Pork Chops and a Possible Faux Irish

Asado is a technique for cooking cuts of meat, usually consisting of beef alongside various other meats, which are cooked on a grill (parrilla) or open fire. It is considered the traditional dish of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and southern Brazil. (definition from Wikipedia)

This was my last meal eaten upon the evening of the first Friday of December in the year of two-thousand and ten. I chauffeured myself to my friends Ricky and Tracy’s house for supper, and entertainment via Mystery Science Theater 3000. As I entered Ricky sat at the kitchen table chopping up portions of a hog like a street side butcher in Vienna during the 1900’s. Though he had all of the ingredients necessary to make the meat portion of the meal, we didn’t have any tortillas to go with the meal.

As Ricky was cooking the young lass Tracy and I ventured off to the local grocery store in search of unleven Mexican bread and some cow’s milk to make some hazelnut cocoa with. Being early December, stores are splattered with flashes of red and green in a vain attempt to force people into celebrating Jesus’ birth, but you know, without the Jesus part. Tracy and I spoke of Christmas trees of years past, and how as we grew older our relatives traded in for a more artificial stock, extending the whole plasticly-fakeness that goes with Christmas when you become an adult.

The store had felt the need to have two out of it’s three doors closed, causing a proper fire hazard. We journeyed forth to the baked good section, Tracy used her optic spheres to spot what she believed to be miniature Christmas trees. Yet, as it happened they were simply rosemary bushes, leaving the both of use feeling quite the fool.
We scurried away in embarrassment.

We did eventually find some pine trees, but they were a little on the Charlie Brown side. But, no amount of flailing our arms wildly made it any better. For a reason unknown to us, the pine needles were decorated with a fine layer of sparkly glitter elements. The best I could muster was that a fairy drank too much raspberry vinaigrette and had a liquid laugh in the arboretum.

Following our arboreal observations we each took our one dairy, and one baked product and scuttled off to the registers. Our cashier was a squat young man with a bush of brown hair adoring his head. Overall all he was unremarkable, except for the fact that he spoke with a an Irish accent. Solely based on my aural skills his accent was pretty good, used the soft vowels, and dropped the “h” in any words containing a “th” at the beginning, they were both there.

He almost had the two of us fooled, except that what sprang from his noise hole was not something that sounded like an Irishman, but rather a crappy television stereotype of an Irishman. I revealed him that I was partially Irish, and he started asking things like “you like fighting a lot of people?” and “You like drinking?” This these things that were usually attributed to the Irish by people who made them build the railroads out to California with the Chinese. Following his statements I replied with a “no,” but I said I did suffer from the crippling Irish guilt, like all mean from the Emerald Isle. He seemed to not know of what I was speaking. As a result Tracy and I became rather skeptical of whether or not he was what he made himself out to be. I decided that he wasn’t. An Irishman without Catholic guilt? That’s like a comic by Stan Lee without an excessive amount of exclamation marks.

Days of Pinewood Thunder

I come from a line of men who had achieved the all-high title of becoming an Eagle Scout, my brother was one, and my father before him. Perhaps there were others before them, but I can’t be bothered to look back any further in my family line, as that requires a mild amount of effort. Though I never made it to the rank of Eagle Scout, I was a member of the Boy Scout’s equivalent to pre-school: the Cub Scouts. Though I would never reach the ranks of men such as Gerald Ford and Elmo Zumwalt, I could still make one hell of a balsawood aero plane (provided easy to read instructions were included) and design some pretty creative Pinewood Derby cars.

Life as a Cub Scout wasn’t exactly as hard as living as a serf in the middle ages, but it had its ups and downs making construction paper turkeys did take its toll on me after a while. We would meet once a week, usually at someone’s garage, though perhaps sending a group of children to a stranger’s domicile wasn’t perhaps the best idea of how to get the kids out of the house on Saturday afternoons. The actual activities we did remain a mystery to me, perhaps they were so traumatizing that my brain blocks it all out so I can’t be bothered by it.

I seem to remember participating in some kind of contest were we would have to accomplish, like bird watching, knot tying, personal hygiene, and finding mint vinyl records of Roger Whitaker’s entire body of work. Anyways, following some kind of assignment, we would be rewarded a certain number of points, with which we could redeem for a (not so) fabulous prize. Then for a few weeks of taking on assignments to do the things Cub Scouts do like, wildlife exploration, delivering small packages to the backs of warehouses, and continuing the search for Jimmy Hoffa. Eventually I was able to choose a prize from the fabulous selection of assorted crap that which likely didn’t cost much money, so that the den mothers could spend the money on online poker (which didn’t exist back then.)

I eventually spent my hard earned points on a Nickelodeon trademarked wide-ruled notebook. Why you ask? Well I will give you a speculation of mine. I had enjoyed the life luxury known as basic cable in my early childhood, but then came the dark ages. During a several year stint, my parents decided to no longer pay for cable, and had our television reduced to a measly twenty channels, including three Spanish-language networks, and Catholic public access. In my desperation for children’s entertainment, I grabbed the notebook, believing that inside there would be a screen which would play any of the network’s shows at my leisure. Alas it was just a regular notebook which I filled with crap like this:
As previously stated, I am lacking in the physical ability department, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a productive individual. What I lacked in physical prowess I could usually make up with creative skill, or whininess. Every year there would be a Pinewood Derby competition amongst the regional Cub Scout dens, where in we would see who could design the fastest car. When assembling you car, there were two kits, one which contained a solid block with pegs, weights, and wheels, for when you wanted to carve your own design for the car. Or you could simply take the pre-cut car and paint it whatever color you want (these are what the loser kids used). I am no expert in aero dynamics, but I did know how to change a block of wood into something a bad art critic would deem to be a masterpiece.
My first car I had transformed into a cartoon cat and dog watching a television while sitting on a purple couch. The cat and dog were a toy I had received from Taco Bell kid’s meal, as opposed to an extra cup of cheese, which became an unwanted item during some visits. Though the car wasn’t exactly the Mach 5, it did catch the judges eye, enough so to win me first prize in the most creative design competition, a prize awarded so that the socially awkward kids would have something good to feel about. The following year I entered in again to see if I could once again obtain the title of “most creative design,” falling in line with the previous year’s motif, my second car included kittens bowling. Daring, if not strange. I eagerly awaited for the judges to call my name, but alas like all my childhood dreams, it was crushed, preventing me from ever daring to dream again. But the thing that grinds my grits the most is that the kid who won the most creative award, obviously didn’t design it himself, his dad did it, or his dad paid some Audi mechanics to design it for him.

Alejandro's Anti-Amazing Athletic Adventures No. 3: The Wally Whale

Though I was not the most athletic of children in the greater New Braunfels, and Comal county area as a lad, I did participate in a series of sport related teams, all of them losers. During what I believe to have been the summer afternoons following fifth or sixth grade, my mother would take me along to the Landa park pool, where I was forcibly entered into the world of underwater gladiator battles. It was either that, or the local swim team.

