Plunge to Hunger

Support the Habit Blog #3


First off, let me tell you about my complete turnaround from complete jubilation to the frustrating pain and “embarrassment” that I went through from Tuesday to Wednesday. After that we’ll get into the absurdity of the vending machine and how they’re still around.


Reality Killed the Television Star
But something has been bothering me lately. I don’t know that it’s necessarily a bad thing because I will probably be able to focus more on writing, but I can really see an end to me having favorite TV shows and movies to look forward to in the next few years. Now, I have no idea what’s being developed in terms of TV shows, but I do know that pretty much everything I like is dying off and everything I don’t like is getting strong. I’m not a big fan of reality TV. Everything is so staged and so scripted and yet it’s supposed to trick me into thinking this stuff is real. I don’t buy the little speeches on the Bachelor and Bachelorette. Before you stop reading this because I just mentioned these shows, let me explain.

Yes, I do watch these two shows… kind of. Val, the love of my life actually is obsessed with these two shows and in turn I watch them with her. In fact, we make it a Bachelor night and usually invite over Kristin, our friend, and if Andy (the wife/roommate) can manage to put some clothes on, he’ll usually join us too. Val is so insane about this show that we’re only allowed to raise our hands three times each to make comments about the show. We raise our hand, she doesn’t notice it’s up, someone makes a comment that a hand is up, she pauses the TiVo, and then we get to rip on these people. It’s actually pretty fun. I’ve even figured out a way to work the system by counting my comments as half-comments so I get twice as many.

I actually don’t pay attention with the Bachelorette because the show is terrible and it just doesn’t work with 25 guys going after some girl. The dynamics and the “drama” just doesn’t measure up to the Bachelor with 25 crazed, man-hungry bitches are trying to force themselves into feelings for a rich single guy so that they can win essentially a game show where the prize is that they get to have a relationship 6 months after filming this show that will last approximately 3 weeks until the two part ways and find their fame in tabloids. I do actually enjoy watching the Bachelor for two reasons:

1) It’s hilarious to me the dynamics of how the girls act on this show. They all get mad because some girl is trying to get all of the time with the guy and won’t share. It gives an unfair advantage allegedly. They complain that these girls treat this like it’s a competition. It’s a FUCKING game show! It IS a competition! There is only one winner at the end of series. Not 25. It’s like Slut March Madness. They trick themselves into thinking that they love these guys after spending approximately an hour and a half total in terms of alone time by the time their ass gets sent home.

2) I love when they get sent home. I love how they cry and wonder why this guy doesn’t want him. You want to know why? You wouldn’t blow him during your one on one time. The slutty girls who are able to hide it when everybody else is around always manage to survive for way too long. You know why? Because they give it up. That’s why. And there’s no way you love this guy after 10 minutes with him. You love the fame and pomp and circumstance of the whole process. But most importantly, you love his money and the fact that you won’t have to go back to dying hair or managing an apartment building when the final episode ends. These guys are rich and you can’t tell me that if they were the exact same person, but with a minimum wage job that they would still be in love with this jackass. I love when they cry because they thought their life was some fairy tell ending. Well, wake up Cinderella; someone needs you to touch up their roots.

(One more thing – my favorite thing to do during the rose ceremonies when girls get sent home is yell, “Rip that bitches heart out!” It makes the show a lot of fun.)

Anyway, back to the lecture at hand. The Shield is one of my favorite shows of all time and once FX finally puts the new season on TV this fall or next spring, it will be the end of the show. This is the final season and considering the Shield is ending, Scrubs ended, and the Office can really only have about 2 years tops of great TV, I’m left with nothing entertaining on TV. I will not be someone that watches the reality shows just to watch something. That’s what sports are for. I guess, it’s not a big issue, but it’s somewhat troubling nonetheless.

Tuesday Was Awesome
This section won’t be very long but it shows you the jubilation I felt before the frustration. I’m not going into the Celtics victory because 1) it is well documented on Talkhoops.net and 2) I feel bad because I know what Phillip’s going through and I don’t want him to stop reading this post. You can read about it here (by the way, Yahoo posted a link to it!). But to wake me up that day was the news that the Mets fired Willie Randolph. I hate the Mets and I respect Willie Randolph so I was pretty annoyed when the Mets hired him as the manager a couple years ago. Willie’s a really smart man and if given the proper players and not some overpaid, under-talented douche bags like the Mets employ now, I have no doubt that the Mets would win multiple World Series.

So needless to say that a day in which the Mets fall into even greater internal turmoil and Kevin Garnett wins a championship was something that had me riding high.

Wednesday Not So Awesome
This won’t be very long either but it was what encompassed my whole day of frustration and my current morning. I’m in a lot of pain right now. I’m usually in a lot of pain because of my bad knee, which literally hurts at all times of the day, but I can deal with that by now. I can usually just focus my attention away from my knee so I can deal with it for most of the day. However, pain anywhere else usually gets more attention from my brain.

The pain that I suffered yesterday morning was a fluke accident but resulted in some embarrassment. I won’t get into my job but let’s just say occasionally for my job, I have to be in court as a clerk/bailiff and that means that I dress in a suit (looking like MIB most times) and have to talk to judges and lawyers all day. So it’s recommended that I look nice when I do so, hence the Tommy Lee Jones suit. Well, yesterday morning as I do every morning, I took the dog back upstairs to get in bed with Val and kneeled beside the bed to say goodbye. As Brown Bear usually does, he jumped up onto the bed and this time kept trying to sit on Val. Finally, he jumped up on her and managed to scratch her because we need to get his nails clipped. Then all hell broke loose.

