From Justin Gawel: Eccentric Dirtbag
Great empires fall, the brightest stars burn out, masterpieces fade, and minivan backseats inevitably become sticky, disgusting, and uninhabitable places. The enfilthment of a backseat is like erosion; a slow process, but, given the time, sediment from all regions will be deposited in the minivan’s backseat usually taking the form of spilled colas, spilled Kool-Aids, and spilled science fair projects.
You can’t fight the machine on this one. Like a moth to light, the backseat of any minivan is going to attract a certain level of nasty, stank trash-doody. Frankly, you’d be better off trying to get water to boil at sixty degrees Fahrenheit or tying to teach a mentally impaired horse how to read rather than trying to keep a minivan backseat clean. I realize it would still be near impossible to teach a non-mentally impaired horse to read, but it would be extra tough if the horse was, how should I say, wealthy in the chromosome department. I’m off topic, I don’t mean to debate the tenants of equine literacy, but, basically, what I’m trying to say is that it’s a pseudo-law that a minivan backseat will get disgusting.
If you’re not taking care of children currently because you never had kids, you’re kids abandoned you, or maybe they’re dead or something then I can safely assume that you’re not in the market for a minivan. But, for the experience, flashback to 1997—my mom, taking care of two kids who take up every spare minute of hers with bickering over watching Clarissa Explains it All or The Wonder Years, decided to purchase a 1997 Plymouth Voyager. Flash, swag, prestige—driving off the lot I can assure you the minivan had none of those qualities, and, somehow, had even less of those qualities years later when my mom sold the vehicle in exchange for a partially used gift card to Applebee’s.
The lack of resale value was not my mom’s fault. In fact, I distinctly remember wiping boogers on everything I touched in that van. I remember the time I started digging in the crevices of the seat only to discover a treasure trove of Jolly Ranchers and Skittles that were all fused together in a hair-covered, sugary cluster that was big enough to choke a dog. I put the wad back in the seat; knowing that it would be a fun surprise for someone else down the road. It didn’t stop there though, every vacation in which fast food was ingested over car rides resulted in a few rogue fries escaping into the seat folds and sodas being spilled in the cup holders thus creating sticky pools of syrup which were resistant to any cleaning attempt.
The field trips didn’t help. A seventh-grade trip to see an afternoon performance of the musical Grease turned sour after a fat, mean girl was assigned to ride with us. I mean, the knowledge of having a chubby child in your car is already going to hurt the resale value, but that wasn’t enough for Little Miss Two Mayonnaise Sandwiches For Lunch, no, even though we were leaving for the play right after lunch she still saw it necessary to bring a goodie bag filled with pretzels, Slim Jims, and Ring-Pops that she proceeded to hoard and munch on during the ten-minute ride to the show. In the spirit of Grease I won’t tell you more, tell you more anymore detail about this large mammal grazing in the backseat of said van, but the result of her presence was a half-eaten and melted Ring Pop jammed in the seat pocket, a bunch of wrappers in the storage compartment, and a streak on her seat that we all prayed was just chocolate.
The Kelly Blue Book rated the brown stain as “undesirably tragic” and proclaimed that it was certain to doom the re-sale value of the vehicle. By the end the person we sold the van to declared he would be selling it to the booming Detroit ashtray industry that would turn said minivan into several hundred trays for ash. A fitting afterlife for an existence spent being filled with garbage. And, akin a morbidly obese scuba diver dying after being mistook for a trophy fish and harpooned, it was a sad end to a sad life.
Did someone say that, did I just think that, or did I pick this up through some sort of Morse Code military vibration in my teeth left over from my stint in Korea? Sorry, I should note I don’t mean Korea and the hullabaloo-kerfuffle-nonsense way back in the fifties, no, sir, I’m talking about my Korean Town dentist with whom I have a mutual “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy when it come to asking for insurance and for asking for extra nitrous oxide to take home.
Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a night; give a man a complimentary garbage bag full of euphoric gas and he’ll come back to your office of dentistry and fireworks for years to come. I may only have a degree from a discredited institution, although some people will tell you it was fake and just an outdated CPR certificate I found in the trash. However, if I had needed to take an economics class for my degree I’m sure Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” would more than cover the stability and attractiveness of a business founded on cavities, cleanings, and complimentary drugs and explosives.
I may have underestimated the strength of this gas. I know, it sounds like a line I’ve undoubtedly poured on before in times of failed chemistry tests and instances of excessive funeral flatulence. But Randy had warned me this time; he said I would freak out and here I am, mercy me, having me a spell of the crazies with a touch of the vapors.
Is it possible Randy is some sort of sayer of sooth? Nah, if he were any good at that then his living quarters would resemble more of a house rather than his van full of sea spiders and pigeons.
Alas, Randy, I should have heeded your prophecy more seriously. Twas foolish of me, similar to that time you sold me that Malcolm Ecstasy and I stored it in the Motrin bottle. Seriously, who knew hallucinogens cured hangover so well? You were right about that that time, Randy; that stuff did get me messed up by any means necessary, and was, overall, much more of an aggressive trip than that Dr. Molly Luther Chronic Jr. stuff.
