Author Archives: Sean

Is This Thing On?

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Been a while, huh? What happened?

Me? I was in Germany. For eight years! I hardly wrote about it. I was having too much fun. Four years in Düsseldorf and another four in Berlin now seem like a couple of long weekends spent bar hopping.

I am back in the US now. (With my wife! How ’bout that?)

No, I don’t think we’re getting the band back together (though the band is and always will be welcome to post here).[1] I hear occasionally from posthumous and Jim. Gosh knows what Annna is up to.[2]

Things sure have changed. What happened to all the sites we used to pal around with? The other E/N sites? Remember that? “E/N”? Before people said “blog”? Sex Sex World seems to belong to cyber squatters. Portal of Evil now informs us that the newly-installed Red Hat Linux web server is functional. At least Six Six Five’s still up, though also, it seems, under a thick layer of dust.

I wonder what’s up with the old gang.

Did Jack ever find his hat? Is Wyatt still as tough as he used to be? Is zeP cheating on posthumous with another cartoonist? Has Gary Smee calmed down any?

What has happened to the King of Prussia?[3]

How about the rest of you?[4] Anyone still checking this? What’s going on?

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Jack

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Jack sat next to me in band in 7th grade, and was one of the other two tenor sax players.  A bit on the bulky side, he always had a nice, tucked in shirt; hair that was gelled and tousled into big, brown, care-free locky curls; and those blue blue eyes that I swear to God you only ever see on stupid people — so pale and watery as to be almost transparent, allowing one to look right through them as though they were glass and see that, yes, there is indeed nothing behind them.

Jack talked about farts.  A lot.  To him, farts were the pinnacle of comedic genius, which isn’t so unusual among 7th grade boys, except that they were also apparently always, always on his mind.  Hardly a rubber sole of some idle, bored foot could be rubbed against the floor by anoyher student without Jack, upon hearing the vaguely-fart-like-yet-obviously-not-a-fart sound, loudly asking “who beefed it?!” and giggling maniacally.  (I still do not understand why “beefing it” is supposed to be slang for farting.   I have never heard it from anyone other than Jack.  His fart-synomym vocabulary was as extensive as it was perplexing.  He once inquired as to who “blew chunks,” which I had always assumed meant “to vomit,” and still to this day shudder to think that farting, to him, was a function which apparently involved “chunks” being “blown” as a matter of course.)  Spending an hour a day with him in a room full of students with tubas, trumpets, and other farty-sounding brass instruments was almost unbearable.

One day, Jack came to class and, making sure nobody was listening, said he wanted to show me something.  He withdrew something from his pocket, real slow and sly-like.  It was a folded up piece of college-ruled notebook paper with a plastic handle sticking out.  He grabbed the handle and pulled it from the paper to reveal: a kitchen steak knife.  It was then I realized that the folded paper was in fact a home-made sheath for this awesome weapon, which I should have realized sooner as Jack had written “JACK’S HELL-RAISER” on it in blue ink.

I don’t recall a day going by where I did not want to punch him in the face.

Have you known a loser like Jack?  Tell us about it!  Send in a short (no more than 500 words) description to editors@thingsihate.org to see your words of anger right here in print.

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More Hitler

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Setting:

11th grade English class.  Mrs. G sits in front of the students discussing some fascinating (and probably incorrect) aspect of the English language that took place during the late 1930s.


Mrs. G: …and at the same time in Europe, Hitler was starting to do his thing…

Sean (quietly to Anna): Doin’ that Hitler thing.

Anna: Doin’ that funky Hitler thing.

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Hitler Dream

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I’d come back in time to observe first-hand the upper-workings of the Third Reich.  Like I was some kind of time-journalist.

The Nazis let me accompany Hitler on a whirlwind PR tour across Germany.  He’d show up, give one of his rousing speeches, then his entourage would retire to some private party for champagne and finger food.

Somehow, Hitler knew about his eventual defeat, and going down in history as the most evil man ever, and that as a traveler from the future I’d know about this.  He seemed really embarrassed about it.  Sheepish, almost.  He kept trying to make me like him by telling me jokes, slapping me on the back and being an all-around jovial guy.

He also endorsed products.  After each speech, which was typically Hitler-screamy, he’d say, in English and in a smooth 1950s-style radio announcer voice, “By the way, friends, did you know I’ve never had a more comfortable pair of shoes? Yes, that’s right, and they’re available at a very reasonable price at Karstadt department store.”