If it is not currently a publicly known fact; was heavier set as a young adolescent than I am today, despite the fact that I have somehow grown up to be a human-lemur hybrid. My physical stature prevented myself from being terribly strong, adept, agile, or quick, so I would have to use my wits to move ahead in sports. Perhaps I should have been entered into a crochet class instead, as my lack of natural talent might be better applied to making hats and tea cozies.

Anyhow, I was forced onto a local swim “team” which had practice every day in the eastern side of the Landa Park Olympic pool. Why I was entered into this particular athletic activity still remains a bit blurry, like an Avant Guard film’s still life image. But, the reason more than likely was that my mother would have been at the pool anyways, and she didn’t want me sitting at home watching the Pokey-mans during the afternoon after my book learnings. So, there I was placed upon the concrete slab which surrounded a rectangular body of water which may or may not contain a certain yellow liquid within its walls, and I wasn’t about to dive in with my mouth and nostrils agape.

I remember there being three coaches, a man I may falsely remember as being named Doug, a overly tan woman, and an old man who was possibly at one time an Olympic swimmer, but I never saw him get into the water. Come to think of it, I don’t believe that any of the coaches got into the water, not even to show a swimmer how to properly perform a swimming stroke. This lack of interactivity is likely what led me to dislocate my shoulder for the first time, whilst mid-stoke.
I was assigned to do several laps using the butterfly stroke, wherein one propelled themselves forward by turning their arms in a circular fashion with them out in opposite directions. This movements requires a great deal of strength in your shoulder muscles, otherwise you will simply look quite the fool flopping about slowly in the water. About midway though a lap, I attempted to further myself through the water when I felt something happening to my left arm. The sensation isn’t entirely describable, just imagine squeezing a baseball until it pops out of your hand, that’s essentially what happened to my left shoulder. There I was in the water, wounded and unable to continue utilizing the stoke which had initially debilitated me. I believe this was a good sign for me give retirement a try.
Though we were dubbed a “team,” I don’t recall us ever competing against any other group of swimmers. Perhaps they felt I was simply a novelty and would only bring me along to their meets if they knew they were going to come in dead last, and they didn’t want the good swimmers to be embarrassed. As we were a “team,” we were given a mascot, and predictably it was a dolphin (big surprise.) As previously stated, I was far from the thinnest child about, so being hydrodynamic was not in my design. The rest of the male swimmers were of a slim build, and always equipped a pair of Speedos for a reduction of traction in the water, I would not follow in their example. There was a kid who was later to become my semi-friend who always felt the need to point out me being heftier than the rest of the water urchins. He would often remark “We are all the dolphins, but you’re; The Whale.” While cocking his head back to look up to the sky as if to see whether or not the all knowing seagull god was pleased with his insult.

Alejandro's Anti-Amazing Athletic Adventures No. 2: Bodgedall!

Like most American students in the nineties and early two-thousands, I was subjugated to the humiliation factory that was dubbed “P.E.” which we all know stands for Philistine Experimentation. In actuality it stands for “physical education,” though it wasn’t particularly educational, it was required as some way of combating the ever-looming threat of becoming a human sausage that wears ill fitting shorts. So, once a day we would be herded into the gym where we would be given some kind of activity that might get the blood pumping and minds focused on our learning of how “simile” is spelled.

Anyhow, the children of my generation were still subject to torture by way of the child killing blood sport known to the world as “dodge ball.” This “sport” has been deemed so vile and savage that, many states now ban it’s use as a way to break children, and train them to become future soldiers in the war against the non-existent flying elephants. The version of the sport I played was fairly standard in it’s rules. The class was divided into two nearly equal teams, now by equal I mean equal in numbers, not in ability. Why it wasn’t uncommon for the gym teachers to place the athletic kids across from the geeky kids and band nerds, just to see them get pummeled into dust just for their own sick entertainment.

Dodging the balls reached it’s zenith during my sixth grade year, which I spent at Oak Run state penitentiary. My three gym teachers would usually find some kind of activity for the class to perform some kind of activity that included some kind of running around. The two most popular activities were indoor base ball (which featured 30 outfielders) and of course dodge ball. So, we would play the now banned sport an average of two times a week, I’m not sure how any of us children survived the horrid onslaught which was known to emotionally ravage most of middle-America.

Unlike in the olden days when the balls used were composed of a thick rubber material which pronounced a rather loud “ffuthummmm!” whenever they made contact with a surface, whether it be a brick wall or a child’s face. Yet, when it came time for me to come of age and step into the arena of death, they had been replaced with a much softer counterpart. The balls we used were comprised of foam, and a rather thin pleather covering, which came in two colors red, and blue. After about a week of use the foam balls were very likely to be skinned through many impacts with young children’s faces and kneecaps, so they became shapeless masses of foam flying about the gymnasium.

Seeing as I wasn’t the most athletic of students, it was more often than not that I wasn’t the most effective player of the game. The foam balls were apparently manufactured in a way that only children who played baseball professionally could throw them with any accuracy or strength. Try as I might, my noodley arms were unable to project the ball in a straight line, or at a speed faster than a moseying panda bear. The rules of the game state that if a ball is thrown and caught by an opposing player before it hits the ground, the person who through the ball is out. Following this guideline, I found it much more productive to leave the throwing to the fit kids. Where as I would go on to become the world’s fifth most important Star Wars fan, they would just become regional sales managers. Chumps.

Over the course of the school year, we were bound to play dodge ball more often than a southern state feels the need succeed, the coaches felt the need to spice things up a bit. So, there would be variations of the game, where the allotted lines of moment for players was changed up, or we were all required to wear Tibetan hats while playing. The main name I remember for a variation on the game was called “Queen Bee,” wherein we would have the standard separation, but one kid on each side would be required to wear a florescent vest. As if the vest wasn’t punishment enough, it was a rule that the opposing side could only win if they hit that person with the ball.

As a whole I usually lasted fairly far into the game, as I didn’t usually throw the balls, and rarely attempted to catch them. This came to become a fairly interesting point when in that particular sixth grade class it came time to play a game of Queen Bee, where Danielle (the girl of my interest) was the queen and I was on her side of the court. The game went underway and slowly the rest of the team was eliminated and only I and Danielle were left, any twelve year olds dream come true.

The coaches decided to try and finish the game quicker by allowing the opposing side to move up to a distance were she and I were only a meter away. As we moved around trying to catch the balls being hurled at us, I had to stand in front of her so that I would absorb any accurate throw. Yet, alas! After months of being quite clumsy, I at long last was able to have a proper reflex reaction to an object being thrust at me. So I heroically dodge a ball, which whizzed past me and smacked Danielle right in the face. Super-smooth wasn’t I?

