I have to be outside and it’s cold.”

“You were late?”

“Yeah, they open at 6 and it fills up, and I couldn’t got muh (garbled) foom zop. Gimme money.”

“What the fuck. You just told me you don’t have a job, so I’m going to guess you weren’t in meetings all day. I’m going to tell you one thing you can do that will change your life. You have one single thing to do as long as it is cold outside, and that is to stay warm. Do. That. One. Thing. As soon as you are good at that, pick another thing and do that one thing in addition to the first one, but make sure it is a thing that makes your life better.”

Then he walked away with a dismissive wave of his hand, mumbling something about whitey. Hell no – no time for things like solutions. There are taxpayers to accost and bushes to crap in and hygienic practices to ignore.

So now I’m going to tell you about Carl so my friends can stop asking me to write about it already. I used to walk past the sketchicenter (peach and pine) every day I decided to walk to work instead of riding my bike. I bought the bike because you are less likely to be molested if you are moving faster. Another good trick is to bark at cars as they pass, making the bums think that you are worse off than they. You learned it here.

I had my earbuds jammed in my skull and was looking straight ahead. Just me and my ipod, walking to work in my MBT’s (ugliest shoes known to man, but they keep my back straight, so cram it up your poo hole).

I watched a guy go past me and saw his shadow stop out of the corner of my eye. He turned around and started following me, and I knew he was going to ask me for something. Dammit. All I wanted to do was have a nice walk to work.

When he got up next to me he was saying something and I ignored him, but he wouldn’t take silence for an answer. After a block of this, I removed an earbud and said “What the hell, man? No. I don’t have anything to give you.”

“Hey, those are great shoes. I’m thinking about getting some.”

“No you’re not.”

“You just out walking? Beautiful day.”

“Going to work.” (attempting to put earbud back in ear)

“Whoa, hold up. What’s your name?”

“Rusty” (way to think on your feet, champ)

“Dusty? Nice to meet you, Dusty. I’m Carl.”

“God. Damn. It.”

“Listen, I’m a hard working man and I’m in the job pool and I mean you no harm. What do you know about black history?”

“Uh…(looking around for hidden cameras) probably not enough. “

I waited until the last second and darted across an intersection, but Carl was quick like a bummy.

“You know Harriett Tubman, Thurgood Marshall, and Martin Luther King? You know who they are?”

“Yes, Carl.”

“Well, let me share a little something –“

At this point he started “spittin’ mad rhymes” about the aforementioned people. He also improvised the following line – “50 years later, we strollin down Peachtree, me and Dusty. You don’t know, but Dusty can flow I know and I told you so. Ain’t none a you know blah blah blah bro and some other rhyming stuff, yo.” And then he threw to me like I was supposed to pick up where he left off. Mildly amusing, but no.

We stopped at the next light and he asked, “Hey, Dusty? What did you think when you saw me coming to talk to you?”

“Honestly? I thought ‘Christ, I hope this fucker doesn’t want to talk to me.’”

Carl found this hilarious.

“Man, you’re honest, that’s why I’m glad we’re friends.”

I looked back over my shoulder so that I could count the number of blocks you have to walk to become lifetime buddies. Turns out to be 3 and a half.

And he wanted to shake my hand. This guy was a talented rapper, but nothing made me want to shake his hand. Bum hands are worse than kids’ hands because they not only have the feces and disease on them, they are also large and scaly. I passed on the opportunity and he forced the issue. I settled on a knucklebump and am now unable to masturbate because that hand refuses to work.

We walked on a few more blocks and Carl told me that although he is in the labor pool, no jobs are to be found anywhere on god’s green earth because someone stole his ID. So I assume someone out there is in a rough enough spot that they are stealing the credit history of a homeless man. I told him to go to Home Depot and stand in line with the Mexicans. Not an I.D. to be found for miles, but somehow they all find jobs every day. Strange…perhaps this has something to do with their willingness to work? Nah…that’s crazy. He also told me that he had a son, and asked me to guess his age.

“Mm. 4?”

“Not my son’s age, my age.”

“Oh. 7?”

Again, Carl was helpless against my rapier wit. At the next corner, he said “Let me tell you something, Dusty. All these people around here…they look at you and they see a white man. I’m gonna tell you, I look at you and I see a black man, cause you a good man.” (Did the closed fist thump on the chest thing) “You know, I see you as a black man because all of these people around here, they don’t know you can flow. But I’m colorblind.”

He’s colorblind, so he sees me as a black man. Makes perfect sense. Uh…thanks?

“I’m a fat white guy wearing a backpack and orthopedic shoes, Carl. No one sees a brother standing here. There isn’t a speck of flow in me. In fact, the flow of others is inversely proportional to their distance from me.”

By now we had walked well over a mile, and Carl’s leg was bothering him, so he sat down. I sat on his lap and asked him to tell me more about his life. Just kidding. I didn’t even slow down.

“Hold on a minute, Dusty!”

“No can do. I have somewhere to be. Have a good one.”

Another block and Carl was by my side again, and now he wanted a couple bucks for breakfast.

Well, Carl had entertained me for the past 20 minutes despite my best efforts, so I said “Alright. I’ll buy you breakfast, but you have to go on your merry way after that, okay?”

