A letter from the man sleeping on the floor

Dear Other People in the Computer Lab,

I'm feeling a bit tired, so I think I'm going to sleep on the floor. Someone told me the carpet here smells like blueberries, so I'm going to lie with my mouth as close to the floor as possible. I'll also be sure to point my feet inward, but rest assured, that's just because I'm weird.

Sincerely,
This guy



(work.)

So it turns out that this guy just felt a little sick and decided to lie down. Why he chose such an awkward position is still a mystery, but after my boss politely told him not to sleep in the site, he complied and everything was fine.

My main concern was that this guy was dead and that I'd just inadvertently photographed a corpse. I'd never been so relieved to find out someone was just sleeping face down on dirty carpet.

Awkward Michigan shirt

I'm wearing a yellow Michigan shirt today. I feel weird wearing it. Not because I'm wearing a Michigan shirt at Michigan. No, apparently the 'Don't wear a t-shirt for the band you're going to see' rule doesn't apply at universities.

No, I got this shirt from my 7th grade math teacher when I was in 12 grade.

But why would that happen, you ask? Why would I still keep in touch with my 7th grade math teacher?

Because he was dating my mom at the time, that's why. Awkward, I know.

And now this shirt's awkward because of that.

(work.)

If you receive a gift for a weird reason, it's harder to appreciate that gift.  I got that shirt because a man who once taught me math may or may not have been boinking my mom.

Interviewee wants to bang my sister

This week I'm doing interviews with potential rovers, and for the most part they're going very well. However, we've had a couple interviews that just straight up sucked.

So we're interviewing this mediocre guy for the roving position, which involves driving a van around campus and delivering and/or fixing things. As soon as we told him that this was the job for which he was interviewing, he looked crestfallen.

It was like we'd just told him that the job would require him to walk around a retirement center wearing a nightgown, occasionally spanking all the old people with a cricket paddle (unless he's into that sort of thing, in which case it's like we told him the job wouldn't involve cross dressing and butt spanking).

So he looks confused and sad after getting the details, so he asks us:
'Well...um... are you hiring any consultants right now? You know, the people in the fishbowl?'
'No we are not.'
'Oh.'

So that was awesome. I hope that guy doesn't date like he interviews.

'Wow, so this is our first date, huh?'
'Yep, it sure is.'
'Hey, can I have sex with your sister?'
'Nope.'
'Oh.'

And like with most bad dates, we may not be seeing him again for a while.

(work.)

Nice tits, though.

The water cycle happens, landlord

The other day I was scraping ice off my car in the parking lot of my apartment when my landlord drove by. Now, my car has a leak in it, so sometimes the inside of all the windows get ice on them, too. So he sees me scraping ice with a door open and he yells out his window, 'What happen?'

When someone yells something out a car window at you, you've got about five syllables to make your point. After that, your response is too complicated and nobody listens to you.

With that said, I couldn't yell, 'My car has a leak and allows cold air into my car so I have to scrape ice off the inside.' He'd start driving away before I'm halfway done saying that.

'What happen?'
'My car has a leak and allows -'
'OK BYE!'
'Shit.'

Our exchange could have gone like this:

Landlord: 'What happen?'
Me: (I shrug and look at my car) 'The water cycle.'
Landlord: 'Oh, ok.'

(work.)

An awkward chat with Chachee

When I worked at a grocery store over the summer three years ago, I had trouble talking to my coworkers.

For example, one time Chachee (sic), an attractive married woman in her early 20s, was telling me about how she gave Bryce, an also-married coworker who shared some sexual tension with Chachee, a ride home.

'So Bryce was flirting with me as usual during the car ride, then when I dropped him off, I told him, 'I'm going to go home and have sex with my husband now!''
And I, being socially inept, responded to her story with, 'Poor guy.' Then realizing she may think I was saying her husband was unlucky, I added, 'Bryce, I mean. Not your husband. He gets to have sex with you.'

Awkward.

(work.)

Making chit chat with my coworkers at the grocery store was hard for me. I'm surprised I didn't say something like, "Bryce is the poor guy, I mean. You know, because he doesn't get to have sex with your husband."

Last year's Thanksgiving memory: chest hair

My fondest memory from last Thanksgiving is the time my aunt's date spilled something on his shirt, so rather than borrow a shirt, he just took it off and wore only his suit coat.

