Boston

My brother Michael recently took a job in Boston, or as the locals call it Baaaaaaaaaaaahston. He was originally stationed in Austin. So basically he’s leaving the capitol of the “Lone Star State” to go to the capitol of the “We're Shaped Like a Crazy Boot by the Bay State.” Austin to Boston. It rhymes. And he planned it that way.

But not right away. He actually had to go to training for two months to learn how to spell Massachusetts. Though, to help him out, it can also be abbreviated MA, which is what he will now be calling our mom.

So, to have a little laugh at his expense, I'd like to give him a little history lesson, let him know what he's getting into.

Though, before we start, I have to state something that I know you’re thinking. Yes, “More Than a Feeling” is a great song. Wrong Boston. (If you don't get that joke, you're too young to be reading this website.)


Boston was one of the first original colonial cities, as more and more refugees stumbled off boats and into "bahs." It was there that they would get "wicked pissah" and talk about revolution. It was in one of these bahs that someone took the first shot heard around the world, or something like that.

Boston is the site of the Revolutionary catalyst known affectionately as The Boston Massacre. Though it wasn't exactly a massacre, but really 5 people randomly killed in a mob of ragtag fanatics. A “massacre” should be reserved for that grey area between multiple homicide and genocide, not five people. It should be renamed “The Boston Unfortunate Incident.” Around 5 people died in the celebration of the Boston victory in the ALCS.

Speaking of parties, Boston is also home of the famous "Boston Tea Party," appropriately named… sort of. They got the Boston and the tea part right, but throwing a bunch of crates into the bay isn't exactly my idea of a paaaaaar-tay.

“One if by land, two if by sea” was the high tech lantern warning method of colonial times. A little simpler than the color-coded system we use today to indicate how screwed we are at the moment. Unrecorded, however, was the third message, “three if by air,” in case the British were performing stealth paratrooper drops in the kill zone to secure a perimeter in order to land their UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter fleets. Sorry, Tom Clancy wrote that last part.

Fortunately for early Bostonians, the British took the “sea-nic” route and Paul Revere had plenty of time to clippity clop through the towns, tapping people on the shoulder and saying, “Excuse me, dear sir, but I do believe the British might be headed in this general direction. Might wanna be on the lookout for that.”

After the war, the city of Boston grew as the British turned their red coats into comfy woolen socks. Errr… sox. Those come in handy too because apparently it’s cold up there, or so Michael was told a million times. I’m sure he was unaware of the climate difference. And he has to change his clocks. Err… clox.

Not a whole lot happened after that. Something about Ben Franklin.

Speaking of Bens, isn’t Ben Affleck from Boston? Michael could be rubbing elbows with THE star of Gigli. Wicked sick.

Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry didn’t take the White House, so maybe Michael can room with him, you know… if the whole girl room mate thing doesn’t work out. Think of the potential hilarity that would ensue. It would be like a sitcom.


KERRY sits in the kitchen wrestling with a bottle of Heinz ketchup.
Enter MICHAEL.
Crowd applauds
KERRY: I never could figure out how to use these darned things. Forget it (he sets it down). I concede.
Pause for laughter
MICHAEL: Here, let me help you with that? Did you try shaking it?
KERRY: Of course.
MICHAEL: Did you trying hitting on the 57?
KERRY: Yeah.
MICHAEL: Did you try the old "Flip Flop?"
Pause for laughter
KERRY: So what did you do today?
MICHAEL: Just went out, walked around a little. I ran into Ben Affleck though.
KERRY: Wow, did you get his autograph?
MICHAEL: No, but I gave him mine.
Pause for laughter
KERRY: No way!
MICHAEL: Way! It was wicked awesome. He was standing there signing stuff and I walked up and handed him my autograph instead. And I said, “How 'bout them apples!”
Pause for laughter
MICHAEL: Well, I better get going, I have a date tonight.
Pause for laughter
Extra pause for continuing laughter
KERRY: Oh yeah, what are you two doing?
MICHAEL: We’re going to get chow-duh.
KERRY: Chow-duh?
MICHAEL: Yes, chow-duh.
KERRY: I like chow-duh.
MICHAEL: I’ve never really had chow-duh.
KERRY: It’s good that chow-duh.
MICHAEL: Well, people here do like their chow-duh.
KERRY: So when are you going to get chow-duh?
MICHAEL: Now, duh.
Pause for laughter
MICHAEL exits.
Fin.

Snoring

It's about 1 a.m. and I'm in a hotel lobby. I'm straddling the border of Texas and New Mexico for a friend's wedding. A combination of my ongoing battle with insomnia and one of the groomsmen sonorous snoring has kept me up for about three hours. I'm sure there was a time change in there somewhere too.

His snoring is like a pig grunt that lasts for far too long. It just keeps going, returning after a few seconds of agonizaning silence while waiting for the next one. The incessant nose rattling seems to be rattling my brain.

I tried rolling him over, but that only prolongs the inevitable for a minute or two. I've tried covering my head with a pillow, but that only muffles the sound, and now instead of it resonating in the room it echoes in my skull. I even contemplated sleeping in the car, but when I went out to get my book I could see my breath and a layer of frost had gathered. I decided against it.

