Drunken Man at Corporate Holiday Party, "Totally meant to do that"

AP - New York, NY

At this year's Holiday Party for Freedom Mutual Insurance, Programmer, Jon McDonald “totally meant to” knock over Carolyn from Accounting’s wine, “as a punk” and definitely not because he had too many Gunslinger Whiskeys on the company tab that evening.

At 8:36pm EST, Jon decided it would be "hilarious" to act like he was going to punch fellow Programmer, Chris DeSoto, after DeSoto claimed that McDonald’s Powerpoint presentation from earlier that day was, “all fucked up.”

When Jon took his “fake” and “hilarious” swing at DeSoto, he “purposefully” knocked over the wine of fellow employee Carolyn Phillips, effectively staining her new Freedom Mutual hoodie that she won at the company’s holiday raffle-thon, at lunch earlier that day.

When asked to comment, Jon said, “I just thought it would be funny. Chris made fun of my presentation, so I decided I had to get him back. I guess I acted inappropriately. And for that, my twitter feed says I should apologize.”

“It just came off as a desperate grab for attention” said Carolyn Phillips, the victim of the “hilarious” dousing. Phillips has worked for the company for 6 years and, "usually dreads every day" that she shows up for work in the Accounting department for the company.

The backlash of Jon’s actions wasn’t fully realized until the next day when the HR Department, after receiving absolutely no complaints, thought it was time to step in and contain the incident. “We’ve taken extensive measures to make sure that, going forward, nobody enjoys themselves at a Holiday Party ever again,” said Pam Rivera from Human Resources.

After reaching out to a few of Jon’s colleagues it became clear that most people at the party were too drunk to accurately recall, “what had happened was.” The only semi-accurate account came from Devon Crawley from the Actuarial department.

Crawley said, “What had happened was, this one dude got all drunk, yelled at this other nerd and punched at him, but he missed and only got this one chick’s shirt all wet.” Crawley went on to say, “That shit was hilarious at the time, until the next day when we all got pulled into a meeting that was all about sensual harassment, or some shit. All I can say is, sensual harassment?...More like sensual her-ass-man! Am I right?!” At the time of printing, Crawley had been replaced by a computer algorithm.

Given the current socio-political climate, and in an effort to be more inclusive of all Freedom Mutual Insurance’s employees and their beliefs, the company has introduced a new initiative that will replace next year’s traditional Christmas party with the first ever, and more sober, “Muslim Christmas Party.”  

