by Rob Gunther
And she will. The explanation being, “My husband and I aren’t playing this game anymore. We’re done. Done-zo. Find somebody else to transfer line two to accounts payable.”
The bills will pile up, sure, and the cell phone service is going to get cut off and, yeah, it’ll take a while, but the city will eventually file all of that paperwork so the judge can order the marshals to forcibly evict us from our home and, whatever, that’ll take some time. Maybe something lucky will happen before we get the boot. Maybe we’ll open our arms to the universe and the universe will open its arms right back, that warm universal embrace you always see people posting about on Facebook.
Sure, we’d run out of food, eventually, but again, that wouldn’t be for a little bit, because we have so many cans of tuna, so many packets of dried pasta and beans. One time I read about this lady who lived a whole winter trapped in some house eating only an apple a day. She went crazy and didn’t make it out alive, but I don’t think it was the hunger that did her in, that’s the point I’m trying to make.
Actually, that’s a little morbid. Maybe we’ll run away before they kick us out, before the credit cards get cut off. We’ll find some commune somewhere, something a little culty but just slightly. Nothing dangerous, none of that weird group ritual stuff like you see on TV, just something in the middle of nowhere where everybody farms and maybe gets together at night around a big communal campfire and they sing songs and pass around some old guitar that one of the older members brought from when he left his life behind. And maybe there won’t be a B string, but we’ll make it happen, humming and singing along to stripped-down, bare-bones versions of all of our favorite nineties alt-rock hits.
And whoever winds up moving into our abandoned home, back here, back in our future-old life, or our still-current life, they’ll still get notices from all of the credit card companies and cell phone and cable providers, all with variations of the same message: “Pay up.” And you know how bill collectors are. They try to collect a bill. They can or they can’t. If they can’t, they sell it to somebody else for a little less, somebody who might be a little better at collecting. The more times it gets sold, the better the collector, but also the more dangerous, the crazier, the ones really willing to take those extra risks to collect. And so these new tenants will get all sorts of threatening letters, knocks on the door in the middle of the night, “Pay up you deadbeats!” written on a note wrapped around a brick and left outside the front door, the message here being, next time maybe we’ll throw this through the window. Or maybe we won’t, but the next level of debt collectors that we’ll be forced to sell your debt to, they’re definitely going to throw it through your window, and maybe it’ll be on fire.
Enough of that harassment, enough bills, enough of this modern world. It’s all enough to make anyone want to skip town for a while, to get away, to go live on some commune somewhere, whatever, I’ll even take a crazy cult commune. It’s not like these communes advertise on the Internet, and so if you’re looking for one, you just take it, because what are the chances that you’ll find another one any time soon? Before your supply of tuna runs out, and those dried beans, you didn’t really think about eating them on the road, how hard it would be to find a stove, somewhere to boil them for a long enough time to where they’re tender, palatable, and so, yeah, you probably should have bought canned beans. But canned tuna, canned beans, do you know how demoralizing that can be? Eating everything out of a can, every day, meal after meal, regardless of what’s inside, it always has a touch of that canned taste, like something metal, like something that’s been in there for a long, long time.
Virtual Insomnia
A couple of weeks ago I’m playing Call of Duty: Black Ops II. It’s your standard Team Deathmatch League Brawl, first team to seventy-five kills, you know the drill. Anyway, I’m tearing through some post-apocalyptic slum in Yemen when I see this enemy player surprise me from around the corner. I’m playing through the Internet, so it’s not just some predictable computer program I’m up against. This is a real person out there somewhere. And I’m reloading. He’s caught me by surprise, totally vulnerable. I’m dead. I think. But he doesn’t shoot. Maybe he’s reloading also. I’m getting anxious.
I’m like, come on, come on, faster, come on. But I’m all nerves, too trigger happy, and just as I’m done reloading, I accidentally hit the melee button, which, instead of firing, just kind of jabs a knife outward, totally useless unless you’re completely sneaking up on somebody. The knife isn’t even close, it only serves to waste another precious two seconds as my avatar sticks the blade out, adjusts his stance, and then cocks his gun again. I give up. No way would I be able to recover in time.