“No problem. I have somewhere to be cuz I gotta’ narg with the blammo and moo gabba ovary mackerel.” When a bum starts explaining how much crap he has going on, it gets a little slurry and nonsensical.

“mmm. Hmmm. There’s a CVS on the next block. I’ll go in there and grab you something, okay?”

“Yeah.”

We got to the door of CVS and Carl’s negotiation skills sort of fell apart. I was planning on getting him a couple of nutri-bars and a jug of water. Carl’s tastes are a bit more refined, however, and he was having none of it.

“Okay, here’s what I need - I ain’t allowed in this store no more, so I can’t go with you. (Carl is banned from CVS, for the record) I need two…no three cokes – the ones in the plastic bottles, one a them gatrorade - the orange gatorade, two big bags of chips, milk duds, hey, you think they got ice cream? And if they ain’t got milk duds, gimme a couple…”

“Whoa, Carl. I’m not stocking your pantry. How about a couple of power bars and some water to hydrate you and keep your skin clear?”

“Man, that power bar stuff tastes like shit. You ever had that stuff? Power bars can eat a dick.” (his words, not mine)

“Okay. I’m not going grocery shopping, but I’ll buy you enough to get you to lunch. You cool with a couple of granola bars?”

“Shit, man, why you playing me like this? I walked all this way with you and wrote you a song.”

“I know my way to work, and I never said I’d buy you breakfast if you wrote me a song. I’ll be back in a second.”

Carl pissed me off. I guess one of the billion life lessons he didn’t learn is the one about people like him being choosers.

I went into CVS and asked the guy behind the counter if there was another way out.

Soon I was shoulder-rolling into the elevator and exiting into the parking deck, walking around the back of the building and the rest of the way to work. I looked behind me pretty often, because I figured Carl would be pissed as soon as he figured out that I ditched him, and he’d expect an explanation.

I have a lot of theories about how most people inadvertently perpetuate their station in life. The guy who drives around for an hour looking for the cheapest gas, the guy who spends the last week of every month looking for ways to save money instead of finding ways to make more, the chick who keeps dating assholes and is baffled by the fact that she has three kids with zero dads, and so on. Some (a lot) of people say that my theories are baseless and grounded in my own self-myopia.

This may be true, but I won’t stop believing these theories until 98% of everything I see proves me wrong. For now I’m going to stick with what I see every day.

I will also set a few that I can’t miss, just so I don’t feel like a douche for failing at everything. These are things like “Gain 10 pounds”, “Stop eating Feces”, and “Poison a hobo”. You’re on your own with these, too.

What I can offer is my set of universal truths; things that every human on the planet can – nay, SHOULD – do to improve the general quality of their lives

1. Stop trying to fool yourself – I am astounded by the number of people who are well into their adulthood and still think they are going to play pro whateverball or that their crappy paintings are going to make them famous. Having a hobby and being good at something is one thing. Pinning your dreams on it at the detriment of things like your family or something that can realistically benefit you is another thing entirely. On a small scale, stuff like setting your clocks ahead so you won’t be late is a sign that you are developmentally disabled. It is your clock. You set it ahead. What part of that makes you think that you will be fooled by that? Help others out with this one; if you look at the clock at your friend’s house and say, “Well, it’s 3:45…” and they say “No, that clock is ten minutes fast…” berate them accordingly. Better yet, wait for them to leave the room and set their clocks to the right time. Do you know the main benefits of having accurate clocks?
- Not having to do extra math eighteen times a day.
- Knowing what time it is.
- The warm, secure feeling that comes with being a functional human being

2. Throw some crap away - You have a box that contains old CD cases, keys that fit no lock currently in existence, those big square “wall wart” style power supplies that charge a phone you threw away , and maybe some smaller boxes that you haven’t opened since you moved out of your crappy apartment two years ago. Gather it up, throw it away, and start a new box – something about 12×12x18” any time you are cleaning up and moving the same shit to a different location and wondering why you have it, put it in the box. When the box is full, tape it closed and keep it for 90 days. If you have no need to open said box in that time, throw it away. Do not open it and don’t pretend that you’re going to go through it and donate it to charity. Just throw it away. And stop keeping the stupid shit that people give you. Sure, if you got a set of silverware shaped like human reproductive organs for Christmas, it would be rude to open it in front of your aunt and immediately throw it away. That is why you say “thank you” and throw it away when you get home. Or give it to charity. There are dozens of children out there who have to eat mayonnaise off a spoon that is not shaped like a scrotum.

3. Turn off your phone whenever you are doing something that could be made less enjoyable (to you or to others) by a phone call. Unless you are an on call doctor, pilot, or cop, there is no reason that a phone call should interrupt dinner or a conversation with your family. Please stop acting like anything is going to change or anyone’s life is going to be affected if you wait until after dinner to tell your secretary where the extra toner is. You are not that important and no one thinks you are because you always walk into the next room with your stupid phone up to your stupid ear. Enjoy the here and now because it will go away and you will miss it.

