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The Fisher of Stories

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Alright Blue Bell. What are you trying to prove? For starters, I go off and get diabetes, and this leads to some of the greatest advancements in ice cream history. Yeah, yeah, I know you make sugar free. But when I have to get sugar free, and The Missus buys “Sugar and High Fructose with Sugar and Brown Sugar and Cane Sugar” on top, and she’s over there havin a food “O” face, and then her blood sugar might shoot up to a whoppin 75, and I look at her ice cream and have to take a shot, I get pretty upset.

But. That’s not what this is about.

This is about them (and everyone else) puttin stuff in our ice cream, that we USED to have WITH our ice cream. I heard a commercial today adverstising the new “Blackberry Cobbler” ice cream from Blue Bell. Sweet Moses. First it’s birthday cake, and that was pretty cool, then cookie dough, and I started getting worried, and now we have cobbler flavored ice cream. So now, when my family gets together for the 4th, I get to hear, “Oh, we’re sorry Travis, but we didn’t make cobbler. We bought the ice cream that has cobbler in it!” Damn you Blue Bell. Damn you.

Cobbler, Cake, Cookies, Brownies, Cheesecake, Pie… You know what’s gonna happen next, right? Ice Cream with the cone already in it! Oh the pity I will feel for our nation when this happens. It will be a tragedy! You’ll walk into Braums and say, I want a strawberry cone… And a cup will be thrust at you… Or your child. Think of your child. “Mommy? Can I get an ice cream cone?” And you will go through the drive thru, and say, “My little fatty wants a cookie dough cone, can I have the large one please? It keeps her quiet on the ride home.” And lo and behold, you get to the window, hand them your money, and they hand you……A CUP! “Oh, ma’am we don’t have cones anymore, they are mixed right into the ice cream.” What will your child do? Will future children never know the joys of a cone! Oh sweet waffle cone!!!

Wow. I got kinda worked up there, and I apologize. I am very passionate about ice cream. Well. I was. Before the whole diabetes thing. Lame. I guess I should be thankful that they are combining these things. Means I have less sugar to eat, and then they have to cut off less of my feet. That’s a good thing, right?

Meanwhile, I’m gonna go check out the market for this cone flavored ice cream thing. Might be some money in it…

Yeah, I got let go yesterday. Apparently, I’m “inflexible”. Seriously? I’m fat. Yeah, I’m inflexible. Ask my wife, she’ll tell ya. If I didn’t have long arms, I would for sure have to buy one of those gopher thingies. Anyhow, my company decided it was time for me to part ways with them. For the most part, they are douchebags, and kept promoting people ahead of me. Stupid people. So I kept gettin mad at them and tellin them that they were stupid.

So I am lookin for a job! First time in 2 years, but I am lookin. I am kind of enjoying the time off. So far its just one day, but geez. It’s a Saturday. It’s 113 degrees outside right now, and I can’t even walk outside without hearing my pale white Irish skin start to sizzle like fajita’s at a Mexican restaurant. I’m at my mother’s house presently, supposed to be fillin out job apps on line. Not really doing it. My mother just asked me if I wanted breakfast, and it’s noon. She’s gonna make biscuits, eggs, gravy and get this. Fried weinies. That’s right, fried hot dogs. Gah, I love my mother. Lot’s of you prolly didn’t even know hot dogs were breakfast food!

Also, last night, I was at the in laws house…(lame)…and they had a friend over. I swear I caught up on 6 weeks of church gossip in 15 minutes. This woman should write for readers digest. She condensed so much information, my mind was processing it hours after she was done. She’s like a zip drive. I made a bird feeder, and even though it was my first one, I think it turned out alright. I’ll post a picture later on. After I get it painted. I don’t think any birds will fall off of it, or be injured in any way. Prolly just be sparrows on it though. Somehow, the entire sparrow populace of my town has gotten word of my bird feeder. I’m going through a half pound of bird feed every day. They are relentless. I’d like to see some color out there, but the other day a blue jay landed on it, and the sparrows grabbed it, and threw it over the fence. I’m pretty sure my sparrows are racist. My dog tries to catch one every now and again, but since the temp capped 100, she is pretty much resigned to laying in parts of the yard that aren’t producing those little heat waves that you see coming off cars in the summer.

