(no subject)

This afternoon I keep hearing strange noises, like something banging around on the roof. I've asked a couple of people if they've been hearing it, and they matter-of-factly (is that a word?) say yeah, like "Sure, I hear strange noises, but what of it?" Well, hell, I don't know what of it, but don't you think it's a little weird? There are loud bumping noises going on and people are just sitting there as if nothing's happening.

I remember one night at Burger King in Starkville I kept hearing screams. The building is a really strange one--it's a big-ass log cabin that originally housed a bank. It has two floors and a lot of different rooms. Anyway, one night there were these screaming noises, and no one could figure out where they were coming from. So naturally I abandoned my post and went all over the building looking for who or what it might be. I couldn't find any explanation. I even went outside and walked all around, but out there I couldn't hear the screams. Then I walked back in and heard them right away. Finally I said fuck it and went back to work at the front register. One of my customers was this humongous guy who came in with two girls. And he heard the screams and got really spooked. He demanded to know what it was, and I couldn't tell him, 'cuz I didn't know. I think he was about ready to leave without ordering, but the screams went away for a minute and he went ahead and ordered his food. A few minutes later, our night porter, James, came to work, and we were hanging out at the front counter talking about the screams. Just then, humongous dude burst out of the ladies' room, and he was SPOOKED. He was drenched with sweat, and he had a terrified look on his face. James said, "Hey, man, you was in the girls' room!" Dude glanced at him, said, "Yeah, I know," and got the fuck out of the building.

I never did figure out what that noise was, and I never heard it again after that night. I wonder if it was coming from the ladies' room. I don't think so, because the screams happened over the course of a couple of hours, and certainly someone would have said something if there had been something weird going on in there. And I think I probably sent a co-worker in there to look while I was investigating, so . . . I don't know. But what was humongous dude doing in the ladies' room?

I suspect Velveeta. Oh, wait, wrong job.

(no subject)

Yikes. I just looked up and found an intern from another department standing right beside me holding out a jacket for me to take. (I guess that's who she was; it was the first time I'd ever laid eyes on her.) Scared the living shit out of me. I took it, politely said "thank you," and watched as she walked away without a single word. I wonder how long she'd been standing there. I wonder if she'd been reading what I was typing. I wonder if she's mute.

true confessions of childhood stupidity

In the sixth grade or so I had a friend who referred to pubic hair as "venereal hair." Hell, I guess he didn't know any better. His parents weren't exactly the type to explain that kind of stuff.

Way back in junior high, my homies and I tried smoking peanut skins for a buzz. Didn't work worth a damn. Years later we tried eating marigold seeds because we'd heard it would give you an LSD-like trip. Didn't work worth a damn.

The first porno movie I ever saw was this '70s-ass flick with music that sounded just like the tune from "The Little Rascals." Oh, wait, that's not true. The first porno movie I ever saw was a softcore edit of Sex World on closed circuit in the hotel room on a ninth-grade school trip. I still have an audio tape of the psychedelic theme song ("Sex World, go on a spree, Sex World, do it with meeeeeeeee!") that we made with Fool's boom box. And the next morning, Stymie, our teacher, triple-charged us for it. It was graft, pure and simple. We had to pay the woman; we didn't want to risk her telling our parents. And the next day we were wandering around all giddy from no sleep the night before, and we kept forgetting the name of the movie we'd seen--and when we did remember, we couldn't pronounce it. "What was the name of that movie again? Sex Earth? No. . . . Oh yeah, Sex Wol-red! Sex Wol-red, go on a spree . . ."

In the fifth grade I heard talk of kids asking one another to "go together." I always wondered, "Go where?"

Evan Fager and I used to astound our first-grade classmates by telling them that we weren't normal because we didn't watch cartoons. Oh, no no no--we were much too cool for that. We were into KISS. (But really, what's more cartoonish than KISS?) Twelve years later, my classmates were having normal freshman years while I was skipping class to get baked and watch Warner Bros. cartoons. Funny how these things work.