Monthly Archives: July 2008

A Hard Lesson in Softball

Posted on by patrickhmorris
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Sometimes, when I’m at work, I’ll go into the kitchen just to throw away paper towels. I’d ball them up, fake left, fake right and turn as I’d fall away and shoot the game winning shot. Since there wasn’t a crowd and my dress shirt would come un-tucked, it wasn’t as thrilling in reality as it was in my head.

However lame this was, it was the best I had. Ages 5 to 18 were entirely dedicated to two things: 1) Not pooping my pants and 2) Playing sports. After that, playing sports went from #2 to #231 – one below 230) dandruff control.

So it was without hesitation that I said, “Yes I will,” when asked to play on the company softball team.

To me, company softball meant a mitt on your left hand and a cold can of beer in your right. It meant laughing with people who you were forced to be serious with every day. It meant camaraderie. It meant fun.

I missed the first game of the season, but when I arrived for the second one, I was greeted by the captain, Rick. Rick worked in production and for the most part, was quiet, kept to himself and always smiled at you when you walked by his desk.

As he rummaged through his duffle bag to find me a jersey, I noticed his left leg. It looked like a shark had attacked him.

“Good god!” I said. “What happened?”

He looked at me as if he didn’t know I was referring to the leg that should be amputated and then said, “Oh, this? Yeah. Nice little raspberry. Got it sliding into first base last game. No biggie. You want number 32?”

There are three big differences between baseball and softball:
1) Balls are bigger in softball
2) The diamond is smaller in softball
3) Softball shouldn’t be taken seriously and at no time should you give yourself a wound bad enough to make civil war photos look like LOL Catz pictures by sliding. In fact, any amount of effort above Half-Assed should be shunned upon.

As Rick announced the rules and what counted as a Ground Rule Double, the girl who introduced herself as The Girl the Captain Has a Crush On, whispered to me, “What’s a Ground Rule Double?”

I jumped at the chance to show off my sports knowledge and whispered, “If you hit it over that wall on a bounce you get to go to second base.”

She whispered back, “What’s second base.”

I was introduced to everyone and noticed that the only person I recognized from the office was the guy who had recruited me. I asked him why I hadn’t seen any of these people at the office, he said, “Because they’re ringers. Outside guys brought in to make sure we win and get to the playoffs this year.”

Ringers? To ensure we get to the playoffs? Did anyone inform these guys that the team that wins gets NOTHING?! I considered announcing that here was no cash prize, no trophy, nothing for the winner but I realized there might be a chance Rick had promised these people something out of his own pocket.

The captain barked out orders of where people were to play. Since the guy who normally plays shortstop broke his leg in the last game, I took his place. Before I could ask how the shortstop broke his leg, the girl who had asked me what a second base was, asked me how many bats she could use at one time as she took her place at 3rd base. Rick tried to show her how to put on her glove while telling the large girl, Tammy, who had played softball in college to be the catcher – a.k.a. the stick the worst player there, position.

While we threw the ball around to warm up, I noticed there was no beer. I asked the Rick if I had missed the cooler and he said, “WHAT?! If you drink beer you won’t be able to play as good.” Before I could ask him if that wasn’t the point, he asked me to feel his bicep.

I decided to talk to someone who wasn’t crazy for the rest of the game and picked a guy wearing a bathing suit who had volunteered to sit out the first few innings. His total apathy and unwillingness to participate in the team’s rah rah behavior seemed much more in line with what I expected.

As we came in to hit in the second inning, Rick asked me to coach first base. I asked him why and he looked at me as if I’d just said my arms are octopus penises. “What do you mean, why?!” he said. “Coaching first base is incredibly important!”

Since there isn’t any stealing allowed, it isn’t. I finally agreed to go when I saw my new friend on the team with the bathing suit was asleep.

When the last inning came, we were down by one and I wanted to go home. The first batter made a quick out. Tammy, who Rick treated as if she were handicapped, got her fourth double of the game and I was up with the tying run on second.