This has kind of been a catch up blog I guess. I’ll try to be back on Monday with funny stuff, but for the most part, I was told by Kid Funk to keep it real on this blog. No fake stuff from me! I may try to go fishin today, but haulin out boiled fish from the lake really isn’t fun for me. I like my fish deep fried. I would try to go swimmin, but haulin a boiled me up from the lake prolly wouldn’t be fun for the poor sucker who had to do that.

I may try this Bing search engine thing on the taskbar above me, but I think I love Google too much.

The Missus is coming over to make sure I’m fillin out apps and not blogging… Gotta go.

I am getting old.

I know I’m only 26, but man. I went to the midnight showing of Transformers 2 last night, got home around 3, went to bed around 3:30, and woke up at 7:30 to go to work. I use the term “woke up” loosely, because I’m still not entirely there. At one point in my life I could stay up for a week on nothing but sugar, Mountain Dew and sheer hormones. That seems to have all changed. If I’m not in bed by midnight, my body stops doing things for me in the morning. The little things, that you really don’t appreciate until your body decides that it’s had enough in this relationship. Things like coordination. Reflexes. The ability to construct a proper sentence. And what I appreciate the most, the ability to maintain a constant speed without the help of cruise control. On my way to work this morning, I would look down and be doing 85, then 45. I hate using cruise control in rush hour. Cruise in rush hour will get you killed.

On to the movie. This movie was sick. Amazing. Unbelievable! Sick is one of those words that my high school brother says a lot. Apparently it means cool. It doesn’t work in all situations tho. “Honey, that lingerie you had on last night was SICK!” That right there would get you killed. Or divorced. And shoot, if I got divorced, I might as well be dead, because I have no idea how to survive on my own. On the subject of wives, The Missus loved the movie too! On the way home, she said, “It wouldn’t surprise me if GM’s stock goes up tomorrow.” What a smart lady! For sure, I haven’t checked it, but I bet it’s up. I know I wanted the new Corvette they introduced in the movie. I think it may just be a concept, but who cares. Turn that thing out!

At one point, I grew a little frustrated, when the entire world was looking for Shia Beefy and Megan (so damn) Foxy… They were in Egypt, and they were in the what I’m pretty sure was the only set of 2010 vehicles in the country. Pretty easy to find, right? I mean, how long does a flyover of Egypt take? 15, maybe 17 seconds? “Umm, hey Bravo 2? We need to see if you can fly over Egypt and see if you see anything unusu….” “Bravo 2 to base, you mean 3 brand new, brightly painted 2010 model cars? Yeah… I’ve got them.” Pretty simple, I would think. But it doesn’t make for good filmmaking. Woulda made for about an hour and a half long film, but…who knows? I don’t. The two little small cars made for some funny side banter, but near the end, I was happy to see one of them killed. Then supremely disappointed to find that he hadn’t been killed…

Also, is anyone else disappointed that God is an Autobot? I was really kind of expecting more of a fatherly figure, a robe…maybe a beard. White hair and what not. But nope, He’s an Autobot I guess. Turns out, when you go to heaven, a group of big scary metal machines meets you, and after you piss yourself, if you’ve helped an Autobot, you get to go back down to Earth to put stuff in Autobots. I guess if you didn’t help an Autobot, you have to spend eternity in a pit of Ford vehicles. Seriously. I don’t think I saw a single Ford symbol in that whole movie. I think if a Ford vehicle transformed, it would be lynched. I just don’t think they’re allowed. Anyhow, Imma stick with my view on religion and believe in Jesus. Thanks. Call that closed minded, but I don’t wanna get to heaven and have Jesus look at me and say, “Autobots, Travis? Really? At what point did you stop using the brain I gave to you? I’m sorry, but you gots to bounce.”

If I see a semi runnin around that looks like this though, Imma tell it thank you. Just in case.

The end of the movie was amazing. I laughed, I cried and I had adrenaline rushes that caused my to leave the movie theater hoping that my Mitsubishi Outlander would turn into a totally cool metal man with a huge cannon. It ended with a little speech by Optimus, like the last one. And, like the last one, a big American flag rolled down in the theater, and we all saluted and said the pledge of allegiance. We were inspired. We were motivated. We were ready to form alliances with our respective vehicles and live with them in harmony and never try to kick them off our planet ever again…

Wait. Or was that just me?

