Thank god for global warming.

I love the heat of summer more than any other season. To me, Summer is the best time to be alive and NYC is the best place to be. It’s hot, muggy, sweaty and disgusting. The air holds you in its simmering grip like a fire giant’s fist, squeezing you so tightly that you can barely breathe. Even blinking can cause a person to break out in a sweat that drenches them from head to toe.

Even peoples knuckles sweat.

Some people prefer the cool, crisp and colorful season of Autumn. Or perhaps they enjoy the newfound vitality and freshness of Spring. For some crazy reason, a few people even like the cold, dark yet holiday-filled Winter season. Now, I’m not saying these seasons don’t have some redeeming qualities, but the truth of the matter is that Summer can kick all the other season’s asses while eating a breakfast burrito and with one hand tied behind its back.

If I had to describe Summer in three words I’d say: “Fan-frigging-tastic.”

You might be asking yourself what could possibly be so infatuating about Summer that it would make me go on about it like this? Could I be recalling fond memories of my youthful days at summer camp? Do I wish to recapture my long gone childhood by playing a game of Rooftop Manhunt or Full Contact Street Football? Am I suffering from heatstroke? Have I finally gone bonkers?

Or maybe you think I’m just a moron who likes to sweat.

Well, no. Actually, I hate it when I sweat. Makes my underwear bunch up, you see. And don’t get me started on the whole sticking-to-the-plastic-covered-furniture thing. I still have nightmares of the time I spent six hours stuck to my Aunt’s couch in her air-conditioner-less apartment.

I still wet myself every time I hear someone rub two balloons together.

The truth of the matter is that the real reason why I like Summer so much is pretty simple. It can be summed up in five words that will have every man nodding in agreement and every woman gasping in shocked amazement. You want to know the reason why I think Summer rocks? Well then, here it is.

Tube tops and mini skirts.

That’s right, I said it. Tube tops and mini skirts. You all know I’m right. Forget Autumn’s changing leaves and Winter’s wonderland of white snow. Spring? HA! Spring’s got nothing on Summer’s heat and humidity. And, as we all know, it’s only when it’s hot and humid that women are willing to go outside with no bra and a white, nearly-transparent, show-off-your-newly-pierced-belly-button shirt.

Oh yeah, the men are with me on this one.

I don’t know about you other guys, but I spend nine months of the year standing on my front porch spraying hairspray into the air in the hopes of making the hole in the ozone just a little bit larger. Every year I hear about global warming on the news and I pray that the scientists of the world never fix it. Every September, I hope that Summer might last just a few days longer. That I’ll get just a few more days of seeing women in Daisy Duke’s and high heels leaning against a Mr. Softie ice cream truck. That I’ll have another hour to watch sweaty girls in stretchy tube-tops step into an air-conditioned store and literally poke holes in their shirts. That my eyes will have just one more minute to savor the sight of a woman in a restaurant holding a glass of ice water to her forehead and rub an ice cube on her neck.

Damn, I really, really, REALLY love Summer.

Part II – The Missing Limo

“I’m so hungry I could eat my own teeth.”

“You have teeth left? Someone get me a fork.”

“Will you two shut up and look for a place to eat?”

It was 11:30 pm and my prom friends and I were cruising midtown in the Limo From Hell looking for food. We had missed our 8pm reservations at Top of the Sixes by a mere three hours and they had refused to seat us. Can you believe that?

They said the kitchen was closed. Communists.

We now needed to find another restaurant that was a) open, and b) able to seat seven people on short notice and without reservations. We also needed to hurry because the club where the prom was being held would close at 2am and after what we’d been through, if we didn’t get to dance that night someone was going to die.

Probably me.

“Hey guys, I’ve got an idea.”

“GeekMan, you’d better not say Dunkin Donuts again or so help me…”

“Well, that’s not what I was going to say, but they are open 24/7.”

“It’s our Prom Night dammit! I’m not eating a crappy doughnut for my Prom Night dinner, so you better think of something else!”

[sounds of general agreement and imminent mutiny]

“Well, I really wasn’t going to say Dunkin Donuts now and it was just a suggestion before. More like a joke really. You know, a joke?”

[evil glares]

“Puh-lease people, give me some more credit than that, okay?”

[crickets]

“Ahem, well. Anywaste, I was just going to suggest that we go to the Hard Rock Café. They’re open late and I don’t think we should have any trouble getting inside. They’re also pretty fast.”

[awed silence]

“GeekMan, you’re a genius.”

“Thank you.”

“No really, we’re impressed.”

“Well, we do still have a problem.”

“What?”

“Does anyone know the address? I don’t think our driver could find his way out of bed without help from gravity.”

After a hurried consultation, we came to the conclusion that no one knew where the Hard Rock was located well enough to give the idiot driver directions. We used the car phone to call information to get the address and somehow made it to the restaurant at about midnight. After making sure we could get inside to eat, I went back out to the limo laid down the Law.

“Driver.”

“Yes Sir?”

“We’re going to eat here. We expect to be done in 45 minutes. I need you right here in half an hour waiting for us so we won’t be any later than we already are to the Prom. Understand?”

“Yes Sir. I’ll just go around the corner and grab a sandwich and be right back. I’ll wait for you here.”

“Outside the restaurant.”

“Yes Sir. Outside the restaurant.”

“Great. So, you’ll be here in half an hour, right?”

“Yes Sir. Half an hour.”

Happy with this seemingly successful attempt at communication, I joined my friends inside the Hard Rock for dinner. Despite our predicament, we all enjoyed ourselves very much. The food wasn’t great, but we were so hungry by this point that a little thing like taste didn’t matter anymore. Once we had food in our stomachs we no longer really cared about how late we were and how pathetically stupid our driver was. We laughed, and joked and made fun of the whole situation. 45 minutes later we walked out of the restaurant with full bellies and the promise of a fun filled Prom ahead of us. That’s when reality sucker punched us.

