Numb Watch 2012 - holy bloody hell times two

Numb watch 2012

Speaking of friendship

Stephanie was there today. I'd met her a long time earlier when she was selling plastic owls at a plastic owl shop on a day I was shopping for plastic owls.
Her shop didn't have any plastic owls that met my plastic owl needs that day so I promised I’d come back. A promise I kept every day for years.

This impressed Stephanie. 'I’m impressed by a man who is clear and dedicated to his specific plastic owl needs' she said to me, on my 754th straight day coming into the plastic owl store and failing to find a plastic owl that fit my plastic owl needs. 'I like a girl who sells plastic owls' I replied. And we've been friends ever since. We can talk for hours - about owls, about plastic, sometimes even about plastic owls!

It was from her that I found out that plastic can be used to make birds OTHER than owls - eagles, hawks, even some non-predatory birds! Quite incredible really.

I was glad to see Stephanie today as I'd recently stopped visiting the plastic owl store. You see I’ve recently discovered, much to my utter shock, that beavers can't climb apartment buildings! I know. So I no longer even needed a beaver scaring plastic owl.

I learned four other important things that day too:

1. Why Stephanie's plastic owl store never had a plastic owl that suited my plastic owl needs
2.  Why the toothpick collection I keep on my fifteenth floor balcony has never been stolen from beavers
3.  Even Stephanie, who has worked in the plastic owl business for years, still has some gaps in her plastic owl knowledge

4.  An example of Stephanie’s gap in knowledge about plastic owls would be that beavers cannot climb apartment blocks

I was really looking forward to seeing Stephanie because I knew she'd be excited about expanding her plastic owl knowledge, but here is the thing, we had so many other things to talk about today that I never got around to it!

Like for example, during our chat, I learned that plastic can be used to make animals that aren't even birds at all! Like alligators, lions and even non-predatory animals! Quite incredible really.

Friendship sure is awesome.

Things I learned from divorcing Tom Cruise

So it seems as if Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise have reached a speedy divorce agreement, almost as if it had all been planned out earlier than we all heard about her intention to divorce him, maybe even before they started dating! Ha ha, making stuff up is fun!

Well I am not going to speculate on who, or what, or where, or witches, because I don’t believe in them, and we have all heard all the rumors about Tom already, and I don’t want to get involved in talk that we just know is true, where is the fun in that?

Instead I would like to talk about the time I personally divorced Tom Cruise, and more than that I want to talk about the good things, maybe even, and this will depend on where this goes from here, and whether or not I can be assed to change the title of this blog if it ends up going down a different path than the one I first intended, which may well happen, because sometimes one path seems nice for a while, but then you see another path and you’re all like ‘wow, I am already really familiar with this path, and it may still be gorgeous, but I am used to it, there are no surprises anymore, no mystery, and am just a man, we evolved into who we are because of our proclivity to spreading our seeds down as many paths as we can, sometimes we want to have one path in front of us, while two other paths are making out just for our amusement, before we spray our seed all over all the paths and make the paths lick up the seeds off each others body parts, you know, because if we didn’t do that kind of thing, with paths, then the human race would never have evolved, but then again, that path may be owned by someone else, and no one likes you spreading your seed on their path, plus, unlike Tom Cruise, some of us don’t attract all sorts of the most desirable paths around, so we might just like to stick with one’ and then you get all tired, and you think ‘if I just stick to the path I know, I can get home early, watch a little internet path, and go to sleep’ which is what I am now thinking about doing, so I am going to stick with my original plan, with no deviations, or distractions, and tell you some of the great things I learned during my divorce from Tom Cruise.

-     I am not physically attracted to calligraphy, no matter how well versed it is in the motor bike arts

-       Smellavision may well have taken off if the first movies that utilized the technology were not documentaries on long shut down abattoirs

-       The ‘L’ in ‘L. Ron Hubbard’ stood for ‘Lance’ the ‘Ron’ stood for ‘My’ and the ‘Hubbard’ stood for ‘huge disgusting cyst’

-       ‘Hitler’ rhymes flawlessly with ‘bitter baby critter’

-       The founder of Scientology was terrible at acronyms

-       In the movie ‘The Five Year Engagement’ the lead character played by Jason Segal quits the cooking job that he is passionate about and talented at, so his fiancé, played by Emily Blunt, can take up a job as a research assistant, where in five full years she only has one single idea for a research project - on her first day - and then nothing again for five whole years, and we find out later that this idea was only implemented at all because her boss wanted to sleep with her!  Seriously!