Before I could select my bat, Rick called timeout and informed the ump he was going to insert a pinch runner. Tammy objected and finally broke lose on how unfairly she was being treated for being a girl who weighed over 110 lbs. The ump informed Rick he could not insert someone as a pinch runner if they had played already unless the person running the bases was injured. After a few minutes of going back and forth, Rick convinced Tammy to fake a spontaneous knee injury and limp off the field. Rick’s crush took her place at second base after having to return the bat she brought with her.

After a few minutes discussing which way she would be running, the game resumed and I stepped up to the plate. On the first pitch, I lined a shot into right field. I broke towards first base, gearing up for a double and perhaps a triple. The girl on second broke towards third, but, after touching the base, turned and ran back towards second. I yelled at her to go back to third, but she kept chugging towards me. Not wanting both of us to get thrown out at the same base, I turned and ran towards first base.

However, when I get to first, I noticed the first base coach looking completely confused. I turned and realized the girl was rounding second and heading straight towards first. She was quickly tagged out.

2 outs, tying run on second and Rick is trying to say, “It’s ok,” through gritted teeth.

Due to another YOUshouldn’tBEtakingTHIStooSERIOUSLY rule, every player has to get into the game and Rick had no choice but to tell the guy in the bathing suit to stop chewing on his glove and to go hit.

With three pitches, three strikes and a smile that says, “This is for being a jerk,” the game was over. We lost. I didn’t care.

As we walked to the subway, Rick calculated our chances of making it into the playoffs. He asked me if I had fun and I didn’t know what to tell him. I was worried that if I said no, he might be disappointed and if I said yes, he might be angry at me for not taking the game seriously. I simply told him I’d come next week and immediately started planning 12 fake weddings that would keep me from playing the rest of the season.

Take My iPOD, Please.

Posted on by patrickhmorris
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My current iPod (which I got for free by telling Apple I was a college student) is on the fritz. You may pity me however you see fit. As I look for a new iPod, I’m reminded about my first iPod (which I bought back when they weighed 40 lbs and could only fit 3 songs on them…ok, not quite, but feels like it).

 

When I was nine years old, I took an audio tour of Alcatraz and received a little tape player and a set of white headphones. It was the best tour ever.

Years later I moved to New York City and saw everyone wearing what looked like the same headphones. I wondered what type of tour all of these people were taking. It didn’t look like these people were on a tour since they were all walking incredibly fast and weren’t stopping to look up at any of the buildings. Instead it seemed liked they were listening to someone yelling “MOVE ROBOTS!!” as they weaved through pedestrian traffic.

Ipod You More

After embarrassing myself by asking a friend if he’d been on the Turbo NYC Tour, he said, “It’s an iPod.” Not catching on, I responded by saying, “I Pod you too, man.”

As soon as I figured out what an iPod was, I decided I needed one. However, I wasn’t going to get one unless I was able to get a good deal. When I found out that all Apple products were sold at the same price, I was disheartened, but not defeated.

After a little creative thinking I came up with a plan to use my job’s 501c3 status. Basically, what this means is, taxes don’t exist in the non-profit world. All I had to do was get my hands on one of our Tax Free forms and hand it to a cashier.

I came up with some intricate plans to get one of these forms, but in the end I acquired one through a lot of mumbling and some random hand gestures. It’s funny how someone will give you anything just to get you to leave them alone.

I took my tax exemption sheet and headed to the bank where I withdrew the money I would need in one dollar bills. I figured that it would appear more non-profit like if I were to pay in crinkled dollar bills out of an envelope labeled Budget. I walked uptown while trying to think of a reason why a small environmental non-profit in New York City thought it was necessary to keep 10,000 songs in a portable music player. I came up with the answer of, “the whales like Mahler”. It was vague, kind of creepy, and screamed, “Leave me alone!!”.