Because of the nails into Val’s skin, she reacted by pushing the dog off of her. Unfortunately she pushed him into the direction that I was kneeling and the dog was unable to prevent himself from flying off of the bed. His head came crashing into my mouth and against my nose, which felt about as good as the time I tried to cut the plastic off a syrup bottle with a knife and the knife slipped right into the skin between my right thumb and my right index finger (I let go of the knife and it just stayed in there upright, not fun). When BB’s head hit my mouth, it caused my front tooth to slice into inside of my mouth and cut the inner skin behind my upper lip. This wouldn’t be so terrible except for the fact that my tooth was stuck in the skin and it wouldn’t come out. I yelped out something like “Oh fuck” and fell to the floor. I took my hands away from my face to see blood on my fingers and began running to the bathroom as I released the vice-like grip that my mouth had on my tooth.

When my tooth came out of the back of my lip, the blood starting pouring out and my nose began to drip blood as well. Luckily, I rushed over to the sink, dripped blood on the tile floor instead of our bedroom carpet, and didn’t get any blood on my dress shirt. I was able to stop the blood from coming out of my nose and my mouth eventually stopped bleeding. However, my upper lip grew to about 3 times the size as normal. It looked like the exact opposite of Kendrick Perkins’ upper lip. So I was standing in the mirror, willing the blood away from my dress clothes, and looking at an upper lip that would look like I got into a bar fight with some tool singing Journey, which would lead to a day of, “Ya, but you should’ve seen the other guy” jokes.

So all day, I could see people staring at my lip and wondering if there was a proper way to bring it up or if it was just more socially acceptable for me to ask them for their business card and case information as they map out the blueprints for a skyscraper on my upper lip. I understand that I looked like half of Jay-Z’s mouth (I hope that doesn’t come off as racist) but I still have eyes. So I’ve been guilt tripping Val ever since and trying to figure out ways to eat without pain. It hasn’t been a fun way to spend the past 30 hours, but I did discover that Rold Gold pretzels are the way to go after a fight with your dog’s skull.

Vending Machines
Speaking of Rold Gold pretzels, what in the hell is keeping vending machines around? Is it simply the fact that office buildings have to have them by law? I was too hungry to not eat lunch today and too lazy to actually go get food, so I shot up a floor at work and went to the vending machines to get a snack to tide me over. As I’m looking at the crap that they shove into these things, I started wondering two things: 1) what in the hell would I even want to eat right now because these options look like ass and 2) why are these machines acting like the Terminator and just not dying off?

I decided that I’d get my drink first and then decide. I was in desperate need of caffeine but since I don’t drink coffee, I knew I had to go with a soda. Nothing was going to pick me up like a nice cold can of Coke. So I popped my money into the machine, and boom, no Coke left. Of course there was still Pepsi, Cherry Coke, Rootbeer, Brisk Ice Tea (Huh?), and Canada Dry. Well, I sure as hell don’t drink Pepsi. I never understood kids that drank Pepsi over Coke. Was it the fact that Pepsi had Britney Spears’ tits selling cans back when she was relevant? It tastes like a Fun Dip drenched in pancake syrup. I don’t like Cherry Coke. I like Coke with Cherry syrup added but not the pre-packaged product.

I still don’t understand why the Brisk was there. Who orders that? I wouldn’t mind having Iced Tea, but I would never drink it out of a can like that. So it was between Rootbeer and Canada Dry, which of course means that it was between Rootbeer and nothing. Canada Dry? I’m not a 50-year old woman with hot flashes and bowel troubles so I’m not drinking Ginger Ale voluntarily. Mug Rootbeer won out by default. Then I went over to the snacks vending machine and looked for something to tide me over. And this is the problem with vending machines. Half of the damn machine is filled with candy bars that nobody wants (there’s like 4 good ones in there) along with chewing gum, pop tarts, and cookies or chips. Pop tarts sounded good but I don’t eat breakfast products after 10am so they were out. Then I spotted the Rold Gold Pretzels.

I haven’t had Rold Gold Pretzels since I was screaming along with the kids on the TV, “Donna Martin graduates!” I remember the old commercials with Jason Alexander and his bald stubby head trying to sell these pretzels. I remember being mesmerized by the word “gold” in the name. So I went with the Rold Golds, took my rootbeer, and looked for one more item. I looked to the machine on the left and saw an inside that looked like it hadn’t been wiped down since Tombstone was the biggest comedy in America. I looked at the contents of the machine. There was a Cup o Noodles, lunchables (apparently I work at a grammar school), and milk. Milk?!? That’s disgusting. I decided to avoid anything from Spore Central and went back to my Rold Gold machine. I decided to finish this off with a Twix and call it a morning.

But if you read what my options were, the question remains, “why the hell are vending machines around still?” They don’t have anything truly worth buying and unless I get there before 10 am for a Pop Tart, how do people even make money off owning those things? Why not put that money towards lawn care, day care, or buying a parking lot? Those seem like businesses that can produce some coin. Vending machines need to step their game up, not run out of Coke, and get a disinfectant wipe slapped across them every once in a while.

Because unless my legs are broken, I’m not going back. By the way, the Rold Gold’s delivered.

Word Count to Date - 7,270