Originality is overrated.

This was originally posted in September 2001 but has since disappeared from my archives. Luckily, I managed to find a draft of it on my computer yesterday and so I now present it to you again in its entirety.

I hope to god it’s still funny.

—

I was so bored last night that I decided to do some self-mutilation using a pair of nail clippers and a very sharp, pointy-type bottle opener. Some people would have called what I did a poor man’s manicure, but with all the pain and blood and crying like a little girl, I prefer to call it an initiation rite for masochists.

Either that or I’m just a schmuck.

How do people do this to themselves on a regular basis? Granted, I didn’t have the proper tools for the job and the bottle opener I used was a little on the rusty side, but the basic idea is the same. Trim your nails with a nail clipper and use a small, sharp object to scrape off your cuticles. It didn’t seem that difficult at first, but when I found myself curled up in a ball sobbing for my mommy on the floor of the living room I realized that I may have made a slight error in judgement. It seems I just didn’t have the necessary hand-eye coordination for this delicate personal grooming procedure which explains why my internal monologue went something like this;

Hmmm. This isn’t so hard. I don’t know why people pay to… yow! That’s going to leave a mark. Concentrate GeekMan, concentrate. Just scrape along the… OW! That was painful. Well, let’s try to avoid doing that again, shall we? OK. Moving on to the pointer finger we’ll just slowly… Damn! Stupid bottle opener. Who’d have thought there would be this much blood from such a tiny, little hole? K, let’s try the middle finger… Ow, owowowowow. What am I doing wrong here? Maybe I shouldn’t be going so deep under the skin with this thing? Maybe I should get some Band-Aids. Funny, it seems to be getting darker all of a sudden. Wow, that’s a lot of blood. I wonder where it came from? Look at all the pretty lights… What’s that rushing noise…?

I don’t remember much after that.

I guess that for some reason last night I thought this would be a quick, easy little procedure that I could do during a CSI commercial break and still have time left over to make some peanut butter cracker snacks. Oh, I just love those peanut butter and cracker snacks. You know, they’re like Ritz bits but you make them yourself? You just smear some peanut butter between two Ritz crackers and off you go.

It’s like a parade for your mouth.

If you’ve never tried this delicacy then you’ve obviously never been to Wolfgang Puck’s place for Monday Night Football. The Puckster (yeah, we’re that close) even makes his own peanut butter by crushing the peanuts between his well developed butt-cheeks. If he’s in a really good mood he’ll cut the crackers into little footballs and helmets before serving them to his guests. Unfortunately, whenever his team scores a touchdown he throws his cutting board on the floor and does a victory dance on the kitchen counter.

He can be such a tool sometimes.

Anyway, in retrospect I guess using a sharp, pointy object on my delicate fingers wasn’t such a smart thing to do. After a little research I found out that most of the cuticle-scraping devices are blunt instead of sharp, which only makes sense because then it’s much less likely that you’ll pass out from blood loss. Right now, my fingers look like teats for starving vampire babies and I have an almost uncontrollable urge to drink about thirty gallons of orange juice. I might need to call Billy Mays and order some Oxiclean to get these stains out of my shirt, but no matter how much I clean the bottle opener; I don’t think I’ll be using it to open anything ever again.

And people say I don’t learn from my mistakes. Sheesh.

Let me speak hypothetically for a moment.

Has anyone else out there ever noticed that the moment you think you’re alone in a public place you will almost always attempt to do some relatively disgusting bodily function? And you’ll almost always be completely embarrassed by a stranger the very next moment? For example, if you’ve spent the last hour clenching your butt cheeks in an effort to hold in what you honestly believe will be the world’s most devastatingly powerful expulsion of anal gas ever recorded in human history; you might think it’s a good idea to relax your constant vigilance the moment you stepped into an empty elevator.

You would be wrong.

You see, as you let loose with a monumental tribute to one-note brass tubas everywhere, that’s when the gremlins of fate would show up to cause you emotional pain and suffering unseen since you were in kindergarten and spilled your apple juice on the front of your jeans and were taunted with the name ‘BedWetter Peepeeface’ for the next two weeks.

Damn you Amy C., damn you to hell.

Anywaste, let’s get back to our story. As your malodorous biological attack on sinuses everywhere escaped from its not-quite hermetically sealed container, you might even have bent slightly at the waist and thrust your butt outwards to force as much air from your body as possible. You might have made the “Ahhhhh…” sound in ecstasy as the poo in gaseous form left your body. You may even have smiled.

And that’s just what those pesky gremlins were waiting for.

Because, just as you realize that the smell of your own fart is so strong that even you are forced to hold your breath, that’s when the elevator doors will open to a lobby FULL of people waiting to get on. And as they all enter the elevator, and as you see them blanch in disgust or quickly swallow as they vomit slightly in their mouths, the only thought running through your head is, “Thank god nobody on this elevator knows who I am.”

And right then someone from the back says, “Hey, GeekMan! Is that you?”

I really, REALLY hate those frickin gremlins.

“Hey Bub, what’s up?”

There is no answer from the sweat covered, heavily breathing, and human shaped lump on the floor. Raising his one and only eyebrow in curiosity, Bread saunters closer to what may have once been a proud human Geek, but was now only a defeated and pathetic schlump.