My mission was successful and besides blurting out, “Yup, whales are amazing creatures,” everything went smoothly. HA HA rest of the world!! I hope you’re happy with your iPods and your lack of $32 you spent on taxes.

I went back to the office to put songs onto my new toy. I stayed at work late putting on CD after CD as if I were adding water to a cup I was determined to overflow. When I finally got tired I gathered my stuff and headed home. It was about 10:30 when I got on the train going back to Brooklyn. It was the most enjoyable ride I’d ever experienced. I finally felt as if I were in a music video and that everyone else could hear the music blaring in my head. I was the star and everyone else on the subway was a backup dancer waiting for the chorus.

When I got off the subway I was a man with a swagger. I was the only person in my rhythmic world. All other problems, fears, and stresses were drowned out by my headphones.

Well, all other problems, fears, and stresses other than the guy who came running up to me and started yelling in my face.

“Excuse me?” I responded as if manners were necessary to someone who had just run up from behind me to yell something in my face.

“If I go to jail tonight, at least I’ll have a place to stay!!” he repeated.

You never know how you’re going to respond when someone screams something like that to you. It was pretty clear to me that this guy was either here to mug me or eat me. Some people will say things like, “I would have run,” or, “I would have fought him,” but logic is a distant memory when someone is screaming about the comfort of jail.

“Allllllllright,” I said, hoping he was in fact reciting a line from some poem he wrote. I wasn’t about to pull out my wallet and say “well, let’s get this over with”. Not until he pulled out a gun, a knife, or even threaten to beat me up.  

Guess What I've Got In My Pocket

“Look, mother fucker. Keep walking!” he said as he walked besides me.

I immediately became conscious of my newly purchased iPod and their perceptible white headphones. It was then that I started to get really nervous as the $17 in my pocket was no longer my concern. I started asking myself, ‘What would make you hand over this iPod? A gun, a knife? Could you take him?’.

We walked almost a full block in silence before he said, “Look, here’s the way it’s gonna work. Give me all of your god damn money!”.

I still hadn’t heard an ‘or else’ and he wasn’t even putting in the effort to put his finger in his jacket pocket, pretending to have a gun. So of course, I said what I always say to someone who asks me for money, “I don’t have any money”.

“What?! You don’t have any money!?”

“No, I don’t.” I said as I wondered if I was worsening my situation if he were to find that I did in fact have money on me.

“You don’t have any money?!!?”

I thought that perhaps my best move was to say, “Well, let me check my wallet. Oh wait! I do have some money,” and hope that he’d be so relieved that he’d forget to ask me to hand over my $300, easily sellable, non-traceable, portable music player.

“You don’t have any money at all?!?!?”

“No!” I said as I patted my pockets (the universal “I’m all tapped out” sign). He stared through my eyes and I knew that he was either going to beat me up and search my pockets himself or pull out the gun he was reluctant to use.

“You don’t have any money at all?!?!?

Having answered the question three times previously I began to understand that this person had no idea what he was doing.

“Not even a dollar?!?” he said as his voice wavered.

“No.”

The man squinted his eyes and looked forward, as if this wrinkle in his plan needed required serious thought. We walked almost a full block in silence.

Finally, the man thought of his next move and asked, “You don’t even have some change?!?”.

I once again patted my pockets to signify that I had not acquired any change in the last block.

The man looked crushed. He waved me forward and stopped walking beside me. I quickened my pace and headed for home feeling a little sorry for my mugger. He obviously was a beginner and I half expected to hear him yell to me, “Maybe I could give you my number so you can call me when you do have some money.”

My sympathy was overridden by relief. I had escaped unharmed and more importantly, still a member of the iPod community.

I chuckled for days at the idea that I could have lost my iPod only hours after purchasing it. More specifically, I chuckled for TWO days because that’s when I took my iPod into the shower with me and shorted the non-warranty covered circuitry.