-       Tom and I may not have gotten divorced if I wanted to bang any of my employees.

-       Katie Holmes is a single mom; Michelle Williams is a single mom, who’s next, Percy or Dawson?

-       If the first movies to utilize the Smellavision technology were the documentaries on L. Ron Hubbard, we’d all be HUGE fans

-       ‘Unleashing Intrinsic Mayhem’ would be a good title for, I don’t know, something?

-       Michelle Williams is now DATING JASON SEGAL….. spooky…..

-       Paths can sometimes be metaphors for sex

-       Frozen yogurt tastes better the day you buy it than it does three weeks later, unless you keep it in the freezer and then it’s just about the same

-       I don’t HAVE any employees!

So you see how good being married to Tom Cruise and then divorcing him can be? So don’t feel bad for Katie, I learned so much from it. Now I am going to go watch some internet path, I hope it has smellavision!

A message for Christopher Nolan from Katie Holmes

Katie Holmes is ready for The Dark Knight Rises

On the stage

Standing on a stage and attempting to make people in an audience laugh with things you’re making up on the spot is super fun.

Sometimes the things you make up does make them laugh, sometimes it doesn't make them laugh, and sometimes you even get to stand there shaking with nerves while simultaneously convincing yourself that your ideas suck, that the other people you’re performing with will all hate you because of how much your ideas suck and how you've stolen their chance to make funny choices by forcing your sucky ideas on them, resulting in their show sucking and making people think that it's not just you who sucks but everyone in that show and ‘how dare you make choices that suck so bad that you’re fucking up my career too’ and that your sucky ideas will have the audience hating you, while they are thinking ‘man that guy sucks, his ideas suck, his comedy coming from those ideas sucks and frankly I have a lot of choices for my entertainment sources but only a limited amount of time on earth and this shithead has just wasted some of that precious time, which I will never get back to be able to use for a better source of entertainment that doesn’t suck as much, plus his mustache may sort of cover that huge zit next to his mouth but it's still fucking gross!’ And when your onstage thinking these things it's hard to come up with better ideas than the sucky ones you've just discarded which actually probably didn’t suck at all but in this moment you just hate yourself and your life choices so much that there is no idea you could have you wouldn't think would suck, and the whole attempting to make people laugh with things you’re making up suddenly doesn’t seem like so much fun’.

I have just moved back to Los Angeles, for the most part because of how much I love making people laugh with stuff I am making up on the spot. Only problem is that after a couple of years out of the game my skills are not where they used to be, and last Tuesday, I got up to perform improv for the first time in Los Angeles in a long, long time, unfortunately I found myself in the third of the options from above.

It was an improv jam, as part of the wonderful English Speaking Moose’s One Hour Improv festival, and there were about ten of us on stage. It is up to each individual as to when they go to the front of the stage and perform, or when to stand on the back wall thinking about how much your ideas suck, and how stupid you are for moving back to LA to pursue this stupid dream, and I am feeling fucking miserable.

But I'm also thinking 'everyone in the audience and everyone on the stage knows that I'm the only one who hasn't done anything and now everyone is going to stare at me to see if I freak the fuck out or shit my pants and frankly they probably want me to shit my pants, because that would be much more interesting that to watch my nervous face and lack of good ideas as they are ruining the show’ so I did what I had to do, and I force myself to hit the stage, where I ended up doing a pretty average scene, before  slumping back to wings and deciding to give up comedy for good.

As I am standing up the back of the stage making new plans for a life as far away from the stage as possible the show continues without me, when suddenly I have an idea and without thinking I jump on stage and improvise my line and it gets a huge laugh. The show ends moments later and the host praises me for my last move.

Then I go outside and a cute girl who was in the show also grabs me and says ‘you’re hilarious’ and tells me she remembers seeing me perform a couple of years ago and that I was super funny.

Now I am on top of the world.  Oh man, I really am a funny guy, my ideas are great, I have really got to stick with this comedy game. Standing on a stage and attempting to make people in an audience laugh with things you’re making up on the spot really is super fun, plus my zit is starting to die, so life in LA is great!