Tips For Being Wonderful

Over the years people have often come up to me and said “Alejandro, I need your help!” these people are often quickly carted away to their appropriate mental institutes, or a local Arby’s. What I have been able to ascertain from their loud bursts of noise emitting from their mouths was that they wanted to know how they could somehow become more like me. They want to be more like me? Perhaps I hit my head too hard the last time I dove into that shallow pool, but perhaps I heard them correctly. So, despite the voices in my head arguing against it, I am going to give you all a few tips on how to become more fantastically wonderful. By my standards anyways.
1. Drive A Vintage Non-Muscle Car
Old cars are cool, but you don’t want to be some kind of brock-jock, jammin’ around in his 1972 Charger. Who wants to be cool when you can be a geek? Perhaps you shouldn’t answer that question. Anyways, simply pick an old car to drive around in. When you are driving, you should act like you just exited a time portal, and you just arrived from the year in which your car was popular. My choice is the Datsun Sunny 120Y. A cool little car with about 80 horsepower, not that really matters. It’s look just shouts “dork” and that’s the exact look I go for, because I don’t like being hip, or someone’s bro, it’s just weirdness that fits who I am. Also, when driving your car of choice, you are only allotted to listen to two musicians from that era. With my car, I am only allowed to listen to 8-Tracks by T-Rex and Roxy Music. You’ve got to have boundaries.

2. Have a Mustache For Every Day Of The Week.
All powerful men have had mustaches, Joseph Stalin, Saddam Hussien, Adolf Hitler, Burt Renyolds, the list goes on. But why settle for just one stache’ when you could have one every day of the week? I propose a new system of days of the week. Instead of Monday, you refer to it as “Handlebar,” and Thursday would be “John Waters,” just think of all the fun you could have with seven constantly morphing mustaches. Why I can think of two things off of the top of my head, and both include pomade.

3. Box A Bear
Don’t question it, just do it. Is there better way to impress the ladies? If there is I haven’t heard it. Set up an exhibition match against any local bears, and everyone from miles around will gather and see the two of you duke it out in a fashion that will put great big patches hair on your chest. Now, you might be afraid that Mr. Bear will maul you, leaving you a pile of incomprehensible bits of meat. There is a way around this though. If you get some of your goons to go ‘round to the bear’s house while he is at work, and kidnap his family, and have them leave a note saying he should take a dive, otherwise they will be called the Bloodstain bears. If successful the bear will have no other choice but to lose to you, thus giving you a fantastic sense of dominance over all God’s creatures.

Alejandro’s Awe-Inspiring Album of Snapshots

As I putter around life, I often go equipped with my photo-apparatus, or failing that, I will have my camera telephone. I decided that I should put them on display for all to see.

“Mind Over Matter”
I found this poor fellow in the parking lot next to the garden center at Denton’s super Wal-Mart. One can only imagine how this package of cheese met it’s demise. Perhaps it had a hit placed on it by some cottage cheese, we may never know. Yet, we do know that it is magnificent.


“Four Letter Word”
One night I attended my chum Ricky’s house for a heated game of Scabble. With the first draw of the bag, I was able to spell the word Stove, leaving the letters of L, D, & K still within my possession. I eagerly reached into the velveteen bag and drew out four new letters to add to my collection. The bag gave unto me F, U, C, & I. With my new letters I was at long last able to spell out the swear word that always runs through my mind while I play Scabble, as I am as good at it as a sloth is good at being quick.


“Chilly Swede”
Even action stars need a scarf from time to time.


“A Grand Spectacle”
Located in the restroom near J.C. Penney’s at the golden Triangle, I dub this the brave man’s toilet. As only a man who has neither fear, nor shame will be able to use it in all its glory. I myself was not worthy of even standing near it’s magnificence.

“Fun Time Box”
Oh the joy of joys that lay within this magical box that was on sale at A Half Price Books in Austin, TX. I dared not buy it as I do not know how I would respond to finding a used copy of Gili, Kazaam, or Chairman of the Board. I decided to leave Pandora’s video box unopened.

“Dumpster Wally”
Found ‘em!

Cinema Customer Scoop #2: Green Liquid Serenade

The day of September seventeenth in the year of our lord Two-thousand and Ten, was a Friday. And like most Fridays of 2010, I was working at my job in a local movie theater. Being a Friday, it is likely to be the most busy day of the week, and the day which attracts the most kind of people, those who dub themselves to be known as “customers” though in reality they are more like the Morlocks or possibly even the Mole People. Though perhaps it might be insulting to the Morlocks, as they are far better behaved than most customers, and they practice better grooming habits. For the first Friday in many months, I was assigned to be an usher, where I was responsible for both tearing tickets then telling people where to go, and also cleaning up theaters in between showings of films.



You would believe it would be a simple job of taking a set of tickets, ripping them in twain and telling a person what direction their theater is without them getting hopelessly lost in the process. A couple in their mid-fourties came up to me and handed me some tickets for Resident Evil: Afterlife (a mistake in itself), effortlessly I took the tickets, tore them properly, and pointed with my thumb to the theater located directly behind me, and said “it’s in theater number seven, right behind me.” So they took their drink and popcorn, then began walking towards the direction of the theater, then they continued onward far past the theater, and wandered another two hundred yards, to the end of the hallway. After a few moments of studying the extremely complex, and overly interesting design of the exit sign, they slowly turned around and puttered back on down the hall. I know people are lazy, but is it really that difficult to turn your eyes and read a single digit in a rather large and readable font? Then again they are likely not educated enough to read an entire number in one go.



Though it’s not particularly an untouched subject, but the state in which patrons leave the theater once they finish a movie is so deplorable, it would make Hitler blush. Apparently patrons feel the need to pay upwards of twenty dollars on popp-ed corn, and fizzly beverages, only to take them to their movie and toss the about in a hillbilly hoe-down like frenzy. They then reload by going to the concession stand and redeeming their complementary refill for their large popcorn. Once returning to their seats, they celebrate the occasion with a hardy bellow and promptly upturning their newly received kernels unto the floor from which they don’t belong. Oh the bliss that must fill them as they sloth themselves down the hall and into their needlessly large car, as I am left to deal with the carnage they created. The horror.

On that particular Friday, one of the men’s restrooms contained a rather pungent and potent smell, which largely resembled the scent of rat urine. Because of this smell, I refrained from using that particular restroom, seeing as I’m not one to go in search of the source of a rather offensive smell. Eventually I ventured back into that lavatory, only to find the smell still present, and there was a puddle of an undeterminable liquid, so I assumed it was the source of the smell. Following the standard Alejandro protocol, I applied the use of water to alleviate the situation. Putting water on things always makes everything better, whether it be on fires, hysterical people, Kool-Aid mix, or large piles of sulfur, it’s always a good idea.



Anyhow, I later returned to the restroom at a later point in my shift, only to find the smell still present, like a house guest that won’t leave. I thought that perhaps the origin of the smell was in the air ducts, until I noticed something different about the room, a change the occurred since my last visit. This particular room contains two urinals, one of which has been broken for many a moon, and had been promptly covered with a trash bag, to let customers know that it was not in working condition. Yet, someone apparently felt it had been a gift for them to unwrap, so they took the bag off and placed it upon the shorter urinal. People need to understand that simply removing a bag from a toilet does not mean it’s fixed, and the stagnant yellowy-green opaque liquid in the bowl should be a sign of that. Perhaps it’s not humans who come to see movies at my theater, rather a series of weasels who pile inside a human suit and wander around.

