“Wasn’t it just terrible what happened to Mary McCloskey?” said Edna St. James to Ann Williams early on Monday morning.

“Yes, just horrible,” answered Ann. “I’ve always been a little leery of those lift chairs.  They found her body all the way across the room!”

Edna St. James lived in apartment 311 in Golden Heights Senior Citizen’s Complex and she was the designated gardener in charge of the front flower beds. Ann Williams lived in 708 and was one of the resident “characters” — some would say a royal bitch. Mary McCloskey was the fallen resident of 212. She had looked out the window a lot.

“I hope that old biddy’s out of the flower bed when I get back, I need a new flower,” said Ann to herself as she walked toward city hall to pay her water bill. Ann was very fond of plants and flowers and simply loved a single fresh bud in a small vase on her kitchen table. She had been buying her flowers at the grocers, but the prices had grown intolerable so she had recently resorted to visiting the complex’s prized flower beds.

Edna was very protective of her flowers, almost laughably so. When she would find that one had been picked, she would become visibly angry. She posted signage on all of the bulletin boards and was very suspicious of anybody who commented on them. Most just stayed away for fear of being publicly persecuted. At Golden Heights, flowers were neither a sign of peace nor tranquility.

When Ann returned from her errands Edna was indeed gone.  So she boldly stepped one foot over the miniature plastic fence and snagged a healthy red bud from the black soil. She then winked at Rose McClannahan who sat giggling into her hand on a nearby bench.

Seven hours later an ambulance screamed to a halt in front of the complex. Mass rubber-necking immediately broke out.

“What happened?” said Rose.

“Why, I don’t know,” whispered Ann.

A large slab of ceiling tile had fallen on a tooth-sucking Jesse Winsome in the cafeteria, and he was pronounced dead by the paramedics. Out front a horror-stricken Edna St. James ran through the double doors and stared at the empty space in her flower bed. Ann and Rose watched and said nothing.

Ann found this behavior to be curious. Residents were dropping like flies and all Edna could think about was her damn flowers. She just couldn’t figure that woman out.

While sitting on the bus on Thursday Ann began to piece together some bizarre idea that linked the flower bed to the residents of the complex. She noted that on every day a resident had died, she had earlier picked a fresh flower.  She was momentarily horrified but then quickly dismissed it as the overactive imagination of an old woman.

When Ann returned to the complex that afternoon, she stopped at the flower bed and for the first time took a good long look at it. Edna was giving her suspicious glances as Ann counted to herself. The flowers were planted in perfect rows of fifteen. There were seven rows and there should have been 105 flowers, which was the exact number of units at Golden Heights. But seven flowers were missing. And seven tenants had recently died!

Ann could hardly carry herself to the elevator. Her cheapness and attempts at being cute had caused seven people to die. She went into her apartment and eventually slept a tortured sleep.

Ann had always been a morning person however, and when she awoke she was full of vigor and looking on the bright side.  She convinced herself that she hadn’t reached the age of seventy-three merely by accident. She thought of herself as being a very shrewd woman, and was preparing to fall back on that virtue one more time.

Ann despised living on the top floor and wasn’t about to continue to do so. She devised a plan that would eliminate Edna St. James and win her control of the flower bed. She would then cause one of the first floor apartments to become empty, which she would immediately seize as her own.  Ann was second in line to receive a ground floor apartment, behind Edna who would be dead by then.  It was perfect.

On Saturday morning Ann slid out of bed and proceeded down to the dew covered flowers.  She counted down three rows and over eleven, Edna’s apartment being number 311. She closed her eyes and pulled the flower from the ground. And four hours later Mrs. Upjohn in 511 slipped on an olive and emptied most of her blood supply under the stove. Ann had started counting from the wrong end. Damn!

But on Wednesday Edna St. James quit breathing when she guessed the exact amount of the showcase on The Price Is Right. Ann had completed phase one of her plan. Very soon waiting on an elevator would be a thing of the past for her.

On Friday Ann went to the funeral home and tried to decide on a color of drapes for her new apartment, while Edna’s relatives howled in grief. Then Ann’s friend Rose walked in, and placed a bouquet of familiar flowers on the midriff of the dead Edna St. James.

“Rose, where’d you get those flowers?” inquired Frantic Ann.

“You know she loved them so, I just felt it was appropriate,” answered Sincere Rose.

Ann rushed back to the complex to find flames shooting out of the seventh floor windows. She looked down in horror, and saw that the entire seventh row of the flower bed was missing.  Then a fireman’s helmet fell from the roof and put her to sleep forever.

