the worst

I was hanging out with my coworker Maureen in a park near an old chemical factory. We were having a great time. The sky was an ominous deep gray, but we weren't too concerned. A group of construction workers were loitering nearby, also enjoying the park, and occasionally making lewd remarks in our direction. We chose to ignore them.

All of a sudden, the construction workers started yelling and pointing at the chemical factory, which appeared to be imploding on itself. Maureen and I stayed where we were. Inexplicably, the men all ran toward the factory to get a closer look. Debris was flying all over the place, and I was sure some of them were bound to get hurt, but they seemed to be just out of the way of danger. That is, except for a large white bucket attached to a freestanding structure next to the rest of the factory. Maureen and I watched in horror as the bucket toppled sideways, falling directly on top of the men and trapping them underneath. We both started screaming and I started running. Then I realized that was not the right response, and headed for a pay phone to call 911.

As I tried to get through, Maureen came running up, screaming, "Oh my god! The chemicals are burning their skin off! We have to do something!" The operator picked up the line and asked for our location, but I drew a blank and just started screaming "At the factory! The old chemical factory!" The whole situation was just totally awful.

really bad day

My coworker Adrienne and I took a break from work to try out a new bakery down the street from our office. The place was basically someone’s apartment, with all kinds of delicious looking baked goods on display in the kitchen. Before we put in our order, we tried to find a seat on one of the couches in the living room, but it was already filled to capacity with the extended family of a grumpy patriarch with a terminal illness.

The old man’s children appeared to be arguing over his will. He was threatening to disown the whole lot of them and give all his money to some more deserving cause, like the Humane Society or his hot young girlfriend, also present. We decided to get our baked goods to go.

I ordered some strawberry bedtime loaf (a large thick cake intended to be eaten right before you go to bed) and a bear claw. Instead, the pastry chef gave my bear claw to the old man’s angry old wife, who gulped it down in a single bite before demanding to be shown to the bathroom. The chef led her off, tossing me a single plain croissant as he went. It was tasteless and dry. I looked longingly at the cases full of raspberry tarts and brownies and truffles, but it was time to go.

The rain was coming down outside. Adrienne and I opened our umbrellas and parted ways, and I fell into step with a group of super douchey bankers who were comparing the sizes of their recent deals. At some point they decided I was one of them, and the weakest member of their tribe at that, so they started mocking my inadequate dealmaking powers.

It was crazy windy out, and my umbrella almost blew away several times on the way to the parking lot, where my new friends and I had left our fancy banker cars. They all had Porsches and Lamborghinis and Maybachs and whatever other cars bankers drive these days. I had my old Dodge minivan from 1994.

The alpha-asshole of the group pointed at my car and laughed in my face, just as I finally did lose my umbrella. It flew up in the air and landed handle-first on the asshole’s shiny tank-like car, making an unpleasant scratching noise. Whoops. I tried to get in my van, but it was too late. The head jerk was already in his car and heading right for me, steam pouring from his nostrils and ears. He smashed into my van as hard as he could, and I figured that would be it, but he was actually just trying to plow the van out of his way so he could run me over personally.

So I started running, realizing it was one of those days when I just couldn’t win. This guy was going to run me over and then back up over my body until I was nothing but a bloody stain on the pavement. And then he would probably spit on me for getting his tires dirty. He was just that kind of asshole.

i just came for the fjords

My brother and I went to visit a former coworker of mine who had moved to a small Scandinavian town. Everyone got around on rollerblades, which my brother loved and I found terrifying. I kept plowing into walls whenever we had to stop or go around a corner. Our host took us to a vegan food court, then back to her house for tea.

Her house was full of statues and expensive-looking antique knickknacks. We had tea on uncomfortable couches in the front parlor. Beyond the front parlor, separated from us by a glass wall, was yet another, fancier, back parlor, stuffed with all the antiquities and statuettes that were just too valuable for everyday use.

It was pretty fucking awkward. I don't think I was ever even really friends with this woman---I just wanted an excuse to come to Scandinavia. We ran out of small talk after about five minutes and just sat there pretending to admire all the crap in the room.

Then her younger brother burst in at a sprint, followed by six of his friends, all carrying futuristic hunting rifles. They passed right through the front parlor into the forbidden back parlor and started shooting at birds that had come to roost on the ceiling. The birds swooped down, flying out of the back parlor, through the front parlor, and out the door the brother came in through. The men followed them back out, and my ex-coworker gave us a pained smile as she took another sip of tea.

car + car

Oh, right. This blog. So my friend Adam and I were walking down Marcy, and instead of the Marcy Playground on our left, there was a big parking lot with a few broken-down old cars rusting miserably, fenced in with barbed wire. Then all of a sudden this VW van driving down the street next to us sprouts wings, bounces over the fence into the parking lot, and leaves a bouquet of roses on the front fender of one of the cars before flying off into the Brooklyn sky. I turned to Adam and said, "If you weren't here, I would have sworn I just dreamt that." He said, "I know, right?"

a rough night

I thought I was just going to the Y to play some basketball while I was waiting for my laundry to finish, but it turns out they wanted me to be the manager for a new teen pop sensation. I can't tell you his name, for reasons that will soon become obvious.

