36 hours in the life of Fish

Some times I wake up by 7 am. Not often, mind you, but sometimes. This really only occurs for one of two reasons--A. Because I just experienced the most wretched night of my life, and awoke in the pre-dawn writhing in a miasma of misery, sweat, crustyness and stuffyness, never previously heretofore experienced. And B...well I suppose there really isn't a letter B. I don't ever get up by seven.

So on this rare occasion which I have found myself awake at this ungodly hour, I find myself pondering upon the last 36 hours of my existence.

They have been an interesting 36 hours.

Lets go ahead and start with about 6:20 pm on Thursday night. Did I arise that day thinking to myself, "I certainly cannot wait to stand up in front of 20 people and talk about techniques for overcoming particular sexual dysfunctions tonight." Let me say this--try standing in front of a class and talking about ways to overcome orgasmic and erectile dysfunction by such techniques as "The Squeeze," or "The Pause," or "The Tease." Put that in your crack pipe and smoke it without laughing. How about masturbatory satiation? Just try saying that word. I do not believe that I have ever uttered the word "masturbation" more times in one fifteen minute period.

After that enjoyable lecture, I decided that It was probably time to hit up Wal-Mart and purchase a new toilet seat.

I am sick of sitting on the one that we have and nearly being dumped off the side of it, as one half of the seat is not connected to the pot, and therefore when one sits down in a rush and slightly off balance, wham! Let's just say that ending up on the floor wedged between the toilet and the wall with one's pants around the ankles is not the most dignifying experience.

So I wander through the great whore of the earth until I find what I am seeking--an $8 padded toilet seat. Also a jug of orange juice, 3 bags of frozen broccoli, and a Stouffer's frozen skillet meal for $3.98. A random purchase at best.

I arrive at my lair, dually excited to eat said frozen skillet and perform what I assumed would be an easy toilet seat installation.

Had I conceived of the hell which I was about to experience installing said toilet seat, I think I would have stuck with the demeaning broken-seat accidents.

I found a screwdriver. I pried open the piss-crusted nubs which housed the toilet screws. As I began unscrewing them, I quickly realized that this was having no effect. I grew frustrated. I began attempting to rip the toilet seat off, to no avail. The seat seemed to mock me with its belligerence, seductively whispering, "you'll never get me off. I've been ensconced here for years. You're not the first one to try, nor shall you be the last. Asshole."

Not one to be bested by a toilet, especially one which was verbally mocking me, I put all of my considerable might and power behind one, triumphant, wrenching twist. Off popped the seat, and the toilet and I stared at each other in silence, the only sounds permeating the air being my ragged, shallow breaths.

Those frigging screws were still stuck in there.

In righteous indignation, I grabbed my Leatherman and proceeded to savagely rip the plastic nub off, which consequentially caused the plastic screw to also break. As I saw it fall to the floor, I realized that there was something that the screw actually went into beneath the toilet seat. For whatever reason, the remaining screw was metal, and being completely rusted, I could not simply hold the washer on the underneath side and unscrew it. So there I squat, awkwardly attempting to hold the washer with the leatherman, and unscrew that horrible, uncompromising screw. Meanwhile, the smell of stale piss was about to knock me over. I decided that if I were to be able to complete the job without puking/killing myself, I would need to clean the toilet. So I did. Long story short, I had to get someone to help unscrew it as I got real cozy with the toilet and tried to grip the washer underneath with all of my, what turned out to be, inconsiderable might. Installing the new one was almost equally as difficult, as the screw was about 4 inches long, and had to be screwed in with a screwdriver. I ended up with a crinkled spine, but one damn fine toilet seat.

After my lengthy, and hard fought triumph, I desired to eat my skillet. The toilet adventure was made even more annoying by the fact that I am sick.

So I cooked up the skillet and headed into the TV area and proceeded to watch 3 hours of the top 100 songs from the 80's. You know how that is, each hour they do twenty, and each hour you find yourself really really needing to know who is number one.

I found out two things. First, Bon Jovi "Livin on a Prayer," was apparently the #1 song from the 80's as voted by the good people of the United States. And second, I hate the 1987 Bon Jovi just as much as I hate 2008 Bon Jovi. Which is quite a bit.

Also, I find girls in the 80's to have been strikingly attractive. Weird.