I wasn't there when the spill happened, so I saw him walk by and I thought, 'Wow, ballsy move wearing a bright pink and red sweater to Thanksgiving.' Then I took a second look and saw the truth:

I'd just seen the red hair on his very pink chest.

He hung out with his pink chest exposed for a few hours like there was nothing wrong with showing off your fluorescent Irish bosom to a bunch of strangers eating dinner. So that's my Thanksgiving memory.

Hope everyone has an awesome Thanksgiving this year.

Keep your shirts on,
Henry

(Turkey.)

For some reason that guy wasn't invited back. Strange.

Triple decker Birdseye and hatred for binding

Back when I worked at the bindery, I had trouble communicating with my boss. He'd try to shoot the shit with me, but I'm pretty sure he was just doing that so I didn't go home and hang myself after working in his shitty bindery every day of the summer.

For lunch, I'd pack myself sandwiches that had two layers to them. Bread, meat, bread, meat, bread. These sandwiches were probably the most exciting part of my day, which says more about the bindery than it does my sandwiches.

One day my boss walked by and saw the three pieces of bread and said, 'WOW! Triple decker Birdseye!' I smiled, then said, 'Well, it's not really a triple decker sandwich. There are three pieces of bread, but that just means there are two layers to it, which makes it a double decker sandwich. However, I get what you're saying.'' He'd stopped listening before I even opened my mouth, which meant that he had just made me some asshole talking about his sandwich on his lunch break.

Man, I hated that bindery.

(out.)

When I think about my favorite bindery experiences from the two months I worked there, I can come up with two. The first is the time a coworker made me this awesome macaroni and cheese on my birthday. The second is the time I took this huge dump at work and I got to stop putting art catalogs in boxes for like ten minutes.

Those are pretty much the fondest memories I have of the bindery. Eating and pooping.

Going to the bathroom at work was a treat because it was easily the most stimulating activity at the bindery. My two favorite bindery experiences could have been combined into one amazing day at work if the macaroni and cheese gave me the really bad diarrhea I so desired. I would have eaten lunch, punched in, then sat in the bathroom with my glorious, glorious indigestion at 8 dollars an hour.

The Flush 'N Run

If your cell phone rings just as you're just finishing up in the bathroom, and your phone's in your pocket, do you pick it up?

I do, and let me tell you, the situation can get awkward fast.

Today Amy called me just as I was about to flush the toilet. I picked up, 'cause hey, I was about to leave the bathroom soon so at least she wouldn't hear that awkward 'I'm pooping' echo you sometimes get when you're crapping on the phone.

At this point I attempted the always-risky Flush 'N Run. I thought that if I flushed the toilet and ran from the bathroom, she wouldn't hear the flushing sound and I'd be fine.

Well, I wasn't fine.
'Did you just flush the toilet?'
'Yes. Yes I did.'
'Oh.'
'Yeah, I was just finishing up.'
'...'
'Next time I'll just flush later.'
'Probably a good idea.'

(bed.)

Poorly following in Clarence's footsteps

While in Massachusetts for Clarence Birdseye Day, I saw the unveiling of Clarence's portrait. After the dedication ceremony, we all went out to lunch and I ended up sitting near the woman who painted my great grandfather's portrait.

We chatted during the meal, then toward the end, she handed me her card. My mother, wanting to return the gesture, took out a business card I had printed out for free. It says 'Henry Birdseye: Total Badass' and then there's the address to the blog.

'This is for you, if it's appropriate' my mom said to the painter, who didn't hear her completely.
'No, Mom, don't give her that. It links to my blog, and that's no good.'
The painter heard this and asked what we were talking about and saw the card in my hand. I couldn't say, 'THIS IS SOMETHING WE'RE NOT GIVING YOU,' so I handed her my stupid card instead.

So I may have gotten a respectable painter from Gloucester to read a blog that features entries such as 'one time I set my dick on fire' and 'man, homeless people bother me.'

Oops.

(work.)

Being the great grandson of a beloved inventor, author, entrepreneur, etc., old people kept asking me what I'm doing to follow in Clarence's footsteps. Here are some possible responses I could have given , followed by why I did not share them.

• "I got a bachelor's degree in psychology." - I know some people whose dogs have a bachelor's degree in psychology, and they're not even smart dogs.
  
• "I have a blog that I update every couple of days." - Old people do not know what blogs are. They might think I'm saying "I have a log that I update" because old people usually don't know what blogs are. I'd have to say "No, no, I'm not updating part of a tree. It's a bunch of internet words that mostly my friends read. Scientific facts? Oh no, it's just a collection of filth I couldn't even mention in my resume."
  