Part of my job was to monitor his movement around the stage during shows. It was a pretty complicated set up, with hidden harnesses and elevated platforms and various large pieces of moving machinery. I followed him around the stage like a mother hen, carefully keeping out of view of the audience, making sure he didn't accidentally fall to his death and take out a few tweens in the process. We were halfway through the night's performance, in a large warehouse space in rural Florida, packed full of near-hysteric teenage girls and quite a few very enthusiastic teenage boys as well, when it was suddenly revealed to us and to the audience that the pop star and his entire staff (myself included) were actually clones, distant copies of the real pop star and his original entourage.

I didn't really have time to deal with the unhappy implications of this revelation for myself. The tweens were in near revolt, and one of my many duties was crowd control. So I took the mic and said the first thing that came into my head, which was that we were changing the format of that night's show. In half an hour, members of the audience would be given the opportunity to wrestle a clone. Five clones, five matches. I know this was an idiotic idea, but the crowd seemed to like it. They happily filed out of the warehouse to let us reconfigure the space for the impromptu fight night.

Now we were faced with the conundrum of what to do if our pop star was crushed, strangled, or otherwise damaged in the upcoming bouts. Of course, it wasn't actually that much of a problem, seeing as there were apparently additional clones of all of us waiting in reserve. All in all, it was a stressful night all around, and I completely forgot to take my laundry out of the dryer.

idyllic whatever

I found a neighborhood I'd never heard of before, east of the East Village. Its main feature was a large castle-like structure blocking the entire length of Houston right at the entrance, beyond Avenue D and the FDR overpass. People came from all over the city to look at it. Apparently it was built by a bored and very rich fourteen year old whose parents never let her leave the house. She built the entire castle inside the main room of her parents' mansion. Her parents were so proud of her work that they had it transferred to Houston as a permanent installation. I guess they were rich enough to pay off all the fines for blocking traffic in perpetuity.

The castle itself wasn't that remarkable, aside from the fact that it was in the middle of the street. I was able to walk right up to it and peer through the narrow windows built into the sides. It was hollow inside and full of trash and blankets.

Beyond the castle, the neighborhood felt like a mix of Franklin, Michigan and the Cotswolds. Lots of sloping green fields and adorable houses and a little main street full of antique shops and art galleries. I decided it was my new favorite part of the city. I went there one day with a friend of mine for a summer picnic. Hundreds of people were gathered in one of the big clearings, sitting on the grass and laughing their heads off.

Then my friend started kissing all the girls around us. We got up and walked down the main street holding hands, and at each house a girl came down to the front gate for a kiss while I stood awkwardly to the side. I realized all these women were people I went to high school with who had since married, some of them with kids of their own. I also realized that somehow, probably in a way Freud could explain quite nicely, all of the above means I am totally psyched out by the prospect of my impending high school reunion.

team spirit

I moved to an island off the coast of New Zealand to coach the locals in a sport I had invented. It was kind of a combination of ultimate frisbee and volleyball. I called it racquetball.

When I arrived on the island, there was nothing there but a goat and some carrots. My assistant coaches and I managed to live off the land for many years until we eventually cozied up to the native population. We found them, conveniently, in a large gymnasium inside a sporting goods store. I picked up my racquetball equipment (a soft frisbee-like disc) at the front of the store, fighting off several sweaty white guys in tennis clothes and headbands. Then I gathered some local kids and showed them the rules.

We got a pretty good game going in the gym. Kids were swarming out of the woodwork to join the team. Then all of a sudden all the kids cleared off the court except for my original five players. Thousands of people crowded around, packing the bleachers and spilling over onto the sidelines. Six very large local men sauntered onto the opposite side of the net and challenged us to a match. I gave my team a pep talk. We were ready for our big debut. But then the men pulled out a volleyball and my kids panicked. I called a time out and we removed ourselves to the hallway.

"We can do this," I told the kids.

"No we can't."

"Yes you can."

After a few minutes of this, we decided to play the game after all. We'd do one set of volleyball followed by a set of racquetball. The overall winner would banish the other group from the gym forever. The stakes were high, but my team was ready. I was doing the Peace Corps proud.