Don’t (re) see Ted until you read this

Ted is a depressing drama about a little boy who makes a wish that his Teddy Bear could really talk, and God in a surprise twist, who is watching a little boy for some reason, and really wants to make him happy, in a way that will make it hard for him to form lasting relationships with women, and it just so happens that this particular little boy, who at this point is a friendless loser, will grow up to be super good looking, and extremely buff despite seemingly never going to the gym, and has an addiction to marijuana and the associated munchies, so someone who seems to ‘supernaturally’ have a perfect body, grants this wish!

Why does god want to do this? Well if you thought it was for some sexual reason then you’d be dead wrong. Because in a huge surprise, it’s actually a movie about a talking Teddy Bear. The real reason is because god has a point to make – that if you reach the exact age of thirty-five, then it is really important that it be pointed out to you over, and over again that you should have your life sorted out by now, with ‘now’ being the exact age thirty-five. Which is the age I am currently.

In this movie there is a fucking living talking teddy bear, and no one seems to really care that much, and yet the fact that a thirty-five year old still likes to have fun, and not be all like serious all the time, is pointed out again, and again, and again. This is really quite mean. Especially if you happen to be in the audience and aged thirty-five, which is the age I share with the lead character, unpredictably.

In a surprise twist - I personally am exactly thirty-five years old! In actual fact if I did the math, and I won’t because math is for mature grown up people, today may be close to me being in the dead center of the one year I will be thirty-five years old. Also I still like having fun and am not serious all the time, and this movie seemed to want to tell me that me being very single, not having achieved much and still enjoying immature things, meant I was not a real man yet. Especially if I happened to be exactly thirty-five years old, which is the age that I am. 

I think the moment in the movie which hit home the most was when the girlfriend, played by the supremely gorgeous Mila Kunis, addresses the camera and says ‘hey if you’re thirty-five it would be pretty pathetic if you’re still getting wasted with your friends and watching lots of TV. Even if by some fluke you can get wasted tones, never go to the gym, and still have a body like a Greek god, and that’s not true with you David Tieck, and really, I mean what kind of loser is thirty five, single, at the movies by himself, and still fucking around in life with no real direction? I may not have great taste in men, I mean there are rumors I am dating Ashton Kutcher, who may be the most unlikable person on earth, but at least he’s not thirty five! Plus, how come, in a shocking twist, your spellcheck thinks sometimes it has to be ‘thirty five’ and yet other times it has to be ‘thirty-five’ what kind of a pathetic excuse for a man are you? Ashton doesn’t have these problems’

This rant really affected me, because, shockingly, I am thirty five, because she said my name directly, and because if she really is dating Ashton Kutcher then it is proof there is no god, and if there isn’t then what the hell made that Teddy Bear talk? Also because it was really out of character, like remember in ‘When Harry Met Sally’ when whatsherface? Meg Ryan (‘whatsherface’ refers not to my forgetting her name, but to her the bad plastic surgery she has had on her face) fakes the orgasm in the deli? Well that was really out of character from Sally, and so really unbelievable, and became the reason many people didn’t like that movie, and was so bad they even eventually copied it for a crap cereal commercial, and the writer of When Harry Met Sally died last week, so why would Seth MacPharlane want to remind us of this with Mila speaking out of character unless he wanted people, say thirty-five year olds, to worry about how old they are? I’ll tell you why, he wants thirty five years olds to worry about how old they are! And after a long amount of suspense I can reveal now that I AM thirty five, surprise!

Then again I was also affected when at one point Ted looks at the screen and says 'hey David Tieck, the guy who wrote and directed this movie and is doing my voice, has created several really awesome shows, is super successful, knows how to send an awesome backhanded message, managed to cast about a hundred gorgeous women in this movie and you’re a thirty five year old loser at the movies by himself.' This really seemed like a personal attack on me, because I am thirty-five.

Then again, for people who are not exactly thirty-five, unlike me, and bombshell here, I am thirty five, if there is such a thing, it is actually a really funny movie, better than I expected, I just suggest you go see it before it is confirmed that Mila Kunis is dating Ashton Kutcher, because if god is proven not to exist you’ll never buy the talking bear story, and if I am thirty-five, and I am, then how come I know the movie When Harry Met Sally so well I can tell if in a certain moment that a character acts out of character? I guess this review had to have a surprise somewhere!

And now, finally, finally revealed, finally!

And now, finally, finally revealed, finally:  After literally months of speculation the secret has finally been discovered, by ME, and so now, finally, finally revealed, finally - How the pyramids were built!