4. Dump a friend and replace him with a better one– Everybody has at least one friend who either always has been or has become more of a chore than a joy to have around. The one who borrows shit all the time, gets too drunk every time you go out, or otherwise isn’t doing anything to enhance anyone’s life. Get rid of that person. Don’t focus on how you do it, just do it. I have completely removed all such people from my life to the point that I am actually working on the second tier. There are a few people I have known over the years who are negative, disagreeable, self-absorbed down-draggers. These are people I look at and wonder how anyone could be friends with them. Then I talk to my other friends who still hang out with them and they say the same thing, “Yeah, he’s still constantly trying to outdo everyone and lying about his station in life and it’s just a joke. Last month he got arrested and mike and I had to bail his dumb ass out.”

…and I can’t help but wonder how bright he and Mike are for still willingly hanging out with this person. So maybe they have to go too. The adage “you can tell a lot about a person by the decisions they make” should never be far from your mind.

Once you have lightened your load, find someone worthwhile to fill the space. I’d offer my friendship, but no one likes me, either.

5. Be realistic with the things that you hear before you repeat them – In my lifetime I have witnessed the collective retardification of humanity at the hands of things like Monkey Pox, Bird Flu, the “super Bug” bacteria, near earth meteors, global cooling, SARS, gay marriage, the teaching of evolution, the teaching of creationism, global warming, antidepressants, fluoride, organic foods, peanut allergies, vaccinations, anti-bacterial soap, and so on down the retarded line ad infinitum. Has anyone else come to the conclusion that that the very worst of these is barely worthy of a double take, or am I the only one?
Here’s my secret, and the secret that will set you free-

Logic.

I’ll explain it in case it is confusing: Saying that someone got a flu shot and it caused them to get Alzheimer’s is very a very caveman way to think about things. I saw video of an earthquake in San Francisco that happened during a baseball game. That has to mean that baseball causes earthquakes, right? Do you know anyone who won’t go somewhere because they got in an accident when they went there once? That person is an idiot. If you eat at McDonalds every meal every day for a month it will cause bad things to happen to you. Really, Lieutenant Deducteypants? What if you ate four meals a day at a five star French restaurant? Are you dumb enough to think that would turn out any differently?

Look at all of the bullshit that has caused media panic in the past 20 years and think of how many of them resulted in anything. The answer is none. In fact, the only ones that really caused any harm are the ones that genuinely scare people and they usually ignore. Focus on the stuff and the people who can kill you and enjoy the fact that you live in a society that basically has no problems and therefore has the time and resources needed to devote thousands of man hours to a shocking exposé on the dangers of Neoprene.

If someone begins explaining to you that there is a strain of acne going around that is deadly, ask how many people it has killed. When they answer “Katie Couric said that three people died of it last year”, punch them in the nuts and explain that there are 280 million people in the United States and ask them to express their number as a percentage. The problem with an “epidemic” that claims 2 lives is that it is niether epi, nor demic. The problem with reporting it as an epidemic is that stupid people repeat it. The problem with repeating it is that it tells logical people that you are stupid.

Don’t let anyone get away with the slippery slope argument, either. “If we let the fags get married, next thing you know your son will want to marry an air conditioner and your dog will marry a starfish and everything will go to hell and the human race will be extinct.” Yeah, moron. If we hadn’t allowed women to vote, we wouldn’t have this problem with Sharks and rocking chairs clogging up the polling places, would we? Oh wait. That didn’t happen BECAUSE IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE.

If they can’t wrap their tiny minds around that, assume that anything can marry anyone and ask them how they will be affected in their personal life if a cloud marries a pizza.

6. Try something uncomfortable and scary – You will be a better person and more respected by yourself, your friends, and your family if you find something you are afraid of and walk toward it. If you are afraid of snakes and you know that is an unfounded fear (unless the snake can kill you), go to a pet shop and hold a snake. I know it sounds minor, but take whatever is your biggest thing, and fix it. If you sleep late and miss appointments, get your dumb ass out of bed earlier by doing whatever it takes. If you are afraid to fly, book a flight the next time you go somewhere and force yourself onto it. Keep doing it until it is no longer a source of stress.

The comfort zone is a dangerous place. As soon as you have convinced yourself that this is all you are capable of, you have gone as far as you will go. Whatever it is that you have to work around, don’t let it win. Then after you are comfortable flying with a pocket full of snakes, go to the next thing and keep on going.

I just overheard something on the radio about the black caucus. Is that really bigger than the average white caucus, or is that just a myth?

Thursday – Flight school calls and says “Hey, Dusty, wanna teach ground school to the new private pilot students? We’ll pay you.”

“You mean I can talk about flying for 2 weeks to a bunch of people who assume I know more than they do AND you’ll give me money? My answer is yes.”

(Seriously, this is awesome on the level of a blowjob while drinking a beer on the beach)

Friday – last day of work. I stayed until 5:30. Go figure that one.

Saturday and Sunday – started putting together lesson plans for private pilot ground school and quickly came to the realization that I had forgotten quite a bit about the basics. Spent about 10 hours a day reading and writing, knowing full well that five students had paid good money to have someone teach them everything they’d need to know about flying before they actually flew.