So anyway, I am trying to get this thing published and the powers that be aren’t exactly fighting over me.  So I figured I’d take care of that by posting an excerpt about a drunken beef jerky eating contest and then I’d sit back and wait for the offers to come in…That’s how this business works right?  Hello?

“Hey bitches! We need some jerky!” screamed the first man through the door. Jike struggled to stand up. The man stopped and gaped at Carolyn, his entire existence moving in waves. “But you guys need some beef,” he said as he pointed. The drunk’s finger remained on Carolyn as his eyes attempted to focus on Jike.

“Except that guy. He’s had enough beef. And enough jerky. This guy’s had too much everything!” Jike steadied himself on the counter and motioned toward the remaining men.

“Subjugate your friend or I’ll summon the authorities,” said Jike calmly. The drunk continued staring at Jike.

“You subjugate your thyroid gland or I’ll call a bariatric physician,” replied the drunk, who was now pointing at Jike. Carolyn sat up with intrigue. One of the drunk’s friends shrugged casually.

“Sorry man, he’s pre-med,” apologized the friend. “Please just direct us to the beef jerky and we’ll get out of your hair.” Jike exhaled loudly.

“The dried beef is situated at the end of that passageway, athwart from the coolers,” said Jike.

“You fart,” said the drunk as he ran to the jerky. The drunk’s friends watched as he loaded his arms with an end cap full of jerky.

“Forgive me for asking guys,” said Carolyn, “but what are you going to do with all that beef jerky?”

“I love jerky,” said the drunk. “I want it inside me.”

“He loves jerky,” repeated one of the men who had been mute until now. “Apparently he wants it inside him. He’s gonna eat all the jerky in the place. Don’t worry; he’s got a credit card to pay for it.”

“Does he possess a cellular telephone that he might use to summon an ambulance?” asked Jike. Nearly everyone nodded as the drunk dropped the shrink-wrapped meat on his counter. Jike looked down at the meat, looked up at the drunk and then looked at his friends.

“Is this man driving?” asked Jike.

“What’re you gonna do? Refuse to sell him the meat?” asked one of the friends. Jike looked to Carolyn, who retorted with a shrug. Jike rang up the purchase as fast as he could.

“Fifty-six seventeen,” said Jike. “Will that be cash, check or charge?”

“The answer is charge my good man,” hollered the drunk. Jike took the card and scanned it. He put the meat in a sack as he waited for the register to approve the transaction. The drunk offered a wavy line in lieu of an actual signature and took off with the meat.

“Ohhh jerky, I want you inside me!” he yelled as he escaped the Clarenceoco at top speed. His friends shuffled out behind, laughing amongst themselves. Jike and Carolyn stared at each other silently as they waited for the guys to clear the property.

“I wish to express my gratitude for your assistance,” said Jike sarcastically.

“If anyone on this planet has an appropriate comeback for drunk medical students in a jerky eating contest, I would imagine it’s you,” replied Carolyn.

“Perhaps I’m losing my touch,” said Jike. He pondered for a moment and shrugged. “One cannot bedevil oneself with such concerns…time to mop.” Jike walked back to a small closet and rolled out a yellow plastic mop bucket and pushed it next to the bathroom door.

“I’ve been hanging out here with you forever and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you mop once,” said Carolyn.

“It’s more of an exercise in mental conditioning than mopping really,” replied Jike.

“You don’t actually mop, do you?” asked Carolyn.

“Negative, my dear convenience store companion,” said Jike.

“Let me guess, you coat the bucket and mop with a little bit of water right before Clarence comes in in the morning?”

“That is affirmative,” said Jike.

“He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich,” said Carolyn.

“I don’t ever recall professing a desire to be rich,” replied Jike. “Besides, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.”

“I don’t think that’s what they meant,” replied Carolyn.

“I beg to differ,” said Jike. “Clarence himself accepted this identical explanation last week.”

“You’re terrible,” laughed Carolyn. “Even for a Universalist.”

Jike and Carolyn perked their ears toward a commotion in Clarence’s parking lot. A high-pitched laugh projected over what sounded like the constant low grumble of men’s voices. Carolyn sat up and jumped to her feet. The freezer squeaked as the shift in weight caused it to jerk forward. Carolyn walked to the glass door and looked out.

“Holy cow, Jike. It’s those guys. They’re doing the jerky contest in the parking lot!” exclaimed Carolyn. Jike pushed himself to his feet and shuffled toward the door.

“I cannot truthfully say that this turn of events was unexpected,” said Jike calmly. “I suppose I’ll convoke the authorities.” As Jike reached toward the handle, the drunk reappeared, running from the side of the building and blasting his entire body through the door.