As a child the future first pharaoh of Egypt loved to play in the sand box. Only problem was that most days there was a bully there, and like all bullies he was a total dickhead, who would always steal the future pharaoh’s Tonka trucks, push over his sand castles and then pee on them and claim it was actually 7-up. Eventually, after literally many months of harassment, and even more tears, the future pharaoh had enough and screamed out ‘well one day I'm going to rule an empire and I'll build things so big you can never push them over before get making me taste the aftermath to see if it really did taste like the world’s least flavorful soda, so there’!

The bully, being a bully, was a moron and responded ‘yeah right’ and it turned out ‘yeah right’ was right! Only the bully meant it sarcastically so he was actually deadly wrong. And the bully was forced to watch as the future pharaoh did build an empire, locating it in the desert, so it would feel like a big fat sand box all of his own.

The final piece of his puzzle was still to be achieved, an enormous sandcastle that could never be pushed down. Still scared by the loss of literally twenty Tonka trucks, he demanded this castle be built using no modern trucks or machinery, and workers weren't even allowed to refresh themselves with 7-up, because there were far more flavorful refreshments like Dr Pepper, crocodile eye flavored Italian ice, lemon sunkist, and sprite with orange flavoring added frozen into ice cubes and put into Diet Coke, and the castle was to be built in a pyramid shape, because back in those days the only plastic buckets you could buy at the hardware store to make sand castles with were pyramid shaped, ‘round’ having yet to be invented, which is also why actual castles were yet to be invented.

For a while construction was slow. Worker’s struggled to lift the rocks up to make the castle, but then the pharaoh had a genius idea: Former bullies often now had teenage daughter, having knocked up classmates in school closets because they couldn’t figure out how to get the condoms out of the wrapper. The pharaoh would find these men, bring them to the construction site and say 'carry that rock up there or we'll gang rape your daughter’, and the former bullies, while being scum did still want to protect their daughters, because they knew what sort of filthy ideas men can have about teenage girls, and they didn’t want men thinking these things while raping their daughters, and they would get super strength and carry up the rock like some sort of man beast, or life size Tonka truck, which they also knew all about having stolen them for years.

Then the Pharaoh would have the daughters gang raped anyway, because those pharaohs were vindictive bastards with lots of bitterness hanging over from their own disappointing teenage years, sometimes they'd even make fun of little girls for thinking they'd seen Johnny Depp when they'd actually just seen a look alike, dicks!

After the gang rape the former bullies would be taken to the quarry and handed a pick and in their rage they would break up more stone for use in future construction of the giant sandcastle/ pyramids, and the pattern would continue until a pyramid was built.

Now the Pharaoh would appear and tell him they'd been Punk'd (something that made the future finder of these truths really pissed with himself to use, because it’s terrible hacky old reference and I was forced to use it, because for some reason in my story I wanted it so that the teenage girls hadn't actually been raped, what's happened to me?) and the former bully would say 'that's a horrible thing to do, really mean man, like not nice at all, if that Punk’d thing ever becomes a TV show your going to need to find a complete an absolute douchebag to host it’.

'TV show you say' the Pharoahs said, and being the head of a huge organization with lots money they had no idea about creativity or artistic merit and merely thought 'There might be money in that'.

There were only two problems –

1. TV seemed like something the Jews may end up controlling, so they thought they had better start a pattern of Middle Eastern attempts to eradicate Jews.
2. They really would have to find completely unlikable dickhead to host a show like that, and no one had even imagined anyone could be douchey enough, as even bullies that would steal Tonka trucks were nice enough to carry rocks to protect their daughters.

So for centuries they'd start race wars while simultaneously breeding the least likable people on earth with each other until eventually we got to the point where the Jews only controlled a large chunk of TV, and the seven millionth child was born to selective douche on douche breeding, and Ashton Kutcher was born and the entire Middle East went 'well the Jews do run large chunks of TV but some of them make really funny shows, and we found a man annoying and unlikeable enough to host this Punk'd show, so let’s get to it’.

And that day all attempts to eradicate the Jews ended and a really shitty show was born. God wasn't happy and immediately made the nose of the sphinx fall off to show his disgust, and for some reason people actually liked that shitty show, and more shows made up of really unlikable dickheads continued to get made. The end.

The lesson is that I was kind of embarrassed to write a piece using such an old, hack like ‘Punk’d’ reference, but then I realized as the only person who currently new the truth on how the pyramids were built I had better jump on this smack on current pop culture topical reference while I could, because you don’t want to waste shit like that, I mean who knows when I'll get the chance to talk about pyramids again? Plus at least the teenage girls didn’t actually get raped, and for some reason I literally care about that, what’s wrong with me?