Demon Spider

When I was 21, I decided to move away from home for the first time. That move proved to be a giant, terrifying mistake. Mostly because of, but not limited to, the fact that our apartment had giant, terrifying spiders that occupied and terrorized my roommates and I for the duration of my stay in what I now commonly refer to as Satan’s butthole. Or, as the map refers to it, Savannah Georgia. 
I had moved into a carriage house apartment with 3 friends of mine. I knew there was a bit of a spider problem right away because when I was moving into my room, I found a dead spider curled up in the corner of the room that was roughly the size of my closed fist. At that time I was full-on arachnophobic, and was completely unprepared for the horrors that would come with living in that house.
Shortly after moving in, the pilot light on the water heater went out. Seeing that our landlord was what is known in legal parlance as a “lazy bitch” I knew I would need to relight the pilot light myself if I wanted have hot water for the remainder of our lease. The problem was, the water heater was in the attic above the living room and only accessible via a panel in the ceiling. So, borrowed a ladder from work, came home, and attempted to access the water heater via the...er...um...attic hole? Upon opening the attic hole, I laid eyes on a sight, that when easily recalled to this day, still chills my blood. 
The spider webs that blanketed, nay, quilted the ceiling of the attic were so thick, it looked like Tim Burton’s wet dream. As I scanned the attic ceiling with my flashlight from the relative safety of the living room, my flashlight beam caught on, and reflected back a set of glowing eyes that were about the size of garden peas. Attached to those demon eyes was a spider that looked vaguely like a gaunt tarantula. The spider was clinging to the ceiling in a stance that said, "I swear to arachni-god, if you come one step closer I will fucking end you." The reason for such hostility was, the silver-dollar-sized egg sack that clung to the bottom of the monster mom.
After fighting to keep the girly screams and terror vomit in my throat, I realized that I could not handle the task alone, and knowing my roommates wouldn't be home for a while, I needed to go enlist reinforcements. I left the house with an overwhelming case of the jibblies, and headed to a local coffee shop that I frequented, knowing I would find someone there that I could ask for help. After finding and persuading my friend High School Pete to join me in a modern day dragon hunt, we returned to the house. 
When we walked back into the house, my heart jumped because I realized I had left the attic open. The thought of that monster having unsupervised access to the rest of the house sent ice coursing through my veins once again. I was conflicted. On one hand, when I stepped towards the attic hole, I wanted to see the spider sitting exactly where it was when I left. On the other hand, I never wanted to lay eyes on that beast again for the rest of my life. Even if that meant it were right behind me at that very moment, poised to snap my head off effectively ending my life, and then harvesting my body into a web slathered goo sack that would serve as baby-spider formula for the brood that the She-Demon was incubating on her abdomen. But, I digress.
Both fortunately and not, the She-Beast-Spider-Queen was in the exact same spot as when I left. I let out a sigh that was equal parts relief and dread. When High School Pete and I stepped under the attic hole, I raised my flashlight to illuminate the devil herself. The newly illuminated Octo-Bitch took a small step to her left and braced herself for a possible attack. Upon seeing Queen Hades for the first time, High School Pete exclaimed, and I quote, "Holy mother fuck that!" and immediately walked out the front door, never to return. I sat for a while pondering how I could get into the attic without losing my life in what would surely be the most terrifying and horrific way possible, when two of my roommates came home. I showed them the nightmare lair and She who held dominion over it, and after a few minutes of shrieking like little lady girls, we started to devise a plan of attack.
We decided that our only two true weapons were a vacuum cleaner with a hose attachment and a can of Raid. Seeing that the can of Raid didn't shoot very far, and that we were a bunch of idiots, we opted for the vacuum cleaner. The plan was to use the hose to simply suck the beast off of the ceiling and go on about our business. 