Monday – Work another eight hours to prep for four hours of Private Pilot ground, and on more than one occasion am bewildered by the fact that I have infinitely more flying knowledge and experience than those sitting before me (who presumably have none), yet they can ask questions that leave me standing there like a monkey who got caught humping a football. I tell them that I will have their answers the following day. Get home and my tooth starts hurting and keeps me up all night.

Tuesday – Still have the toothache, but I stupidly decide to rally through it. Get to the airport, study to prep for the day’s lesson, and as the day progresses, so does the tooth pain. By 3pm I am pretty desperately looking for vicodin, a bottle of vodka and a gun in case the first two don’t work. Class starts at 4 and I have to delegate my duties to another instructor because I can’t stop sweating and screaming. My concern grows along with the swelling in the right side of my face.

I have now called in sick on the second day of the first job I have actually wanted in ten years. Good career move, Dbag.

Wednesday – I now haven’t slept or eaten in thirty six hours. The skirt feigns apathy and goes to work, but I know deep down she wants me to think she cares. I call the dentist and tell them I need to see them as soon as possible. They say 11 am. I say okay and I leave the house at 8, because I have a plan.

I am looking you dead in the eye when I say this – I know that as a reader you probably think I am the biggest pussy in the universe because I’m always overstating how much things hurt. I have had two fragmented lumbar discs, sciatica that paralyzed my left leg at one point, and the two surgeries they required, and I did the prescribed eight weeks of physical rehab each time. I would gladly have two spinal surgeries and give birth through my urethra for each day of inescapable pain I had as a result of an abscess below one of my molars. Hyperbole be damned.

When I got to the dentist, I looked at the receptionist and said “I need someone to numb my face up or you’re going to have a grown man in your waiting room wailing like a veal calf for the next three hours. Just as loud, but not nearly as tasty. Can you help me out?”

The dentist was walking by and said “Come on back.”

Five minutes later I had the gas mask on and about a gallon of anesthetic in my face. Normally I don’t really like needles, but this time I was trying to suck the last drops of numbey goodness out of them as he pulled the syringe from my mouth. I breathed deeply of the happy gas and felt the side of my head slide away from my skull. Doc came back in to look at the xray of my mouth and said “Wow. I’m not sure how you are still conscious. That’s one hell of an infection.”

So I felt a little better about letting the skirt see me crying before she left for work.

“Okay Mr. Scott. I hope you have a clear schedule, because you’re going to be in a chair for the rest of the day. We have you scheduled to see an endodontist at 2 pm, and I’m going to prescribe some Oxyslammerall to keep you sane until then.”

“Gehsssschhh…p,” I said matter-of-factly.

Having no idea when the numbness would wear off, I clutched the prescription in my fat little hand and drove like a maniac to the nearest drugbarn. I popped the first pill when I got back in my car and went home. Whatever it was, it worked until the anesthetic wore off. That is to say, not much at all. I did nab a few hours of sleep, however.

I was in the endodontist’s chair having an emergency root canal until 6 pm. When I quit my job I saved up a little money for emergencies. I also figured that since my insurance was good until the end of the year that medical emergencies would not fall into the “emergency” pile. Interesting thing about my insurance policy – I pay them about $1500 over the course of a year, and they offer to pay a total of $1000 in benefits. Still trying to figure out that math in my mind. They said that my insurance was maxed out so I would be paying for most of the procedure. Merry Christmas.

So the going rate for a root canal is $1495.00, and I also had to go spend another $500 on follow up visits. I am officially finished having emergencies because I can’t afford any more.
So…by Wednesday I had missed 2 days of a job I had had for 3 days. So far so sucky.

Thursday – Got back in front of those fresh-faced young pilots-to-be and taught them all about aviation weather, which for all of its importance is slightly more boring than golf on the radio. They were champs and got through eight hours of it by Friday. I left them with the promise of more interesting material on Monday. And by the way, read a hundred pages over the weekend. The right side of my face had a yellowish bruise and looked like I was storing pomegranates in my cheeks for the winter.

Again with the ten hour workdays on the weekend, and then another five days of getting up at 6, studying until 3, and teaching until 8.

Sounds crappy, but aside from the yawning vacuum where my emergency fund used to be, I could not be happier or more fulfilled. I met some of my friends from my old job for lunch one day last week. We sat around our favorite table at our favorite lunch spot and they talked about work. I knew they had to take the elevator back to their cubicle and do their jobs and deal with the same unstable pyramid of insecure ego-cases as they have for god knows how long, and then they’d be going back to the same place to do the same thing the next day, and so on ad finitum. When you ask if they like their job, they say something like “It’s a job, you know. Some days are better than others.”

It is EIGHT OF THE TWELVE HOURS YOU ARE AWAKE ENOUGH TO TAKE NOTE OF THE WORLD. MAKE IT COUNT.

I am only recently coming to realize this, but if you aren’t excited to get out of bed in the morning and going to bed satisfied with how you spent your day, you are doing something wrong. Everybody has the opportunity to do it, and everyone deserves to know how great it feels.

Enough of the crappy motivational speech wannabe stuff. I’m going to go learn about aviating and get to work on the next post.

Well, that analogy has much less to do with the point I was trying to make than it did when I first started writing it. What I am trying to illustrate is the idea of pushing past your comfort zone, and how when you are a kid that kind of thing comes a little more naturally than it does when you are all grown up and cynical.