I had an interesting day

One of the best things about having an interesting day is lots of interesting things happen, sometimes LOTS of interesting things. Here is a list of interesting things that happened to me on this interesting day. If you ask me this is LOTS of things.

-I saw three girls, all around 8-12 years old going nuts, and screaming and jumping up and down. You see they'd just met, and gotten autographs and photos with Johnny Depp. Well so they thought.  It was actually one of about twelve look alikes that hang on Hollywood Blvd, but they were CONVINCED it was Johnny. Kind of sad really.
- I got jealous of the real Johnny Depp for having that power over people.
- I realized that in that moment I was kind of suggesting when I'm nearly fifty I'd like it if 11 year old girls get horny for me.
- Even though I realized that's creepy I still kind of like the idea. Kind of sad really.
- Not that I would do anything with young girls obviously.
- I bought two pairs of shorts.
- Again, I would never do anything with young girls, but my jealousy at them getting horny for fake middle aged Johnny Depp instead of me made me silently enjoy the thought of the girls calling their friends boasting about who they’d met, only then to show the photos and have it pointed out that the man in those photos is definitely not Johnny Depp.
- I went for a long walk
- I saw Two homeless people talking, and the Mexican one was apologizing to the African American one for all the injustice his people have faced with the tag 'now I've said it, can we just be friends again?'
- I nearly got hit by a car as it angrily overtook another car, furious at its cruel insistence at not running me over as I crossed at a green light.
- I thought about buying a t-shirt but didn't find any I liked. Kind of sad really.
- In my mind if I was those girls friends I would be forever pointing out non celebrities and saying ' look it's brad Pitt, you should get an autograph’ and then referencing the time they claimed they saw Johnny Depp for comedic effect.
- I drank an orange juice.
- On my walk I passed the strip mall where I'd once seen a real douchey guy jump out of his Ferrari without opening the car door and as a joke I said to my friend 'look, it's the singer from Maroon 5' - my friend still tells people he saw Adam Lavine - I like to make fun of my friend for this.
- If I saw an old woman get out of a Porsche I may say 'look it's Steven Tyler, get an autograph - you know cause remember how you say you saw Adam Lavine’?
- I saw several very attractive girls in bikinis, and I say attractive because they were in their twenties which is an age group of girls I actually do want to get horny for me, and so unlike with those young girls I did think naughty thoughts, so there is definitely nothing creepy about me!
- None of them seemed to get horny for me and this made me jealous.
- If I were their friends I would totally find ways to make fun of them.
- Turns out I may be a dick
- If I apologize to an African American for all the injustice they've face can we please be friends again? Although if I ever become as big an asshole as the guy that nearly hit me with his car please hang me.

Yep Hollywood people, where you have to really FIGHT to avoid super, super interesting things, not interesting t-shirts though, boo.

At the bar

I was at the bar of a bar tonight, trying to buy drinks, because I like to support local businesses, and frankly because it's heroes like me that keep the economy working at all, yet where is our key to the city? Plus why a key to the city, why not a key to my storage room in Sydney? I lost that six months ago and there are things in there various people really need to get out at some point.

As I approached the crowded area near the congregation of people, there was a girl sitting at the very, very packed bar area who motioned with her finger for my face to get close to hers so she could ask me why the lady on the bar doing hula hoop was so sexy.

I didn’t know the answer to this question so the conversation stalled in an awkward silence, long enough for her to get chatting with another man for a while, and then she turned to me and asked ‘do you know this guy, because he is a total asshole’.

I said ‘I don’t know him, I am just, you know, um, trying to get a beer, sorry’ because I know just the right words to entice any lady, and my curt awkwardness resulted in her using her feminine charms to get me my economy saving, you're a hero Dave, beers licitly split.

I thanked her warmly and, failing to think of anything interesting to say, I stood looking at her silently for a moment or two and told her I needed to deliver the extra beer I bought to my friend who was waiting, that may well stop the local economy from completely collapsing, and my economy saving and suave demeanor caused her to use her finger to motion my face to hers again

 I knew what I had to do, I made a move, and I kissed her on the cheek.

She wasn’t satisfied. She said out loud 'no no' and then motioned my face to hers again. Clearly she wanted me to meet her parents, but I wasn’t willing to do that, but I was willing to offer slightly more than a kiss on the cheek, so I gave her a light kiss on the lips.