Our limo was missing.

My friends and I stood there in utter disbelief. It was unfathomable that our driver wouldn’t be waiting for us after all the other screw ups he had made that evening. He had gotten lost after every pickup. He had ruined our dinner. We were hours late because no matter how explicit the directions he hadn’t been able to follow them correctly.

He was the Forrest Gump of The Limousine & Taxi Commission.

For him to not be waiting for us after all of that had to have been some sort of joke. For a brief moment I actually looked around for a hidden camera and hoped someone would pop up and shout, “Smile! You’re on Candid Camera!”

I wanted to cry.

Instead, we did the only thing we could do. We called the dispatcher (who we were on a first name basis with already due to our constant need for directions) and complained bitterly about the horrid man they dared to call a driver. We only had an hour of our Prom left and it didn’t look like we’d even make it to the club. We felt cheated, let down and thoroughly disgusted. At 1:30am the limo pulled up to the Café and the driver told us he had gotten lost trying to find a place to get a sandwich.

My friends had to literally hold me back from kicking him in the nuts.

By the time we made it to the club there was only 15 minutes of dancing left. We left the limo and gave the idiot driver explicit instructions. He was to wait at that exact spot for us to come out. We told him that he was not to leave, not even to go to the bathroom, because we’d be back in less than half an hour.

Confident that he finally understood the severity of the situation, we went to our Prom.

It probably won’t surprise you at all that when we entered the club, the first person I saw and the first person who saw me, was my ex-girlfriend. We had only broken up three weeks before but she already had another boyfriend while I couldn’t even get a date for the Prom. She was looking radiant in a little black dress and sexy high heels with a handsome, popular and rich guy on her arm. By this time of the evening I looked more like a half dead penguin in a bad wig who had just run a marathon by dragging himself along by his eyelids.

She’s probably still asking herself what she ever saw in a loser like me.

My limo friends and I met up with all of our other friends inside the club and told the story of our hellish evening to anyone and everyone who would listen. We then danced to every song, no matter how horrible, because we had come too far and through too much not to dance. 20 minutes later at 2:10 am, the last song was played and everyone was told to vacate the premises. Some of our other friends were going to Jones Beach to continue the party and watch the sun rise and we agreed to meet them there. My limo friends and I were the last people to leave the club. Against all the theories of Darwinian evolution, common sense and self preservation, our idiot driver had ignored us yet again and disappeared.

Big surprise.

Sighing in resignation, we made the call to the dispatcher. Apparently, our idiot driver and moved the car about 10 minutes away from the club and then fallen asleep in the back. It took three calls for him to wake up and answer the car phone. By the time he made it back to the club it was almost 3am and my friends and I had had enough. We decided to forget Jones Beach and just write off our big Prom Night as a spectacular loss.

It was time to go home and have a good cry.

I was the last person to be dropped off. By the time I made it home it was after 7am and I was so tired I didn’t even bother to curse the driver when he forgot to open my door for me. I had been out all night and all I had to show for it was a wrinkled, cheap tuxedo, a no-longer-poofy pompadour, and the memory of being lost in some of the worst parts of the Bronx with an idiot driver who wanted to stop and ask the ‘nice gentleman with the gold teeth hanging out at the payphone’ for directions. To top it all off, two weeks later I received a limousine bill for $600.

That bill was never paid.

So, how was your Prom?

Part I – The Limo of Doom

“Let me get one more picture, GeekMan. You look so handsome I could cry!”

“Moooom!”

I rolled my eyes while my mother made cooing noises and lined up the Polaroid like a shotgun at my acne covered face. We were standing outside our Brooklyn apartment building waiting for my rented limo to arrive and whisk me away to my High School Prom. I was dressed to the nines in a rather threadbare, black, rented tuxedo that smelled of mothballs and cheap detergent, and my $30 second-hand shoes had been shined to mirror brightness by a combination of a black magic marker, an old washcloth and generous amounts of spit. My brand new contact lenses were causing me to blink furiously and my eyes were watering at an almost biblical rate as I stared intently down the street and willed the limo to appear like magic and save me from yet another silly photograph. Catching a glimpse of myself on the window of a parked car, I cocked my head to the side and smirked at my reflection in my best Michael Knight impersonation.

“Damn,” I thought as I straightened my bowtie. “Eat your heart out James Bond!”

I patted my Dipity-Doo and Aqua-Net styled hair back into its limp and very un-cool pompadour and tried to smile for the camera. As soon as the little black box had vomited forth yet another iron-clad example of why I should never be allowed to breed, I again asked my mother for the time.

“Mom, where do you think the limousine is?”

“Don’t worry Geek, I’m sure he’ll be here soon. He’s a professional.”

“I know mom, but maybe we should call…”

“Stop fretting and let me take another picture of my darling boy.”

“Mooooom!”

The limousine was already almost an hour late. Being the one responsible for the limo, my friends had decided that I was to be the first person picked up. Of course, that made it my responsibility to make sure everyone was picked up on time so we could head off to our fancy dinner and the Prom. Even though not one of my friends had a real date for the evening, we were all prepared to enjoy ourselves to the max.

We were going to have fun Porky’s style.

Although I was all of seventeen, I was a real city boy so I didn’t own a car and hence had no idea how to actually drive to any of my friends’ houses. Because of this, I was hopeless at giving directions unless it was by foot or train. All I did know was my friends’ addresses (written down on a piece of paper for the limo driver) and their general locations on a map. I was positive that that was all I’d need to give the driver for him to find my friends.

It worked for taxis, so why not limo’s?