Alright people of America, Imma say it.

IF YOU CAN’T AT LEAST DIAL 911 ON A CELL PHONE, YOU SHOULD BE SHOT!

There. I said it. I have people all the time that come into this store, (which I won’t tell you what company I work for…) and say, “My phone won’t work. Can you make it work?” And then I turn it on. Being completely serious, I had a gentleman come in one day, and said, “My phone will not work. It won’t come on. It just died.” I pressed the buttons, tried all I could, and he was right! It wouldn’t come on. So I asked him the next question. “When did you charge it last?” And he said, “Charge it?” This man had no idea he had to charge his phone. Apparently, we have a battery fairy, and she goes around and puts fresh batteries in phones when they are depleted. Who knew, right?

Another conversation went as follows. “I can’t do anything for that phone, but you are up for a contract renewal, and we can get you a new phone.” The response? “I don’t want no phone that will take pittchures or send them textes or cooks my dinner fer me.” I promise you. That’s what the man said. The crazy thing, I don’t think he was joking. Someone somewhere had told him that there was a new phone that cooked his dinner for him. Unbelievable. He also introduced me to a new way to spell “pictures” and made up some plural singular past present tense for “text” that I have never heard.

So here is what I propose. If you are over the of say, 65, then we should be able to walk in, throw a phone in your lap, and say, “Dial 911 on this phone.” If they can’t, then we should be able to shoot them. If they are under 65, the process should be that they have to call 911 AND text help to a friend. If they are under 40, they should have to call text AND email for help, and under 30 should have to call, text, email, post a tweet, and change status updates on Myspace and Facebook to reflect why they need help, as well as add a song to their profile which adequately explains the problems they are having. If they can’t….shot.

Now I’m a reasonable man. I understand that I am broaching a very big subject here with the “quality of life” people. I also know that there should be exceptions to every rule, and that obviously handicapped people won’t be able to do these tasks. So I suggest that the caretakers of these people be tested. We should get this guy to just sit in a nursing home, and text out pleas of help for its residents. I want to go on record as saying that I DON’T BELIEVE OBVIOUSLY HANDICAPPED PEOPLE SHOULD BE SHOT AS A RESULT OF THIS BLOG THAT NO ONE WILL EVER LISTEN TO. There. Happy now, bleeding hearts?

Let’s start next week. With official government backup of course. How would be the best way of getting that? I mean, ol Obama has a BlackBerry even. I’m sure he’d be on board. I think McCain prolly would have been the first one shot.

Woo. I’d have let Palin slide though…

I love to golf. And simultaneously, I hate to golf. I know that I am not the first person to feel this way. I would think even that Tiger Woods, after putting on his Nikes, getting out of his Buick, and downing a Gatorade, might even tell you he hates golf. Ask him after this weekend. I heard it was bad.

I went out golfing with The Groom yesterday. I didn’t realize it when I told him I would, but the temp outside was soaring to a very sweaty sunburny 102 degrees. I might add, at 115% humidity. Thats right, the humidity here in Oklahoma goes above the call. If our humidity was on a little league team, it’d get Most Improved every year.

We teed off on the first hole, and I actually hit a far tee shot. Into the woods. By woods I mean about 8 trees to the side of the fairway. Really not the woods, but it’s trying hard. From there on, it was a brutal day. I lost more balls than a Persain army tryna teabag Sparta. I played horribly. On the 8th hole, I hit 5 straight balls into a lake. I hate that hole. And everytime I hit a ball, The Groom would say… “That’s the water.” Douche.

The greatest point of the day would be when I hit a beautiful chip shot on the 10th. The Groom said, “I want you to know, you hit that exactly where you were aiming.” And I was thrilled! I said Thanks! And he said, “Travis, you weren’t aiming anywhere at the hole.” Apparently, I suck so bad, I compensate for it by aiming completely away from the hole. So when I hit a great shot, it still sucks. Thats retarded.