If I look around at all of the irritating behavior I see in myself and others, most of it revolves around someone’s comfort zone or whatever excuse fort they have built around themselves to avoid doing stuff that requires effort or uncertainty. On the other hand, the people I admire most lately are the ones who have forced themselves out of their comfort zone. My friend Judd started writing a blog a few years ago, met a chick via emails and flirty IM’s, and went down to Australia to visit her. He lived in Colorado at the time. He came back and told me and a bunch of other people that he was going to quit his job and move to Australia to marry this broad and I promptly assigned the crazy label to Judd. Judd is now happily married to the girl and they have a kid.

Click here to read about Judd

But really? I mean, if someone is not an inherently reckless person and they decide to make the changes necessary to attain whatever goal it is, do I think they are crazy, or am I just a little bit jealous because they want it more than I do?

I’m a lot jealous – There are lots of things I sit around and wish I was doing. What if I had the time to just draw and paint or write jokes or whatever? How is it that people around me can just take things on and make it work for them and I can’t or won’t? On the other hand, I look at people who pass up opportunities for idiotic reasons (I know that’s my dream job, but I’d have to get up at 7, and I’m just not into that), and I think, “Just grab your sack and rally, douchebag - suck it up and be a man…oh…yeah…I’ve been doing pretty much the same thing for four years, so maybe I should rally a bit myself.”
Basically I think that whatever small effort it takes for anyone to force themselves out of their comfort zone will probably get them the highest return of any effort they put forth in their entire lives. I’ve seen it happen.

So I’ve been increasingly feeling like a passenger on the life bus. Spending my career and what I hope are the second best years of my life sitting in a cube under fluorescent lighting, at least for me, is not what I had in mind. It’s not a bad job – the pay is decent, I work with some of my best friends, and it’s 2 miles from home. It’s also not a good job (for me) – I’m not being creative from day to day, I rarely find myself erect or even tumescent over the next big project, there is little to no time off, and there’s the nature of the corporate beast that exists in most of these kinds of jobs. So why am I letting it override what I really enjoy? Because it pays the bills and it’s comfortable in that way.

A few months ago I had a conversation with my cousin as he was helping us move in to our new place. He asked how work was, I answered with “eh. You know. It’s work or whatever.”

Side rant- why do so many people do a job they hate and act like that’s how life is supposed to work? I’m not saying that no one can be happy working in a cubicle; in fact I have enjoyed quite a bit of my cube career and I know a lot of people who genuinely love what they do. It’s the “work sucks, but everybody hates their job” philosophy that makes me weep for humanity. Sure you’ll have jobs you hate. That’s why they make better jobs and the baby Jesus gave us each the desire to better ourselves. It’s just discouraging to see how many people seem to give up – they give up on their jobs, who they marry, raising their kids and whatever just because it is easier. I’m going to write another longer thesis about this as soon as I have time to think about it a little more.

He said “Dude, why don’t you finish up your ratings and be a pilot? The pay is basically zero, but at least your office has windows and lots of buttons and goes really fast. Everybody’s hiring like mad – it’s not like it was when you started flying.”

Back story on Jason – he was in pretty much the same situation I have been in. He had a job he was good at and pulled a decent amount of bucks, wanted to learn to fly, and was working up the courage to leave his comfort zone. One day they decided to downsize him right out of his comfort zone and he was on his way to flight school. He moved in with my parents and worked harder than I have ever seen anyone work on anything. In about three months he was a commercially rated multiengine pilot, and a month after that he was an instructor. A little over a year later he is flying for a regional airline and loving the hell out of it.

The proverbial seed was planted. Since that day in June I have been scraping up every penny I can, waking up at 5 am to drive down to the airport to fly for a couple of hours before work, and basically planning for what has so far been the biggest decision of my life. I still feel like everyone around me who has taken this kind of chance has done so with a sense of confidence and supreme ability to handle anything, but I’ll go ahead and tell the world that I have spent countless nights pacing the living room in a blind panic asking myself just what the fuck I think I am doing voluntarily taking a 75% pay cut just so I can have a cooler job. Seriously? Am I insane? “Ooh, chase your dreams, how romantic…” More like, “Ooh, have the nervous shits three times a week because you’re going to have to find a way to pay a mortgage and rent and insurance and food and those hookers you just can’t give up. How romantic.”

Screw riding along on the life bus; I want to drive for a while. I could have waited another week or another year or never done it at all, but I handed in my notice at work today and now I’m officially falling into whatever I land in. I hope it’s made of airplanes.

For the next three years I’m going to have to go back to being poor. I’m going to wake up in the middle of the night and freak out about money and schedules and check rides. There will be lots of days I wish I was just pushing 15 on the elevator and sitting at my desk until 5 o’clock. There will be many paychecks that will make me want to vomit if not for the fact that food costs money. For that reason I made the following picture that I will hang in my room and keep in my wallet:

So if you’re in to keeping fingers crossed or praying or sending good juju in whatever way you do it, save it for the entry where I tell you I have leprosy. Unless you have extra vibes lying around, in which case I’ll take it.