But I still don’t die. In fact, this guy isn’t even shooting at me. He’s just standing there. Is this a glitch? Have two random Internet gamers from around the world somehow stumbled upon each other in the ruins of this burnt out virtual building only to face each other, at the same point in time, totally unprompted, thinking to themselves, why? Enough, why play by these senseless, violent rules any longer? But then his character starts walking over and over again into a wall and so, yeah, he really is glitching. I take advantage of his apparent network difficulties, walk up really close, and hit the melee attack again.
But I don’t have too much time to celebrate, because I wake up, in my bed. The whole thing was a dream. I’m thinking it might be a sign, like the universe telling me something important might happen if I get up right then and start playing XBOX. So that’s what I do, I search every single map for a friend, somebody ready to lay down their arms with me, but nothing happens. I just waste a couple of hours getting my virtual ass blown up, hours that I really should have used for sleeping.
And the next day at work I’m so tired and cranky, and it must have been obvious, I must have been acting like a real dick, because my boss comes up to me at one point and says, “Knock it off. Either stop acting like a huge dick or I’m sending you home,” which, in hindsight, I probably should have taken advantage of, that opportunity, to go home early and sleep. But I’m thinking, no, that’s probably not a great idea for my long-term job prospects here. Also, if I go home and sleep now, I’m going to wake up at some point in the middle of the night. I’ll lie there and try to get back to sleep, but you know how it is once you’re awake. You’re awake. And maybe I’d try and kill some more time playing video games, just until I’m tired. But video games keep me up even if I’m really sleepy. And so yeah, I could just see my sleep schedule getting permanently altered, this, my new normal, tired and pissed off all day and virtual insomnia all night.
So I stick it out at work for the rest of the shift, really half-assing everything. When I get home, I immediately fall asleep, crash right on the couch, not even taking my shoes off or anything. And it’s even worse, because I wake up and it’s close to eleven-thirty. This is exactly what I was talking about, the abnormal sleeping patterns. I have to get up. I’m starving. I need dinner, something to drink. The next thing I know, it’s two in the morning. I’m wide awake, and I have to be at work again tomorrow.
So I start with the video games, not because I’m blind to the dangers of staying up all night playing Call of Duty, but because I’m freaking out, like I’m going to have to force myself to stay awake for a whole twenty-four hours, this night plus all day tomorrow, just to exhaust myself to the point where I can fall asleep at a decent hour and wake up again the next day like a regular human being. And so the video games are just, one, to keep me from freaking out any more, and two, to stay awake, because if I really do have to keep myself up for twenty-four hours, the only thing that will do the trick is this, the visual stimulation of futuristic Internet videogame warfare.
But hour after hour, right when the sun should be coming up, I feel my wits starting to slip, and the next thing I know I’m back in that same corner in Yemen, holding out in some bombed-out room, too nervous to head out into the open. And this guy comes in but he doesn’t see me.
I should have picked him off right there, he’s not shooting, obviously reloading, but I’m so tired, so totally out of it, my thumb’s not working right and I just keep walking into this wall, over and over again, and the guy stands there for a second – I’m starting to feel that connection again – before taking out his knife and offing me with a quick melee attack.
A bunch of movie reviews
I really don’t like Forrest Gump. I think it’s such a cheap trick, making basically this giant nostalgia video montage of pop culture and Americana. Look everybody, it’s the sixties! And now over here, it’s the seventies! And the eighties! Remember that? Remember the Beatles? Yeah? Remember Vietnam?
I didn’t like Saving Private Ryan either. Come on. And then what, he’s an old man at the end? Like the whole thing was a dream? Please. How do I know that it ever really happened? Old people have notoriously bad memories. You don’t think he didn’t spice up any of those stories over the years for dramatic effect? I do stuff like that all the time. I think about something that happened to me two years ago, and then I’ll think of it again, and I’ll be bored. It’s like watching the same episode of TV over and over again. So I add new stuff. That’s what’s going on in Saving Private Ryan. Or he could have been crazy.