My friends lived all over the five boroughs so it had been calculated that we’d need about three hours to pick up everyone and make it to the restaurant in time for dinner. One of my friends lived close to me in Brooklyn, three lived in the wilds of Queens, one lived in the unknown and dangerous seeming Bronx and one would meet us outside the restaurant in Midtown Manhattan.

BTW, Staten Island doesn’t really count as a borough because… well, it’s Staten Island.

We had reservations for dinner at a fancy restaurant called Top of the Sixes at eight o’clock and it was already six. I was beginning to get worried, especially since I had gotten this limo based on a ‘friend of the family’ type connection and my friends were counting on me to pick them up and get them to the Prom on time. We had all decided to go to this shindig only two weeks before and finding a limo was very hard to do at the last minute during Prom season.

I didn’t want to let my friends down.

Just as I was about ready to explode into a fiery ball of anxiety, the limo turned the corner and I felt myself relax. I think I might have visibly shuddered as the pent up frustration in my body was expelled in one massive sigh of relief. My muscles relaxed to the point that I needed to hold on to something just to keep from falling down.

It was like a full body orgasm without the mess.

As the long, black limo pulled up to my apartment building, I smiled and waved farewell to my mother and walked out to the street. The limo driver was a young man, barely in his twenties and he immediately popped out from the drivers seat and opened the passenger door for me. As I got in he gave me the first warning of the horror that my night would turn out to be.

“Sorry I’m late, but I got lost.”

Unfortunately, my danger-sense was as yet undeveloped and I failed to comprehend this early warning of impending doom. I shrugged and let it slide figuring that anyone could get lost, even a New York limo driver. He shut the door smartly and hopped back into the front seat. With one final look at my mother standing in the doorway we were off.

Cue horror music.

As I sat there in the limo I became enamored with its sleek and sexy interior. It had big, wide leather seats that could easily accommodate all seven of us, little lights for reading, neon lights running around all the windows and a deep, black carpet. It also had a separate tape deck for the passengers, a mini bar and, oh my god, an actual car phone!

I felt like a rock star.

As we stopped at the light at the end of my block, the divider glass that separated the driver from the passenger lowered itself. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Alas, it would turn out to be the best thing about the entire evening.

“Where to, sir?”

Wow. He called me ‘Sir’.

“I have a list of addresses for my friends here. They’re listed in the order that they need to be picked up and we need to hurry because we have a dinner engagement at Top of the Sixes at eight.”

I handed him the list and sat back in the seat nearly bursting with pride because I’d managed to use the word ‘engagement’ in a real sentence. I amused myself for a while by daydreaming about using other grownup and important sounding words in sentences later on in life. Words like ‘loquacious’, ‘fastidious’ and ‘avocado’. Five minutes later we were on the Belt Parkway headed for NYC.

A small man with a large trumpet began playing ‘Revelry’ somewhere in the vicinity of my left temple. I hastily leaned forward and knocked on the privacy partition.

“Excuse me, driver?”

“Yes sir?”

“Shouldn’t we be picking up my friends?”

“Sir?”

“My friends. The people I’m going to the Prom with?

“I’m taking you to meet them at the restaurant now, Sir.”

The little man played louder.

“No. Nononono. You don’t understand. We need to pick up my friends first, ok?”

“Your friends, Sir?”

“You know, my friends? I gave you a list of their addresses a little while ago? We’re supposed to be picking them up so we can all go to dinner and then to our Prom?”

“Oooohhhh! I’m sorry sir, I didn’t realize you wanted to pick them up first. Although, to tell you the truth, I thought it was a little strange for you to be going to dinner all alone in a limo.”

The little man on the trumpet was joined by a choir singing ‘You’re Screwed’.

“OK. Well, we need to pick up my friends, starting with the one on the top. She lives only a few minutes from my house so all we need to do is go back to that area and get her and then we’re back on schedule, right?”

“Sure sir.”

“Great.”

The choir and trumpeter paused for dramatic effect as the marching band filed onstage and waited for their cue.

“Uh, Sir?”

“Yes?”

“Do you know how to get there from here? I seem to be lost.”

The marching band burst into an ancient Scottish polka on their out-of-tune bagpipes. They were accompanied by the sounds of the veins in my forehead bursting like cannon-fire as I suddenly developed a twitch in my left eye.

“You’re lost?”

“I’m afraid so, Sir.”

“You don’t know where you are?”

“No Sir.”

“You. Are. Lost.”

“Yes Sir.”

“OK. Fine. No problem. I can handle this. I’m cool, I’m calm and I’m collected. There’s no need to panic. My friends won’t kill me, right? They’ll understand it wasn’t my fault, right? Right?”

“Sir?”

“Shut up.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Alright. I’ve got it. This limo has a car phone, right?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Great. Then I suggest you call your office and get directions.”

“Excellent idea, Sir.”

He looked directly at me from the front seat and slowly, ever so slowly, blinked. Neither of us moved to pick up the phone.

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“Would you happen to have the number to my office on you? I forgot to bring it with me.”

Oh. My. God.

*** Next time, the Prom Dinner Fiasco ***

Fade in:

Scene: The GeekMan’s front door. The scene begins when some people arrive at the door and begin knocking. There doesn’t seem to be a response.

[knock, knock-knock]

“Mr. GeekMan? Mr. GeekMan, it’s Uncle Sam. Are you at home?”

[old woman voice from inside]

“Geldman? There’s no Geldman here, sonny. Now go away, unless you’re here to give me my eight o’clock Ben-Gay rubdown and bunion massage.”

[/old woman voice]

“Mr. GeekMan, is that you?”

[little boy voice from inside]

“My grandma’s very sick, mister man. You better go and get tested for E. coli right away before you get sick and die. Like my grandpa did, cause he was stupid like you.”