Wrong.

Turns out she actually wanted my ear near her mouth, in this crowded, noisy bar, just to tell me her name.

My humiliation was swift and obvious to all who witnessed, despite her shock mostly overwhelming her anger in the short term, and resulting in a part playful, mostly vengeful chew out for my disgustingly aggressive ways. So I slinked off red faced, back to my friends, and she turned back to the asshole and said ‘well in comparison you don’t seem so bad now’.

The point is this, I used to drink half a bottle of scotch for a warm up, before even going to a bar, how did I get to the point of being such an alcohol light weight I can now make an embarrassing fool of myself after literally only one beer?

Also, the jokes on her - from the tingling adjacent to my right lip I know I'm going to wake up tomorrow with a zit like a grapefruit so her disgust cost her the chance of waking up next to TWO sexy beasts!

Update: I just got home, she wouldn’t have needed to wait till tomorrow; she got a full show of zittown tonight. Now I am really confused. Was she just trying to steal my keys?

Would you read this?

It has come to that wonderful time once more - I am about to publish a new book! Yay. I am currently at the phase of deciding what it's going to look like, and what will be written on the book, and I humbly request your opinion. Below is my tittle, and then first draft back cover blurb, what do you think? Be honest please. Too long? Too short? Too obscure? Not enough detail? Too much detail? Not funny enough? Trying too hard? Too negative? I know you don't know the book yet, so this is the stuff that hopefully will make people pick it up in a store/ download it, so whatever your impression of what the book probably is would be welcome right now. Thankyou.

THE

EMBARRASSING-MEMORY

MURDERER

OR

The disaster that was my foolish year desperately trying to finally overcome being that weird, short, fat, shy, penisless, quiet loser you used to pick on in school

By

David Tieck

 

David Tieck has lived a life exploding with embarrassment, and resulting in a memory that has long been his worst enemy. If he is destined to ever truly be happy, then something had to change.

The plan was simple; David would take on challenges and adventures, each inspired by one of his most excruciating memories, and by letting the bad provoke the good he could finally be thankful for his past. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, pretty much everything.

In this uproarious memoir, David tries to hold it all together, while trying to scrounge out and meticulously study his every humiliating memory, all as things begin spiraling out of control, adventures give way to desperate attempts to boast, laughter turns to tears, self loathing sessions elongate, love dies, dreams die, friends, opportunities and passions are lost, and bridges are burned.

Darkly revealing and told with outlandish honesty and eccentric humor, David let’s us know just what it’s like to deal with a past of being the smallest, latest developing, most bullied, shyest, oddest, least popular, most self sabotaging kid, who oozed with problems in every department of his physical, mental and sexual development, all while failing at seemingly every attempt to make things better.

You’ll laugh and you’ll cringe, but if you relate to this book, please seek professional help, or at least find someone to give you a hug.  David is offering - well, exploding with need for one himself.

How to rob a bank (advice from someone who has done it)

Look, right off the bat, I want to make sure you all know that the goal from writing today’s blog is not at all to make you jealous, although I understand from the get go some of you will become jealous, and I am sorry about that, but it is just a going to have to be the flaw that comes from talking about this topic – you see – now please hold your chair hard just in case you descend into a jealous rage, I don’t want your hands somewhere that may result in a smashed computer screen – but here goes – yesterday I was forced to go to the bank!

I know what your thinking – ‘fuck you Dave, how come you always get to live the high life - I am stuck at home watching TV while I make love to my wife – and you’re out there getting to enjoy the thrill of long lines, emotionless staff, waiting behind people who some how manage to make a transaction that takes you twenty seconds last fourteen minutes all while you are charged a five dollar per minute waiting in line charge, seriously fuck you!’  And seriously, I hear you, I’d be jealous too, and I LIKE watching television, but you don’t know the full story.

And you are never going to know it, because I just typed it up and it was so painfully boring that I deleted it all – all you need to know is this – I got messed around in a very annoying and illogical way, and this required me to go into the bank, and now we are back to the point of your raging jealousy, which I think you should maybe try and get some pills for or something, because it can’t be healthy. Wait, are there pills for jealousy? And are there known medical disorders that are diagnosed as being caused by lots of jealousy? Because I swear there could be a huge untapped market in there.