How long have I been home holding this garbage bag full of nitrous? It’s gotta be somewhere between twenty minutes and all of time, but I can’t remember and, sadly, I neglected to buy a watch with a decade readout, or any watch, or wrist-sized sundial, at all, for that matter.
Has Randy been sleeping here the whole time? What is that piece of paper he’s clutching—he doesn’t have any valuable papers in his life. Christ on a cracker, he smells like shanty-van if I’ve ever smelled it. Why does this paper have my name and signature on it? Here’s to hoping this isn’t a repeat of when I traded him my power of attorney for gas money.
Major crisis averted, looks like this document just give Randy permission to crash in my place until his Van of Man makes it through monsoon season at the quarry. Pretty sure Randy doesn’t know how quarry water levels work, shockingly though this document is proof that he is reaping the benefit of hiring that personal notary.
Well, let’s make the best of this and ride out New Roommate Randy through monsoon season. Today could be the beginning of something great, but right now the trash bag is emptying and things are returning to normal, as in I’m consciously eating a pack of raw hotdogs in my bathtub.
This day would truly make a fantastic movie, wait, no, not fantastic—what’s that other thing—oh yeah, horribly unwatchable.
The sun was high in the sky on this bright summer Saturday morning. Fresh from his night of slumber, John opened one eye and took a glance around the room before reading his clock radio.
Eleven-twenty: too late to salvage the morning, yet too early to start any afternoon activities. Rested, John sat up and pulled back his sheets pondering his next course of action. He wasn’t hungry, and his only plans for the day weren’t until five; his options were endless really. He considered setting up a doctor appointment for the rash on his arm, but he decided it maybe just needed a few more days.
John supposed he could go to the bank, not to deposit money or transact—he just liked hanging out at the bank. Nah, he didn’t want to do that, I mean, come on, he already has his pants off. Deliberation set in about a potential trip to the grocery store but John ultimately decided against it; he already had all the provisions he needed for his one-man nacho fiesta that was happening at five o’clock.
He lied back down on his bed and nestled into the groove his crooked spine had established in the mattress over its many moons of use. The groove provided him a small canyon that he allowed himself to cozy into night after night, a canyon that became particularly difficult to scale out of after a restless night. His eyes drooped a little and he let out a small yawn; he supposed he could read.
A stretch across the mattress and John snagged the screenplay he was working on editing the night before. He was at page sixteen, and the last few days have been far from productive, but he figured if he can get some good, hard work done now he can gorge on a trough of nachos later completely guilt free. Guilt-free about being productive at least, after all, there is a considerable amount of self-loathing that goes along with any personal nacho fiesta.
He starts down the page and begins marking with his red pen. Embarrassed, he circles his your-you’re confusion and laments that he can’t remember why he thought Thomas Merriweather Rockefeller was a good name for any character, let alone the main one. Self-Hating Saturday had already started and John hadn’t even binged on nachos, been to church, or spoke to his parents yet.
John’s conscious mind continued editing while his unconscious mind let his left hand wander. His left hand blazed a trail through the maze of skin, blanket, and underwear and popped in at John’s junk as if to say, “Good morning, beautiful; you feel like dancing?”
With just a splinter of morning wood remaining, John’s left hand realized he was going to have to do most of the work rousing this sleeping giant, but hey, you can’t start a fire without a spark—but a lot of wood would certainly help.
John’s conscious mind snapped into it; he knew how he could pass the time—the answer had been literally right in front of him. His attention shifted and he was soon only skimming through his bad symbolism and unnatural dialogue. Suddenly, he realized that he was playing with himself while reading. He now could identify with the way hipster kids feel when they read Catcher in the Rye or how Glen Beck feels when he’s proofreading his own books. Disgusted with either of those groups, John emphatically hurled his first draft across the room.
His eyelids close and his mouth opens ever so slightly; his right hand begins to work his joystick like he’s going for the high score in the video game that is himself. His mind flashed to that girl from senior year of high school. Not her as a person, like her accomplishments and what not, more so just her pink lips sucking on his thing with such force you’d think she had a jet engine for a mouth—John’s strokes sped up and his body tensed. In his mind she smiled quickly and John immediately remembers her missing tooth and shuddered a bit. Immediately, she faded from mind.
Back to the highlight reel and John’s mind jumped to a hazy, post-bar memory. He recalled this sexual encounter being like a slip and slide—it had been a particularly muggy summer and that particular girl’s vagina acted like it. So wet and smooth he recalled, as his hand now was taking the most thorough, caressing touch to his wang. He felt himself begin to lose control, slightly, as he reminisced; his hand bouncing up and down on his throbbing member like it was a piston in some well-oiled flesh engine. Suddenly he stopped, it was only now twenty-five after eleven; John still had a ways to go until five, so he decided to make this last.