RATATAT, 2007 – A Running Diary

Posted on by patrickhmorris
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Yesterday marked the release of Ratatat’s newest album, LP3. I figured the best way to commemorate the occassion (besides buying the CD instead of downloading it for free) would be post a running diary from the show I went to last year. It’s outdated (both Mike and Evan are now black midgets who may or may not be lesibans – what a difference a year makes) but I’m still entertained by it.

When I was in the sixth grade I read all 20 books on the DCF list. Up till that point, I had read exactly one book that wasn’t assigned to me. What spurred this shift from literary slacker to book worm extraordinaire? Prizes. By reading all twenty books on the DCF list (which I think stood for Dorothy Canfield Fisher) I was guaranteed a place at the luncheon event with a famous author. That year, it was the guy who wrote Maniac Magee. It was my favorite.

However, about two weeks before the event, I discovered it conflicted with my school’s talent show. I was torn between reaping the reward for my studious efforts while rubbing elbows with the guy who made untying knots sound exciting or entertaining my peers with a character named Futso who basically walked around, acting like a dimwit.

I chose Futso because I knew being around accomplished people wasn’t going to make me as happy as BEING the accomplished person.

Now fast forward to last night. Sure, Futso didn’t hit it big like I thought he would, but I’ve learned to enjoy the moments where my friends and family are doing something great…especially when I can go along for the ride.

Last night Ratatat had its premiere show for their upcoming tour. I’d seen them play more than a handful of times before, but this time, things were different. Their new album had been released and their name was popping up all over cultural indicators like the homepage of iTunes, The New Yorker and the homepage of the most trafficked site in the world, myspace. Not only was there a general excitement growing around the name Ratatat, but my personal relationship to the band had also grown over the past year. Mike, one of the two full-time members, had moved to the apartment above me with his girlfriend, Andrea. Not only did their move create a small sense of community in my dingy apartment, but it ensured that nights when nothing was going on were filled with something (mostly Mike striking me out with high fastballs in this video baseball game).

Jake, my older brother, was the other reason that Ratatat had become more personal to me. He joined their upcoming tour as their keyboardist and was aiming to bring a more band-like quality to their live shows.

The night had finally come…the tour about to embark. I didn’t want the night to just be another night so I decided to keep a running diary.

5:00 p.m.
Work’s done. I grab my stuff, shove my headphones into my ears and head for the elevator. I run into a girl I work with who asks me if I’m up to anything tonight. I tell her my evening plans. I ask her what she’s doing tonight and she says “I don’t know. I hope there is something good on TV tonight.”

5:32 p.m. Get off the subway and start walking home. The entire subway ride I was thinking about buying cashmere. While at work, I overheard a girl tell her friends about receiving a cashmere sweater from her boyfriend to celebrate their 6 month anniversary. How sweet, I thought. Currently, I could buy a girl one used cashmere sock. Even though I’m not the type of person who thinks you show love, devotion and affection through money, I’m competitive. I also want to know I could buy a girl something luxurious, like cashmere, but won’t because I have less materialistic values.

5:33 p.m.
I decide I’m going to start saving every penny I can. I turn around and walk back to the grocery store and buy a can of black beans for $.80. “Genius,” I thought…”I’m going to be buying a one bedroom on Park Ave. by Christmas!”

5:50 p.m.
After eating a bowl full of beans and doing some rough calculations I discover that I would have to eat beans for roughly 87 years before I would be able to buy an apartment on Park Ave.

6:14 p.m.
I get a few phone calls and text messages from people asking if I can get them into the show. Unfortunately, I can’t. I’m lucky to be going myself. The show’s been sold out for over a month and there are at least 80 people who “expect” to get on the 30 person guest list.

7:04
Nap time. It’s going to be a late night and sleeping before is not only the best way to keep myself from dragging down, but it’s the best way to keep myself from drinking before hand.

8:23
Wake up to the sound of Nick and Steve playing the song they just wrote. It sounds like Strawberry fields on Methadone. They love it.