Jike spun around in a futile effort to remain on his feet. Carolyn could only watch as the drunk sprinted past and Jike jumbled awkwardly to the ground. The drunk was still running as he grabbed the knob and attempted to push with his shoulder. His hand spun around the stationary hardware as he slammed into the locked door and dropped to the floor. Both men struggled to stand.

“You need a key,” said Jike.

“Jerky doesn’t wanna be inside of me!” yelled the man as he crawled to the plastic yellow container. Carolyn shut her eyes and plugged her ears hard with her index fingers. The drunk ferociously cleared the evening’s digestive history into Clarence’s mop bucket.

“You need a key,” Jike repeated in defeat as he watched the drunk hurl for what seemed like an eternity. When it seemed as though it was over, Carolyn unplugged her ears and extended her hand to Jike. He accepted her hand, stood up and headed toward the phone.

The drunk stood synchronically, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and staggered to the door.

“Sorry man. Jerky was a bitch. I’ll clean it up in the morning,” said the kid as he stumbled into the parking lot. Jike abandoned the phone and followed him outside. The wheels of a black muscle car chirped as the car entered the roadway heading east. Jike squinted in an effort to make out the alphanumeric pattern on the license plate. He exhaled in frustration as he realized they were illegible from such a distance. Jike exhaled again when he spied the pile of wrappers scattered amongst unopened meat sleeves. He struggled to breathe as he bent over, picked up the empty wrappers and deposited them into the trash containers that stood less than six feet away. Jike walked back into Clarence’s.

“Did ya get ‘em?” asked Carolyn excitedly. Jike did not answer. He walked behind the counter, grabbed a plastic bag and headed back outside.

“You need a key,” Jike said to himself as he struggled to bend over and pick up the unopened product. He estimated that they had only eaten about ten bucks worth of product. Jike opened a stick of “spicy teriyaki” and thought as he chewed. He decided that this might not be such a horrible turn of events. Jike could return the product to the shelf, show the receipt to Clarence and clear his debt completely. Now he had to do something about the booze, bile and masticated jerky that was fermenting in Clarence’s mop bucket.

“He paid with a credit card,” said Carolyn as Jike shuffled inside. “Look at the receipt.” Jike returned to his seat behind the counter and hit the “no sale” button. The register’s drawer shot open and Jike snatched up the pile of credit card receipts that had amassed throughout his shift.

“His name is Tabor Johnston,” said Jike, “although I am not particularly interested in justice.”

“You should be,” replied Carolyn. “It’s starting to smell like puke and beer in here.” Jike walked around the counter again and made his way toward the bucket. He looked away and held his breath as he grabbed the handle of the wringer and quickly rolled it toward the door. Jike pulled the door open and rolled the bucket into the parking lot. He bowled it hard toward the dumpster and headed back into the store before its final resting place was decided.

“You’re just going to leave it there?” asked Carolyn.

“By the grace of God, Clarence’s pail will become unsullied without my travail,” answered Jike.

“You’re asking God to clean out the mop bucket full of a drunk pre-med student’s jerky vomit?” asked Carolyn. At that moment a clap of thunder descended upon Melville…

Caveat: I can’t do footnotes here so I have substituted parentheses. Sue me.

I just finished reading Bill The Sports Guy Simmons’ “The Book of Basketball” and I have two things to say:

1) I absolutley devoured it, loved it, and will probably read it again so I can pick up the parts that I missed when I was a bit sloshed.

2) I am wicked pissed.

I grew up in the Boston area but I was never really a basketball fan, so I never became a Celtics fan. I was a one sport dude – the NFL.

In 1984, at the tender age of 25, I moved to LA (LA in the mid-80’s, 25, and single. Let’s just say that fun was had and brain cells were killed). A good buddy of mine from college had also moved there and he was a basketball junkie. So I started paying attention to the NBA while we were out for after-work beers, and I just simply got hooked on the Lakers (Showtime), and by association (no pun intended) the NBA in general.

Those were the days. For a sporting event, you just could not beat the Lakers vs. the Celtics (or, really, the Lakers vs. anyone and the Celtics vs. anyone). And here’s the thing. At the time, the true Lakers fans did not hate the Celtics (except for Danny Ainge). We wanted to beat the crap out of them, but only because we respected them. Beating the Celtics was validation that you truly had a good team.

But the Pistons? We H-A-T-E-D them. Everyone did. Including people who did not even follow the NBA. I think there were extraterrestrials that hated them.