“Hey. Loser. Something wrong?”
[panting noises]
“Bub, you’re beginning to scare me. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“Wheeze. Gasp.”
“Can you talk, Bub?”
[coughing fit]
“Ewwwww. What is that, a lung?”
[more wheezing]
“OK, moron. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong so either talk to me or I’m going to go play Halo and get ready for this weekends’ Ex-Boxx party.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, GeekMan’s sweat drenched face turns towards Bread. It is then that Bread notices that even though GeekMan seems to be in immense physical pain his eyes are fever bright with accomplishment. The last time Bread saw him look this way was when GeekMan had managed to open that stuck jar of peanut butter without crying for HoBiscuit to do it for him. Everyone had to live with, “Who’s the Man? That’s right, I’M the man!” for the following two weeks.

Idiot.

“Ok, you’ve managed to turn your head. That’s a good sign, I think. So tell me, what’s wrong with you?”
“Pant. Wheeze.”
“I saw your mouth move, come on, you can do it. Talk.”
“… Ahhhhh… pant… ahhhyyy… gasp…”
“Eye? There’s something wrong with your eyes?”
“… Aaaayyy… pantpantpant… duh… duh… did”
“Ok, I get it. You did something, right? Did you fall down, go boom? Did somebody have a wittle accident?”
“I… wheeze… did… pantpant… three… huffhuffhuff… puh… puh… pushups!”
“Holy Crumb! In a row?! You know your body can’t handle the shock of exercise!”

Bread jumps to the phone and begins dialing 911.

Right before the soothing darkness of unconsciousness claims him, GeekMan smiles at Bread and says, “And tomorrow, after I get out of the hospital, I’m going to do four.”

And then the darkness claims him.

Pop quiz, hotshot.

It’s a delightful Wednesday evening in the big city and everything seems right in the world. You’re sitting at a restaurant with your fiancée and three other beautiful women when your tranquil and pleasant life is suddenly and unexpectedly threatened. Having been ignoring the yip-yapping of the female conversation to give your full attention to the delicious meal in front of you, it takes a moment before you realize that the entire restaurant has gone quiet.

Too quiet.

Turning your head slowly towards the women, a thin string of hot-as-lava cheese stretching from your mouth to the piece of pizza in your hand, you realize that they are all staring at you with very angry, evil and merciless looks in their eyes. You can only imagine that this is what a wildebeest must see right before the lions rip out its throat. Quickly looking over your shoulder, you swear you can see a hooded figure with a scythe standing there.

And it’s pulling a bony finger across its skeletal throat.

Quickly swallowing the burning bite of pizza that now is as tasteful as a mouthful of ash, you ask, “What’s up, ladies?”

“Oh, nothing really.” One of them replies, smooth as silk and deadly as a knife in the gut. “We were just discussing men and their preoccupation with stupid and disgusting things.”

Swallowing hard, your eyes scan the area for an escape route as your mouth spews out a phrase you memorized as a child when your dad loaned you his copy of “How To Delay A Dangerous And Angry Female Until You Can Make Your Escape From A Most Assuredly Deadly Encounter: For Dummies”.

“Are those new shoes?”

“No. And stop trying to avoid the situation.”

Stupid, stupid book.

“As the only man here, we’d like to know your thoughts on the subject of our discussion. And you can stop scanning the place for exits, there’s only one door out and you have to get past all of us to get to it.”

Thinking fast, you come up with a plan that has never failed you yet.

“Well ladies, I’d love to give you my thoughts but right now I fear I need to use the bathroom…”

A guy at the next table turns around and whispers, “No go, buddy. The bathroom’s in the back and there’s no exit. I already tried.”

He looks miserable and his date looks smug as she continues explaining to him, in exacting detail, everything that had transpired at her office that day. Including the horrible cramps she silently and stoically suffered through during her two hour meeting.

Stupid, stupid restaurant.

Turning back to your tablemates, you sigh in defeat and resign yourself to a fate worse than death.

“Ok, ladies. You got me. Do you want to slit my throat and watch me bleed to death, or would you rather I poke myself in the eye with this straw so you can take turns sucking the life out of me?”

“Stop being so melodramatic. All we want is for you to answer a question for us. Honestly and truthfully.”

Oh. Crap.

“We were just talking about my ex-boyfriend and how he swore he never looked at pr0n. Even after I found a Playboy hidden under his bathroom sink. He swore he’d never seen it before and that it must have been his ex-roommate’s.”

Is that all? Whew!

“Well ladies,” You say in relief. “Obviously, he was lying. Men love pr0n. And even if it was once his roommate’s, it was his now and you can be sure he knows each of the women on those pages. Intimately.”

“So you’re saying that even though we were dating, even though he had me to be with, he still liked to look at pr0n?”

“Ladies, men like pr0n. It’s hardwired into our DNA. All men look at pr0n, they need to. And even if a man hasn’t looked at or purchased pr0n in a long time, every man will one day succumb to the base need to rent Assmaster 14: In Through The Out Door at least once in their life.”

As the women all look at each other and smile, your stomach does a swan dive into your lower intestines. Something is wrong.

“So you’re saying that all men look at pr0n? Even men, who are shall we say, engaged?”

Too late you realize your mistake. It was a trap all along.

Looking across the table at your fiancée, you can see that she now has a feral look in her eyes and is giving you a lazy smile as if to say, “I wonder how much I can pawn this ring for?”

What do you do, jackhole? What do you do?