I pray for a horrific nightmare; because then I would at least be sleeping. I would take a dream about falling, drowning, and spiders all rolled into one over that torture chamber I was lying in.

As I lay there for hours, tossing and turning in the cacophony, here are some of the miscellaneous thoughts I had:


SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE

I've decided that trying to sleep is futile, so I've given up and started to read in the lobby. The desk clerk is keeping a watchful eye on me to make sure I don't steal any potted plants along with the towels and soaps.


SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE

I've had experience with losing sleep before. My brother has a problem with grinding his teeth while he sleeps. It's a constant clacking and gnashing sound. When he saw a doctor to correct it, the quack just gave him a mouthpiece to wear that made him look like a retarded football player. I don't see how that was going to solve anything, other than maybe keeping his molars from disappearing into a fine powder. That's like giving a person with seizures a padded helmet and saying, "Yeah, that'll do." Forget the reason WHY it might be happening, just prevent them from hurting themselves any more.

The term he used for it was bruxing. To me it didn't sound like a very good euphemism for grinding away one's teeth. It sounded like a synonym for beating someone over the head.

brux (brks) intr.v. to beat someone mercilessly with a blunt object

My brother blames our former orthodontist, Dr. Winkleman, with the horrible alignment of his teeth. To this day he hates him with a passion. Sometimes I'll bring Winkleman up in conversation, just to get a rise out of him.

He clenches his fists and says through his worn down, uneven teeth, "If I ever see that guy on the street..." I imagine he would receive the bruxing of a lifetime.


SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE

I wondered what snoring sounds like in France. I mean, I know it would sound the same to my ears, but sometimes they have these crazy pronunciations for the most basic things.

Like a frog here in the good ole U.S. of A. says "Ribbit ribbit." But I've read somewhere that the French think it has a different sounding croak. It probably sounds a little more posh.

It was then that I realized that a frog is a derogatory name for a French person and I had stumbled into my own unintentional metaphor.


SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE

It's about 3:40 and the other groomsman has started replying with snores of his own.

I've decided to occupy my time by amusing myself instead of plotting their demise. I started joining in the band, drumming to the beat of their rhythmic breathing. I tried balancing a pillow on my foot for as long as I could. I even said "Snore if you're gay" out loud a few times, then chuckling to myself a few seconds later.


SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE

I wondered who would win in a fight between all the former presidents.
My best bet would be Abraham Lincoln. I read somewhere that he was an amateur boxer before the whole emancipation thing. Plus he probably had the reach with his size.

But a giant brawl of presidents while they were in office would be a different story.
All of them slightly past their prime, making a mark on their country before retiring. I don't know who would win in this situation.
I would have to put my money on President Garfield, because no one would expect it.


SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE

I finally dozed off around 5 a.m. (new time), my body surrendering to fatigue and boredom. The snoring woke me up a few more times, but just to remind me that I couldn't enjoy a good sleep.

Graduation

I graduated from college today. I’ve been going to school since I could barely walk. And then not walk. And then sorta walk again. It’s finally over. No more formal education for me. Me learned good.

This morning, when I woke up with the sun, the only thing I was excited about was the nap I would eventually take later. The brief thought of lying back down and sleeping “just a few more minutes” crossed my mind, but I remembered that this wasn’t class. It was the official ceremony to end all class… forever.

I took a shower, using my chemistry skills to carefully concoct the perfect mixture of hot and cold. I operated on auto-pilot, rinsing and scrubbing without thinking, my mind wandering to 9th grade biology. At some point we learned the important muscles of the body, but I bet I couldn’t name any right then. Instead I just hummed “the hip bone is connected to the arm bone,” not caring that in my deliriousness I had created a monster.

I dried off and went into my room, finding my prosthetic leg propped up against the wall, prepared from the night before. I chuckled to myself about the old adage, “We all put our pants on one leg at a time.” I thought, “Yeah, but I put one leg in, then the other one in eight hours later.” As I finished cinching up my tie, I reminisced about the last time I had worn it on my first “real” interview, hiking from door to door with Jered, the local representative for wheelchair basketball. I slipped on my gown and wondered who had come up with the idea for a square hat. It was probably some random guy who laughs every time he thinks how ridiculous we all look in our pictures.

When we arrived at the arena, there was a very organized system consisting of a town crier screaming which way graduates should be headed. I saw a few people looking at their hands, making L shapes with their fingers to decide which way left was.

At the top of the stairs was a holding pen for all the graduates. I remarked to a few people “nice gown” on my way to the sign that read “BS JOUR.” I shook my head and thought, “You have no idea.”
Huddled among my people, we stood around discussing how none of us had jobs and the outlook was a collective “It doesn’t look good.” I elected to keep quiet. But I realized that everyone talked like me, over exaggerating and over describing everything. It saddened me to think that in just a few years, their creativity would be deadened by dry newspaper reporting.
These were the remaining writers in the department, one of the final classes to graduate with a degree in journalism from Texas A&M before it was replaced with Bachelor of Science in Puppetry or a BA in Manure Cultivation. Our line was significantly smaller and I noticed a few had “line envy.” We got a final pep talk from a seasoned professor of ours, who was now in the same jobless boat.