New Braunfels Lacks Talent

Once a year, American students are often herded into whatever passes as their gathering place, wither it be an auditorium, gym, or cafeteria. As soon as all of the students are students are inside the gathering place, they are soon culled, so that none of the deadly secrets of the interworkings of the school district would leak out into the world. Then again, I might be wrong about that. Anyways, usually there would be an annual “talent” show, and I use the world “talent” extremely loosely. To give you an idea of how loose I mean, imagine of an old pair of underpants you had in high-school, that you still have several years after losing a decent amount of weight. When you try and wear those old under-things, they have been stretched out, and the elastic yields about the same tensile strength as the rubber bands you get on the back of cheap Halloween masks. So, technically they work, but it’s also like wearing a grocery bag with leg holes cut out the bottom.

Getting away from underpants, despite how intensely intriguing they are, they are not the subject of my essay. Once a year students would have to suffer though talent shows, where in all actuality no talent was to be found in a twenty mile radius, especially in the New Braunfels Independent School District. The worst of these were in middle school, when kids would form bands, simply for the prestige of performing at the talent show, in front of the entire student body, so that they could be singled out and preyed upon by the talentless people watching them perform. We piled upon the rickety bleachers that were held together with gaffer tape, and the tears of many a janitor, so we could watch people have muscle spasms while holding a guitar, then meekly putter off stage.

The main performance I remember from the two middle school shows I was forced to attend (and purchase a ticket for), was a “rocking” cover of Lynard Skynard’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” It was fine enough just to hear some students performing the song, as they were actually decent musicians and could hold a tune well enough. Though the whole experience became rather uncomfortable and stupid when the faculty forced the entire student body to stand up, clap, and sing along with the song in a giant sign of patriotism. I was annoyed at this, seeing I am likely one of the least patriotic citizens of the south, sure I have a sense of American pride when watching Saving Private Ryan, but that’s pretty fleeting. And second, didn’t anyone besides me know that we weren’t residents of Alabama? I know there is this whole “the south is going to do it again” mentality, but I’m fairly sure that Texas has its own brand of fanatics and their own set of nutty customs and songs. So, there I was, the only one not clapping or singing along, it was as though I had been teleported into a Nickleback concert, and was unable to find an exit from the sea of poor taste.



As a young child, I too preformed in a “talent” show. I was about seven or eight, and I preformed a stunt dubbed “the Human Tornado,” where in I (the human) believed I spun about so fast after uncoiling my limbs which I had wrapped around myself, I would look like a miniature tornado. I suppose I didn’t find this feat nearly interesting enough to enthrall my audience, so I stuffed a pair of shorts with various stuffed animals that wound up flying about the stage as I twirled. Man, I was a weird kid. Why couldn’t I just had played Chop Sticks on the piano like all of the other kids? And wasn’t my feat more about the talent of the elastic of my shorts, rather than my ability to spin around? Perhaps a loose pair of old underwear could have made me the star of the show (callback).

Musing On Being Alejandro

During my fifth of a century of life, it has become rather apparent that I am a beta male. This ranking has led me to a series of personality quirks and various physical reactions to external stimuli. The life of a beta male is most dangerous while in middle school, where the hormones leave their training academy and head for the front lines. This is the time in which the alpha and beta males begin their great schism, the alphas went on to bulk their muscles and reigned over the females of the school, and the betas retreated to their caves and began to whine.
I being a fairly low ranking beta male did not exit my pupal stage until after my teen years, which is not the most fortunate of times to leave metamorphosis as a rather large and unseemly moth. Before you go about saying “that’s not true!” and all of that other clap-trap, you need to stop taking me so seriously and continue reading. Now, where was I? De Nang?
As expressed in my previous blog, I apparently lack the proper combination of pheromones to attract any females that don’t spend four hours a day watching reruns of Oprah from 1992, and eating tubs of processed cheese. So, I’ve began to try and rely on my outright witticisms to attain the eyes of the ladies, but unfortunately for me they are quite tightly stuck inside their sockets. Though in recent years since emerging from my cocoon I have done my best to make myself less garish and unsightly to look upon it’s seems not enough to make women take interest in me. So instead I have built a device from a used toaster oven and a series of misused Christmas lights to make myself more interesting, but it only left me unevenly cooked and half-lit.

The only time in recent memory that anyone took an interest in me after hearing my voice was during my adventures with my compatriots Laura, Linzie, and Nicole last week. Upon Laura, Linzie, and I’s return from the utterly unspicy food of a local Thai restaurant to Nicole speaking with her mother on the phone. When we got settled in our seats Laura and Linzie got to talking about something while I stared off into space (one of my greatest skills), yet at some point I said a handful of sounds that may have been formed into a fractured sentence. For description sake, I will say that I was having an internal discussion with my brain over what my favorite middle-eastern fruit was.
Apparently the few syllables that escaped my larynx was able to move across the apartment to the kitchen and into Nicole’s phone. As my nasally whines were sent by satellite to another part of the country it apparently registered as “man” in the mind of the mother on the phone, a common mistake to be made. She then inquired her daughter; “is there a boy there?” with some anti-hesitance as apparently it was assumed that I was someone who resembled a young Clive Owen, as opposed to being a modern day Ed Grimley.
Now, you might wonder what the point of all that was? Well to tell you the truth I don't know either, but you still bothered to read it, maybe I just felt the need to waste your time by making you read some inane gibberish in run-on sentences. Anyways, despite all of the weirdness that I exhume, and lack of testosterone I am becoming mildly well adjusted with the moth I have turned into. And thinking about it, even if I don’t always enjoy who I am, I don’t think I would rather be anyone else. Except for maybe this kid.

Nix Prized Pig

Though I may just be a simple minded male homo-sapien, it is still beyond my comprehension to how the female mind works. I understand the general workings; eating, sleeping, learning, and wearing white jeans while playing tennis during Tampax commercials, yet most of the behavioral things are still a mystery. While I’m well understanding that the majority of women desire a male counterpart of some sort, it’s become apparent during my years since puberty began that I am apparently not a Grade A product. Now, don’t go on saying “Alejandro, that’s not true!” unless you can give any specific scientific evidence that the following is not faithful to being genuine.

It’s fairly obvious why females (commonly known as “girls”) were not wowed by my appearance by the arguments given in my blog “Fashion By Alejandro,” and the fact that I was a smelly teenager with deplorable self-esteem levels, and my lacking personality. Yet once I entered college I was able to lose most of my previous wardrobes, and gain a crème-filled nugget of self-confidence. This proved only able to attract two certain types of people, insane girls who often didn’t bath and saw me as only a piece of meat on sale at Kroger’s for $2.99 a pound. The other type often found Larry the Cable Guy a rather funny fellow, which is a no-no in many people's books. Then again, these were the kinds of girls who were open about their interest in me, if there were any sane ones they were likely to have kept their mouth closed. Perhaps when God was giving out pheromones he ran out and scraped what he could out of the bottom of the barrel and handed it over, before bringing in a new case.