So I guess that’s it. On November 2, I will run from the building with my arms outspread, making airplane noises. Just like every day, but louder.

At first I thought it was Atlanta’s sub-awesome air quality and the fact that I was walking to and from work in it. The doc told me to lay low until the air cleared a bit and see if it cleared up. It didn’t. I went back in still all nasaly and weird sounding, so she gave me one of those snorter things that you spray up your nose. Nasonex is what I think it was called. So I sprayed that stuff into the snotlocker for two weeks and enjoyed zero relief.

I went back again, and my doctor (like most doctors) is on the big “don’t hand out antibiotics” kick. She decided that since we had tried an anti-allergen and a steroid, she’d try a round of whatevermacillin. “Come back in two weeks if it hasn’t cleared up.” She said.

I’m not knocking my doctor, but I was going broke one $15 co-pay at a time. Two weeks later and fresh out of antibiotics, I decided to find a specialist. The guy who is renting my condo is a Radiology resident at Emory and he recommended an Otolaryngologist, which is actually a word I didn’t make up. He’s the lead sinusmaster at Emory University Hospital and his rookie card is supposedly worth thousands if you can find it.

Here’s the thing when you go to see the guy who invented the mucous membrane – you have to wait a while until he has time to see you. 4 weeks later I was in his office waiting patiently to figure out if he can fix me.

Here’s the other thing – you have to see like a thousand other people before you can see him. I’d guess it’d be like having Oprah as my proctologist. There’d be screening phone calls, meetings with her producers and handlers, at least one glove fitting, and finally I’d get to experience the gentle nature of her large yet nimble hands. I had to register when I came in with nurse Lasheika Washington-Jackson (who had a delightful tattoo of a larynx on her lower back), before I was handed off to the other nurse who weighed me and took my blood pressure and temperature. Here’s a good joke if you are fast enough to make it work – as she turns around to grab the infrared temperature sensor to stick in your ear, drop trou and spread your cheeks. Just grab your ankles and look back at her from between your legs. That kind of shock on someone’s face is priceless.

After that, another entirely different person came in to axe me about the exact nature of my problem (the same problem I had explained on the phone, in at least one email, and written in longhand in the essay portion of the waiting room entrance exam). So I told her I was all snotted up in the cranial region, occasionally glancing at the diagram on the wall to reference some of the big words I saw there.

“I don’t know what started it, but it feels like neckular congestion of the palletar tonsils ranging from the thyroidal anterior ligament to the loogeybox. Heh heh. But I’m not the doctor. Is he here, or do I have to go talk to a glowing ball of light mysteriously suspended between two outcroppings at the top of a mountain?”

Okay Mr. Scott. Dr. Delgaudio will be right with you.

Delgaudio. If I wrote an action movie where the leading character was an ear nose and throat specialist, that would be his name. I don’t know his first name (it’s probably actually “Doctor”), but I’d give him a name like “Dr. Chase Delgaudio” or maybe “Maxillary Delgaudio, Savior of the septum and Righter of Rhinitis”

I moved the chair into the corner, relatively certain that Dr. Delgaudio would come blasting through the wall in a Ferrari made of cartilage.

He didn’t. Instead another guy who turned out to be a resident at the hospital came in and asked me (again) what problem I was having. He could have asked anyone in the entire building at this point. He did the thing where they thump on your face and ask if stuff hurts. “No, Nope, No, uhh… woah. Where’d you go, doc? Holy crap. I can’t see. Haha Just pulling your leg, bro.” Then he looked in my ears and made some mmm hmm noises. And finally he produced a glass jar with a hose on it and a plastic device that looked like it could be used to inseminate a moose.

I didn’t know that my nose holes went any further back than about a knuckle or so, but they actually go way back there. He said, “now I’m gonna’ spray some stuff in there that will numb up the tissue so you won’t feel the scope when I hammer that bastard into your skull.” He sprayed it in, and took it out before it was done spraying, which got a decent amount of it in my eyes as well.

Then he got out the boogerscope. It was a thin wand about eight inches long with a light on the end of it. He stuck it in my nose and watched whatever it was on a television behind me. Having never seen the inside of my sinuses (but being a curious person by nature), I wanted to look.

Trying to turn your head while someone has a spike seven inches into your nose is something you’d assume was a bad idea, and you’d be so correct that I can’t even begin to explain it. All of the numbing juice in the world won’t hide that kind of pain.

Finally Dr. Delgaudio came in. I was wrong about his entrance. The Ferrari was actually made of esophageal tissue.

Men aren’t generally as jealous of each other as women are, but we do get a certain sense of “Dammit” when the fancypants doctor is tan and chisled and rich and good looking and all of the crap we have long since given up on. He did the same face-tapping thing and then he got out the scope again, and holy shit did he ever bring the pain.

He wasn’t shy about jabbing that thing into my brain stem, but I was afraid to move for fear he’d pull it out with my spinal cord hanging off of it. I was protesting as sternly as possible without moving. “Yo, seriously Doc. That…FUCK. Take that goddamn thing out of there. I’m not kidding, dickface. I’ll kill you.” My eyes were streaming tears and it took everything in my power not to kick him in the balls, break his wrist, and drive off in his Esopharrari. My hands kept instinctively going up to push that thing out of my nose, and he kept saying “Just hang in there. You’re fine”

“No. Not fine. SeerimuslyCanyou gahhhAHH…fuckFUCK. I hate you.”