John took a few strokes off in order to prevent culmination, but now he realized that he’s got to kick-start the old love machine as the realization set in that his hiatus had been too long and he should never interrupted the diligent work routine he had established. “If only I put this kind of effort and craftsmanship into my screenplays,” he though, but alas, that thought faded away in lieu of a sexual fantasy involving the cashier at the corner gas station.
It’s just an average night, John’s buying his usual pack of cigarettes and three candy bars. John then removes his card from his wallet, preparing to swipe it on the machine. But, when he goes to run it through the machine, John finds the machine has been replaced with a, now naked, cashier girl. He swipes his Red Lobster Visa down her ass crack as she peeks over at him and whispers, “credit or debit, big boy?” She turns to face him and grabs all she can of him. John, now paralyzed by his own erotic pleasure, clenches every muscle in his body as he tries to hit his figurative brakes.
Just like the guy who shows up drunk to an AA meeting—John can’t stop and he knows it. No use trying to derail this train. John tightens his grip—his hot rod turning that deep fuchsia color indicating the pleasure express was right on time. He mind drifts back to the gas station and he’s thrusting into cashier girl. He’s loving every bit of this as he looks into the mirror behind the counter to fully appreciate this moment, but right then he realizes that it isn’t a reflection of him having his way with the cashier girl in the mirror, why it’s just him having his way with a very sweaty Louie Anderson. John begins to climax as he feels the white-hot man yogurt drip down the back of his hand. His mind is racing with a lot of confused feelings about his sexuality and Louie Anderson. He wipes his hand on the sheets and curls up in a ball—looks like Self-Hating Saturday is off to a great start!
Hey, quick question, Hot Dog: how can you tell if someone doesn’t watch any television? Actually, it’s rather simple; for you see anyone who doesn’t watch TV will assuredly tell you right away how they don’t watch TV.
They lay in wait, like a conceited mountain lion, waiting for a moment to pounce as soon as someone mentions anything they watched on the tube. From there it’s a downhill ambush on the, now one-sided, conversation. Incredible, how suddenly a pedestrian discussion about how racist or incompetent Terry Bradshaw has become or speculation about The Office’s Jenna Fischer’s belly button depth can be instantly derailed in favor of them filibustering about how “they don’t have time for that inane chatter.”
Way to steal all the fun out of the conversation, you little fun-burglar. Hey, buddy, at least TV taught me not to interrupt until the commercial break, but you come in, on your high horse, touting your anti-television gospel. It should be noted I’m taking the liberty of assuming you’re interrupting my conversation while you are literally on the back of some unfortunate, drug-addicted equine.
However, non-sober stallion or not, I thought in the spirit of manners you shouldn’t impede my stimulating discourse about what I think Matt Lauer smells like on the air. It’s quite rude, and, to be honest, you don’t see me trying to change the subject when your going on an on about the donation you gave to the Humane Society, the charity fun run for fat-orphans with low self-esteem and Lou Gehrig’s disease you’re setting up, or how you insist on paying a carbon tax on everything you buy.
Lisa Frankly, I think carbon can pay it’s own taxes and if I’m going to help someone, besides myself, on their back taxes, the list starts and stops with Wesley Snipes. Further, I honestly think these fat orphans are the ones who could benefit from running more than you and the others who want to pat themselves on the back. Do I air these grievances? Nope, you don’t see me interrupting; I just keep keeping my mouth shut and continue to fantasize about hitting you with my car.
How incredibly fascinating you are; boy, to go through life not doing something the rest of us do. Your time must be so freed up from not watching television that you’re able to find time to read all the great philosophers, travel the world, and achieve self-actualization. You don’t see the rest of us bragging about not doing things; I wasn’t vaccinated, but you don’t see me prancing around all smug, clamoring about how great my immune system is for keeping me polio-free all these years.
Seriously, have we become so boring that we need to talk about the things that we don’t do to make conversation? I don’t tell you about how I don’t exploit children for cheap labor. I don’t tell you about how I don’t shoot up Vicodin mixed with barbecue sauce because I’ve heard great things about the smoky, smooth, yet flavorful and relaxed high it provides. I haven’t even broached the topic about how I’m not using my neighbor’s name and apartment address to commit mail fraud. Why haven’t I told you about said lack of mail fraud? Well, because it would be a lie, since I’m about six months into my personal best mail fraud caper. Sorry, humble brag!
My tribe of one has spoken and the verdict reads: we like television and we don’t like you. Don’t try to convert me; I’ve seen your side’s zealots and believe me when I say that I don’t like what they’re preaching. This adult baby likes his mouthwash mug full and his TV on during marathons of circus or funeral accidents. Call me old-fashioned, but that’s just how I am. Don’t try to tell me how green the grass is on the other side; the other side does not have a video of daughter in mourning discharging a barrage of thunderous farts during their eulogy that end up overshadowing not only their dead mom’s funeral, but their dead mom’s entire life.
