Holy
crap in a Bundt pan...
Due to the
recent well-publicized shortage of
amateur websites produced by assholes who consider themselves to be
clever, I
have been called into action. My name is Jeff Kay, and I’m an
Ugly American living
on the cusp of a mid-life crisis, near Scranton, PA. And I’m here to
serve, baby.
The
State of My Fat Ass A journal of
sorts, updated every once in a while.
--
On Saturday morning Toney came upstairs and woke me by prodding my back
fat, the preferred method. I groaned loudly, wallowed around in the
covers for a while, then finally extracted my heft from the dormancy
platform. Another day of uncertainty was upon me. Or something.
I found my gigantic sleeping pants on the floor, and pulled them
on. There might've been a minimal amount of scratching and
"adjusting" at this point as well. As I was preparing to exit
the room, Toney returned. She was telling me about something she'd read
in the newspaper that morning and, still loopy on the sleep, I flopped
down on the corner of the bed to listen.
And the whole thing collapsed.
There was a loud cracking noise, the sound of wood exploding, and
everything was suddenly on a slant. The corner near the footboard, on my
side, had given way, and I was now sitting in a hole with my knees above
my head. The corresponding corner, near the headboard on Toney's side,
was way up in the air. I don't think my wife stopped laughing until
shortly before lunch.
Screw that, I muttered, I'll deal with it later, and made my way to the
nearest pee-catcher. I'd enjoyed a few pints of the golden elixir the
night before, and that had resulted in a familiar urgency. I stood there
and took care of the problem, then flushed. And right away I saw that
something wasn't quite right.
Instead of the expected roar of power, there was only a tiny GULP when I
pushed down the handle. It sounded like a man with a mild case of the
dry heaves. Then the water started swirling lazily -- and rising! Holy
crap!! I began howling in protest, and right before my panicked eyes a
small turdlet appeared, as if by magic, and rose to the top. It was
roughly the size of a Super Ball, and was rotating round and round,
seemingly above the rim.
"Water" came rushing over the sides, and across my feet, and I
looked around to see if, by any chance, Allen Funt was convulsing with
laughter behind a partition. What the hell, man?? This had never
happened before. Who'd unleashed something so large as to obstruct, you
know, sewer pipes? The Secrets! I ran downstairs and retrieved the
plunger, and put that ridiculous thing to work for a while. Then I
mopped the bathroom floor, and finally made my way to the kitchen
for my first cup of coffee.
Needless to say, Toney was having a great
time with it all. I'd only been awake for ten minutes, and was already
collapsing beds and overflowing toilets.... It was like a Buster Keaton
movie come to life.
I sat in the living room with a piping hot mug of good ol' Eight O'Clock
bean coffee, and talked with the family for a while. I asked the boys
what they'd eaten the night before, but neither of them would take
credit for sealing off the waste removal system. Kids today.... The
oldest suggested that I might've been the culprit. "Maybe your
pee's too thick?" he said. I didn't really know what to say to
that.
Eventually I made my way to the bunker, and turned on the computer. And
a godawful buzzing noise filled the room, causing me to duck and cover.
The shit?? It sounded like it was coming from the front of the computer
tower, and it was loud. I frantically shut the thing down, before there
was a fire. Or an explosion.
I couldn't believe it. It was literally one thing after another. And now
my computer?! Oh, I can't live without that thing, especially at this
particular point in time. I convinced myself it was a simple issue with
a fan or somesuch, and tried to push away the nasty thoughts about the
hard drive buying the farm.
Hoping the problem had magically corrected
itself I hit the power button, and the horrible screeching started all
over again.
Sweet sainted mother of Big Bob Pataki.
I managed to take a shower without slipping and falling,
and caving my skull in. Then I called a computer repair shop near our
house. For some reason I believed they were only open Monday through
Friday, but a man answered. I told him what was going on, and he said
he'd be there until four o'clock and would be happy to take a look at
it. But, he warned, I might have to leave the computer with him for a
few days. My ass was already starting to hurt.
The shop is located next to a strange little cigar store with a barber
chair in the middle of it. I'm not kidding, I once got a haircut there.
The barber had been outside when I arrived, repeatedly revving the
engine on a motorcycle for some reason. The woman behind the counter
told me to have a seat, then hollered through the screen door and told
the old guy he had a customer.
While I waited a man who looked like Travis Tritt came in and bought two
boxes of cigars, as I sat high atop a 1940's barber chair. Travis gave
me a little nod and left, as if it were a normal everyday occurrence.
The
barber smelled like gasoline, and proceeded to scalp me down to the raw
skin with some sort of huge vibrating box that was throwing off sparks
and making halting noises. I thought the whole place would surely go up
in flames, and was relieved to walk away with only the worst
haircut of my life.
Anyway, the computer repair shop is next door to that place, and I went
inside fearing the worst. The man popped off the cover, and said,
"Christ! It's a wonder this thing will work at all." Everybody
loves to yell Christ! up in these parts.
He was referring to all the dust. It looked like the floor of the tower
had been carpeted, and all the parts above it appeared furry. It
embarrassed me, but who vacuums the inside of their computer tower? He
grabbed a can of pressurized air, and took it and my machine outside.
Then he began kicking up a great mushroom cloud of dust. People driving
by in cars were doing double-takes and almost rear-ending each other.
Oh, it was a sight to behold.
Finally, he plugged the computer in, and it immediately began it's
terrible howling. It's the floppy drive, he said, without hesitation.
Then he unplugged something, and the noise stopped. I told him I don't
use floppy discs anymore, so he just changed the setting to "not
installed," and that was that.
I went home and fixed the bed, plunged the toilet again just to be sure,
and everything was back to normal by early afternoon.
And it had all looked so bleak on Saturday morning.
--
On Saturday morning Toney came upstairs and woke me by prodding my back
fat, the preferred method. I groaned loudly, wallowed around in the
covers for a while, then finally extracted my heft from the dormancy
platform. Another day of uncertainty was upon me. Or something.