At one point I hit my ball and this…

Went further than my ball. Of course The Groom had a good laugh about that. It’s not that I’m especially horrible, because I know people that are. It’s just that I’m terribly inconsistent. If I take a warm up shot, the warm up shot is always perfect. But the actual shot will wind up making me get poison ivy, or using my “hand wedge” to get in better position.

This is the scorecard at the final end of it all…



That’s right. That’s a 116 for me. For all you non golfers out there, the amount that should have been was 70. That means it took me 116 strokes to do what it should have taken 70. That’s 46 strokes more. Or embarassing. You could just call it that.

For what it’s worth, the entire back 9 was temporary greens, and it was impossible to putt. But I suck at that too. It was also 102 outside, and the course was covered in rocks. The lake being up had destroyed 60 percent of the greens and fairways, and I’m pretty sure I had a stroke on the 4th. And the 16th. On the 17th, the green had been moved up so close to the tee box, that as a joke, I teed off with my putter. I parred that hole. My tee shot landed about 4 feet from the cup, I mess you not. It was my only par of the day.

All in all, a great Sunday.

But geez I hate golf…

Me: I just ordered an Enchirito.
KF: Ha! The rents are gettin me a grill for my bday. Propane too. She was gonna get me a grill and a fajita skillet and I told her to save the skillet and spend more on the grill, shoot. The Grooms grill is massive amazing.
Me: Amazing. I want a good one. Imma wait till that shiz goes on clearance.
KF: I know thats right. Winter time. I’ll grill a steak in the snow.
KF: We’re gonna build that deck out back, shoot my folks are too, but anyways, beers and braughts all the time. Imma grill er’thing.
Me: Brats sound so damn good.
KF: I really tried to sound that out too. They are good. I can’t wait till I get that grill. Imma f*ck my roommate up if he touches it. Imma f*ck my roommate up if his girlfriend touches it.
Me: I know that’s right. And phonetic spelling is killin our nation.
KF: Yep.
Me. You should just f*ck your roommate up anyway. Call it a just in case.
KF: I might. I might bring one of his little puppies in after it’s morning water portion (that I’d give it…) and just hold and shake it over his passed out face till it pisses on him.
Me: Atta kid. I’m watchin The Happening. It seems alright.
KF: Boooooooooooooob… You seen it?
Me: Nope. I know it’s the trees tho.
KF: Lame… I wish a tree would… Me and Smokey the Bear would be just burnin sh*t down…
Me: I’d be out there.
KF: Napalm’n bitches. Sit back and drink OJ.
Me: People just killin themselves.
Me: It would take some work for me to kill myself. I don’t care for guns really. Hell, they’d prolly find me at a Krispy Kreme.

These are normal conversations for us. I would like to point out, that no puppies will actually be shook to make them pee on his roommates face.

He’d prolly just squeeze them.

I hate it. Working weekends is so lame. I just work on Saturdays, but I still can’t stand it. That’s the thing in sales though. Gotta be there when the customer is there. Stupid customers.

I think we should close down everything on Saturday and Sunday. Nothing open. Nothing. Not even the evil money changers over at Wal-Mart. Maybe just have the self checkouts open. And if you’re too stupid to work one of those, you don’t need it. Wait till Monday. Also, to cut down on shoplifting, put a couple of these things near the doors. Didn’t work out real well for those guys in the movie, but maybe we can also cull the herd a bit.

Think about it. The Parks and Recreation Depts would clean up on the weekends. So much money would be coming in, they’d stop askin for donations. Of course, EVERYONE would be out at the lake, but, you wouldn’t be able to buy beer, so that would cut down on accidents. Also, something else that would cut down on accidents would be that there would be no emergency personel available on the weekends. If you hurt yourself, you better know how to tie a tourniquet. Maybe just have cops out to uphold the law. But give them jet skis and machine guns, and give them $25 per idiot they shoot. I know that sounds bad, but if little Johnny Douchebag thinks its funny to scare all the fish out of where I’m fishin by zippin his Wave Runner by at 110, he should be shot. Or at least let me throw a rock at him. Something.