I hated Toy Story. What kind of a parent gets their kid some lame-o cowboy action figure? When I was a little kid, it was WWF action figures, or Ghostbusters action figures, or superheroes. Not some generic cowboy. And then you pull that rope and he’s like “Yee-haw!” right? What kind of a name is Woody? At least Buzz Lightyear had some sort of a back-story, a cool marketing trick that made me believe kids would actually want to own one. But a cowboy? I already said it. Lame.
You know which other three hours of my life I’ll never get back? That time I went to see Castaway. Honestly, I thought the volleyball was the best part of that whole movie. It was definitely the best actor. You could actually see the pain on its face as it was forced to endure all of those mind-numbingly boring years stranded on the island. It got to the point where the ball finally killed itself, drifted off to the sea, just to get away from that wacko. I actually would have much preferred a movie with just the volleyball, sitting there, no other actors, no dialogue, nothing. That would have been better than Castaway.
Hold on. I just started thinking about Apollo 13 and I had to suppress the vomit sensation growing in the back of my mouth. It’s just lazy. You’re going to make a movie about space, about space travel, about the moon, and you pick the one mission where they screw it up so badly they don’t even get to land? Way to applaud failure. That whole film should have been condensed to a blooper reel that would have played at the end of a real movie about a space flight that actually succeeded. And why go historical? What’s wrong with sci-fi? I probably would’ve much rather just seen another Star Trek movie. Is it too late to call up the movie theater and demand a refund?
You ever see that movie Big? Do me a favor. Do yourself a favor. If you haven’t seen it, don’t. It’s two hours of a grown man pretending he’s a little kid. Talk about boring. It’s just encouraging everyone to act like an idiot. They should make movies about little kids that act like adults. That way there’s no screaming or crying or throwing temper tantrums or being spoiled little babies. And we should force our children to watch these movies, so they learn how to behave.
The other day I was channel surfing, and this one channel was playing Splash. Mermaid movies? Give me a break. So I flipped the channel. The Money Pit. Fantastic. Let’s watch some stupid married couple bicker over home-improvement projects gone bad. Flipped the channel again. I didn’t even wait for the image to pop up. The cable box told me it was some movie called Joe vs. the Volcano. Nice try, cable TV. Trying to get me to watch the unwatchable.
I thought, forget it, I’ll just watch a sitcom, something classic, a sure thing. I turned on one of those repeat channels and Taxi was on. Perfect. The episode had some larger story, but this one scene revolved around Jim, the coked out bum that, well, did that guy drive taxis? That seems a little dangerous. Anyway, they did a flashback to his college days, how he was really smart, a genius, but then some idiot roommate made him eat a pot brownie and he instantly turned into a junkie. It was the worst. Not the story, but the actor, the nobody that they got to play the roommate. What a terrible casting decision. I know it was only a one-minute role, if that, but come on, have some respect for the show. That no-talent hack ruined an otherwise great episode.
Career Day
Tightrope walking? That doesn’t sound so hard. Oh, wow, look at me everybody, I’m walking over a wire and I’m holding a big stick. Please. I don’t think it’s that hard to walk in a straight line. I do stuff like that all the time. I always walk on the curb, you know, if I’m on a really big sidewalk. It’s basically the same idea. I already said this, but all you’re doing is walking in a straight line. I don’t see why tightrope walkers get to be famous and I don’t. Well, I guess tightrope walkers don’t really get to be that famous, not super famous. There’s that one documentary that got popular a few years ago, the one about that guy who tightrope walked over the Twin Towers in the 1970s. But even him, I don’t remember his name. He was French. He had a French name. Something like Frederique or Dominique, or Filipique. I don’t know. I don’t get French. But yeah, I barely remember anything about that guy at all, and I actually watched the movie, and I liked it. I thought it was inspirational, something that was going to stick with me. But I guess it didn’t. Being French, that doesn’t sound so hard either. You just have to smoke a lot of cigarettes and not tip your waiter anything at all.