Realizing that the vacuum hose wasn’t long enough, I attached the hose to the end of a broom handle using my belt, effectively doubling the distance between me and the spawn of Satan, Mother-to-be. I climbed the ladder, got the hose as close to her as I could and told my roommate to turn the vacuum on. When the vacuum came alive, I put the hose directly on her back only to have her nonchalantly WALK AWAY. I can’t, because of the noise from the vacuum, be entirely sure that I heard the eight-legged-terror-factory issue an evil belly laugh, but the nightmares I’ve had replaying the experience certainly include that detail.
We realized we needed another plan. What happened next will be burned into my memory for all time as the simultaneously funniest and scariest thing I have ever witnessed. My roommate Brandon somehow grew an extra set of testicles and decided that he would climb the ladder and shoot the spider with the can of Raid. He then pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and drew the strings taught, leaving himself a very small anus-like opening to look out of. With Raid can in hand, he started to climb the ladder. While two of us had flashlights trained on the enemy, Brandon reached the top of the ladder, and after what seemed like an eternity, he let a burst of Raid fly. Now. It was on. 
The spider immediately dropped from the ceiling to the attic floor and started coming after Brandon. At this point the two of us in the living room just started full on screaming. Brandon then dropped off the ladder, skipping all of the rungs, landed on the living room floor, did a ninja roll backwards, stood up and pointed the can of Raid at the ceiling, waiting for the aracnhi-banshee to give chase. What he didn't realize was while he was doing his acrobatics off the ladder, she had already dropped out of the attic onto the floor of the living room, and was coming right for him. 
We stood there trying to alert Brandon of his impending doom. The problem was, we were all in full blown caveman mode and could not communicate. Mind crippling fear had made various parts of speech such as verbs and nouns completely unavailable to us. So instead of saying things like “run” and “spider” all we could do was point and scream. With the spider covering ground very quickly, Brandon realized that she was at his feet, and started to empty the contents of the Raid can onto the baby-laden-aracnhi-tank.
Despite the deluge of chemicals being sprayed into her demon eyes, the she-beast continued to gain ground, forcing Brandon closer and closer to the corner of the living room. Eventually the attack became almost too much for her. I say almost because then she, in complete disregard for natural law, DROPPED HER EGG SACK leaving it behind, and CONTINUED to go after Brandon.
A few more seconds and the remaining contents of the Raid can later, the fear-fräulein finally started to succumb to the effects of the poison. We watched as she slowly took her last dying steps, still trying to get to Brandon, she eventually curled up into a ball of demon death. 
After standing around in slack-jawed disbelief, we realized that we still had two problems. The first being the egg sack that momma-murder left behind. We knew we didn't want to squish it because that would probably launch us into a full on war with thousands of little versions of the most determined bitch I have ever met. So my roommate Josh did what any rational human being would do in that situation. He gingerly picked the egg sack up using a dustpan, took it outside, doused it in zippo lighter fluid, and lit that fucker on fire.
The last remaining problem was the water heater. After all this, I had yet to successfully get into the attic to light the pilot light. I slowly climbed the ladder and peered into the attic with my flashlight. As I scanned the dark recesses, I noticed several pairs of eyes glowing back at me from the corners of the dusty, web ridden attic. There were no less than a dozen spiders hanging dead in their webs. Each one of them was the size of my hand. Realizing that they were dead (probably at the eight hands of the Arachni-Anti-Christ) and that I was relatively safe, I completed the climb into the attic and approached the water heater. Just as I lit my lighter a tiny little house spider rappelled down on its web right in front of my face.
Before the earlier incident, the sighting of this tiny spider would have sent me shrieking and tumbling backwards through the attic hole to the living room floor below. But I had a new, hard-earned sense of bravery. I simply scoffed at the spider, lit the pilot light, and closed that attic hole (portal to hell) satisfied in knowing that it was that day that I was no longer arachnophobic. 
Later that night, I took a victory shower. As I lathered up and let the newly hot water wash away the last remnants of Raid and fear pheromones from my skin, I felt accomplished and safe. Accomplished, because I had faced and defeated one of my most deep-seated fears. Safe, because I was standing in the brightly lit shower, confident in my new found knowledge that spiders prefer dark hiding places. 
Dark places, like, under the chair you are sitting in right now. Or, inside the headphones you may be wearing. Or, among the soft wrinkles of the bed sheets that you are wrapped in as you read this. Sure, you could get up, frantically rip the sheets off of your bed, and search high and low. But, if there’s anything I learned in my year of hunting demon spiders, it’s that they are excellent at two things. Hiding, and waiting. Hiding. Waiting.
Sweet dreams, reader...

Top 10 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Move to New York City. (from the perspective of someone who just moved there a month ago)

Making a move to a city like New York and specifically Brooklyn is a big friggin’ deal. I am here, not only to tell you to fuggedaboutit, but I’ll even elaborate as to why you should stay in the Midwest.

Reason #1 – You’re never going to make it

This is the one thing that I kept hearing from people when I told them about my impending move. I literally had someone tell me, “Oh you’ll be back in two months.” I have realized that the people who tell you that you will never make it are simply too afraid to try. But let me ask you this: Where would we be if Menudo decided not to try? Answer: Sans Jonas Brothers. Where would we be if Chumbawamba hadn’t tried? Answer: Tubthumping-less. I’ll tell you another person that they will say will never make it: You. But this time they’re right. Don’t move here, you’ll never make it.

Reason #2 – You will get a girlfriend and a small dog

Fact: You will get a girlfriend. There are tons of women here. Fact: That girlfriend will make you get a dog. Fact: You are too broke to afford a big apartment, thus necessitating a small shitty dog. Look, I’m sorry to break it to you like this but if it can happen to Taye Diggs it will happen to you.