Finally he was done.

“Hey, next time just go in through my asshole and spare me some pain. That SUCKED. Did you train with Al Qaeda or something?”

“Nah, that wasn’t so bad. I didn’t feel a thing.”

Ha. So Dr. McSqueamy has a sense of humor, too. Dear diary…

I flipped him off while he wasn’t looking, wiping my eyes with a tissue in my other hand, and I’m sure looking very much like a pussy. The resident assisting him thought that was funny.

Delgaudio hath decreed that I need a quick cycle of Prednisone. It is a steroid that I remember having taken once before. Take a fistful at a time for the first five days, than half a fistful for three days, then like two a day for two days, then rape someone for wearing the same shoes as you, and whatever.

Possible side effects: (when I read this stuff, all it says to me is “DUSTY CAN EXPECT THE FOLLOWING IN SPADES, UNLESS IT IS A PLEASANT SIDE EFFECT LIKE EUPHORIA, SENSITIVITY TO ALCOHOL, OR SWELLING OF THE GENETALIA”) Nervousness, difficulty sleeping, weight gain, loss of appetite, irritability, nervousness, infections, bloody turds, sweating, menstrual problems, nervousness, and a tendency to repeat oneself.

I was fine on Saturday after taking the first dose. Sunday I was pretty okay too, but had a sort of latent anxiety hanging out in the pit of my stomach. Last night I stared at the ceiling until 2 am and woke up at six this morning somehow exhausted yet completely unable to sleep. I’ve had a belly full of kittens all day and I feel like I could instantaneously accelerate to very dangerous speeds if startled, leaving my skin in a moist sticky pile on my chair. I’d just be a shiny bundle of subcutaneous fat and sinew streaking this way and that. I can also hear certain colors and when I belch I taste gunpowder. The idea of concentrating on anything is an absolute joke as well. Have you ever watched a squirrel try to cross the street and then realize there are cars coming from both directions? You know how he just flips out and skitters all over the place wishing a tree would sprout up from the middle so he could climb the hell out of it? Well, right now I could totally school that squirrel.

But my nose is getting better, thanks.

First, there’s the birthday. I got to hang out with my very best friends and my girlfriend last night, and that’s all I’m asking for my birthday from here out, because there is nothing better.

When Skirt turned 29 in September we had a conversation about what we would do if we could have any job we wanted when we grow up. I said I’d be a dinosaur and she told me that that isn’t technically a job. After I stopped crying I changed it to pilot (but secretly I was thinking dinosaur pilot). The Skirt, who is presently gainfully employed as an engineer and has a sweet job, said she’s always wanted to be a bartender. I said she could start by getting me a beer, and smacked her on the ass.

After the swelling went down and I regained sight in my left eye, we kept talking about it and I thought about it a little more–

There are a million things you can get someone as a gift, but most of them are disposable. The television, the watch, the Orvis 150th anniversary 5 weight bamboo fly rod and Vom Hofe reel (Orvis #SI84T6-57 if you guys want to pool your money), whatever the thing is that you buy and wrap up, although awesome and useful, is tangible and therefore breakable, misplaceable, and stealable. Of all of the gifts I have ever been given, by far the most valuable and everlasting has been education in any of its megaspectacular forms – preschool, high school, college, break dancing lessons, flight training, it’s all stuff that cannot be taken away.

But just so you can get a better idea, here are a couple of pics my dad took when we went fishing. Imagine how much better I’d look with a bamboo rod.

I decided that instead of buying The Skirt that massive diamond ring that I’m sure she doesn’t really want, I’d get her a 2 week bartending certification course for her birthday. They even said they guaranteed to find her a job, which was a nice thought, but I looked around nervously and very quietly explained that her job was bringing me beer.

She was a little stressed about my birthday and kept telling me that she didn’t know what to give me. I kept trying to explain that I really honestly seriously have way too much crap already and the only stuff I really want is extinct due to a meteor, illegal according to age of consent laws, or prohibitively expensive and really not necessary in any way. Just keep on being the only sane woman on the face of the earth and I’ll keep being the luckiest dude ever.

Last night I saw a picture of what she got us, and it was really a way better gift than she probably thought. See, we both love to have friends over and entertain. We also have an area in the livingroom with a solid wall of windows that we call the lounge. It has this awesome view of the city and is my favorite place in the house. Our stupid cat likes it too.

Well, to help ensure that she can put those bartending skills to good use and that we can continue to keep our friends drunk enough to remain our friends, she got us a bar. Very cool.

THE CAT

Next there is the issue of Queasy no longer wanting to live with me. This is evidenced by the puddles and piles of tootsie-rolls she leaves RIGHT NEXT to the superdeluxe automagic litter box I bought her AND the backup litter box I keep around because she is an idiot.