Working with the public only furthers my grief, not that I particularly like customers, but it might be nice if they accept the fact that I exist, and that I’m not just some fevered-hallucination. Tonight (8-12-2010) I was working in box with my friend David, and was able to have myself a jolly-old time especially since only about ten percent of the population of customers came to my register. I would be sitting behind the possibly bullet proof glass looking out at the line of people who quickly look in my direction then focus themselves back at David. I was largely fine with this, except the fact that none of the people who came over to my window was female, with the exception of pre-pubescent girls, and middle-aged women with their husbands. Has no age appropriate girl got any love for ol’ Alejandro? I know that I am not dashingly good looking, but that doesn’t affect my skill at selling tickets, and counting change, if anything it might make me more effective at those activates.

David even admitted that he was nothing special to look at, though for some reason any girl that was at least mildly attractive came to my window. I know I’m no prized pig, but I’m not so hideous that people won’t even want to purchase tickets from me, perhaps this is the way that Joseph Merrick experienced the world. But then again he didn’t work in a movie theater.



There was one example where a girl and her friend did come up to me, while there weren’t any other customers around and began to purchase a ticket from me. Midway through her sentence David went to his microphone and said “I can help whomever is ready over here.” Towards the girl’s friend, and a couple that walked up during the transaction. Instead of continuing her transaction with me, the girl who was buying a ticket from me, cut herself off, and with great speed stepped over to David’s register leaving me hanging. It’s not like I was going to ask for her number or bust out my accordion and attempt to serenade her. Apparently I was far to unappealing to even give money to, so I was immediately released from her business proceeding.

Despite the fact that I’m almost never out to try and woo women, the way some have looked upon me with such disdain leads me to believe that perhaps I should surrender and go live my life as an ice fisher who hates halibut. Years of being considered as some kind of un-castrated eunuch has made my view of the fairer sex warped and unable to see anything but their disdain for me. Then again maybe all of them are simply turned off by my constant un-trained ukulele playing.

Operation Slip Eater

As I have stated before, I was allotted a handful of electives during my tenure at New Braunfels Middle School, the Olympia of public education. Though the selection wasn’t the most expansive, there was some choice besides the physical education classes. The school included: art, theater, computer science, choir, journalism, computer programming, library science, the list went on for a yard. Being the sedentary child that I was, I never wanted to do something that required a lot of mental thought, nor physical activities, as rolling around the mat in the locker room really took it out of me. So, instead of doing something that might hone my skills, or give me any time of practical or creative skill, I chose to be an office aid.

Essentially I was a gofer, I would walk around the school handing out informational slips, and memos to various classes throughout the school. Besides occasionally letting teachers know to tell one of their students that their dear aunt Ronda had been smashed by an Amtrak, I would also collect attendance slips. My supervisor Ms. Slaughter was the person in charge of keeping track which students would show up to school, and which ones would be liquidated.

So, at some point during my daily hour spent in the front office I would get up and retrieve half of the school’s attendance slips, usually clipped to the outside of the classroom door. Though occasionally the instructor would forget, so I would knock on the door, walk in and ask for them to conduct a headcount, and hand me that foot long piece of green paper. Though there was one teacher, who later became my journalism teacher, who would never remember to do the attendance, like ineffective clockwork he was. Despite the fact that I went all around the school, kicking in doors to tell people to give me the slips, I was able to do it to Mr. Brooks, because there was a particular girl in his class.

Being the unfit, socially awkward kid that I was, I had become infatuated with this girl Danielle the previous year in sixth grade, and she had chosen journalism as one of her electives. So, I would see her through the window, and was unable to enter the room and be blasted by her pheromones which lingered in the air. While the class was happening, a extremely meek knock came at the door, and my chunky face appeared behind the chicken wire lined window.

Besides going on out to deliver and pick up notes across campus, I spent a lot of time just sitting around the front office with nothing to do but stare at the walls. There was another office aid whom I will call Gregory as I don’t recall his real name, so I would talk to him about Dragon Ball Z, and looked at the covers of my Deltora Quest books as I would read them. One of the more odd memories I had of me and Gregory was the fact that we both knew that located in the office, there was a security camera that would record our every move, granted it was when we were sitting at the round table within the office. Then one day the camera was gone, and we pointed it out to the lady who worked the front desk. She completely denied the existence of it ever being there, maybe the government would off her if she exposed their plan to control children by way of permanent records and stale coffee.

Something on the Inside of the Bus!

Nearly all American school children have been forced the experience of having to ride around in those large yellow coffins known as the bus. The joyous time children would have driving along in what was essentially a hallway with wheels, the bumping of the wheel well, and the chipping of teeth on the seat in front of you when the breaks were applied. Over the years I attended public school, there were many a trip where we took the mustard eyesore, whiter it was riding home, or going to some abandoned concrete structure for a field trip.

Though I would sometimes receive a ride home from my parents, I would usually ride the bus home during my elementary school tenure. Though I don’t remember my specific bus driver from second and third grade, but I do vividly recall my driver from fourth and fifth grade, as she was fit to be tied woman both years. I’m not sure if this is her name, but I think she was Miss Maybry, or possibly Mayapple, or at least that that’s what the nametag above the windshield read. Her face was not unlike a melted snow monkey, but that might also be my memoires muddling up the truth, but she wasn’t the nicest lady in the world.

Everyday, at three when the school day was done, we would have to go into the gym to wait for the busses to pass though and let children on. Whenever my bus came along the teachers would usher us out to the bus, where the driver would give us a stone-grimace as we would walk on-board, and hang our heads in shame. Once we were all loaded onto the bus, the door would close, locking us inside the iron rectangle, preventing our freedom to escape. Seeing as we were children, we did feel the need to talk to one another on the ride home, but apparently our volume level was too much for Miss Mayparade.

As we were driving along we would talk, and make some noise, but apparently it was far too much for the driver, as she would slam on the breaks in the middle of traffic and yell at us. So after slamming my head on the metal bar supporting the seat in front of me, I would look up at the blurry vision in front of me and see her face turning back and screaming “Sit down and shut up!” perhaps she always mad because she never got to watch Oprah as it was on while she was working. So, the bus route would take twice as long as she would make us quiet down if our noise level ever got above ten decibels.

Yet, despite her constant shouting and threatening us with garden rakes, she was nice to us on one occasion. It was the Friday before Halloween, and we were all eager to get off the bus, and go home were our parents would yell at us instead. But on that particular day, she would say happy Halloween and give us a zip lock bag full of commercial brand candy. Seeing as we were children, we happily accepted the gift, and went on our merry way, not realizing the fact that this was the same woman who spent most of her days screaming at us, and was likely trying to poison us with her candy. The bus held fifty children that day, only three survived.

Diddly Design

I tend to spend some of my time working on what might call “art” though others, may simply believe to be some kind of hand spasm I had while holding a pencil. Though apparently today, a spasm on paper, or canvas can be considered art, the days have long since past where artists needed to put a great deal of effort into their work to receive some recognition. But now, any stripling with a ratty jacket and a beard can tape some yarn onto a pizza box and call it art.