‘Do you ever feel jealous of people who have things you don’t such as: money, status, fame, love, good food, access to activities mostly done on lakes, bank visits, biceps that are visible to the naked eye, women, plans to buy the latest apple products that are basically the exact same as the apple product they already have, cars, t-shirts with genuinely funny slogans on them, health, lack of a problem with excess sweating, living somewhere other than a box, know the recipe for chipotle mayo so they can make their own, great penmanship, a sexual orientation other than your own, a lack of cancer of the colon, friends with Christopher Nolan, or plenty of free time to go bowlin?’

‘If you answered yes to any or all of the above then answer this, are you ever tired?’

‘If so then you are officially diagnosed from this commercial as suffering from Jealoreah, and your tiredness is a sure symptom that you may, possibly even one day, suffer from any of the following conditions – old age, heart problems relating to old age, joint problems caused by having the same joints well into old age, old age related flatulence, or you could even die before reaching old age! – That is how serious Jealoreah is!’

Fortunately we now have a drug that can help – alcohol – now proven to enrage your jealousy to the point of committing violent crimes, that will land you in jail, where you will be kept far away from all the things that made you jealous in the first place – ask your doctor about alcohol today!’

Wait, where was I – the bank! While I was waiting for an hour to end up not really getting my annoying problem solved, I looked around the bank and was struck by how much this particular bank looked extremely bank rob prone – it is huge with vast amounts of wide open spaces, big benches for bank robbers to climb up on, yell a speech then shoot the ceiling, low security windows, and lots of customers who have been waiting so long their joints will no longer work in any punch a bank robber type of way – and as I was thinking this I suddenly remembered something – I – yes me – David Tieck – and this is a true story – have robbed a bank before!

Yep – and I stole – this is true also – five MILLION dollars!

Now before you go judging me I must confess it was literally an accident, and I didn’t steal it for me, I stole it for the company I was working for. You see I used to be in charge of millions of dollars of other people’s money every day, and this meant making countless bank transactions, at times in an enormous rush, and often for amounts well into the millions – plus I have terrible penmanship.

I once wrote out a check that was supposed to be for four million and something amount of dollars to be paid from a big bank to the company I worked for, so I wrote the amount out in words, and wrote down the number, and filled out the form that had the number written in both words and numbers several times, and took it into the bank. The teller then proceeded to only look at the number on the check, misread my 4 as being a 9, and deposited five million dollars too much into our account. It took several days for the mistake to be noticed, and several more days to be rectified, plenty of time for the money to have been absconded by any number of people who had access to those accounts, including me, and with still plenty of time to flee to the Luxembourg and freedom. And I have been to Luxembourg and it is delightful!

So there you have it, robbing a bank is easy, just use ambiguous looking 4s and hope for a moronic teller. Just don’t’ be jealous that it was me and not you who figured this out first, I’d hate for you to be diagnosed with Jealoreah.

What you want

If you ask me, there are seven main possible benefits from asking for what you want in this world:

1. You’re more likely to get what you want
2. You're more likely to avoid what you don't want
3. If you do get what you don't want you get to say 'hey this isn't what I wanted'
4. If you do get what you don’t want the person who didn't give you what you wanted will most likely say 'sorry'
5. If you did get what you want you get to say 'thank you'
6. Chicks dig movie stars and movie stars often get what they want and so if you get what you want you can tell chicks 'I'm just like a movie star ...... In some very minor occurrences, I mean just now and then, on occasions when I get what I want, cause movie stars get what they want too, can I get you a drink, anything you want'
7. Sorry and thank you are nice words

I think it’s pretty safe to say, that after reading this list, that most people would find themselves asking for what they want most of the time. Well despite these obvious benefits I often still don’t ask for what I want, and I developed this list! What kind of an idiot am I?

Answer: One that thinks someone saying sorry is worth not getting what you want.

Also I am the kind of idiot who almost never asks for exactly what I want in food service situations.

I believe this is mostly just because I'm painfully scared of doing things that will make me not liked, while simultaneously being very prone to feeling feelings of embarrassment, whether warranted or not, and I find suggesting to a waitperson that I don’t like what the chef has pre-ordained his food to consist of to be both an unlikable trait and one likely to bring me embarrassment.

One way this regularly manifests itself is that when I am ordering a burger, something I do several times a week, I usually don't ask for my burger to have no pickles or tomatoes, despite knowing that almost all burgers, especially here in the United States, come garnished with both pickles and tomatoes, and also knowing I particularly don’t like either of these fruits and/or weird green things on my burgers, or anywhere else on my plate thank you very much (thank you are nice words).