[/little boy voice]

[more knocking]

“That’s not funny, Mr. GeekMan. We know you’re in there. Stop playing around and open this door so we can talk like civilized people.”

“Who says I’m civilized? Maybe I’m a crazed, rabid llama wearing a full-body human-suit made out of fried jellyfish. Maybe I’m in here plotting to take over the world by inventing rubber hair replacements for middle-aged men in Shri Lanka. You better run. I’m not civilized. I might eat your spleen!”

“Mr. GeekMan…”

“For that matter, who says you’re civilized? From what I can see through this peephole you look more like forked-tongued, shark-toothed mafia collection bruisers to me…”

“Mr. GeekMan, please. You know very well who I am and why I’m here, so stop stalling and open up. We have a lot to discuss and I’ve got a lot of other people to fleece… errr, I mean ‘tax’ today and I’d appreciate it if you would stop these shenanigans and let me do my job before I call my superiors and order you to be audited.”

“All right, all right. Bureaucratic paper-pusher. No sense of humor…”

[sounds of many locks, chains and bolts being undone]

“That’s better Mr. GeekMan. Can we come in?”

“Before I let you in, would you mind telling me who your friends are?”

“Oh, sure. This is Mr. Hugh Ohmemore, Mr. Sid Deetax and Miss Stakesullcostya. The two big guys in the back are with the ‘We Break 4U’ moving company and I believe you already know Mr. Quarterly.”

“Moving company?”

“I’ll explain once you let us in. You are going to let us in, aren’t you?”

“What if I say ‘no’?”

“You know that nice homeless man who talks to himself and hangs out in front of the train station every morning with no teeth and a paper cup? The one who smells like year-old urine and stale beer?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll be his love-bitch.”

“Uncle Sam! Old buddy, old pal! Don’t just stand out there like a stranger; come on in! Can I get you a Fresca?”

“No thank you, Mr. GeekMan. We’re just here to collect what you owe us so if you’ll just stand aside, we’ll take what’s ours and be on our merry way.”

“What? Wait a minute; I just dropped off my tax stuff this morning and I know I sent checks in those envelopes. Big, fat, bank account hemorrhaging, ‘I’m going to need to sell blood and body parts to cover this’ –type checks. How could you be here already?”

“I can’t divulge all our secrets to you Mr. GeekMan. Let’s just say we’ve had our eye on you for some time and leave it at that, ok?”

“…”

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. It’s just that when I clear my throat it sometimes sounds like ‘son of a bitch’. Ignore it.”

“Hmmm… That was ‘humor’. I recognize that.”

“Alrighty, then. Why are you here Uncle Sam?”

“To collect what’s due. According to our records, you made a small sum of money last year and, since you’re a Freelance Graphic Designer, we get roughly 99.9% of your yearly gross. After looking into your bank accounts we knew you wouldn’t be able to pay us so rather then let you pawn your fabulous geeky toys in order to raise cash, we’ve decided to simply come to you and help ourselves to your most prized possessions in lieu of payment. This saves you the hassle and embarrassment of a full-fledged audit and helps get the money your government needs to run properly into its coffers faster. Wasn’t that thoughtful of us?”

“Oh crap. Uh, why are those two moving guys looking at my home theater speakers?”

“Correction. ‘MY’ speakers, Mr. GeekMan.”

“Crap. Crap, crap, crap. I can’t owe that much, can I?”

“Oh my, Mr. GeekMan. This is only the beginning! Your front and center speakers belong to me now, the rear speakers and subwoofer are going to the State, and Sid here gets your DVD player and TV.”

[GeekMan is in complete shock]

“I think it was very generous of us to leave Miss Ex-Boxx in your care. Don’t you agree?”

“Wait a minute! I can pay you! Don’t take my baby away! How much do I owe?”

“You can see for yourself right here on this document…”

[paper shuffles]

“Holy horse jockey with hemorrhoids! I can’t pay this much. Dammit man, Bill Gates couldn’t even pay this!”

“I thought as much. Ok boys, grab our new stuff.”

“Oh. My. God. Not my home theater. Please, anything but that…”

“Sorry Mr. GeekMan, rules are rules.”

“You bastard. Do you expect me to pay?”

“No, Mr. GeekMan. I expect you to cry.”

Scene ends: GeekMan is crying on the floor of a now desolate and empty apartment.

Fade to Black

I really, really, really hate tax season.

The following phone call takes place during my freshman year of college.

“Mother GeekMan’s office, Mom speaking.”

[timid voice] “Mom?”

“Hi GeekMan! How are you? How’s college treating my baby?”

“Mom, I’ve got… I’ve got some bad news.”

“What’s wrong? Are you ok?”

“Mom, I don’t want you to get mad. Just listen to me for a minute, ok?”

“…”

“Mom?”

[in an angry tone] “OK, I won’t get mad. What did you do?”

“Well… Uh, you know my roommate is a little… crazy, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, last night I went to dinner with some of my friends and while I was out my roommate decided to throw a little party.”

“So?”

“He invited some freshmen… girls… and well, things got a little out of hand. There was some pot, and a lot of beer, and maybe sex and stuff…”

“So your roommate had a party while you were out. What does this have to do with you?”

“Let me finish, ok? Please?”

“…”

“Ok, so he was having this party and it was a little loud I guess, because someone on campus called the police.”

[angry, but still tolerant voice] “It must have been some party for another college student to call the cops!”

“I guess… But the thing is, the cops arrived just as I came back from dinner and walked in to my room.”

“Oh, no…”

“Uh, now mom, everyone stuck up for me and told the cops and the college people that I wasn’t involved with the party. They all believe I had nothing to do with the drugs and underage drinking and stuff, but the college people said they need to make an example of us, so…”

[my mothers anger is so great I can physically feel it emanating from the phone line] “Don’t tell me they suspended you?”

