Fan Mail

Okay, this isn’t fan mail fan mail; it’s just an email from my Mom. But she reads my blog and is one of the four comment-leavers that make me feel like I’m actually doing more than sending my stories into a clouded and scary abyss, so I shall share.

So I got an email from her, because we do that...

[A nod to The Oatmeal nodding at Hyperbole And A Half.]

...And the email said:

“I had a dream last night that made me mad during the dream but when I woke up it was hilarious!”

Can you tell we’re related? A run-on sentence used to show how excited we are to write it? That’s us.

“It was about multi-tasked-one-handed nose blowing.”

She’s referring back to this post, probably one of the most absent-minded ones I’ve ever put on this blog (but nonetheless one of the funniest, I think). A complaint about bananas turning into a rant about the fact the Jane Goodall never has to go to the zoo and, you guessed it, my resentment towards people who blow their nose with one hand. Apparently this inspired her unconscious mind.

“I was at work and stopped to blow my nose. Two-handed, of course. My boss walked by with a disgusted look on her face and told me that I blow my nose very inefficiently! She then proceeded to do whatever it was that she was doing and reached over with a Kleenex one-handed, grabbed my nose, told me to ‘blow’, I continued to work on my computer while blowing. She then looked at me and said ‘SEE!? You should be able to keep working and blow your nose at the same time if you only used one hand!’

Bitch.”

 [A few things about this drawing: 

1. Since my mom left out what her boss was doing in her dream, I naturally assumed that she was playing badminton.

2. I've found drawing anyone besides myself as a stick figure is really strange. I went through about a million sketches of my mom's head before I found one that didn't completely suck. This one still kind of does, but it's not the worst thing in the world.

3. More offices should probably have badminton. This picture is like a workplace paradise.] 

I will give you, Mom, the coveted label of Posts I End With The Word ‘Bitch’ for that one.

Conqueror of the Common Cold

Three days ago I was attacked by a vicious cold—a snotty, congested, achy, pissed off, tasteless wanker of a cold that tore me limb from limb and made me wish I wasn’t taking eighteen credits. Or any, for that matter. A bed was all I could handle at this point.

Yet I pressed on. I went into battle mode. Behold, my artillery: 

Three Cold-Eeze zinc lozenges a day.

Three Airborne tablets a day.

Spicy food (the only thing I could taste) 

and salads with broccoli and spinach for lunch and dinner.

Citrus fruit smoothies between meals.

An entire lake (for drinking)

Numerous Puffs Plus with Lotion

And I have annihilated this cold.  This cold wishes it were never born. This cold is begging me for mercy, like the Legion demons in the bible beg Jesus. “Oh, please, Brian! Don’t cast me out! Allow me to go into the grazing swine!”

“No,” I reply. “But if you must, you may infect Christie for a short time, but be warned: she has the same weapons that I do.”

“Oh, thank you, merciful Brian!”

This cold is freaking done for.

You wanna know why?

‘Cause Brian ain’t nobody’s bitch.

Phrases of this Generation: The Like-Legit-Like Sandwich

Before I begin, allow my to send out a disclaimer that this may sound surprisingly like a rant, which is something I promised would never appear on my blog way back. However, my friends, I think this may be funny enough to lose that negative title and instead be referred to as “a humorous discussion of a subject found annoying by the author.”

There are a few phrases that this (my) generation uses that just don’t make sense to me. Actually, they kill me a little. Or at least figuratively smash my fingers in car doors. My first example of this is The Like-Legit-Like Sandwich. If you haven’t heard of it, once I explain you’ll hear it everywhere you go from the mouths of this wicked and perverse generation.

The moment legitimately became legit the world started losing all coherence and meaning. Legitimately is a pretty word that also sounds long. People should enjoy using it…especially those who could use a few easy, long words to make them seem just above the smart/dumb line (kind of like vocabulary or evidently or obviously). But no, legitimately became legit, and soon everything was either legit or not legit (illegit?).

Definitions of this word have been whittled down to, “You know…it means, like, ‘for real.’”

Then shoot me legit.

And then something happened that changed the entire world forever. Some people with monosyllabic vocabularies who had adopted legit as the hardest word they know found out that they never have to trouble their brains anymore by asking someone, “What do you mean?” or, “Are you telling me the truth?” Instead, they could just say…brace yourselves…

“Like, legit, like…?”

Cryptic? Allow me to explain.

Let’s say I walked up to a friend and said, “Today I took a wolf up to the top of the highest hill in Minnesota and we had a picnic.” 

[Wolves actually have surprisingly balanced backs. They can carry pretty much anything up there.]

After hearing it, he would say, “Wait. Like, legit, like…?”

And I would be forced to say, “Yes. I’m telling the truth. I took a wolf up a hill and we had a picnic of berries and potato chips.” 

[Wolves only eat SunChips in the compostable bags, even though they're noisy.]

Really, it just takes all the conversational responsibility off of my friend, so all he has to do is observe my talking and do something more intelligent than squeak or grunt when he starts to get lost.

This is what the Like-Legit-Like Sandwich is really saying:

Like #1 = Are you saying

Legit = that you’re serious?

Like #2 = For example, you actually sat on top of a hill with a wolf and it didn’t eat you?

And it says this at the same time:

Like #1 = Did you know

Legit = that I have no idea

Like #2 = how to actually form a coherent sentence?

Another use for the Like-Legit-Like Sandwich is when one is trying to explain something that they don’t have the words to explain:

“The lyrics in this song are so cool. They’re like…legit, like…I really like them.”

This is merely using the word “legitimate” incorrectly. I mean, when are words not legitimate? Are there songs that are written with words like “fliminhaha” or “sklideedoo” out there? The words, I suppose, would not be legitimate in that song. But this happening is very unlikely.

[This is the most likely place to hear goofy words like this in a song. 

I dedicate this to my great friend  Billy Sveen.]

This, my friends, is The Like-Legit-Like Sandwich. You will find that the word legit is rarely found without word like nearby. May you be forever annoyed. 

DreamBomb, or 50-Word Sagas, or I'm Two-Thirds of a Good Person When I'm Unconscious (Part II)

Just like last time, here are three dreams that I had that weren't detailed enough to give them a full post, so they're written using only 50 words each--no more, no less. In the first two, I come out looking like waaaaay too good of a person. Evidence in Dream #3 shows that I become less of a good person if something disappoints me.

Dream #1:

“Hello, Brian! Would you like to invest in my new product?”

“Of course I would! What is it?”

“Tobacco cookies.”

“Tobacco cookies?”

“Yes, cookies with tobacco in them. All the taste without the smoke! What do you say?”

“No thanks. Let’s go rollerblading instead.”

“Oh, come on!”

“No means no.”

Dream #2:

Next! Oprah brings an inner city class to visit Brian Schroeder, the famous forest restorer!

“We come to you via Skype from the forest Brian restored!” says Oprah.

“Thanks, O. It’s really impor—oh no!”

[Massive noise.]

“I’M A GIANT TREE!”

The children scream.
But the tree only sings a heartwarming song.

Dream #3:

“Ready to see it?” says Grandma.

“Yes!”

“When pushed, this teacup reveals a compartment that holds small items.”

“What? Lame.”