Eva Braun was part of his group, and sat behind and slightly to the side of him during his speeches.  I had always thought they didn’t flaunt the relationship, but apparently I was wrong.  She looked way younger than I thought, and cracked her chewing gum and wore a miniskirt and pink tights — the kind that aren’t connected at the top but are more like really long socks made of tights-material.  (Not being a tights-wearer, I’m not sure if such hosiery actually exists.)  She kept sticking her left hand down her left tights-leg and resting it there, stretching out the material.  You could tell Adolph’s handlers wanted to tell her to quit fidgiting, but nobody wanted to risk pissing off The Führer’s girlfriend.

At one after-speech party, glasses of Sekt in-hand, Adolph took me aside and said in a low voice that he wanted to let me in on a secret: the plans for the upcoming Denmark/Norway dual-invasion.  He pulled a worn piece of paper out of his pocket, and unfolded it.  On it was a map of northern Europe, hand-drawn in pencil, with a series of northerly-pointing arrows drawn over Denmark and then bending slightly into Norway.  At the top was written “PROJEKT VOGEL” (“PROJECT BIRD”).  Beaming with pride at his plans, he asked me what I thought.  I asked him if it was to be an air campaign, and he said “No, we’ll hit them with everything we’ve got!” and smacked his right fist into his left open palm.  I asked him why it was called Project Bird, then, because that would imply flying or doing something in the air.  He looked confused for a second, then an expression of realization set in on his face, and he said he could see why I’d think that.

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The Laundy Room and the Panties (and the Bras)

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[Ed.: Scribbled into a notebook lost and now found, this must have been composed somewhere around October of 1998.]

Two weeks ago, I was doing my laundry in the Wilson laundry room.  I noticed a red pair of panties on the floor between two washing machines.

One week ago, I was doing my laundry in the Wilson laundry room.  I noticed a blue and white checkered pair of panties on the floor between two washing machines.

That’s a 100% panty-on-the-floor rate during my visits over the past two weeks.  Going off this average, I’d have to assume that some girl loses a pair of undies in the wash every day.

Perhaps that number is a bit high, but obviously there’s a problem with panties getting lost in the laundry room here.

I really hate when people walk off and leave their clothes in the washer or dryer and forget about them.  Especially the dryer.  It’s a common practice here, if all the dryers are full and some of them have some stranger’s dry clothes just sitting idle inside, to take the forgotten clothes out and set them on top of the dryer, so that the dryer can be used.

This would not be a problem for me if the dryer was just full of jeans and t-shirts, but they never are.

<open dryer> “Panties.” <close dryer>

<open dryer> “Panties.” <close dryer>

<open dryer> “Panties. Bras.” <close dryer>

<open dryer> “Panties.” <close dryer>

Despite the inherent drooling-perviness I’d feel touching some strange girl’s undergarments, it would not help matters to have said girl walk in to gather her laundry and find me with a handful of her panties — especially with the evident panty-loss that takes place here.

“I was just setting them on top of the machine so I could use the…”

“It’s the panty thief!  Get him girls!”

Panties, bras, and hard little balled up fists of fury all flying through the air would be the last thing I would ever see.

[Ed.: Next entry in notebook, entitled "Laundry 2".]

Another astounding abundance of panties in the laundry room today. 

I found one machine where someone had taken out the load of forgotten, dry clothes within, set them on top, used the machine him/herself, finished and left.  Relief.  I can use this machine.  Until I saw…

DA DA DUM

A pair of panties flung carelessly over the control dial of the dryer.  NO.  I DO NOT NEED DELICATE PERMANENT PRESS.  I NEED COLORS AND WHITES.  WHY GOD WHY?

[Ed.: I remember this vividly.  It's not made up.]

I do not know how the previous person was able to use the machine with the panties covering the control dial.  Did he or she, after removing the previous operator’s clothes and piling them on top of the machine, also need DELICATE PERMANENT PRESS, so it wasn’t an issue?  Did the panties belong to the second person, the one who removed person #1′s clothes?  This is very complicated.

For a second, I considered getting a yard stick or something, and carefully lifting the panties aside with that.  While I don’t think I’d appear like some kind of pervert, I can’t imagine what would happen if some girl were to walk in, see it, and exclaim “What the hell are you doing waving my panties around on a stick?” I’m sure there would be some sort of consequences.

Perhaps I could somehow make it so the women-folk in my building would not want to leave their underwear unattended in the laundry room.  I could spend all of my spare time there, chatting with them.

Me: “Dryin’ bras, eh?  Yeah.  I got them too.”

20 seconds of silence.

“I thought about buyin’ me some panties once.  Yup.”

10 seconds of silence while girl uncomfortably tries to ignore me.

“But then I figured, why buy panties when there’s so many of ‘em in here?”

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