After that, I went to bed. The night was long, sweaty, and miserable. Anytime I was half asleep, suddenly my nose would pick that particular moment to drizzle, thus causing me to wildly reach over and grab a tissue before said drizzlings deluged my pillow. This would inevitably awaken me fully, and there I would have to lay for many more minutes, attempting to re-relax and again attain sweet slumberings.

I had to get up for a 9:30 meeting. Upon awakening, I felt like I had been kicked in the head by a gorilla. My nose was plugged to the max, and I believe due to the Nyquil binge the night before, my brain was foggy and semi-functional. In this anything but lucid state, I found myself driving down University with a jug of orange-juice nestled between my crotch and my legs. As I neared somewhere around the half way point, unthinking I picked up the jug and gave it a good hearty shake. I do that when my orange juice rests for a moment, thus agitating the sediments from the bottom of the jug. And, in my not-s0-coherent state, I happened to shake it without the lid on, thus sending Orange Juice erupting all over the side of my car/pants/crotch. The little door handle thingy had two inches of orange juice in it. Needless to say, my first profanity of the day gently slithered its way out of my mouth.

Pointless meeting, waste of my energy.

After that, on to school, covered in orange juice. Just great.

In class we were shown pictures of these previously uncontacted natives (way to go government) from the Amazon forest. Seriously, these people have never had any contact with any from of civilized society and the first thing they see is a bloody HELICOPTER. What on earth was running through their heads at that very moment? "See Steve, I told you there was probably more out there than bugs and coconuts. How might we acquire this flying technology?" "Hold on Bill. Don't get ahead of yourself. Maybe we should start with some form of incandescent bulb, made of a hard yet clear material, that thereby we may give artificial light to our homes. Maybe something we can attach to a bow."

Seriously. Un-freaking-real.

The other compelling piece of photography to which I was exposed was that of an elephant lynching. Apparently in 1914ish some moronic elephant trainer thought it would be a great idea to get between Mary (the accused) and the wall (the accomplice.) Crunch. Dead. So what do we do in the south when something is misunderstood and a white man is killed? Why, we have ourselves a lynching, obviously. Apparently they lacked bullets large enough to penetrate an elephants skull, and decided that the solution would be to lynch poor Mary from a crane. And so, after a wonderfully fulfilling life as a circus creature, Mary's tragic end came at the end of a crane. And so it goes.

After all of the pictorial excitement, I was ready for a wee nap. Upon awaking I went to eat at the Bombay Grill on State. It is located right next to Zurchers. I hate that bloody store. The clown creeps me out, and the name drives me nuts.

So we ordered this sticky rice and peanut sauce. Holy delicious.

As I was rolling my little ball of sticky rice, I couldn't help but think about how much it resembled a little bundle of ant eggs. Which got me off on the weird mental tangent...I sorta wish humans laid eggs. I mean, wouldn't it be great if a woman would just lay and egg, and then roost upon it for like a few hours a day to keep in incubated? I can just picture a woman in a moo-moo taking her egg to the office and sitting atop it while typing up the monthly reports. Am I weird?

So at the end of the meal, after an hour of sheer neglect, we flag our pitiful server down and ask for boxes. When she brings them out, she also leaves an extra little treasure on our table--a chewed up broken tooth pick from another table. Sick.

After that, we went to Sub Zero to get some ice cream. For those of you unaware, you tell them the flavor, fat content, and additions, at which point they pour liquid hydrogen or something into the bowl and mix it up. So one of two girls actually doing the wizardry was making sure she had a pleasant and engaging conversation with each customer. Highly annoying. Especially when the place is packed, and it takes long enough as is. Am I a jerk? No. But I don't necessarily need to have a discussion about how frozen gummy bears might explode, sending freezing bits of gummy shrapnel careening into one's eyes. Nor about how maybe we should use frozen gummy bears in warfare, instead of conventional weapons. Listen girl, just bite your tongue, do your witchcraft, and let me be on my fat merry way.

Which basically brought me to last night, worst of my life. I probably slept three hours amidst bizarre dreams, sweating, and sniveling. Which brought me to 7 am, the beginning of this post, followed by a two hour meeting at the Macaroni Grill where I won 30 bucks in a drawing, to this very moment, where I shall be wrapping up at least the second longest post I have ever published.

Thanks for hanging in there for 36 hours in the life of Fish. I probably love you.