“No. No mom, they didn’t suspend us. We’re being expelled.”

Imagine the most vile, angry and venomous string of curses you’ve ever heard. Now multiply whatever you’re thinking of by ten and point it at yourself.

Aha! You just winced, didn’t you?

Unbeknownst to myself, my mother was a cursing pro. I don’t know if she was hanging out at bars frequented by sailors or not, but she was using curses unheard and unspoken of since the stone ages, and never the same curse twice. She started out at a barely audible whisper and worked her way up to a royal scream. At the end, she got so loud that the phone line could only transmit loud static punctuated by rage filled squawks.

If I had done this in person, I would have been dead right then.

“Mom.”

[more cursing]

“Mom!”

[even more cursing]

“MOM!”

“What? What else do you have to say for yourself, you stupid little…”

“Mom, what day is it?”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Mom. Concentrate now. What’s today’s date?”

“It’s March… No wait. It’s not March it’s…”

[stifling laughter] “It’s…?”

“…”

“April Fools.”

“You son of a BITCH!”

[laughing] “But mom, that makes you the bitch!”

We both laughed for a long time after that. Every few moments she would have to catch her breath and explain what had happened to her office mates, who would then join in the laughter and congratulate me for my joke, chastise me for being such a bastard and offer condolences to my mother.

My mother has never let her guard down on April Fools Day again.

She loves to tell this story whenever any other parent talks about how cruel their kids can be. My mother always comes away from those conversations the ‘winner’ and I am looked at as if I am some disgusting, heartless and evil scientific experiment gone awry.

“You know, if you had tried this in person, I would have killed you. Dead. With my own two hands.”

“I know, mom. I know.”

I love my mom.

I was introduced to Japanese food when I was in my late teens.

I can’t really recall much of the dinner itself, especially since I didn’t then, and still don’t eat fish. But I do remember that I was shocked to find out that Japanese food consisted almost exclusively of disgusting, slimy, raw fish. However, my friends were greatly amused by the facial expressions I made each time I was offered a piece to taste and kept forcing piece after disgusting piece upon me. Usually preceded by the words, “Oh, but you’ll really like this one!”

This was most likely followed by the explosive ejection of the offered piece of stinky food across the table.

The only saving grace for me was my introduction to the wonderful, amazingly spicy, green ‘mustard’ that sat in a small ceramic bowl on the table. This green stuff, whose name I couldn’t say properly for the life of me, was the spiciest thing I had eaten since my aunt’s special tacos, and I loved it. In fact, the waiters needed to refill the egg sized lump of wasabi twice during the meal.

I paid dearly for the amount of wasabi I ate that night the next day, but damn it was worth it.

Anywaste, we were done with the meal and we were going to start on dessert. My best female friend at the time, who we will call Shaggy for no reason at all, was sitting to my immediate right. Seeing my look of utter confusion at the choices on the menu, she offered to order her favorite dessert and let me taste it. I agreed, she ordered something called ‘Green Tea Ice Cream’ and when the cold, green lump arrived, I tasted it.

I can only imagine that if I were to lick the sweaty, hairy, frozen balls of the Abominable Snowman, it would taste exactly like Green Tea Ice Cream.

Shrugging, Shaggy went back to enjoying her ice cream for a few minutes while I entertained my friends by explaining in great detail why raw fish on wads of rice shaped like slugs shouldn’t be considered a meal. Especially at the outrageous prices we were paying by my poor-college-student standards. Everyone was laughing and enjoying themselves, nothing wrong, nothing amiss.

Nothing that is, until Shaggy made The Mistake.

There we all were, sitting at the table, eating, laughing and drinking, when she turned to me discreetly and told me she needed to visit the ladies room. She then excused herself, left the table and made her way to the back of the restaurant where the restrooms were located.

Leaving behind her bowl of ice cream.

I sat there for a few moments, just staring at that bowl with a devilish smile upon my face, until I realized that my friends had all gone silent. Looking up, I found they were all staring at me with puzzled expressions on their faces, probably wondering what was so fascinating about Shaggy’s half eaten bowl of ice cream. Looking around to make sure Shaggy was nowhere in sight, I made a casual observation to my assembled friends.

“Green Tea Ice Cream,” I said in a soft voice, “looks a lot like wasabi.”

When Shaggy returned to her seat a few minutes later, she didn’t notice how quiet the table was and immediately proceeded to eat her melting ice cream. Keep in mind that no one at the table even attempted to warn her. Lifting her spoon, she found that it had a very, very large scoop of what appeared to be Green Tea Ice Cream on it, and she happily opened her mouth and shoved the entire thing inside. As soon as the spoon left her mouth she realized what had happened and her eyes went wide and began to water as her face became so red I thought she would burst into flame.

It was the perfect practical joke.

By all rights, I should have died that night. I should have been a victim of a frontal lobotomy by a spoonful of wasabi shoved up my nose and into my brain, but somehow I survived. Shaggy didn’t get angry, she didn’t even get upset. In fact, as soon as she had recovered from her initial shock, she turned to face me and somehow managed to swallow before calmly taking a drink of water.

“Damn.” She said, as she continued to eat her ice cream.

“That was perfect.”

One fine day, my best friend and I were sitting around with nothing to do when we hit upon the idea of setting off a few old firecrackers and bottle rockets we had left over from the Fourth of July. Not wanting to get caught doing something ‘dangerous’ by our overprotective mothers, we decided the safest place we could go to enjoy ourselves was the roof of our six floor apartment building. We started off innocently enough. A few firecrackers and some sparklers. Nothing dangerous, just two boys having some fun with gunpowder and fire in the big city.

We were kinda like Bo and Luke Duke, only… not.