• "I repair computers at a university from which I graduated last year." - Old people don't want to hear that the great grandson of a famous inventor graduated college only to work full time replacing keyboards on which people have spilled Diet Coke.
• "I ate the front half of a skunk." - Actually, this one would have worked pretty well. Too bad it's a lie.
  

(In case you're just joining us, Clarence is quoted as saying, "The front half of a skunk is excellent." Sure, that's weird, but I think his quirkiness is justified because he's the reason why you can own a freezer.)

The infinite shame of the pink princess pen

Today, at a work picnic, someone had laid out trinkets and other chintzy crap on every table. I found a pink pen adorned with fuzz and a princess on top.

I thought, 'This belongs in the Fishbowl, because nobody would ever steal this clown garbage,' so I put it in my pocket for future delivery.

Tonight at a meeting everyone had to fill out raffle tickets, so I took out the princess pen and wrote my name as discreetly as possible.

The guy next to me asked if he could use my pen, so I handed it to him. He looked at me like I was fucking with him, but I explained it was for the computer lab. 'YOU BOUGHT THIS?!' No, dude, I got it for free. You know, I've got the hookup on homosexual writing utensils, man.

Oh, and the pen lights up, so when the guy wrote his name, the princess glowed red and the guy glared at me.

But on the upside, he didn't steal the pen.

(bed.)

I think the only writing utensil more embarrassing than that pink princess pen would have been a purple dildo dipped in paint. "Here, guy next to me. It writes really big, so be careful."

Hi, I'm Nuggets

Before I'd met Amy's father, she told him my last name was Birdseye (like the frozen food company my great grandfather founded) so he started calling me Niblets. At the time, I had no clue what niblets were because that is a stupid word and I would not want to use it regularly. (Niblets are bits of corn, I think. If a niblet expert can help me out here, that'd be appreciated.)

Before I met her father, I asked Amy what he called me. 'Nuggets,' I think. So when I introduced myself to Amy's dad, I said 'Hi, I'm Nuggets.' Then he asked me if I was nuggets with or without the sauce and we proceeded to exchange some really bad dialogue about nuggets.

Later, as we were walking away from her dad, I asked Amy, 'You sure he called me Nuggets? Now that I think about it, that has nothing to do with frozen food the name Birdseye.'
'Oh shit, he called you Niblets.'
'So I just introduced myself as Nuggets for nothing?'
'Yep.'
'Damn.'

(Tally Hall.)

As soon as Amy's dad asked me if I was Nuggets with or without sauce, I felt sick. He wanted to run with the nickname I'd just accidentally given myself. I felt like an idiot talking about whether I had sauce. "Hey Nuggets, do you have sauce?" No matter whether I said, "Yes, I have sauce," or "No, I don't need sauce," I would have hated myself for contributing to this conversation. Running with the "Henry is Nuggets" line of thought made me cringe, but I had to run with it because I didn't want to make a bad impression with Amy's father.

Had I refused the sauce conversation and run with my instincts, things would have gone something like this:
"You're Nuggets, huh? Are those the nuggets with sauce?"
"Hold on just a sec. I'm going to go drown myself in the restroom."
"Take your time, Nuggets."
(pause)
(a toilet flushes, and I am no more)

I would have insulted you with girl parts instead

A while ago at a Smash Bros tournament I was trash talking some guy and I said something along the lines of 'YOU WILL EAT BALLS NOW.' Then he said, 'What if I'd like that?' That kinda confused me, but I let it slide.

Then I saw the guy's facebook profile and noticed that he put 'Madonna' under 'favorite music.' I just want to go back in time and say 'Hey man, sorry, didn't know you were gay. You could have just told me you liked Madonna earlier and I would have, ya know, insulted you with pussy instead.'

(bed.)

Now that I think about it, there are probably better reasons to go back in time. I won't tell you what they are. That's for you to decide.

Yesterday I saw a lady with Coke bottle glasses walking down the street screaming at nobody in particular. "I HATE YOU, BEN FRANKLIN," etc. Man, where's her reality show? I could watch her walk around town all day yelling "FUCK YOUR CHEESE, YOU ASSHOLE" or "FUCK YOUR ASSHOLE, YOU CHEESE" at fire hydrants, street signs, and demon spirits. When you're clinically insane, you're a lot more unpredictable than Paris Hilton hilariously doing something wrong for the millionth time, and unpredicitability is what makes reality television so special.
Especially when the star of it craps on a stranger's porch and then steals his mailbox.