So anyway, Bill The Sports Guy Simmons writes this seven thousand page book and never once gives credit to the ‘89 Lakers and the Magic/Byron backcourt. By 1989, Magic and Byron were in the ESP zone (get it?). They could pretty much do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. That does not make Byron Scott a Pyramid guy, but it does make him the perfect complementary guard for the Magic/Lakers backcourt.

To irritate Bill The Sports Guy Simmons, I will now give statistics to prove my point.

Regular season? Whoops, not so good here. But you gotta give Magic and Byron credit for dragging Kareem around for his final year. And the Lakers were cruising off of two championships, so they knew what it takes to get the championship. Cruise in the regular season, go full out for the playoffs. (They did just this, but I have to mention that one of the few things that irritate me about Magic is his “Winnin’ Time” slogan attempt. I mean, he tried, but it just didn’t work.)

Playoffs? Since 1984, there are only two teams that have gone undefeated in the Conference First Round, the Conference Semis, and the Conference Finals. The 2001 Lakers and the 1989 Lakers. The 2001 Lakers got props in Bill The Sports Guy’s book. The 1989 Lakers? No mention. Here are the pre-Finals records for Bill The Sports Guy Simmon’s Elite Ten (post-1983):

The ‘91 Bulls: 11-1

The ‘97 Bulls: 11-2

The ‘01 Lakers: see above

The ‘89 Pistons: 11-2 (Lost two games to the Bulls before MJ knew how to win. Two games. Yeah, what a juggernaut.)

The ‘87 Lakers: 11-1

The ‘96 Bulls: 11-1

The ‘86 Celtics: 11-1 (Oh, the vaunted ‘86 Celtics lost a game? To the Hawks? In the Conference Semis? Gimme a break.)

It just goes to show how hard it is to win 11 games in a row during the NBA playoffs. But the 1989 Lakers did it. And then, just before the ‘89 Finals, Magic and Byron got hamstring injuries and could not play. Guess what happened after that. No Three-Peat. (By the way, I threw in the Three-Peat reference just to irritate Bill The Sports Guy Simmons.)

Outside of the stats, you just had to be there. We knew the Lakers were going to win. It was a given. A lock. Like knowing that the latest episode of “24″ is going to end in a cliffhanger.

And then our backcourt got a hammy. Fuck the ‘89 Pistons. Fuck Isiah and Rodman. And and extra-double-Fuck Bill Laimbeer.

Bill Simmons, you are the Bill Walton of NBA writing. Truly gifted (style, substance) but fatally flawed (Laker hatred). And stop sucking up to Isiah. With Magic and Byron healthy, the ‘89 Pistons would have gone down in 4.

This weekly installment of our Guest Mock series is being handled by our pal DTO.  Who continues to crack my shit up.  You can catch him over here for more. I highly suggest you check it out.

And now for the cruel, cruel mockery….

About a year or so ago, I was passed on some words of wisdom. I guess it was wisdom because words of wisdom can sometimes make no sense whatsoever. The words have been stuck in my head and eating away at my every sense of rationale, looking for the true meaning of the seemingly sage advice. I have played it over and over in my mind, taking it apart word for word and even going so far as to write it down and change the words around to perhaps chance upon the true cryptic message begging to be heard by all of mankind. At times it would lead me into the deep funk of depression, feeling alone and abandoned. Could I be the only one who just doesn’t get it.? Are people laughing at me, knowing all the time the meaning is obvious?

I have always taken pride in myself of being able to grasp words of wisdom and find the meaning in philosophical quips. Things like…”It is the calm soul who hears the breaking wind”. And, “To go there, you must start here”. And, “He who travels to learn, learns to travel”. And…”Face away from the wind when you seek relief”.

So you can see and imagine my surprise and frustration in not being able to decipher and bring into my daily life, another piece of the puzzle in life’s mystery. It is only now for the first time ever I will admit to all who read my words, I am at a loss and ask for advice. I can no longer torture myself and those around me who take me for a fool. I must surrender to the wiser and calm my soul so that I too can once again hear the breaking wind.

Please help me in my goal to learn the meaning of… “It takes a village to write a good dick joke”.

If you’d like to contribute a Friday Guest Mock please send it to mockable[at]gmail.com  If it’s funny and won’t get us sued, we’ll most likely feature it at the site.  And don’t forget to include the address to your blog or website, so we can link back at ya.  Thanks!

The plant life was dead. We punched in at three and out at twelve and for eight hours performed as thoughtless robots operating on static habit alone. The only deviations we knew were our own personal, transient pains and discomforts. We would have welcomed real sickness but received the company newsletter instead. I still don’t feel guilty for what happened.