Well, after we had exhausted our supply of the ‘weaker’ mini-bombs and poppers, we decided to play with the bottle rockets. For those of you who don’t know, a bottle rocket is a slightly more powerful firecracker attached to a thin red stick. You’re supposed to put the stick into a container or bottle, light the fuse and watch as it flies into the air for a couple of seconds before it blows up with a satisfying BANG!

Bottles! As if Bo and Luke would ever use something so wimpy.

Instead of using ‘un-cool’ bottles we came to the conclusion that we could avoid harm by simply holding the stick in our hands, lighting the very dangerous explosive (which was obviously made with care by an overworked, underpaid sweatshop employee in some third world country) and then throwing the lit rocket into the air. Of course, not knowing our physics as well as we might have, it never dawned on us that perhaps a ‘rocket’ made of gunpowder and cheap paper might not have the best aerodynamics in the world and could possibly double back, imbed itself into our anuses and explode in a very painful ball of fire.

Damn. Now that would’ve made one hell of a story.

Anywaste, I don’t recall which of us came up with the idea but somehow we found out through experimentation that if we threw the rockets horizontally, they would fly great distances before exploding with a bang both loud and satisfying enough to make us smile. Soon enough we were throwing these tiny, self-guided missiles all over the roof and we were getting pretty good at learning how to aim them properly.

That’s when the bus honked its horn on the street below.

Our eyes lit up like the flames of hell and we both ran to the edge of the roof. The bus was just sitting there at the light, waiting patiently for someone, anyone, to strike it down with tiny, hand-guided, flaming pieces of death wrapped in cheap paper. Should we? Could we? Dared we? This, we decided, was a gift from Loki, god of mischief, and we were not about to insult him by letting this golden opportunity pass us by.

We really were little bastards, weren’t we?

The first rocket exploded long before it reached the bus. The second fell to the street and died in a futile attempt to reach its target. Numbers three and four exploded underneath the bus, but the fifth, ah the blessed fifth, managed to outdo its brothers and sisters by not only reaching the drivers side window but actually bouncing off it. Of course, it exploded on the street with nary a sound and doing no damage, but we were too busy rejoicing to care. In our minds, the bus was a flaming, blackened heap on the street with people running from the wreckage trying in vain to put out their flaming clothes and burning flesh.

We pretended our principal was one of the passengers.

When the bus pulled away from the intersection, completely unscathed and unaware, I’m sure that no one on board realized anything at all was amiss. In fact, if we ourselves hadn’t known what to listen and look for I don’t think we would have seen or heard anything out of the ordinary. As the bus was rolling away though, we saw something approaching in the distance that instantly became our next target.

A bike messenger. Oh. My. God.

To be honest, I don’t believe either of us actually thought we could hit him. I mean, a man on a bike is a much, much smaller target than a big, city bus. Plus, he was pedaling hard, moving fast and all the way across the street. All in all, a seasoned Green Beret with a sniper rifle on a windless day would have had a tough time hitting this guy, but somehow I knew that I could do it so I lit the fuse and let the rocket fly.

It exploded somewhere between his rear wheel and his puckering anus.

I’m not sure that some of you understand exactly what just happened, so let me slow explain this in a little more detail for you. A man on a bike is minding his own business, pedaling through a relatively safe neighborhood in Brooklyn on a beautiful summers day. Suddenly, he hears something that sounds like a gunshot directly behind him followed by howling laughter.

Ah. Now you understand.

To say this guy pedaled for his life would not do the scene justice. Imagine this poor guy, who had moments before probably been enjoying his day, suddenly taking off as if he had all the hounds of hell on his tail. I’m not positive, but I think he may have screamed in terror as he made his escape down a side street.

He may even have soiled himself.

I know what you’re thinking and yes, looking back I agree wholeheartedly. We were evil, mean and nasty little deviants and should have been spanked like naughty monkeys to within an inch of our lives on a nightly basis just on general principles alone. But back then, Mr. Hentai and I just fell to the floor of the roof laughing like demons on crack as we each told the other in great detail, over and over again, how funny the whole thing was. In fact, it still makes us laugh to this very day.

Fshshshshshshssssss… BANG! “HOLY SHIT!” Pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal. [evil laughter]

Oh boy, somebody spank me.

One day, when I was in my early teens, my brother was gifted with a brand new skateboard. I was on my third or fourth bike by this time and if my memory serves it was a Huffy. My brother, Mr. Hentai and I went out to the street to try out the new skateboard by doing as many dangerous, wacky and idiotic things 13 year old boys are want to do when given a new toy and no adult supervision. I brought my bike just so I would have something to do when it wasn’t my turn to attempt breaking my tailbone on the skateboard.

We were like the Three Musketeers, only crazier.

Oh, just in case you didn’t already guess, none of us knew how to ride a skateboard so we were doing far more falling down than standing up. Add to this that we were doing our skateboarding experimentation in the middle of a fairly busy one-way street and perhaps you’ll begin to understand the danger we were needlessly and unknowingly putting ourselves into. Also, keep in mind that we had no safety equipment whatsoever, since at that time no one even knew what safety equipment was. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because no self respecting 13 year old boy in my neighborhood would have dared wear that safety stuff because they wouldn’t want to be seen as a ‘sissy’ by the neighborhood bully.

Oh look, widdle, baby GeekMan’s wearing a helmut. Did your momma wipe your ass for you this morning, too? Oooooo. You gonna cry now? Are you gonna run home to mamma and cry? That’s right! Run, sissy-girl. RUN!