Though I occasionally doodle, I do it as a hobby, rather than trying to make a career out of it. So, a lot of the time I may just jot something down in a sketch book, then not draw anything again for a week or more. Yet, as a child I would apparently try and fill any empty sheet of paper with some kind of visual representation of my insane imagination. A lot of my work usually consisted of atomically incorrect felines, often wearing sun glasses, because they were in effect “cool cats.” Because when you are a child, a pair of Blues Brothers’ style sunglasses was the definition of what it was to be cool, or perhaps it was just me who believed that.

Anyhow, during elementary school, it seemed that less was emphasized on reading, and more one things being covered in glitter and macaroni, or perhaps I was in the wrong classroom. Whenever we had some free time, I was usually choose to doodle, even doing so on the blank spaces of the practice TAAS test. “What?! A blank space? I’ll remedy that!” sounds like something I may have blurted aloud once I finished that pancake of a test.

On the occasions when we were assigned to draw something, or had the option of drawing something for class, I would nearly wet myself with excitement. My first memory of such an occasion was back in the first grade, when I was attending Memorial Primary in New Braunfels. From what I remember we were supposed to draw some kind of a representation of what people did on their summer vacation. Being the realistic young lad that I was, I choose something rather sensible and mainstream: A cat riding a wave on a surfboard. What else do cats do in the summer?

The picture was fairly basic, two waves, two fish, a towel, a cat, and a mighty happy sun. Like the cat, the sun also sported a pair of sunglasses and had a refreshing drink in his hand. Now, despite the complete lack of any kind of proper depth, or lighting properties, my teacher found a fault with my picture that she decided to bring to my attention. The sun had a brown bottle in his hand, of a refreshing drink, but apparently because I had labeled it as Beer, I had offended everyone in the entire school, and brought shame on the heads of my family. She let the fact that a cat was surfing, and wearing sunglasses slide, but horror of horrors! The sun drinking a beer? How dare he!

Seeing as the sun is 4,570,000,000 years old, I’m fairly sure it’s old enough to drink. But alas, I believe I gave up on the battle, and added the addition of the word “root” to the bottle, allowing for my classmates continuing their non-alcoholic ways for at least another ten years. How was I to know what Sol was a member of AA, and had been trying to stay sober for the last two epochs?


Surely, not even all of Rembrandt's work combined could compare to this.

Elipse Absurdity and a Raging Redhead

As currently I am largely given box office shifts at work, I happen to have to deal with a lot of the crazies that come up to expel their pointless flap at me through a sheet of glass. Though sometimes I get the pleasure of witnessing someone throw a hissy fit without their anger being directed at me. Last Sunday (8-1-2010) I was in the box office with Ricky and Miss Bow, so thankfully I knew I wouldn’t be completely bored to death during my six hour shift.
Occasionally customers will pre-order their tickets, usually when they are buying a large amount of tickets, or for a movie that is expecting to sell out on it’s opening weekend. While working box with me Ricky had a customer, a blonde woman wearing a white blouse, she had apparently pre-ordered tickets for Eclipse, and wanted to redeem them to see the movie. She flipped Ricky her credit card so that he could put it through the machine, and print the tickets, as flying platypus jumping out of the machine isn’t likely to happen. And that way…was no different. Though strangely enough, the card did not work, as a message reading “No Transaction Found” appeared on the screen when the card was swiped.
Ricky told the blonde lady that apparently the card was not the one that she used to pay for her tickets with. She took this to be some kind of strike against her, and began to yell at him for what was obviously his attempt to publicly humiliate her in front of the absent customers behind her. Following this she went inside and knocked at the door, and Ricky went to open the door without checking the peep-hole. As he opened the door the woman began ranting at Miss Bow who stood by wishing for psychic powers, so that the lady would blow up. We closed the door on her, and barricaded ourselves inside the box offices as if he were under attack by sasquatches from the future. Eventually the blonde woman found her ticket conformation code, and we put it in the machine, waiting for a dingy-load of tickets to come up. Alas only one ticket popped up, leaving us very disappointed.


Despite my obviously angry and gladiator-like exterior, I don’t try and get myself into fights with most people, seeing as they would instantly lose once I showed them my incredible kung-fu grip. Recently, Linzie; a colleague of mine returned from an extensive trip of a certain boot shaped country located in the soft underbelly of Europe. Though we aren’t the closest of friends, we aren’t above saying “hello” to one another in passing, or perhaps we were. As for a long time we would simply open our eyes wide as we passes one another in the hallway, as though we had just seen something rather shocking.
On one of her first days back working Stateside I was in the box office changing the movie times, when my manager Chris walked in, followed by Linzie. We had gotten to chatting while I was going through the plastic rectangles in a fastidious fashion, and replacing the now outdated show times for movies. At some point of the conversation I had mentioned that Linzie’s hair was the same color as a well known citrus fruit, this was my undoing. She flew into a rage, and gingerly (pun) picked up a local screwdriver and reeled it back to strike me down into the ground. I bravely cowered in fear as she stood above me with a flat head, ready to hack my ineffective brain all over the floor, while Chris stood back and laughed.
I’m not sure how I survived, perhaps she felt I was too pathetic to kill, or just not good sport. Whatever it was she learned in me a lesson I shant soon forget. Unless I do.

Fashion by Alejandro

My own personal style has never caught on among the public, it has thankfully become lass garish over time, though it’s far from high fashion. I divide up my choice of clothes into three separate categories, each of which last a few years. The first I call “Hawaiian Workman,” the second “Marmy Pan,” and the third and current style is “Crapabilly.” Now I shall bestow to you a description of each of these three stages of my clothing choices.

Phase 1: Hawaiian Workman, 2001-2003

When first entering puberty, I had no sense of being any kind of attractive to the opposite gender, and never really seemed to worry about it for the first few years. Perhaps my subconscious knew that there was no possible way I would be desirable to girls, as my personal bathing habits were far from nominal.
Mercifully the only photographic evidence of this stage is that from my eight grade yearbook, where I look not unlike a Belgian lesbian. Every day I went to school wearing garish button up shirts, usually with a pattern featuring palm trees, or faux Chinese lettering, as all cool kids dressed this way. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used Jimmy Buffett as my example of how a man should dress. Besides the fabulously smelly nerd shirts, I also equipped some cheap denim jeans, and work boots on a daily basis. What woman wouldn’t swoon at my presence?

Phase 2: Marmy Pan, 2003-2007
Though my high school required me to wear a uniform, I still had my own personal vogue which I wore on the weekends. I had emerged from my Hawaiian shirt and work boots, and slipped into an endless closet of black shirts and cargo pants, with Chuck Taylors that looked bad with any color. Perhaps I believed that if I wore clothes vaguely similar to what GIs wear, I might obtain some kind of physical prowess, or even some dignity. As well all know, that was not the case. My lack of physical activity and combat training would have led me to instantly wet myself and spaz-out across the battle field, leading to some interesting psychological warfare. Not only did I wear cargo pants, but ill fitting cargo pants, which were either too long, or high waters, so I looked a fool no matter what the occasion. This was also the point in life, where I refused to wear blue jeans, perhaps I found them to be bourgeois or something.