The raw idea of listening to other people’s thoughts is instantly intriguing and, when actually realized, downright exciting. However, the undeniable innocence of our first “study” only managed to remind us of just how immoral our actions actually were. But, perhaps because of our dulled state of mind, our fuckit glands took over.

We gained access to Sammy’s world through a back door that had been left unlocked for us.  A sympathetic night foreman, named Sahley, recognized our sorry situation and allowed us, without involvement, to use the new equipment for our own selfish entertainment. Immediately life at The Piedmont Surveillance Company switched gears.

Piedmont was testing a very expensive and controversial anti-robbery device that allowed businesses and institutions the privilege of learning a person’s intentions by reading his thoughts, and pumping them into a headset.

As a customer entered an establishment he passed through an invisible beam that instantly read and translated his thoughts into a hum. If a customer hummed like a refrigerator, he was OK. If he hummed like a barber, he was suspect. Piedmont hoped to keep barbers out of all convenience stores by the end of the decade.

Sahley and the Piedmont employees knew that the hum was only a gimmick to prevent an outcry of protest, that minds were being read plain and simple. Sahley also saw a morale problem and production decreasing during his shift. He was a desperate man.

So, Sahley allowed the master beam to be turned on an unsuspecting fifteen year old newspaper carrier in the suburbs on November lst. He allowed the boy’s secret thoughts to be broadcast over the public address system at Piedmont during the night. And it had the desired effect.

Workers rushed to the plant to find out hew Sammy had fared in his latest battle with his parents. They cheered his drunken optimism. They howled at his fear of females. And they grew silent when he was having “alone time.” Production increased and Sahley  received a way-to-go raise.

At night, after work, I would invariably think of Sammy. Not about the lustful fantasies he cooked up or the comical predicaments he always found himself in, but the fact that his privacy was being invaded to a degree that I had never dreamt possible. He was a young man who, sitting across from his buddies at McDonald’s, would think, “Jeez, what an asshole,” just like any normal person does from time to time.  Only Sammy’s passing thoughts were booming out of speakers in a cavernous warehouse across town, and eliciting cheers.

Sammy’s every daydream between the hours of three and twelve became subject to our voyeuristic considerations. But I cannot deny that the sound of the time-clock punching me in became more satisfying than the sound of it punching me out. I felt ashamed, almost un-American.

But a funny thing happened on the way to nirvana — we grew bored. After stamping around in Sammy’s world for three months the repetitiveness of his thoughts began to get tiring. The novelty had worn itself out and a predictable rhythm took its place. We tried turning the beam on others but it just wasn’t fun anymore. A retarded girl offered us temporary solace but after awhile it just became more of the same. I think it was Brenda who first danced.

The beam was on a college professor and the rhythm of her predictable thoughts became intoxicating. Brenda dropped what she was doing and began to dance. She twirled and dipped, and kicked and stepped. She pulled Roy from behind his machine and together they danced to the steady syncopation of human thought. Eventually we all danced, together, within the corrugated walls of The Piedmont Surveillance Company.

Sahley confined the dancing to the break area, but allowed us to continue to listen in the shop. Our lunch hours became visits to the set of some bizarre Un-American Bandstand, with Roy as the host. Workers gyrated to the wild thoughts brought on by anger, and slow danced to self-pity.  Strobes and spot lights were eventually installed and platforms were built for multilevel dancing.

Production rose dramatically, despite the fact that the employees were getting little rest. Morale was at an all-time high. Sahley’s status as a genius rose with Piedmont’s profits. And Roy became a full blown celebrity.

But once again we eventually grew bored. Gimmicks did little to stave off the inevitable fall from grace. Rate-a-thought became popular (“it’s got a good beat and I kind of agree with it”) a but it was too little too late. Again the retarded girl was tapped but there were few jazz fusion fans at The Piedmont Surveillance Company during that time. Roy then started mixing real music in with the more traditional fare, in a last ditch effort to save his show.

Workers began using their breaks in a more conventional manner. They still listened, but few danced. And Roy noticed that they responded better to the records than to the “borrowed” thoughts, so he began playing more records.

Eventually we just bought a radio.

Like many people, I was deeply impoverished as a young adult.   I had student loans to pay.  I had a shitty entry-level job and no money in the bank. Of course, I could always find money for beer and other related shenanigans – but paying the rent and keeping food, clothes and shelter around always seemed like an incredibly tall order.  That’s where The Street came into play.