A random conversation at Wendy's

The other day I was at Wendy's ordering breakfast when a large utility worker with small, beady eyes asked me what I was studying.
'Just graduated. Psychology.'
'You should have gone into sign language. This lady I know, she teaches that and makes 100 grand a year, easy. Easy.'
'Wow.'
'Yeah, she teaches driver's ed to foreign people.'
'Oh.'
'Yeah, the other day she had to fail one of those ladies who wears those things on their heads. She couldn't see to the side, so she failed.'
'Hmmm.'
'You shouldn't wear that stuff on your head anyway. Why do you even have pretty hair if you're just going to cover it up?'
'Ah.'

During our conversation (monologue?) I was able to both order and receive my food, while he just stood there and said whatever came to mind. He wasn't even eating at Wendy's that morning.

(Lunch.)

It's possible that every morning he approaches a student and says 'Hey, what are you studying? Because sign language will make you rich and I don't know about other cultures. K bye.'

Vanilla Frosties, my conversational best

Visiting home is a great way for me to feel both bored and boring. Today, over dinner with my mom, she talked about:
- A man she had met who robbed a bank to pay off gambling debts
- A friend's husband who likes to get drunk and chop wood (we later drove by his house, and holy shit, that was a lot of wood)
- Other stories of interesting stuff she's been up to lately

I, on the other hand, had this topic to cover:
- Wendy's has vanilla Frosties.

'Hey Mom, Wendy's has vanilla Frosties now.'
'Oh really? How are they?'
'They're pretty good.'
'Hmmm.'
END OF CONVERSATION

That's the best I could do. Summer is making me boring. I need an adventure, or at least a bad habit.

(bed.)

If we could go on an adventure, loyal reader(s), what would we do? I'm thinking it should involve vanilla Frosties, but that's probably my summer rut (and gut) speaking.

Hot call ahead seating action

Yesterday I grabbed dinner with my dad at Mongolian BBQ. They do call ahead seating, so my dad phoned them and said something along the lines of, 'Hi, I'd like to set up some hot call ahead seating action.'

That phrasing threw me off. As soon as he said that, I thought, 'Great, my dad's going to show up and fuck a chair.'

Mongolian BBQ has you fill a bowl with whatever you want, then some dudes stir fry it on a huge communal hot plate. I got two plates while there, each time taking back something I did not originally pick out. Potatoes, noodles, steak. Their motto may as well be, 'Mongolian BBQ: Better hope the guy next to you doesn't pick out weird shit.'

I move out in a week, so I've taken a ton of stuff home. Be back tonight.

(Home.)

I also observed that Mongolian BBQ is quite possibly the worst place to meet women. Firstly, it's a huge date place, and secondly, people end up doing a lot of stuff independently. A woman may finish getting her bowl ready before her husband, leaving her alone in line just long enough for a single man, say, your father, to strike up a conversation, only to have it awkwardly terminated by said husband joining the woman in line.

Another important thing to note about Mongolian BBQ is that the waitstaff, like every restaurant's waitstaff, is totally banging one another. Every griller has slept with every waitress. Every Friday night, after the doors close, all the Mongolian BBQ employees get together and have an orgy in a big pile of raw chicken and baby corn.

Also, chicken and baby corn are my two favorite ingredients at Mongo, so that mental image made me both horny and hungry. Horngry.

Early morning amputation story

Sometimes I wake up and the skin around my right eye is puffy. I don't know if it's an allergy or a hex or what, but the swelling goes down by lunchtime, so I don't sweat it.

Last week, Roy the Custodian saw my eye and asked me if I'd seen a doctor.
'It might be a spider bite.'
'Nah, I'm ok. It'll be better in no time.'
'The other day a freshman was in here and he had a mark on his leg. I says to him, 'You should see a doctor.' He asks why and I says I knew a guy who had a spider bite and he didn't see a doctor.'
'No, seriously, I'll be ok.'
'He got gangrene. They amputated his leg.'
'...'
'See you later.'

Maybe he just thought I looked tired and I'd wake up if he scared me. 'Hey, your eye's swollen. I know a guy with one leg.'

Thanks, buddy.

(bed.)

I have a feeling that Roy's one of those parents that loves scaring their kids into behaving.