8:48
Time to get dressed. I want to look good, but not like I’m trying to look good…but I am trying…why wouldn’t I try? Are there people out there who really don’t try? Aren’t those people obviously not trying? Why is effort such a bad thing? It’s not a bad thing in sports. There’s at least one kid on every high school team who can’t do anything except try really hard? In the end I go with jeans, shirt and ripped up sports coat (more on that in a bit).

9:12
Nick, Steve and I are outside our apartment waiting for our car to pick us up. We have to move away from the pile of garbage on the curb because something smells dead. I tell the story about the time I almost tripped over a garbage bag with a sign on it that said “dead dog”. This leads to a discussion about how we would dispose of a dead dog’s body.

9:21
Cab comes and we’re heading over the Williamsburg bridge. Steve suggests that tonight would have been a great event for me to bring a date to since it would prove I’m not your average Joe-Six-Pack. Steve then changes the saying to Joe-Game-Cube.

9:23
I point out the Empire State Building is lighted with tan light. It’s a little too San Diego for me.

9:27
Get to the Bowery Ballroom and step into the gauntlet of security. Some clubs in cities like New York and LA go way over the top on security. You’ve got one guy to check your ID, another guy to give you your wrist band, another guy to separate you into ticket holder vs. non-ticket holder, another person to check your ID for the guest list and another person to issue your all access sticker. By the time you’re thru you feel like a criminal who is in danger of being tackled if you even think about dancing.

9:42
Get to the backstage area. It’s pretty calm so I grab a beer and take a seat on the leather couch. I survey the room. It’s filled with models, musicians…and a business analyst (me).

9:47
Mike sits down next to me and comments on my jacket. He says “did you just cut the shit out of that sports coat? It’s kinda cool.” I tell him that it was a double breasted jacket that fit well, but was too cheap to wear formally and too formal to wear casually. So…snip snip went the coat. Taking a line out of “Can’t Buy Me Love” Mike says (in a pee wee herman voice) “you took that coat from geek…to totally sheik.”

10:14
I guess Ill have another beer since I’m currently the third wheel in a conversation with Nick and Mike’s mother about a tennis match they had.

10:23
One more beer. I have to work in the morning.

10:27
Switch to whiskey.

10:33
Announce, “I’m having a really good time” to everyone in the backstage area. There’s an awkward pause as people can’t tell if I’m complaining or if I’m being honest.

10:43
Head down to the main floor to find a place to squeeze in. Steve and I find a place near the stage door. We run into Christian (more on him later)

10:47
Lights are lowered, music is turned up and people start cheering for the pulsating graphic on the screen that says Ratatat.

10:53
The cheering has stopped. People are getting anxious.

10:55
The DVD player goes into rest mode and the screen saver comes on. This gets a HUGE reaction from the audience.

10:57
The guys come out on stage. My brother, Jake, walks across the stage with a beer in one hand and a giant foam hand on the other (the ones you see at sporting events). He’s holding it over his head and is taunting the crowd.

11:21
The set’s going well and like any typical New York audience…no one is moving. I’m not excluded from this criticism as I spend most of my time looking stoic.

11:28
Mike points to some kid in the front row and gives him the “hey! Its you! face”.

11:31
After the song, Mike realizes the guy in the front row isn’t who he thought he was and apologizes by saying “I thought you were someone I knew…but you’re not”. Crushed.

11:37
I’ve noticed someone in the area I’m standing in is gassy. Every five minutes or so I’m taken out of the moment by an odd smell. To whom it may concern. Yes, you are in a crowd and no one knows it’s you, but you’re a smelly coward who has no regard for others. Buck up!

11:42
The premiere of the Somebody video. A few years ago, Christian, who is standing next to me at the show (could he be the gassy one??), started calling things and people Somebody. If a hat looked stupid, Somebody. If you drove a nice car, Somebody. Basically anything that Christian didn’t approve of was labeled Somebody. Well, it caught on and there isn’t anyone who knows Christian and doesn’t know Somebody. In-between one of the songs the video he made comes on the big screen. Basically, it’s him saying Somebody in about 20 different ways. All of us are cracking up, but everyone else who is seeing Christian for the first time on this screen is confused. This is when I realize that I’m surrounded by 480 strangers. One of which, is gassy.