After the weekend is over, the body count should be broadcast over every aspect of media on Monday. I’d venture to say that in 2 or 3 weeks, the crime rate would drop, and heart attacks and strokes would be cut in half. Just being off for the weekend. That’s why people do stupid things. They wake up on Saturday morning and think, “Geez, it’d be easier to just rob someone and not work today.” Then they wind up chasing that feeling, and the next thing you know, they’re sellin drugs to your 13 year old.

Don’t shoot the messenger.

Anywho, lets try it. 2 weeks. See if it helps. I’m sure somebody somewhere can convince this president of ours that it’s a good idea. It might even stimulate this economy. Give GM workers the weekend off and see if it don’t motivate them when they come back to work on Monday.

Except for the ones that got shot at the lake…

I was a high school athlete. I played a bit of football, some golf, and some baseball. But. What I loved the most was basketball. And I was pretty freakin awesome. I’m also humble. So there. I won MVP my junior and senior year, and I scored almost a thousand points in 2 seasons. I could give you a complete list of the awards, but I think I’d prolly lose some of your interest on the way.

Anyhow, a couple of weeks ago, I was playing a pick up game for the first time in about 2 months. I was huffin and puffin, and barely making up and down the floor. It just so happened that I was involved in a collision with Statgirl’s older brother. He weighs approximately 105 pounds soaking wet, and is about 6’5″. I am a mediocre 5’11” and an unmovable 350 pounds. To give you a reference point, thats like Lance Armstrong on his bike playing chicken with Optimus Prime. Wait. I kinda believe Lance would win that. Somehow. Okay. Lance without a bracelet vs Optimus. There we go.

So when this collision happened, I was not expecting my knee to give out like a trampoline at a fat kid camp, but it did. So lame. So I made a decision. No more basketball till I lose 50 pounds. That’s it. I won’t do it.

So when I got a text yesterday morning that said, “softball at the school at 7:30” I thought, well, it’s not basketball. And I was in.

I haven’t swung a bat in a year. At least. I haven’t thrown anything in about the same amount of time. So when I got out there and started warming up, my back said, “Hey douche, you wanna stretch? Or hows about we go home and get a beer?” My back loves beer. And sitting. Anyway, I’m an ex high school athlete. I play through (most of) the pain. I keep going. I decide I’m playing third. I love third. Third is the best base ever, because you don’t have to move much, and you get a lot of action. It’s kinda like your first studio apartment with your new girlfriend.

These kids warmed up for 2 hours. Warmed up. Warmed. Up. After 2 hours of anything, I’m exhausted. Finally, they chose teams. I’m not gonna lie, I had to use drastic measures to not get picked last. I’m not proud, but I wasn’t picked last either. I count that a moral loss, but an overall victory.

We batted first. My first up, I hit a dribbler to third. I take off. I’m kind of like a train. It takes a while to get movin, but I don’t stop easy. Statgirl was on first, and I’m pretty sure that (insert appropriate MLB third basemans name here) was on third. This kid fielded the ball, and ROCKETED it to first. I’m positive that the only thing that got me there safely was a.) Statgirl was scared of the ball comin at 120 mph towards her face. And b.) Statgirl was scared that I was coming towards her screaming like an idiot hoping to make her drop the ball. It worked. The ball flew over her head, and I started truckin it towards second. I hit second and had a small heart attack. Or a stroke. Either or both. Still not sure. The next guy up to bat hits one to the fence, and I make it home. Like a hero.

The last time I went up to bat, I hit one to the fence and got a double out of it. Barely. The only thing that saved me there was that I’m pretty sure the left fielder was texting someone when I came up to bat. Yeah. I’m that good. The next batter hits a short pop up to center field, and I tagged up and went for it. My brother, The Groom, was playing center. The douche didn’t even give me a chance. He makes the throw, and the 3rd baseman catches the ball while I’m still 10 feet from the base.

I have a decision to make. I can turn, and get caught in a game of pickle. This is not even an option. I WEIGH 350 POUNDS. I eat pickles. Thats all. So I think, “this kid on third weighs 120, maybe. I’m gonna bulldog him.” So I bear down. (I will reference once again the Optimus and bracelet-less Lance here) I get to the bag, and istead of hitting me head on like a man, this kid does some sort of Jet Li spin, drops down, HITS MY KNEE with his glove, and does another Jet Li spin out of the way of a suddenly tripped up Optimus Prime. I rolled damn near into the dugout. I’m gonna give him credit, it was a beautiful play.