"Eat these oranges! I met a guy who never ate oranges and he got scurvy. He bled out of his gums, then they got infected and the doctors had to remove his head to stop the infection. Then he died. He didn't have a head. Eat the oranges!"
"Turn off that Xbox and go outside! I knew a guy who didn't exercise and his windpipe collapsed under the weight of his chins. He didn't have an Xbox or anything, but you get the idea."

I looked up the symptoms of scurvy to make fun of the friendly custodian at work. That's a combination of dedication and being a dick.

The terrorism club and privacy

You ever say something stupid and then think, 'Thank God that wasn't printed in the newspaper' ?

Well, sometimes you're not so lucky.

From the article:
"Other students also had mixed feelings [about privacy options for e-mail groups]. LSA sophomore Henry Birdseye said, 'E-mail groups can often reveal things about you, and if you’re in a group of private interests then you might want to keep it secret.

'I can’t think of anything that shouldn’t be hidden, but that might just be because I haven’t thought about it. Unless it’s a terrorism club,' Birdseye added."

The terrorism club meets every Tuesday. Bring your own side dish.

(productivity.)

A terrorism club? What was I thinking?

"Yeah, I'll just tell the newspaper lady about a terrorist group on campus that has formed an email group to better communicate its hate agenda via the internet. Then the members of that club should be public! I am an expert on privacy!"

A party I can't hardly wait for

My friend Anne's having a party at her house. The geek will finally hook up with his dream girl, everyone will get drunk, the big jock will be called out for the jerk he really is, and in the end everybody will learn a lot about themselves.

Ok, so maybe only the part about everybody getting drunk. PLUS a few bonus parts, like the part where someone throws up in the pool and a couch gets set on fire in the living room.

(O' Nym estate.)

Nobody threw up in the pool and the couch was never set ablaze, but there was a minor throwdown in the hot tub. Drunk friends collided, then things cooled off and everybody just sat there in the hot tub not knowing what the hell to do next. Then Bora started the chant, "AWK-WARD MO-MENT (clap, clap, clap clap clap)" (to the tune of "O-VER RA-TED") and everybody laughed. Then the girls started motorboating each other and everybody calmed down.

I think every conflict should be followed up with girls going "Pbbbbbb" on one another's bosom.
Theft, injury, even genocide seem easier to deal with I can look at ladies nose deep in cleavage.

"Mr. Birdseye, I'm afraid you didn't get the job, but on the upside, look at that girl rub her face all over those boobies!"
"I am unfazed by your bad news. Good day to you, sir."

The printer is frisky, needs sex

Yesterday a printer in the dental school was acting up hardcore so I had to put a call in to get it fixed remotely. While I was waiting for things to get fixed, a service employee walked toward the printer, looked at it like it was a combination of calculus and magic, furrowed his brow, and walked back to his computer.

The guy was older and obviously didn't 'get' computers, so I tried to explain to him what was happening. When I talk to non-computer people, I end up saying stupid things. Case in point:
'We're having some problems. The printer's being frisky right now.'

Frisky was not the right word. That is not how the word 'frisky' is used. Frisky does not mean 'not working.'

I pretty much said, 'The printer is horny right now. It would print your documents, but it wants me to have sex with it. It'll be working soon. You know, after the sex.

(Angell for 16 hours. seriously.)

During my 16-hour workday, I:
Ruined a Facebook group so that it said "Happy Birthday" to a friend (I will post this later)
Helped a platonic lady friend pick out the right man on Craigslist
Lent out the dinosaur pen multiple times, even if it doesn't have a swastika on it
Forgot everything else I did during 16 hours of "work"

If your boss has the address to your blog, you probably shouldn't refer to what you do as "working." The quotation marks, though accurate sometimes, aren't helping.

Guy doesn't know computers

This weekend I was telling another guy about how being in IT makes you a hateful person because people are too goddamn stupid to learn basic computer skills. But then the other guy didn't nod so I had to backtrack a little.

'Working in IT makes you hate people. Why did I go to work today? Oh, because that bitch can't figure out how to print double-sided.'

(guy doesn't nod)

'...and that's okay because not everyone understands things like printers and clicking stuff. Not everyone knows what a Google is. Would you like to borrow my abacus, Guy Who Obviously Doesn't Understand Computers?'

Needless to say, I still hate people.

(Work!)

Apparently the guy was from 6th century China, too, because I offered him a goddamn abacus in that story.