On the way down the endless flights of stairs, I thought about P.E. and how I was exerting more effort now than I ever did then. A “workout” consisted of pushing a bowling pin across the floor on bread carts, protecting it from a barrage of foam balls. Or it was sweet talking the appointed classmate into slipping me a few extra Popsicle sticks that signified a lap around the track. But at that point I had fallen considerably behind in the processional and had to jog to catch up in time to emerge onto the floor of the arena.

Everyone immediately whipped out their cell phones, calling their parents to find out where each other were seated. The entire throng of grads was waving their arms, spinning in confused circles. It would have looked strange if it wasn’t for the circular arena of well-wishers also waving wildly on their phones. When my mom called me, I sighed knowing I would soon be one of the wavers.
“Where are you seated?” she asked.
“In between the Lees and the Lins,” I said.
“I don’t see you,” she said.
“I’m the one not waving,” I thought to myself. But the ceremony had started, so the conversation ended before I could cause any more confusion.

The ceremony consisted of a lot of standing. Then sitting. Then some more standing. Then a WHOLE LOT of sitting. A few times I wished I had taken Peter up on the Gameboy offer. Tetris would have made the morning a little more bearable. I tried counting the people in the various sections of the program, comparing and contrasting out of sheer boredom. But I was never good at math, so I always lost count. I never really mastered my multiplication tables either. 6 times 7 always comes out, “hold on a second.”


Finally, after much yawning and staring into space, it was my turn to walk the plank/stage. It was like the world’s worst fashion show, everyone wearing relatively the same thing, sporting the awkward square hat.

When you get to the podium, you pronounce your name for the speaker, who then repeats it immediately into the microphone. I thought about feeding him a fake name like Jeffrey Danger Leins, but I pictured my mom’s angered face and decided against it.

As soon as he called my name, the entire arena disappeared. Lightning could have struck the other side of the court and I wouldn’t have noticed until I reached the other side of the stage. I concentrated on shaking hands with my right and receiving the diploma with my left. All I could hear in my head was my own voice saying, “Say thank you” to reply correctly to the congratulations from the line of hand shakers. One guy said “Welcome to the Association” (the Assoc. of Former Students). This threw me off and I had to fumble not to say, “You too.”

The girl in front of me took off down the court, not hesitating as the usher pointed towards her seat. She just bombed past her, not looking back, headed for sweet freedom. I envied her.

It wasn’t long after that the ceremony was over. The walk in was an organized stroll up the aisles to plenty of fanfare and flashbulbs. The walk out was a sudden mad dash for the door, every grad for themselves. My “after-hours” education (bar-administered) had taught me well enough about handling myself in a crowd and soon I was breathing fresh air again.

Then it was all over. I had graduated. I didn’t feel any different. I felt a little tired, I guess. But it felt good to be done. Forever.

List-Eater 2: The Video

You remember the list eater from this post.
Well, here's a hilarious video of the List-Eater and the reactions to her craziness.
listeater.wmv

(Now with an updated, working link.)

Disturbingly Hilarious: Part 2

You may remember this post:
http://jeffleins.blogspot.com/2004/08/disturbingly-hilarious.html
It's an upper torso pillow for women to cuddle with.

Well, I recently found out they have a new product, for men:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4092345.stm



A lap pillow for men to sleep on.

I know what I want for Christmas!

List-Eater

(I’m not making this up)
I’m a week from graduating from Texas A&M University. I walked to the MSC the other day to pick up my cap and gown, nostalgic tears welling up in my eyes. And through those imaginary tears I saw tents by Kyle Field, full of people waiting in line for tickets to the Cotton Bowl on January 1. It’s like a little makeshift campground by the ticket booth of hardcore fans jockeying for a seat at the big game.

What I didn’t know is that the next day a hungry beast would roll into that tent village and disrupt the settlement, not only with her earthquake-inducing steps, but with her insatiable gaping mouth.
A student, a senior here at A&M, ATE the roll-call list. She cut in front of the line, and when asked to move, she suddenly shoved the list into her mouth. According to onlookers, she acted as if completely on instinct, snatching the paper and cramming without remorse. The list-eater claims she “didn’t swallow,” so you may interpret that in your own form of hilarity.

When a collective “WHAT THE F*CK ARE YOU DOING” took hold of the now angry mob, the list-leviathan gurgled she didn’t have to wait because she was “right with God.”
Coach Franchione was there handing out donuts to the loyal fans. The donuts became ammunition as the list-eater was pelted with them in retaliation for being a fat bitch. No word on whether she ate those too.
She was, however, sold tickets to the game, despite them being sold out days before. No word on whether she ate those too.

According to KBTX, she’s now filing assault charges against one guy who grabbed her wrist and face during the incident. And she reported death threats to campus police. Students nearby were yelling “Beat the Hell Outta the List-Eater!”

Her name wasn’t released on the news, but it’s Janie Elaine Lagrone. Let me know if you want her cell phone number, I may or may not have it. I dunno, maybe I ate it.