I quit soon after, on account of every part of my body hurting, plus on my little tuck and roll without the tuck, I rolled through some grass and got some chiggers. So I was itchin like crazy.

I woke up this morning, and my back was PISSED. My right hip seems to be somewhat out of socket, and I’m having trouble putting weight on my knee. All this has given me a very interesting walk, and I may see what I can do about having it copyrighted.

But if I get a text today about softball at the school… I’m there. I’m an ex high school athlete. You can take my knees, but you can’t take my pride.

Wait. That third baseman did. Douche.

I am a Baptist. I am fat. I am white. I posess no rythm at all. None. I have 2 dance moves. One is the moneymaker, and the other is the bunny hop. I’ve recently added the dice roll, but I haven’t perfected it yet. It still kinda looks like I’m doing inappropriate things on the dance floor.

So when my little brother told me there was gonna be dancin at his wedding, I was a little concerned. Needless to say, I wasn’t worried about makin an ass out of myself, because I do that daily. First of all, I was worried what my mother was gonna do. My mother is not the kind of woman that approves of dancing. Or alcohol. Or fun, really. She gets so mad when I call her a fun hater. But, she kind of is a fun hater. Second of all, I was worried about making an ass out of myself.

Anyhow, I was in the wedding as a groomsman, as were my other 2 brothers. The wedding was in an armory, and it was hot. The AC was on, but it was hot. Mainly because I’m fat, and we were wearing long sleeve shirts (which everyone knows are an enemy of fat people) and everyone was huggin me. By the time the wedding started, I had sweat pooled at the top of my butt crack, and making a waterfall down to my ankles. You needed a visual on that to fully understand my uncomfortableness. Oh. And ties. I despise ties. We also had spotlights shining on us, and that just made it even hotter.

Before and after the wedding we were OUTSIDE taking pictures. In 95 degree heat. They were trying to kill me. It was brutal, but I soldiered it out, knowing that wedding food is always pretty good, and knowing that my brothers wife came through by having cold beer to drink.

I have a thing for shrimp. Shine talked about shrimp nachos the other day, and I’ve since been dying to try them. I just love shrimp. I spend a good portion of the year waiting for Red Lobster to show the all you can eat shrimp commercial. When I see it, we pack up, and we head out. I eat shrimp for the next 3 weeks. At the wedding they had some shrimp. The cold kind with the cocktail sauce. Shrimp cocktail. That’s it. So I had some, then I spent the next 20 minutes bribing my 2 youngest brothers to get more for me for booze. When I finally decided to go get more myself, (my older family had Bogarted the table RIGHT NEXT to the booze (even though none of them drink) and they were givin me grief about how much I was drinking) I walked up to the food table, and as I was walking, one of the brides aunts caught my eye. She held my eye as I made the weave through tables and guests,and then as I got to the table, SHE PULLED THE SHRIMP OFF THE TABLE LOOKING AT ME THE WHOLE TIME. This is the most direct fatty racism I have ever endured. It was brutal. I held my tongue, because I love my brother. But still. I don’t like that lady.

Belly full of shrimp, the music starts to pound. They had hired a really kick ass DJ to do his thing. But alas, no one would dance. As previously stated, I have no rythm. But I could see that I was gonna have to start this show. So I grab my brothers and we headed out there. It was brutal. I tried the dice roll a couple times, but quit when I started getting questioning stares. Lame. Turns out, 2 of my 3 brothers are quiet adept at the dancing. Eventually a bunch of people came out, and everyone had a good time. My MOTHER did the “stanky leg.” I am still not sure how it’s done. But she did it. And I tried. I just cannot dance. Statgirl was there, and she was dancin strong too. My wife danced. That was awesome. Completely amazed me. It took some cohersion, but we got her out there. I did the butt floss move with my tie, which was appropriate because I hate ties. I quit that when my grandmother started pointing at me. I did the Cha Cha slide, or whatever it’s called. I did the YMCA, which is really stupid, because I didn’t know what to dance when they weren’t singing YMCA. I tried (looking like a ra-tard) to do the Soldja Boy. At one point when everyone else was break dancing, I laid on my back and stuck my legs in the air. One of my brothers grabbed my legs and spun me in circles. Which left a huge sweat slicked spot on the floor. I’m lucky no one died. Particularly me.