11:51
The band comes out for their encore and play 17 Years. It’s their equivalent of Smells Like Teen Spirit. I’m sure Ratatat hates fans who only get excited to hear that song, but it’s such a good song that it will always be in the set list. E*Vax (the other full time member of Ratatat who does the beats, the bass, and all the video work that is timed perfectly with the music) puts on a foam finger and does the robot across the stage. This is the most animated I’ve ever seen him and I can only assume that he’s having a ton of fun.

12:14
Show is over and it’s time to get backstage (if for no other reason then to use the bathroom). Now the backstage is filled with people (most of which I don’t know) and people start asking “where’s the after party”. Because of my decision to nap earlier, I feel capable of continuing the night. However, because of my decision to nap earlier (and not drink before going out) I have enough sense to know where this night is heading and get ready to hop on the subway back to Brooklyn.

12:23
Find Jake packing up some gear. He tries to give me a foam finger (which say Ratatat on them, by the way) but I tell him that I’m taking the subway and that a giant orange finger might attract unwanted attention. I give him a hug and head off for the underground.

1:01
My thrifty route home is a no go because the MTA has decided to have the L train run for thirty minutes each day. I’m cabbing it home and that means either the apartment on Park Avenue will have to wait an additional 41 years or the people I was with tonight better hit it big and keep me on their shoulder.

 

Tight Overalls: No Deal

Posted on by patrickhmorris
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I can’t help but hate the show Deal or No Deal. It’s not that I especially dislike the concept or am thinking about how big of a joke Howie Mandel used to be, it’s because each contestant is so falsely confident. I’m sure the producers prep each contestant like this:Deal or No Deal

Producer: Ok, so no matter what number you pick…remember, you’ve got to act like you’re confident.

Contestant: But how can I be confident when I’m randomly picking numbers without any reasoning or method whatsoever.

Producer: Your telling me that picking the number 4 because you wore that number in little league isn’t a method?

Then Howie comes out and says, “If we think you’re unsure of where the million dollars is, we shoot your wife,” as the voice of Gizmo.

The reason these contestants’ false confidence irks me so much is because regular people have a problem making decisions. Whether it’s iced vs. hot coffee or express vs. local, making a decision is hard. At least, it’s hard for me because when I was 11 I learned that regret comes with two straps that go over your shoulders.

I’ve always been a saver. The idea of spending my money on pleasurable things instead of watching it sit and accumulate seemed ludicrous to me. When I was 11 my parents gave me $.50 every week for an allowance and I shoved those quarters into my pocket as if it were the Sarlacc pit – for non Star Wars dorks, that means it was meant to stay in there for a very long time.

Eventually, I gathered a small fortune in change and slowly strutted around with bulging pockets that looked like utters. I loved the effort it took to get up the stairs more than anything I could have bought.

Needless to say, I was not very cool. However, even while my pockets were seconds from splitting open, I wanted to be like Aaron Craig. Aaron Craig was the coolest of the 6th graders and as a lowly 5th grader, I looked up to him in awe. Everything he did seemed like it was the way things were meant to be done. If he were to drink chocolate milk at lunch, then drinking regular milk would be foolish. If he were to crap his pants, fall through a plate glass window and puke out dog food, than you’d better find some Alpo on the double quick.

One day, as I walked into school wearing a shirt inside out in a poor attempt to mask its smell, I saw Aaron hanging out by the water fountain wearing a pair of overalls. “Overalls?!” I said to him. “Don’t farmers wear those?”

It was true. Having lived my whole life twenty feet from a dairy farm, I was able to surmise that farmers always wore two things: 1) Overalls, 2) Cow shit.