The Street is a buffet-style franchise that’s never really made it out of the Kansas City area.   Their claim to fame used to be $2.99 all-you-can-eat pie.  The weird thing about it was that it wasn’t really that bad.  If one played their cards right they could go to ”The Street” late in the day, gorge themselves as much as possible and have their food needs covered for about three days.  Nobody could quite figure out exactly how it was so cheap.  There were several “soylent pie”-based theories that no one was ever able to confirm or deny.  The explanation I liked the best was the “angry sauce” theory:

My friend Mitchell realized that every time he would eat their food, he would suddenly and inexplicably get angry, be a dick to people and have a terrible day.  He theorized that the franchise was actually operated by Satan himself and the reason that the food was so cheap was  because Satan wanted to widely distribute the angry sauce and turn people against one another.  I don’t really think he believed the theory as he was an aggressive atheist, but he never wanted to eat there after he developed the idea.

So anyway, I moved away from the area for three years and I’ve just now gotten an opportunity to return to “The Street” .  The price has increased to $4.49 (hey man, even Lucifer’s got overhead), but other than that, nothing’s changed.  The food was halfway decent, the clientele was the epitome of the “holy shit, we’re broke” demographic and I’m sitting here, two hours later, pissed as hell for no reason.

These here colors don’t run

Now, because the food is unlimited and cheap as hell, the clientele is similar to what one might find at Wal-Mart…and like Wal-Mart, one of these guys must be on duty at all times.  You can’t see it because of my shitty cell phone, but there’s a bald eagle on his shirt.  I’ve always found it strange that the people who have the most right to be pissed at this country are the ones that are usually the most vocal (and tacky) in their support of it.  Hey, nobody’s mocking patriotism here…just the tacky assed shirt that was probably made in China anyway.

Nonchalantly Keeping an Eye Out for Her Eyebrows

This lady sat behind me.  She was obviously out for a Saturday night dinner.  Her blouse was silkesque.  Her boobs were appropriately exposed for family dining at a discount buffet.  She was all set for a night to remember.  Except her brows apparently had other plans…

This special Monday installment of our Guest Mock series is being handled by our pal bigbearinOH.  Check it out, go down to the comments and say something nice for a change, would ya?  Your mother would be proud.  On with the mockin’:

You are insane. I cannot stand you. A list of reasons why is below.

1. Your insane lack of personal space awareness

1. If you are sick, especially with the flu, either stay home, or stay 4+ feet from me at all times.

2. If you tell me your kids are sick with something that sound strangely like the Ebola virus, stay 5+ feet from me at all times. I don’t need that.

i. If your kids have been up all night and are sick, I do not want to hear details about texture, color or quantity. I don’t have kids, and even if I did, I still wouldn’t care about yours.

ii. If you can’t get them into the doctor, do not bring them into work. I do not want your little snot-nosed minions of death bringing their virulent walking corpses into contact with myself or any of the surfaces in our workspace.

2. You have no idea what you are doing here.

1. If you do not know the most basic details of your job, please find another job. We work with the public on a daily basis, and are expected to know most details of our job. You obviously do not, and make no effort to learn them.

i. Learn to Google. It is a valuable skill, and will even help with your atrocious spelling and grammar habits.

ii. There are various job aids that are available to us, and even paid training seminars. Please look up/attend these. I don’t have all day to answer your questions, it’s just not fair to my customers.

iii. If you are going to leave for lunch, let your coworkers know in advance. I have a 1:15 lunch date, and you walk up to me at 1:10 and say that you’re taking a 45 minute lunch to smoke in your car—I don’t think so.

3. You refuse to show up.

1. I don’t have a problem with you being here, just show up when you’re supposed to.

i. If the schedule says 9:45, show up before 10:15. That’s all I’m saying on that one.

ii. Do not complain when your check is short because you didn’t work any hours. It’s not my fault that you’re poor due to a lack of hours.

iii. Do not blame your kids or your parents. You are an adult. Take responsibility for your own situation.

iv. It is not your landlord’s fault that you can’t get out of the driveway. You rent a house, shovel the snow off the driveway or get a snow blower. Plan ahead. The roads will be plowed, I promise. This is Ohio.

v. If you find it necessary to leave early, make sure it’s a valid excuse. If I see you one more time out in public on a day when you were supposed to be sick, I’m going to hit you with a weed eater.

vi. Don’t complain because you already used your FMLA up. It’s not my fault you faked an illness for 6 months.

4. There is a dress code here for a reason.

1. The company provides you with a set number of business casual shirts. If you could wear these, and only these, we’d really appreciate it.

i. They’re supposed to be tucked in, and worn with khakis. Not brown colored jeans, khakis.

ii. If you’re going to wear gaudy earrings, at least make sure they’re not annoying in any way. I’m talking about jingling, spinning or otherwise novelty earrings.

iii. Nobody wants to see your lower back tattoo.