So I just order it the way it comes, and then pick off the un-tasty/ bad texture bits, and leave them to rot on my plate and remind me that I am pathetic for not ordering my burger the way I want it. (Oh also, have we forgotten that we ‘order’ food, in the army you CANNOT ignore an order. That’s why sergeants or whatever are always yelling shit like ‘that’s an order private’. So if they don’t cook you your steak the way you like it in the army does the cook get court marshaled?)

Then when the waitperson comes to pick up my plate I get super embarrassed at leaving the pickles and tomatoes on an otherwise empty plate and now I can't help but think the waitperson is staring at me saying with her imagination 'you could have ordered it the way you wanted you asshole' and the food prep person in the back now finds out and is yelling at me with his mind 'what you think I like slicing this shit so you can make me throw it in the trash' and before I know it everyone hates me. It’s a vicious cycle

Sometimes I'll specifically ignore ordering the burger that I currently feel like consuming just to avoid this excruciating turn of events.

Last week I was at my local diner and I did in fact order the burger, and yep, I did chicken out of ordering it exactly the way I wanted. As I pulled off the tomato and pickle I felt ashamed of myself. I have been trying to be less of a pathetic idiot recently when it comes to moronic things like this and I had failed again. Then I opened the ketchup bottle and it exploded!

Both of my hoodie’s arms were covered in Ketchup. The whole bench/ bar where I was sitting was covered. The man to my right had ketchup on his face and all over his left shoulder. The two men to his right had ketchup all over the front of their shirts. And the two ladies behind me to my right had ketchup speckles in numerous spots on their outfits.

As I researched later, and discovered first hand now, apparently sometimes when you re-fill a ketchup bottle that was still half full, the new and the old ketchup do not get along and create a gas build up which can have explosive results. This thing sprayed like the end of a porn movie, only with ketchup, and with half a bottle all over everyone!

I sat shocked for a moment, and then I apologized to everyone as profusely as I possibly could. As the staff ran to get us towels, and the manager started to promise free meals, and offer us free drinks, I kept saying sorry (a nice word) to everyone, it was my hand, on my ketchup bottle, that had done the crime, and I felt awful.

To a man they all assured me that it was not my fault, and everyone, for the most part, began joking around about what a crazy thing we had all just witnessed, and one old guy began telling us stories that had no point and didn’t go anywhere about his war days. I laughed too, but I also felt utter humiliation, for the others did not blame me but they also knew not my secret shame.

I hadn’t even wanted ketchup with my sweet potato fries, at all, I had wanted chipotle mayo, and at the last minute found myself too embarrassed to ask for it.

‘Who cares’ I thought to myself when the waitress had asked if I wanted anything else ‘I only found out that this chipotle mayo existed a week ago, and before then you were fine with ketchup on your sweet potato fries’ I had justified to myself, to try and convince myself I wasn’t just pussying out once more.  

Because you see, the chipotle mayo isn’t on the menu, I only know about it because a friend of mine ordered recently just on the outside chance that they had it, and I suspected that while they did have it, it was designated for use on another menu item which I have yet to discover, and that, and this is only a suspicion, they would prefer it if not too many people ordered it as a condiment to sweet potato fries, because that would create more work for the kitchen staff, and possibly slightly less profits for the owners, and I was worried that if I ordered it there would be discussions about me in the back, and someone would get upset and yell with their minds ‘you can’t expect me to make an extra little bowl of chipotle mayo everyday just in case you come in and order sweet potato fries you little shit!’ and I don’t want that imaginary person hating me, so I did not order it. And now disaster had struck, and we all sat in damp hastily wiped off clothes, with free food, but horrendous visions of ketchup flying and spraying all over us. And it was all my fault.

‘Well no more!’ I screamed at myself. No, I ORDERED myself. It was time I began to ask for what I want occasionally!

Possible benefit from asking for what you want in this world

8. Less likely to spray five strangers with an exploding ketchup bottle.

Tonight I returned to that very same diner for a late night diner. I may not have gotten a burger, because I wasn't in the mood to deal with the tomato and pickle issue, but, and call me a hero if you must, I did get ask for chipotle mayo to dip my sweet potato fries in, and they gave it to me with a smile, and not a single item of clothing was destroyed!

Ok if you won’t I will – David Tieck, you are a hero! And that’s an ORDER!