All in all I had a blast, and it was a lot of fun. I just realized this post is way to long for me to tell the work party story with it, so that will be a later day.

To The Bride and Groom: May your lives be filled with faith, love and happiness.

Love ya bro.

3 songs played in a row on my Ipod this morning on my way to work.

Bodies and Words by Silverstein
Smile by Lonestar
Goodbye to You by Michelle Branch

I think I am gonna call the Missus and make sure she’s not planning on leaving me…

I’ll be back later today with a post about a work party and my little brothers wedding.

I need to start this by saying that I married a lady. I mean, like a classic, LADY. She uses the F word sometimes, but for the most part, she could fit in in the 1800’s. And I love her for that. You don’t see it much anymore, and it’s cool that I found someone like that.

Another thing I need to start this out with. I am a coward. Not in the sense that I wouldn’t push a baby out of the way of a speeding truck. But in the sense of maybe run away if I see a possible confrontation happening 2 or 3 days down the road. This cowardness is subjective. Say, if I have seen a good Jet Li movie, or if I have some boys with me or if I’ve read a particularly heroic book, I am going to try to be a hero. However, the opposite is true as well. If I’ve seen scary movie or read a book where the hero dies, I will curl up under a rock for the next 6 months.

This story brings our anti hero and his lady to their bed at around 1:30 or so in the morning. I am a very heavy sleeper for the most part, and I didn’t let anyone down on this particular night. We had a dog named Ludacris (yes, I know that’s a ridiculous name for a dog) and he liked to bark when something was wrong, when something was right, or when something felt close to in between those two things. This dog would NOT shut up. Morning and night, he would bark bark bark.

Our housing situation was a trailer that faced east and west, with three other trailers that ran north south along our south wall. I still refuse to call this a trailer park, b/c trailer park infers a certain amount of white trashiness that I won’t accept. I don’t live there any more, so NOW it’s a trailer park. Picture the trailers lined up as a giant M. Only without the lines coming together at the bottom. Now, for those of you who have never lived in a trailer, I will state one fact. The locks suck. Our back door could be opened even if it was locked, just by putting the right amount of pressure on the door. Not even a hard pressure. So naturally, I was constantly scared that someone was going to break in.

We didn’t know our neighbors at that point, and we didn’t really want to. We were just fine going about our lives without knowing the names of the white trash we were living next to.

Anyhow, back to our anti hero and his lady. Both in a state of sleep. As I am laying there dreaming about whatever fat fishermen dream about, I was awakened briefly by The Missus, and she said, “Travis, someone is knocking at the door.” I promptly rolled back over and went to sleep. Again a tug. “TRAVIS. Someone is BANGING on the door!” This woke me up enough to hear that someone was in fact, banging on the door and screaming.

Two things happened. One, adrenaline shot through my body at once, causing me to be awake and instantly alert. Two, this adrenaline shot straight into my brain, and told it “OH MY GOD, WE HAVE TO RUN, WE HAVE TO FIND A WAY OUT OF THIS PLACE!”

Told you I was a coward.

I kept a fully loaded Stephens Savage 12 guage shotgun by my bed at all times. Call it overkill, I call it home defense. I don’t have kids, so all you people who are saying that I’m a bad father, you just wait. I grabbed the shotgun and headed to the front door. As I got closer, I can make out that this is a man, and that he is yelling about my dog. So, doing what any man would do at that point, I leveled the shotgun at the door and screamed… “I have a gun, and I’ll shoot you!” Yeah, scary, eh? This guy just keeps screamin and keeps screamin. At this point, I have no idea what to do. I have threatened to shoot this man, he should just go away, right? I was starting to think that I might have to open the door. Turns out, I didn’t have to. The Missus did.