 
The worst news is, you will not be as lucky as Mr. Diggs. The girlfriend you find will have even shittier taste in canines and she will also be ugly. I’m sure you’re thinking that there are plenty of pretty women here for you to date. There are. But knowing your luck, and you know what I’m talking about, your girlfriend will be extra ugly and your dog will extra suck.

Reason #3 – It’s annoying here

I’m sure you think I am referring to the traffic, or the subway system, or the smog, or the noise. No. I am referring to everyone you meet incessantly talking about what neighborhood they live in. It is more rampant than the ubiquitous, “Nice weather isn’t it?” Instead of it being that easy, you have to listen to intolerable hipsters arguing about what is and isn’t considered Williamsburg. News Flash: No one fucking cares! Newsier Flash: Everyone in New York cares for some fucking reason! And you guessed it, no matter where you live, there is always somewhere better in the opinion of the guy whose jeans are tighter than the lips of the Illuminati. That brings me to my next point:

Reason #4 – Your pants aren’t tight enough

If you hope to make it here (which you won’t) amongst the social elite, you must don the mandatory, tight hipster jeans. There are some major problems with this. For firstsies, they look ridiculous.

Secondsies, someone will always have tighter jeans than you. Peter Pan fits in better in Bed-Stuy than he does in Williamsburg. If you do somehow find tight enough jeans, the problem then is getting to the bathroom fast enough after eating at the original Nathan’s on Coney Island. You’ll never make it. The only people in Brooklyn that don’t wear these nut stranglers? Minorities. Why? Because minorities have huge dongs and white Brooklynites don’t. Did I just say minority or did I say segue? Or both?

Reason #5 – You’re a racist

That’s right, if you are coming from the Midwest, or the South, or the West, or the North, basically anywhere but New York, you are inherently racist. Yes, I know you watch Oprah. You’re still a racist. There are so many brown people here. You will inadvertently crash your moving van by constantly checking to see if the door is locked every time you see someone with a higher melanin count than Michael Jackson. Too soon? You still think you are not a racist? If you move here you will be. Newsiest Flash: New Yorkers are the biggest racists of all.

All of them. It’s just that here no one burns crosses or forms meetings with names that contain jungle cats. Why? Because they all have to catch the train for their hour long ride to work. It’s too bad too, because they’re never going to make it. On time that is. You? You won’t make it at all.

Reason #6 – Everything IS more expense here.

That’s right, everything. I would like to tell you that it is unaffordable so that you don’t move here but I just can’t. It’s not actually the prices that are the problem. It’s the fact that you pay twice as much for half the service. If you think things run slowly in the South. Well buddy, git reddy to wait. That non-english speaking, sloth like, worker at Burger King knows she has job security because you won’t do her job because you think you are above it.

If you do actually want to get fast friendly service, you have to go to a non-corporate, family owned bodega and pay four dollars for a can of Chef Boyardee. Either way you will either starve before you get your food, or before you save up enough to buy it. Thus, you guessed it, you are overcome by not-gonna-make-it-ness.

Reason #7 – Craigslist is full of shit

It looks like there is work on Craigslist.com. Especially in New York. It seems that there are tons of jobs out there for a go getter like you. There actually probably are. The problem is, none of those employers seem to have a fucking phone. To make matters worse, the idea of a possible employer emailing someone back is like asking a Hasidic Jew to shake a woman’s hand. The only thing you will ever get a response to is a full-time unpaid internship in a blow job factory. They have tons of those here. Too bad they only export. But I digress.

The point is, you will never find work, therefore you will not be able to eat, therefore you will never make it.

Reason #8 – Your bike is not cool enough

In some southern and midwestern towns there are small pockets that consider themselves “cultured” and “progressive" and most of all “bike friendly.” People like you that live in those areas think that they can just move to New York with their fixie and everything will be fine. What you don’t know is that areas like that are full of turds that are too good for bikes with gears but they and their bikes are just rabbit pellets on the grand scale of turds. The bad news is, if you do happen to buy the baddest bike on the block, you then have to dress the part of the biggest turd. Gloves and all.