Phase 3: Crapabilly 2008-now
After my first semester in college, I lost forty something pounds, rendering my previous line of clothing to be more useless than a can opener in the frozen food isle. So, as opposed to continuing my use of pockets on my lower thighs, I found another person in which to emulate my dressing abilities; Josh Homme. The front man of Queens of the Stone Age was never my favorite as he was to my friend James, but I did think his post-modern rockabilly look was much better than my parachute pants. Though I bypassed the sleeveless shirt action, I did find an affinity for pearl snap buttons, which made my arms looks like they contain more than tapioca pudding, and the torso shape, which makes a mild attempt at hiding my love handles. So, as I venture onward through life, it's unknown how I will dress. Though I'm fairly sure I won't follow Lady GaGa's example, despite the fact she wrote that song about me.

A Dash of Confidence

During the twilight of my tenure at New Braunfels Middle School, I was able to have two electives, one of which wasn’t forcibly a physical educational requirement. For my last semester of public school, I chose Journalism, and Theater as my personal two. The journalism class is a story for another day, but for now I will spin you the tale of my small piece of glory. Most of the actual class is a blur, to which the gooey secrets may later be remembered by me, but I will start my theater stories, with my last one.

The final assignment of the class was to put on a production, which the instructor would choose. Our teacher chose this rather namby-pamby fairytale court, which seemed to be written by a flounder with a case of severe brain trauma. The characters were all pretty cut and dry, the judge, the lawyer, the three little pigs, and the rather non-beefy bailiff. After reading the play, I daintily threw my hands up in the air, and bellowed “you call this art?!” then ran out of the room throwing a drama queen’s fit. So, instead of doing the rather unfunny court proceedings, I elected to do another sketch, something to perhaps warm the crowd, for the main show. As it required it’s audience to be at a proper temperature for baking.

As I had become a fan of Monty Python’s Flying Circus in the years beforehand, I was well acquainted with the different sketches, and running gags of the comedy troupe. My parents even when so far as to buy me the script books for the television show, so I would enjoy the sketches without seeing them. So, I chose the parrot sketch, as it was widely considered to be one of the best of the show’s run, and the fact that I only needed three actors, and no outlandish costumes consisting of Viking helmets, or pepper pot wigs. My friends Sam, and Danny joined in the sketch, Sam playing the storekeeper, Danny the train agent, and myself as Mr. Praline.

The big day came, and several classes were jammed into the theater room, violating many a fire code, just so instructors didn’t have to teach, and so my class can show their diminutive acting skills. As Sam’s, Danny’s, and I’s sketch was much shorter than the brain hemorrhage that was Fairy-Tale court, we were allowed to go first. Despite my fading English accent, and occasional missing lines, we were a hit, the audience laughed, and seemed to be enjoying the production. The laughter flowed over me, and I felt for the first time in my life, that I was funny, and that people could see me as something other than that smell kid who wore Hawaiian shirts everyday.

Though this was my final memory of attending the public school system of New Braunfels, it was a fairly positive one. Instead of having the jock patrol making fun of me, or having a rather unsuccessful attempt of trying to get a girl to like me, I increased in some self-confidence, if only by a smidge. I don’t think I will soon forget the barrage of laughter than resonated in that dull gray room on the third floor, though then again it may have just been the voices in my head. Those guys do tend to be a set of gigglepusses.

A Virgin Sacrifice

During the my career as a schoolchild, I was for reasons unknown, selected to be a “leader,” in both the New Braunfels School District, and the family of Holy Cross schools. I’m not sure why I was labeled with this mantel, I wasn’t particularly sociable, nor did I work outstandingly well with others. I suppose it may have been because I’m passably intelligent, but my grades in public school were far from superb, but I was usually picked out. Also, I was likely the most emotionally stable of my friends, and that’s a stretch, as I had many an outburst, though I was never expelled. Perhaps NBISD chose a child per each generation to pick on, as the district as a whole got bored, and felt the need to take it out on others.

Anyways, during the summer of 2006, I for some reason wanted to join the A.C.T.S. program, and I was signed up to go on a retreat during the latter half of that summer. I can’t remember why I joined, maybe it was so I could meet some girls who wouldn’t talk to me. So, I spent three long days at a retreat, immediately regretting it as soon as I stepped onto the bus at St. Peter’s and Paul. The bus left the church, and proceeded to drive out somewhere in the country, to their compound, where we were forced to make counterfeit Swatches. In reality, it was a church, with a community center close to it, but that was just the waypoint, after collecting more of the “chosen,” we were herded to Saint Anthony’s high school in San Antonio.



We were stored inside a retreat house which was within a weak man’s stone throw of the school itself. When we arrived at the institute, we were given a shirt marking the occasion, it held a scripture passage on the back, which was misspelled. During my time inside, we were forced into groups, and assigned different retreat leaders and were meant to suffer their peppiness. The name of our group leader escapes me, so I will dub them “Skippy,” it seems like a appropriate name. So, we would waste the day away by talking about God, making trinkets for export, and eating powdered eggs.

Though occasionally (5 times a day), we would all gather around for a “personal narrative” by one of the retreat leaders. These stories would quickly turn from nice little soliloquies to sob fests by everyone in the room. While reading their story, the retreat leader would immediately burst into tears while relaying some horrifying life experience, then everyone else would join in, it was worse than when I saw My Dog Skip in the theater. Of course, I was the only one not crying in the entire room, so I would have to find something to put my attention to, seeing as I didn’t want to make eye contact with someone, and have them find I wasn’t emotionally gut wrenched by the tale of woes.

Nearer the end of the retreat, we were all told to line up and go to the school’s auditorium, probably for some play about moral hygiene. As we were put in front of the door, they placed me in the front of the line, I guess so I could absorb the first wave of bullets that rained down upon us. Then as I was ushered (pushed) into the main auditorium, I found that it was dark, with only the lights on the stage laminating the large hall. Then, I noticed the shadows that lay in the chairs of the space, and they turned around and revealed themselves to be people. Each of them was chanting the same hymn, but it appeared rather demonic, as their faces were lit by the candle the cradled in their hands. Apparently I was about to be a virgin sacrifice to the unholy cult of the “Kingdon” of heaven.

They looked upon me while their mouths moved in synchronized movements, I panicked and acted as though I also knew the words of the hymn, though in actuality I was just sing the parts of Night Fever that I could remember. The last memory I have is that I was standing onstage next to the other retreaters (who seemed to be enjoying it) awaiting for the end to come, as it surely looked as though my time was up.

Alejandro's Anti-Amazing Atheltic Adventures No. 1

During my time spent in the New Braunfels Independent School District, I was usually given a yellow sheet of paper at the end of a school year, so I could decide what classes to take the following semester. The golden rod paper would usually list the classes you were required to take, i.e. English, Science, Math, and so on. But starting at the end of fifth grade, the paper had included a new item: electives. So, when the end of sixth grade came along, and we were to decide what two electives we would take in seventh grade. NBISD requires you to take at least one class that requires some sort of physical activity, there are three choices: Gym, Marching Band, and Athletics.
Unfortunately for me the legendary Basket Weaving class that all teachers threaten you with did not exist. So for some reason I chose Athletics.
Athletics was different than gym in that, if you wanted to even attempt to join one of the school’s sports team, you had to be in this specific class of sweat mongers and jock-brocks. For some reason I felt that I was going to be able to make it onto the basketball team, despite my inability to play, or even know what a point guard was. So, there I was, a very unfit, and slightly overweight early teen stuck in a room of jocks and preps, who were already much more desirable to girls than I ever was, or likely will be, except maybe in Canada.