5. Separate your personal life and your business life.

1. If you took 2 phone calls a day, and made them quick, it’d be fine, but 12+ phone calls during an 8 hour shift, averaging 20 minutes a piece, means that you only worked for 4 hours, two more of which were probably taken up by smoke breaks or your husband stopping in.

i. If he’s going to stop in, make it quick.

ii. If you’re going to smoke, at least have the common courtesy to shut the back door, and don’t do it while I’m having lunch.

iii. If you’re making a phone call, do it off the business floor.

iv. If it’s something pressing or business related, fine. If you’re gossiping about your neighbor, do it at home.

6. Don’t ask me to borrow money, find your cousin a job, or use my connections to help you out.

1. My connections, both professional and business, are mine. Do not ask me to “hook you up”.

i. I will not help you find deals. See point 2Ai—learn to google.

ii. I will not let you have my customers because your sales are down.

iii. Do not expect me to lend you money, because I know you won’t pay me back.

This installment of our award-deserving Friday Guest Mock series is by our pal Chuck in Belpre.  Enjoy!

I see you out there in the driveway next door.  I see you have the hood up on that piece of shit Cavalier you bought last Spring from your brother-in-law.  It has one blue door even though the rest of the car is red.  That front driver’s side tire looks kind of low.  I wonder if you know that?  I notice that you have to prop the hood open with your snow shovel.  Is that the same one you don’t use to shovel your sidewalk?

I see you have your Super Pro 100 piece tool-kit.  The one you bought at Wal-Mart for about $15.  It has a nice plastic case and everything.  The tools look nice and shiny like they have never been used.  Ratchets and sockets in all sizes both metric and standard, each in its own fitted compartment.  Pretty.  But, I know you have no idea what you are looking at under that hood.  And you know I know.

So, I take it that the car won’t start. Again.  Could that have anything to do with the fact that it was close to zero last night with a light snow?  Or the fact that the battery that came with the car was pretty much dead when you bought it?  Probably.

Ah!  You turn to look toward my house…just like I knew you would.  You see me standing here in the kitchen window looking out.  You wave.  I don’t wave back.  I can’t fucking stand you.  What you can’t see is that I already have my battery charger in my hand.  But I’m not coming out to help you until you walk up here and knock on the door.  Then I will make you wait out there in the freezing cold another five minutes before I answer the door, that greasy mullet of yours blowing in the cold wind.

You also can’t see what’s tucked into the waistband of my pants at the small of my back.

So, we go out into the cold and I give you the battery charger and you hook it up to the battery and plug it into the outlet on the side of your single-wide with a long orange extension cord.  I tell you to get in and try it, but, of course it won’t start yet.  I walk around to your window and look down into your stupid eyes and watch them go wide as you see what I’m holding.

The sound of the shot echoes across the flat fields and I’m glad I bought this farm way out in the middle of nowhere.  The closest neighbor is over two miles away and I know no one is home this time of day to hear the sound.  I have just the spot for you and your rattle-trap Chevy, out in the middle of the apple orchard.  Every time I eat an apple next Fall I will think of you.  Down there among the roots and the grubs.  Good riddance.

I look up at your bedroom window and see your wife’s eyes and that shy smile she is so quick with.  The one that makes most men go all watery in the knees.  And before you are even frozen stiff I’ll have her bent over the arm of your favorite recliner.  It’s not like I haven’t done it before.

Although he was born years before the Herman comic strip appeared, Herman was appropriately named. With a head like a meat bell and a surgically-attached cigarette butt on his bottom lip, Herman could’ve stepped right off the funny pages. He was a human grotesquerie, a disgrace to the tradition of cell division. And it was said that he could be smelled by phone.

Herman had few friends in this world and except for “the shiny fellows” that camped on his scalp, he had no pets. He lived alone in a house that resembled a chemical explosion with a screen door. It overlooked the town on what was once called Pleasantview Hill, but was now known as that goddamn dump.

Because of his hygiene philosophies (“odors are songs for the nose, and I am a jukebox”) Herman led a very lonesome life. He spent the bulk of his days making fishing lures with his rectal hair, and staring at pictures of Scott Baio and Hubert Humphrey, the only two he owned. He missed his friends, who didn’t come around anymore. And he missed his beloved wife Dorothy, who had died years earlier. Herman cried every day, and his tears smelled like cabbage.

Approximately once every three or four months, when the loneliness grew unbearable, Herman would walk out his back door and calmly set fire to his tool shed. Then he’d return to his house and begin preparing for visitors. He’d cut a big hunk of cheese and fill a bowl with something crunchy, usually saltines or pudding. And when he was sure that the shed wasn’t going to go out, he’d call the fire department.  Then he’d lean back and wait for his company to arrive.