If you're okay with that then that’s fine. Just know, that as you and your bike stand now, your bike’s gears aren’t fixed enough, the chain and rims don’t match enough, you aren’t dressed turdy enough and you’ll never make it enough.

Reason #9 – Your bike will get stolen

So you say you found the hipsterest bike ever and a job. And the best thing is, you can ride your bike to work. Wrong!

While you were the asshole in the bagel shop trying to look like a real New Yorker by ordering a bagel with lox and cream cheese, your bike was being lifted by a magic bike stealing troll that has the ability to open and close any bike lock known to man. If he doesn’t do that, he’ll just steal your seat as if to say, “Fuck you…in the ass.” Now you will have to ride the subway two miles and 14 stops out of your way because, that’s the way everything is planned here. What would be a ten minute ride by bike, will now take you an hour, making you late for the one job that actually exists in the city only to find a pink slip waiting for you at your desk with the words, “You’re never going to make it” scrawled on the back.

Reason #10 – It’s fucking HOT!!!

I came from the south where it is hot and very humid. The south has one thing that for some reason has not caught on yet in this, the epicenter of culture and worldliness, and that is air conditioning.

No one has it except places you can’t afford to hang out in. Like banks, and really high price clothing stores. I don’t just mean the trendy small shops in Brooklyn, but the places that only sell suits, and you have to fill out a credit check before they’ll let you put your subway soiled pumas on their African Tulip Tree hardwood floors. I know what you’re thinking. It’s summer, of course it’s hot, just wait until winter. And I say, well no shit. Then it’s going to be fucking cold. Then instead of not making it because you've died Oregon Trail style of dehydration, you'll freeze to death. Good argument, dick head.

After all of this reader, you may be concerned for my well-being. Don’t worry your failure destined little head. I love it here. My girlfriend is pretty, my dog is large and so is my apartment. I store my amazi-bike in that large apartment that is in whatever neighborhood it happens to be in. I love all people, and my huge dong fits snugly in my baggy jeans. But then again, I am not you. I already live here. I have made it.

Makin' music

I have an extremely talented family. Most of them are creative in some way.  I however, didn't get one gene that I would like to have had. That is the music gene. I can appreciate music. When it comes to playing it, I am as motivated as Bush is to start packing. 

Playing a musical instrument is like learning a new language, with your fingers. So it's kind of like sign language but people actually care about it. What? It's not like it isn't true.  You may think that because I can't learn a musical instrument that I am bad at fingering. I can assure you that I am not. I am actually very good at fingering. Very good...... Seriously........ Good.

If only the guitar or the piano were like a vagina. I would be the Ray Charles of vag-iano. Because I would do it in the dark. No but seriously I'm really good at fingering. 

Having oldness

I turned 29 a couple of weeks ago. Never before have I been made so aware of my age as I have recently. It's the little things that have presented the tell tale signs. My sudden deep interest in grocery store savings. The little yellow Kroger tags are like my own personal sherpa of mercantilism. I am obsessed with my utility bill and Angela Lansbury is starting to become much more appealing.

Maybe it's not that I'm getting old, but maybe it's just that I'm a cheap bastard with a penchant for sassy octogenarians. That would explain all those pubescent "private times" that happened to coincide with Golden Girls reruns.

I know I'm getting old. I know this because I was eating lunch the other day and I ordered a beer. When I was asked for my i.d. I made the statement that is nothing short of obligatory for any 30 or 40 something total douche that hasn't been carded in a couple of years. I did the whole, "Well thank you." thing. God I am such an asshole! The worst part is the fact that there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. I had no choice in the matter. It came out as natural as an immediate "no" when asked at the age of 21 whether or not you will ever say "well thank you" to a server who just carded you.

I am here to tell you youngins. It will eventually happen to you. You too will become a total douche and there is nothing you can do about it. Merry Fuggin' Christmas, now help me out to my car with my bags won't you?