Archeology? Come on. That doesn’t sound very hard at all. I can’t believe that’s even a real job. I could be an archeologist. I could be a pro archeologist. Step one: find some field somewhere in the middle of nowhere, preferably in a foreign country. Step two: pitch a tent, buy a khaki vest, one with a lot of pockets, and a big floppy khaki hat. Get some khaki pants while you’re at it. Oh and hiking boots. Something tough, rugged. Something you can only buy at hiking stores. Something khaki. Step three: start digging. That’s basically it. You dig. When you don’t feel like digging anymore, or when you only feel like digging some of the time, while still getting all of the credit that goes with being a pro archeologist, go to some university, solicit a bunch of interns, make them do all of the digging. And while you’re at it, have them make you a tall glass of freshly squeezed lemonade, lots of ice, in a big glass pitcher, extra credit for those little umbrellas.
When they’re not digging for you, complain about how they don’t spend enough time digging, how if you want to go pro, you have to keep digging, that this is a digging man’s job. Or woman’s job. Pro archeology is one of the few professions that totally destroys the gender gap. When they are digging, get in their faces, complain about their lack of finesse, make them dig slower, give them comically small shovels, even tinier brushes. Make them stop digging for an entire day and switch entirely to brushing. If they complain, throw your hands in the air and proclaim that maybe they don’t have what it takes for this profession.
Step four: when, after years of digging, after countless hours spent in that hole you’ve dug up, with no dinosaur bones, not even one arrow head to point to, when the university starts inquiring as to what exactly you’re doing out there, out in the field, when they threaten to start withholding interns unless you show some results, a paper maybe, some sort of academic something, go to their offices and throw your hands in the air the same way you did with the interns. Tell them archeology is a slow business. That you need patience. That you need more interns with more floppy hats, with even more khaki.
Chiropractors? Jesus. Let me tell you a story about a little boy who dreamed about being a masseuse. All he wanted to do was to grow up to give massages for a living, to run his hands across the backs and necks and legs and arms of everybody in the world, easing their physical tension, soothing their aches and pains, making the world a better place, one muscle k
not at a time. But he was terrible. Everyone he touched winced in pain. He just couldn’t get it right. And just as he was about to give up completely, to look in the mirror and say, “Enough, it’s time for a new dream,” he was approached by a chiropractor.
And the chiropractor said, “Wait! You! The boy who wants to be a masseuse, the boy who hurts and scars everybody he touches. You don’t have to give up your dream. You just have to call yourself a chiropractor. You get to do all of the stuff you already do, and people will pay you. Plus, you get to call yourself a doctor without having to sit through even one hour of medical school!”
What am I doing wrong? There’s a whole world out there. A whole world of bullshit professions that I could probably master in my sleep. Anesthesiologist. Interior decorator. Comptroller. Certified public accountant. I just have do it. I just have to get out there and start walking on straight lines and smoking cigarettes or digging big holes and wearing khaki or cracking people’s backs and taking x-rays. I’ve got to spend less time writing about how easy all of this stuff is and more time actually doing it. But I’d probably get bored. Because none of this stuff sounds very hard at all. And when would I get to play XBOX? Or Wii? Or enjoy a glass of wine? Or a bottle of wine? Or a bottle of bourbon? There has to be some bullshit job that incorporates all of this nonsense into one livable profession.
Andre’s grandmother just died
Andre’s grandmother just died. We hadn’t spoken in months, but when I heard the news, I really felt like I should maybe reach out, try to offer my condolences. I didn’t want to call him up, because we always have this tendency to play phone tag and then get in fights. None of that’s really important. Not now. I figured, OK, I’ll just go to the wake. I’ll just show up and be there for him.