The fire department and most of the town knew of this rather questionable practice and while they didn’t exactly approve, they didn’t take steps to stop it from continuing either.  Most had a deep-seated pity for Ol’ Herman and could tolerate his seemingly harmless actions.  Besides, by allowing him to pull such stunts, it erased some of the guilt they felt for letting him suffer up on that hill all alone. They also believed that firemen were the only people qualified to enter his house.

The fire fighters would put out the blaze in the tool shed and then spend a couple of hours chatting with Herman, careful not to let on that they knew his secret. .Then they would return to town and reflect on what they had seen. They marveled at the multi-colored fungus that crept out of Herman’s dress shoes. And they wondered how much time was invested in those huge whole-grain boogers he had plugged in.  And they tried and tried to describe the smell.

The new mayor of the town happened to be passing through the room when one of these discussions was taking place, and he got an idea. The senior citizen’s home was scheduled to open, and if he was able to lure Herman out of that goddamn dump and into an apartment, the town would praise him.  Herman’s rather conspicuous piece of land could be cleaned up and, once in the home, Herman would never be lonely again. Everybody wins! The mayor thought himself a genius.

He put on his best persuadin’ suit and drove up Pleasantview Hill to see Herman the next morning. Of course Herman was ecstatic to have another visitor so soon. He invited the mayor in and they sat down on a moist sofa. Herman offered his guest a slice of milk, which was politely refused. The mayor immediately turned the conversation to the matter at hand.

He had plotted a strategy as to how he would present the proposal, not wanting to spook Herman before the idea could be considered. He began gingerly, by asking him if he’d ever lived anywhere else, and Herman said no. The mayor asked him, as if addressing a child, if he would ever consider moving to another location, and Herman said yeah. The mayor asked him carefully if he’d ever consider moving to a place where all the meals were prepared for him, there were plenty of people around, and activities were planned every day.

Herman said he thought he knew what the mayor was getting at and, as a matter of fact, had been considering such an arrangement for some time now. The mayor was beaming as Herman reached into the drawer of his end table and pulled out a small handgun and calmly shot the mayor in the neck. Then he began preparing for his company to arrive, to take him to his new home.

I just considered typing the following phrase into a serious academic effort, “If this assertion is to be believed, there would be little to no crime in the petrified forest of Lesbos.”  I think I might need a couple hours of sleep.

Here’s a facebook conversation I had yesterday:

9:50pmNathan

can i get an opinion on something

9:50pmMetten

Whether or not you should use punctuation? Yes, you should.

9:50pmNathan

is this worth it or not

i run a lot, and i was thinking about getting nike+ (with a new ipod)

9:51pmMetten

Sure…if that’s your thing

9:54pmNathan

damn jason, i wanted a yes or no

9:54pmMetten

Okay, then no. Buy one of those vagina-in-a-flashlight things.

9:55pmNathan

i haven’t seen that

9:55pmMetten

Evidently it’s called (WARNING, LINK NSFW) “the fleshlight”

9:56pmNathan

nice

9:57pmMetten

“it looks light a flashlight, but feels like a vagina” I wish I had such a gift for writing copy – I wonder if there’s some point in the lives of all fleshlight owners where they realize that they’re fucking a flashlight and start sobbing uncontrollably?

9:57pmNathan

i love it

9:58pmMetten

“runner up, the butt fleshlight!”

9:58pmNathan

ha ha ha

9:59pmMetten

and at $64.95, you’ve cut your recreational spending in half!

9:59pmNathan

It really resembles an anus and what’s great is that it looks inconspicuous compared to the other anal toys I’ve used — with and without my wife.” he used anal toys with his wife?

10:00pmMetten

“Here honey! watch me assfuck this flashlight!”

10:00pmNathan

ha ha ha. i could see it happening

10:01pmMetten

so yeah, no. Don’t buy the Garmin. Stay home and fuck a flashlight for exercise. You’re welcome and glad I could help.

What did you guys do last night?

I share this because I found the conversation funny and I thought you might too.  Unfortunately, mockable seems to be going down the shitter pretty fast and I can’t conceive of any way to save it.  I have written more, I have written less.  I have written better, I’ve used more guest mocks.  I’ve asked Jeff for more (this whole thing was his idea btw) and even tried to follow that asshole Jauncho’s advice.  I thought it might help if I encouraged you to write your own mocks in the comments about the type of person that would insert their penis into a flashlight…because that’s in the “make your humor site more popular for dummies” manual.