Anywaste, luckily for us very few cars came down our street that day, so we didn’t need to worry about becoming road kill. In fact, I don’t remember any cars passing us while we were rambunctiously flinging ourselves down the street on a thin piece of wood supported by four casters and no breaking mechanism other than hitting one of the cars parked along the street and praying we didn’t set off one of those newfangled car alarms. We only set car alarms off late at night when we could fully enjoy watching a fat, angry man come outside in his pj’s, cursing a blue streak, start his car, turn off the alarm and go back to his apartment swearing to catch the ‘fracking kids’ in the morning.

We’d wait 15 minutes and then set it off again. FUN!

Back to our story, at some point Mr. Hentai got the bright idea of combining the speed of my bike with the thrill of riding a skateboard. He decided to try riding the skateboard while hanging onto the back of my bike and I would then peddle as fast as I could and, should he maintain his grip, speedy thrills would ensue. This sounded like a fabulous idea to all of us and without further discussion, we set about making the unreal, real. Mr. Hentai stood on the skateboard, grabbed the back of my bike seat and I took off.

We laughed at the thrill of it all.

Mr. Hentai, unsatisfied with merely hanging on to my bike, began to slalom on the board. That is, he began a vigorous left-to-right-to-left motion on the skateboard behind me which had the unintentional effect of making my bike fishtail. One moment, we’re setting a two-man, bike/skateboard land speed record and the next I’m out of control and headed towards one of the parked cars. At full speed.

If you are male, stop reading now.

If you are still reading this, let me describe exactly what happened during this crash so that you’ll fully understand how painful this was for me. My front tire hit the car on the front passenger-side door, which promptly ejected me from my bike seat face-first into the car window. I remember this vividly, because the rest of the crash unfolded for me in the passengers mirror with the words ‘objects in mirror may appear closer than they are’ emblazoned along the bottom of my sight like the TV captions on Saturday Afternoon Kung-Fu Movies. My forehead smacked the window with such force that my eyes nearly flew from their sockets as if I was one of those dolls whose eyes pop out when squeezed.

Inanimate Objects – 1

GeekMan – 0

Having hit the car, my body began to fall backwards towards the ground but something interfered with the normal gravitational pull of the earth on my body, my bike. You see, my bike’s momentum had made it flip forward, but as I have already mentioned, due to my body having met the door of a car the bike had nowhere to go but directly into my scrotum. The bike seat attempted to invade my groin as if it were reenacting Germany’s invasion of France during WWII in the span of 1/1000 of a second.

Hard and fast, like a jackhammer on soft clay. It makes me wince just thinking about it now.

Of course, having expelled all of its energies and momentum into the soft flesh of my gonads, the bike promptly fell back to the ground. My body was of course forced forward again by this cowardly attack on my manhood, and my face once again met the window of the car.

Inanimate Objects – 3

GeekMan – 0

My body, now sending flashes of blinding pain to my brain as if to say, “Attention. You may want to avoid doing this in the future.” Began to fall back to the ground. Of course, rubber wheels on bikes make them slightly ‘bouncy’ so as I was falling down, the bike was once again coming up. My gonads and bike seat met in what would have been a lovers embrace had the situation not been so painfully non-embracing. I swear to you, I actually thought every single sperm in my body screamed in terror as they saw the bike seat heading towards them again.

It was like my ‘nads were Tokyo and the bike seat was Godzilla.

Well, to make this narration a little shorter, and to avoid reliving this as it is beginning to cause me actual physical pain, allow me to give you the final score.

Inanimate Objects – 9

GeekMan – 0

My brother and Mr. Hentai laughed like hyenas as I walked, splay-legged, into the building. Managing to maneuver the four short steps to the elevator without falling down was the bravest thing I’d ever done in my life. When I got upstairs my mother asked if I was alright and somehow, I don’t know how exactly, I managed to say I was fine and just needed to use the bathroom. When I got in the bathroom, I removed my pants as carefully as I could and that’s when I saw the blood.

I remember thinking, “Oh. Blood. That’s not a good sign.”

I was still receiving waves of rolling pains that began in my groin and expanded outwards to my brain, so I just sat there for a while and cleaned off the blood with toilet tissue. After sitting in the bathroom for 10 minutes or so, the pain was almost bearable and the bleeding had stopped completely. Using the bathroom mirror, I didn’t even see a cut, so I figured I would be fine as long as I took it easy for a few days. I never mentioned this accident to my mother because I wouldn’t have been able to show her my ‘boo-boo’ and if we had gone to the hospital I would have died of shame and embarrassment.

On the spot. Dead, just like that.

After this event, I decided that riding bikes was not really for me. I took it as a sign from above that my future did not involve any two wheeled mode of transportation in any way and I decided walking would do fine until I was old enough to have a car. I’ve ridden on bikes only 5 times since then and let me tell you, my groin and I are on very good speaking terms. Very good speaking terms, indeed.

Now, you tell me. Should someone like me be allowed to buy one of those Segway thingies?

A few months after I finally learned how to ride a bike without training wheels, my bike was stolen. I was so sad that it got stolen I believe I kicked a mailbox and maybe even cursed the sky. Well, losing a bike is one of the perils of living in the big, bad city I guess. Even though I loved that bike, it was gone now and I had to find a way to get another or I would be forced to bum rides on the handlebars of my friends. So I did what every kid in the world does when they want something they know they have no right to have and no means to acquire.

I pestered my mom, day and night, until she caved in.

My new bike was a real beauty. It was cool blue, sleek and damn sexy, but not in a girly-sexy way. In fact, forget what I just said. It wasn’t sexy at all, it was cool. Manly-cool, like Batman Underoos or the Millenium Falcon. Just because it had multicolored streamers hanging from the handlebars and metallic sky-blue paint didn’t mean my bike was for girls. So Daid K., wherever you are, you’re still a poopy-head and my Alchemist Smurf could soooo kick your Smurferman’s ass.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah, sorry.