Every time I tell people that my cat is having the ‘not knowing where cats shit’ problem, they explain that she might not be happy or that she feels threatened by whatever and her chi is messed up and she needs a massage. Horsefeathers, I say – I am one of only a handful of people in this fine nation who understands that pets are animals. Not children, not companions, not anything but animals who share a house with you. They can’t reason, they don’t have complex emotions, and they don’t speak English. People who treat animals like people are what I commonly refer to as morons. My cat gets the nice padded shelf on the window sill with the million dollar view and all she has to do to keep this lifestyle is not pee on the goddamn rug.

I’m not taking her to a therapist or having her exorcised. The vet checked her out and said she is free of bladder and kidney problems, so that means one thing – Queasy just got voted off the island. I’ve had her for eight years. I have done my part and I am finished playing “find the smell” when I get home from work every day. If anyone within the sound of my typing wants her, I will mail her to you. For an extra $10, I’ll poke holes in the box. But I’m doing it while she’s in the box and I’ll be using a .44. If I wanted to clean shit up and be pissed off all the time, I’d have kids. So let me know If you want her. She’ll be on craigslist.

FLYING
For the last few weeks I have been flying like it is going out of style and studying so I can (finally) get my commercial ticket. My flight school used to have a 1974 Piper Seneca that I flew all over the place. Part of training is to always be prepared to react to an emergency, and emergencies were never closer at hand than when you were flying that hunk of shit. Somehow I was never the one to have the nose gear collapse or an engine quit, but all I ever did in that airplane is look for something to be on fire, dangling off the wing, or missing entirely.

Finally they retired old 5296T and started getting real airplanes. Now they have an entire fleet of composite bodied, glass cockpitted, shiny new Diamond aircraft. I started flying again and remembered within the first five minutes why I love it. If you are the kind of person who is not physically capable of thinking of only one thing at a time, flying is your answer. Maybe it’s not like this for everyone, but when I fly, all I think about is flying. All of my problems and bullcrap are back at the airport, and all I have to do is keep the greasy side down and the pointy end forward. It’s good for the brain.

Last Sunday I went down to the airport and met my Examiner so he could decide if I knew enough to be called a commercial pilot. I had been studying every spare second I had, and still felt like I knew nothing. They say it’s normal to feel that way, but it’s not normal for me to feel that way because I am an arrogant dickhead know-it-all. I had been nervous as hell for several days and wanted nothing more than to get this done. We sat down and he started asking me questions about regulations and rules and what makes planes fly and what happens if you fly here (points to a spot on the chart) and you need to call this control center for whatever information…

I answered most of them pretty promptly and correctly. Here’s what examiners do, though – first they ask the questions you are supposed to know. If they don’t like your answers or you seem retarded, they tell you to go home and they keep your $380.00, which you will have to pay again to re-take the checkride. If you answer the questions to their satisfaction, they will pull out their 40-plus years of flying experience and start asking you the really obscure hard stuff. When this happens, you have passed the ground portion of the ride. Now he just wants to share knowledge. So he spent another thirty minutes asking me about how radio navigation evolved through the years, how carbon composite is manufactured, and told me some great stories about flying in the military.

If you are a pilot or even an enthusiast, you know what I mean when I say this – every time you meet a guy like my dad or this examiner or someone else who has been flying since the dawn of time, you want to somehow extract all of their knowledge and stories and keep it somewhere so none of it is ever lost. When they do eventually pass on, it’s like a museum burned down.

After being questioned for four hours, we went out to the plane and got it ready to go. I was nervous and made a couple of stupid mistakes that made him raise his eyebrows, but I caught the mistakes at the same time he did, so he didn’t stab me with his pen or anything. They are really checking to see that you follow procedures, use your checklists, and realize when things aren’t as they should be before they become as they really shouldn’t be.

That last point was illustrated as we were taking off. I knew he was going to cut an engine several times during the flight, and it has been hammered into my skull that if both engines are running, it’s only because your instructor is busy making another emergency happen for you. As we started rolling and the airspeed started coming up, he pulled the left engine back to idle, causing the plane to pretty much instantly turn 30 degrees to the left and holy cow did I ever jump all over that. It wasn’t done the way I had practiced it with my instructor, and it was a lot more “exciting” than what I was used to.

We got up in the sky and flew around for about an hour and a half, doing stalls and steep turns and simulated emergencies (if anybody reading this is interested in all of the details, email me. Otherwise I’ll spare everyone the intense boredom that I haven’t already spared them),and much like the ground portion, once he’s satisfied that you are competent, he’ll start asking what you would do in hypothetical situations.

“So let’s say the right engine is on fire and there are nuts and bolts and blood and oil flying out of the left engine and you’re all ‘Sweet baby Jesus in a jumpseat, where the hell did the blood come from?’ and there’s smoke in the cockpit and you can’t see and all of your electrical equipment burned up and the stick just came off in your hand and you’re in a hail storm…what would you do then?”

And you explain how you’d fill the cabin with vomit and liquid feces to force the smoke out and extinguish the electrical fire, and then you’d get out your “everything went to hell” checklist, and so on.

And finally he said the magic words – “Alright then, Mr. Scott, take me back home.”

As he was writing my temporary commercial ticket, I felt awesome. I hardly ever feel challenged anymore (although I act very challenged), and it was nice to really work hard and earn something. I also decided for sure what I’m going to do when I grow up.