I can remember the disappoinment in her eyes as she turned to look at me, shaking, with a shotgun pointed at a door I hadn’t opened yet. Those eyes seemed to say, “I’m going to borrow your nuts for a minute and deal with this.” Then, before I could say anything in my cowardly defense, she RIPPED the door open, KICKED the screen door out, walked out on the porch, PICKED THE GUY UP, and THREW him off the porch and screamed “GET THE F*CK OFF OUT OF MY YARD!!!”

This guy had no idea what had happened, but I remember the look of surprise in his eyes as he picked himself up off the ground. I remember thinking the exact same thing he had to have been thinking. Wow. I do not want to mess with this woman. He ran out of the yard and back around to his trailer. RAN. Didn’t say another word, and we wound up never hearing from them again. Matter of fact, I think they moved within a couple of weeks of the incident.

We called the cops, but for the most part, it was the most embarrassing police report I’ve ever had to give. The officer that showed up was a friend of mine, and he tried his hardest not to laugh, but I know that he did. The report is probably framed in his house somewhere, and he probably shows it off to his cop buddies anytime he gets the chance.

The gun is not loaded and by the bed anymore, and may never be again. After all, I married a LADY.

Alright. Lets get this awkward blog outta the way. The first one probably won’t make anyone laugh, and it’s more of a history of myself and why I am blogging. Here goes. My name is Travis, and I’m a 26 year old (at this time) guy who’s married to the most wonderful woman in the world. I’m a fat guy, and I want to lose weight, but I refuse diet and excersice. Consequently, if anyone knows a good cocaine dealer, holla. I love to fish and play and watch basketball. I’m a TV fanatic, kind of, and some of my favorite programs are; The Office, King of the Hill, M*A*S*H, and Family Guy. I have a bunch of very funny friends, and they say lots of very funny things, most of the time on a daily basis. I work for a cell phone company (presently) and I won’t say which one, b/c I don’t want people bitching about our service. An unfortunate consequence of my job is that people are always asking me questions about their cell phones. My mothers ex husband for example, would always ask me questions about his IPhone. I mean, EVERY time I saw the man, he would ask me about it. Here’s the deal though. I DON’T work for AT&T. At all. Or an agent for them. I don’t personally like the IPhone, I’m a BlackBerry man. So our conversations would go somethin like this…

Idiot Guy who married my mom: Hey Travis, what’s going on?
Me: Not a lot man, you?
IG: I’m okay. How’s the cell phone business?
Me: It’s alright. Kind of slow.
IG: What have you heard about the IPhone?
Me: Not a lot, being as we don’t sell it or anything.
IG: I got this new application, it’s pretty neat. It tells me about all the other applications and how I can download them for free.
Me: That sounds pretty neat, I like my BlackBerry.
IG: Yeah, my IPhone can save small children from fires, and also allows me to surf the web at 3G speeds.
Me: Right here? Can you pull a 3G signal right here?
IG: (holding phone in air) No, not right here really…
Me: Ah. Well, I’m gonna go say hi to Mom.

EVERY time. I saw him maybe once a week. And this happened EVERY time.

My apologies for that tangent, but that’s how this blog will probably operate most of the time. I should have called it Chasing Rabbits. Anyhow, yeah. Cell phone business. I have a friend, who is currently tryna come up with a name for himself so I can reference him on this blog, (or tryna finish X Men 3) that is one of the funniest guys in the country at this point. Been friends with him for about 10 years or so now, and have laughed for a good portion of it. Lots of these blogs will probably have his smart ass comments in it.

I have 3 younger brothers, the youngest of which is probably the most like me. By that I mean that he shares the desire to make people laugh. The middle two share the desire to make fun of me for every aspect of my life. E.G. my weight, the car I drive, my lack of money, my lack of success, my dogs, my taste in clothes… You get the point. I have to come up with names for all of them as well, because they’ll be referenced a lot too.

Finally, my wonderful beautiful wife of almost 6 years. I will refer to her as The Missus. I have always like calling her that, though truth be told, she’d probably be surprised to hear that. I love this woman. She will be in a lot of stories as well, such as The Night She Whipped a Guy’s Ass for Me. That’s a great story, and I’ll tell it with many others.

All in all, I plan on making you laugh with my observations or stories. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll assume that you’ve all blew a funny fuse readin some of my favorite blogs. Until next time, I bid you farewell, and happy days.