I don’t know if bikes today work the way my bike did, but my bike had no handbrakes. In order to stop, I had to press backward on the pedals which would stop my forward motion and bring my bike to a halt. One fun side effect of such a braking method was the almost immediate discovery that one could ‘Skid Out’. Skidding out, for those who don’t know, meant riding as fast as you could and then hitting the brakes while turning the bike almost on its side and sliding to a halt. The longer the slide before the stop, the better the Skid Out.

I was a Master Skid Out Artist.

One day I was practicing my skidding technique outside on the street when something ‘bad’ happened. Back and forth, up and down the block I would go, tearing up the street and skidding out to my heart’s delight. I was going faster and faster and faster, having bigger and bigger Skid Outs, until suddenly and without warning something went wrong. To this day I don’t know what it was, but as soon as it began I clearly remember thinking to myself, “Oh, this is going to be bad.”

No, really. I did.

You know how the pedals on bikes have little teeth on them to help keep your feet from slipping off? Well, in spite of those teeth, my left foot slipped off and hit the ground in front of the bike. The pedal, blissfully unaware that my foot had fallen from its rightful place, continued on in its revolution and came down on my calf like a hot knife on a stick of room temperature butter. Keep in mind that the pedals have teeth.

Sharp, pointy teeth.

The pedal tore through my pants, ripped apart my sock like tissue paper and bit into my leg like a rabid wolf bringing down a sickly deer. The pain was immediate and blinding. I fell down and did the sucking-of-air-through-teeth thing that everone does when they’re trying really, really hard not to scream/weep in agonizing pain. Had I been going any faster, I’m sure I would have severed my own Achilles tendon, but luckily all I did was rip the back of my leg to shreds.

I’m proud to say that I did not cry.

Somehow, I not only managed to hobble home, but to also drag the bike along with me. After all of the expected hysterics had died down and we had come back from the hospital, I had a moment alone to reflect on my day. It was then, and only then, that I allowed myself to ask the question that’s probably running through your head right now. Would I have a scar? Not just any scar, but a cool scar to show off to all the hotties at school and maybe get some ‘play’? Could this tragic accident somehow lead to an increase in my cool factor and finally get Stacy V. to notice me as more than ‘The Dork With Cooties’? Would she touch my leg in class, or my arm at lunch like she did to James? Would she (gulp) kiss me?

My testicles dropped that night and by morning I had not one, but three pubes.

Sadly, my lusted after tryst with Stacy never happened. My damn body wouldn’t let me off that easy and it healed completely, with no visible scars, probably just to spite me in my vain attempt to become cool and get some sweet-lovin’ from the fly honeys in school. Since I didn’t have anything to show for my pain, I didn’t get any cool points for my accident from anybody, not even my closest friends. The cute girls continued to avoid me like the plague and flock to my brother like bees to honey.

No, I’m not bitter at all.

To this day, if I flex my calf you can feel the lump of scar tissue under the skin that is the only reminder of my last day as a Master Skid Out Artist. A few months after my accident, the Bike of Blue Death was also stolen and I was not at all sad to see it go.

Stupid, stupid bike.

This week is all about bikes and pain.

When I was a young boy I had a fabulous pedal-powered dirt bike. It was a specific type of bike known as a ‘Chopper’ that I don’t believe is made anymore. It had a low-rider type seat and three gears (speeds) to choose from. You chose your gear by shifting a lever that sat directly in front of the seat, between the seat and the handlebars. If you’re a guy, think about that placement for a moment and you might understand why these bikes aren’t made anymore.

Yeah, I know. Ow.

Anywaste, one day my father decided I was too old for training wheels and I should learn how to ride a bike like a real man. Not wanting to disappoint him, I hastily agreed and we removed the wheels, went outside and started to ride. Remember, this was long before such things as safety helmets or elbow pads and we were on the cement sidewalk outside my apartment building next to a very busy street.

I tried to be brave.

After a few minutes of trial and error, my father had the bright idea of holding onto the back of my seat and running alongside me while I got the hang of balancing myself without training wheels. At first we went slow and my dad did most of the balancing for me, but after a few tries I was getting better. My confidence on the rise, I asked my dad if we could go a little faster.

The twinkle in his eye should have been my first warning.

He held onto the back of the bike this time, so he could keep up, or so he said. I started pedaling as fast as I dared and for the first time in my life, I felt like I was really riding a bike without any help. I yelled back to my father, “Look at me go dad!”

From far behind me I heard my father yell, “That’s the way son!”

I laughed out loud and thought how great it was to be riding my bike without training wheels, even if my father was holding onto it so I wouldn’t fall. I was a real man now, I could ride my bike for real! I was so proud of myself. Maybe next time I’d try riding without my father holding on to me. Maybe I…

Wait a second.

Stealing a quick glance backwards, I saw my father standing about 50 feet behind me, smiling like a merciless inquisitor in a medieval torture chamber about to hear a ‘confession’. Looking forwards again, I saw the end of the block coming up fast. Suddenly, I didn’t know what to do. In my head, I knew that I should stop or scream or something, but I just couldn’t seem to remember how.

I also conveniently forgot how to steer.

I was coming fast to the end of the block. On the end of the block, directly in my path, there stood a lamppost. Of course, I was headed straight for the hard, painful looking, steel base of said lamppost. At speed.

Face, meet post. Post, this is face.

I don’t remember much of the actual crash, it was a blur of motion, a glimpse of steel, the sound of a large bell quickly followed by the cracking sound of something soft hitting pavement and finally silence. I remember my fathers footsteps as he ran up to where I was lying, unmoving in the street. He looked down at me and I opened my eyes and looked up at him. I opened my mouth and he leaned down to better hear my words.

“Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“Remind me to kick your ass in twenty years.”

He laughed so hard he had to sit down on the sidewalk next to me and wipe his eyes.