As we were forced to work out fairly rigorously every day, we had to have our own set of workout clothes. I had a shirt, and a pair of basketball shorts, but apparently this wasn’t enough for the coaches who felt the need to assign each of a set of school issued workout clothes. They had us line up, and they would look at us and guess what size we wore, and even if they were horribly off, they wouldn’t give us a correct size. Rather like the portal of uniform assignment at concentration camps in World War II movies. When my turn came, and Jones; the grossly obese football defense coordinator looked at me and assigned me an extra large. Now, I wasn’t the skinniest kid around, but I was far and away not going to fit into a pair of extra large pair of gray shorts, and a half shirt. So, as time rolled on, I found a way of getting rid of jumbo clown short pants, and quash my homoerotic half shirt that revealed my chunky mid-drift.

Sometime during the middle of the semester, we were taken out of the mat room, and forced to run around for a few miles. As the actual running track consisted of mud, and was normally used by the girl’s athletics class, we were forced to run the streets around the school, while the coaches piled into a pickup truck and drove around like hillbillies on a gay-witch hunt. I was one of the most unfit in the class, so I was always trailing behind with the other fatties who signed up for the class by mistake.

The coaches usually paid more attention to the real athletes to make sure they were always running, so they were off far ahead and us in the back could slack off by walking, or collapsing from heat exhaustion. Yet, every so often that truck would drive down around the corner, and we would have to start running again, just in case they decided to hunt us down in a manner described by Richard Connell.

Cinema Customer Scoop #1: Card-Swiping Lunacy

In my four and a half years of working at movie theaters it is inevitable that I will have my fair share of stupid customers and the inane gibberish that spouts from their noise holes. Each of them has their own personal stories, each with it’s own aggravating idiom. Now, you will be able to enjoy those wonderful stories of ignorance and all around nearly unbelievable acts of ineptitude.

This story comes from the month of June, in the year of two-thousand and ten. Obama was president, and the world was not yet overrun by pink zebras with deplorable table manners. I was working on concessions all day, the sun had gone down, so the glare from the cars in the parking lot was no longer frying my retinas. The box office worker had needed a break, and I being the only other person qualified to work it, left concessions and sauntered over to box.

I gave a rappa-tap on the door, and found it opened by Thomas, who was working within. He left and I sat down to a half hour of taking green paper, and exchanging it for glossy red papers. The first twenty-eight minuets went on without a hitch, few customers came, as I was assume everyone was out hog-calling, and hadn’t the thought to go and see a movie. I was almost done covering for Thomas, and a squat-bent up little man with a wife in a purple blouse came up to the window.

He ordered two tickets for Grown Ups, as if that wasn’t a big enough mistake, he proceeded to hand me his credit card, which became an extreme source of anger for me. I swiped the card through the machine, and the message popped up on my screen reading “This is not a Credit Card,” despite the fact that I looked very much like one, and it even said the words on it’s colorful surface. I shook off this first attempt at preventing the card from working, and went about swiping it again, as sometimes the register sometimes will refuse to scan on the first swipe. The message appeared several more times, so I shouted “Vile machine! Thou shoust not make me a fool!” and began entering the card’s information manually.

After entering the card number and expiration date, then asking the customer for his billing zip code, I turned the card around to find it’s three digit security code. What’s this!? The code was absent from its spot, not only had the ink from the letters disappeared, but the entire of the backside of the card had been sanded smooth. Unable to read the back of the card, I asked the squat man if he knew the code, quite obviously he didn’t. But, he did go on to tell me to keep trying and swipe the card fruitlessly. After five minutes of “this is not a credit card” I told him it did not work. He then produced a second card, which worked instantly.

Why hadn’t he given me the working card from the get go? Instead he let me go about frivolously trying to make the shell-shocked card work, despite it obviously being long dead. After leaving box, I saw him talking to Sean my manager about something. I scurried away into the hallway so that he wouldn’t see me, and attack me with his defunct card. Sean later told me that the small man said I had abused the card and given him a dirty look when I threw his tickets at him. Despite the fact that I give a neutral reaction to his card not working, he made me out to be a rather angry-elf who stabbed his card in the heart with a letter opener.

Sour Cream, Lettuce, and False Termination

A little over a year ago I achieved employment in Denton after spending the past two years almost completely without a job. The month and a half I spent puttering around Best Buy, messing up sales with secret sellers doesn’t really count. Upon my arrival of Cinemark 14 in Denton, I was fairly well received by others, and tepidly impressive as I knew a lot of the goings on behind the scenes at a movie theater. Also I wasn’t some whiney school kid, so that’s always a plus. I remember the first two people I met while working in my first few days, Mr. San Antonio, my constantly galled manager, and Laura; a clever young lass who drives a beige colored car.

With the exception of Mr. Cole who hired me, San Antonio was the first manager I worked under. I gingerly walked into the scullery on my first day to see that he was already barking at the other two new hires, Mark and Gracie. Despite his sometimes cross outward appearance, San Antonio is actually quite the cool dude, understanding my references to Dragonball Z, Rimmer salute, and an occasional hardy “Rowsdower!”
San Antonio’s catch phrase is something that he has apparently wanted to say truthfully since he became a manager, those two words of termination: “You’re Fired.” Perhaps following in Donald Trump’s footsteps, but not his hairstyle Jacob struts about pulling people aside to break the false news to them, then giving them a stern nod and walking away. Once performing this action, the victim is usually set into a vegetative trance to which they lay for a few moments, during which the spider is able to encase them in a cocoon for ingestion later. And it is likely that he will comment this phrase once reading this particular entry.

During my second shift I was placed under the watchful eye of Laura, who from what I can remember wasn’t very impressed with me at first (who would be?). She took my past experience in movie theaters to be unsound, and passed me off as some stupid kid, but I proved her! Despite her indifference to me, I did find some common ground when I suddenly panicked and shouted out the words “Doctor Who!” With this vocal spasm I learned she also liked the show, and we developed an instant rapport. Then I lost it after going overboard with my nerdiness of both the classic and modern series, as opposed to just the new series with the Ninth Doctor forwards.
Yet, after time she allowed me to talk to her again, but only with a permission slip signed by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s chief executive. Thankfully Mr. Martin Dolan is an old friend of mine, and got it out of the way for me. Seeing as she was out and about upstairs starting movies, while I was downstairs wanting customers to go away and stop giving me brain trauma. And now I can safely say that I have moved to no. 97 on her list favorite people, right next to Mickey Rooney, and the guy from the Zararain’s commercials, which isn’t a bad spot if I do say so myself.
Well there is some year old nostalgia from me. Perhaps you can write something more interesting, or whittle some dancing clogs.