Aaron turned his head and blankly stared down the hall. “They’re cool,” he said. “Guy from the Spin Doctors wears ‘em.”

I immediately started to panic. If this were true, I may never be able to redeem myself to Aaron. Not only would he realize I’m not up to date with fashion, but I also inadvertently proved my musical ignorance. I wanted to blurt out an obscure Red Sox fact like, “Jody Reed hit 45 doubles in 1990,” but there was no way to recover. I slinked away…jingling down the hall.

The following week, I went out with my mother shopping. I walked around the kids department, wondering where things had gone wrong. When did clothing other than a baseball uniform matter? Was I destined to be the grubby dirt ball my whole life and constantly apologize for it? I decided then and there, no. There was still time left and I could remake my smudged façade.

My hands moved furiously as I rifled through the little boys section. My parents hadn’t been big on buying their kids new clothes, but this time, “no” wasn’t an option. I would reason with my mother and then be stern with her. If those methods didn’t work, I would throw the Mount Everest of temper tantrums.

I’d almost gone through the first rack, when I came across the holy grail of “the new me” clothes – a pair of beautiful, stone washed overalls. If there was one moment I believed in god, this was it. My hands trembled as I reached for the price tag, ready to gauge what type of tantrum would be needed. When I flipped over the tag, I was met with something women across the world rate over money, love and sex: a giant red sticker that said “SALE.”

For some reason, the overalls had been marked down. Repeatedly! The original price of $39.99 had been slashed again and again until it sat here in my hands at $9.99.

My brain worked in hyper speed as I realized that not only could I talk my mom into buying these for me, but I didn’t need her at all. Six months of scrooge like savings sat in my pockets, ready to be dispensed for pleasure. I had never bought ANYTHING in my life and the realization I could live my own life and make my own decisions free of my parents made me shake with excitement.

I jogged over to the cash register and dumped $10 worth of quarters onto the counter. Once I heard the sound of the cash register opening, confirming my purchase, I ran out of the store feeling a lightness in my step (more from the lack of 40 quarters than the excitement of having purchased something).

When my mother saw me running out of the store with a pair of pants still attached to the hanger, she assumed I’d stole them. Through gasping breaths and broken sentences, I tried to explain, “No…Mom…It…I…Aaron…Spin Doctors…Money…Allowance…FREEEEDDDOOOOMM!!!”

The next morning, I shot out of bed to change into my new overalls. Immediately, I noticed they were a bit snug and for the first time in my life, noticed my penis. My other pants were considerably looser than these overalls and could be pulled down a little to relive some of the stress caused on said genitals. However, due to the very nature and design of overalls, pulling them down wasn’t an option.

I also noticed there was a considerable space between my shoes and the bottom of my pants. About five inches, I’d say. I could barely breathe and when I snapped open the left strap, it stood straight up instead of falling to a cool, casual position.

The kids at school were not impressed. Apparently buying overalls meant for toddlers wasn’t a way to gain credibility. Kids kept telling me my clothes were too tight, as if they’d solve the mystery of why I couldn’t take deep breathes. Of all the hurtful things kids said to me that day, the worst came from Aaron when he said, “Maybe you should have bought a pair of socks to put in the front there, Mosquito Dick.”

My attempt to be fashionable, independent and cool failed. That evening I went home, threw out my overalls and vowed to never buy anything ever again. I figured it was better to not try then to fail after effort.

Now, 16 years later, I still shop with the memory of those overalls. Every time I pick up an unconventional article of clothing I wonder if I’ll be at work having people ask me, “Is that made out of a tire,” or “Am I supposed to see your nipples?” For that reason, I remain conservative in my shopping habits.

So perhaps the people playing Deal or No Deal are confident because they know they have nothing to lose. Sure, they could miss out on some money and spend the rest of their days having strangers say, “I knew it was in case #8,” but never will they be haunted by the sound of overall fabric being stretched to its limits when sitting down. It’s a sound I hear whenever the wind blows.