Intervention at the bar

I was at the bar last week with a buddy of mine and decided it was the perfect place and time to have an intervention with him. With my seven weeks of sobriety, even though I bailed on my bet, I somehow feel I gained a sense of arrogance, or expertise, with the whole sobriety thing.

"You need to stop drinking so much," I said.

"But you called me down here to meet you," he defended himself.

"I called you down here to drink a few beers with me. I don't want to sit and watch you drink 12 to 15 shots while I'm sitting here with you," I explained.

"So you're calling me a drunk???" He asked.

"That's what I'm saying. You need to get your act together," I explained.

"But you drink," he said, speaking with a tone of disbelief.

"I drink beer. I'm not throwing down 15 shots on a Sunday afternoon. You need to stop this shit," I said.

"So what are you saying I should do?"

"I'm going to help you get your life back on track. We need to get your body healthy and then we need to get your mind healthy. I'm picking you up to go running tomorrow because you're getting fat and I never thought I'd see you get fat."

"If I didn't know you, I'd punch you in the face," he said and I believed him because he tends to get in quite a few barroom brawls.

"I'm just giving you a little tough love and I don't care if you get pissed at me."

So we decided I'd be his new life coach and I was going to start getting him back in shape. We agreed to meet up the next day to go jogging, talk to my old landlord about getting him a new apartment and ask him about a job.

The next day Otis O'Flannigan called and asked, "How did day one of mentoring go?"

"Not very good. I had some errands to run and pulled a no show. Hey, I never said this was going to be easy. It's a work in progress."

Men buying tampons

I made the mistake of asking my girlfriend if she needed anything from the store today, and she told me she needed tampons and I told her she can forget about it. I told her there is no way she really needs tampons and that she's just messing with me. She insisted and said, "Everybody knows they're not for you so what's the big deal?"

"Well, I'm going to Costco and I don't feel like lugging around an industrial sized box of tampons," I said.

I've never in my life purchased any feminine menstrual products and I didn't need my first outing making me look like I'm coaching a women's sports team and getting them ready for a long road trip. Maybe a small box I could hide under my big box of oatmeal but where would I hide a big box of tampons? I told her I'd see and she told me what kind to get, which also sucks because now, not only do I have to buy tampons, but I have to get a certain kind, eliminating my plan of closing my eyes and knocking the closest box into the shopping cart.

Of course, I bought everything on my shopping list then made a few passes through the soap aisle and tried peaking over to see if I could spot the proper tampons. I kept looking to the tampons and then to the check out lines. I needed to make sure there wasn't a long line that would require me to stand with the tampons too long. I needed to treat these things like a bomb about to explode within minutes, and move it out of the store as quickly as humanly possible.

I grabbed the things and buried them under my frozen fruit and cans of tuna. I spotted an older gentleman working a checkout and made my way towards him. I chose the older man because he's probably purchased his share of tampons and he's the least likely to judge. If all the registers were being worked by college kids, my girlfriend would be stuffing toilet paper down her pants because I would have bailed.

The man rang me up and the total came to 131 dollars. Shit! The damn tampons sent me over my budget. I only took 120 dollars with me. Now I have to make a quick decision and eliminate something from the bill and it can't be the tampons.

I smiled at the gentleman and said, "Can you take the garbage bags off the bill? I only brought 120 dollars with me and the tampons are a must. If I don't get the tampons, it won't be a good week."

I left with the tampons and immediately sent my girlfriend a text: You better enjoy those tampons because I had to dump the trash bags at the checkout counter because they sent me over my intended budget.

I swore I'd never in my life buy tampons and now I've become a little bitch. Maybe I need some tampons.

seven weeks of sobriety

My girlfriend bet me I couldn't stop drinking and I told her it wouldn't be a problem. I told her I needed some kind of reward to stop, a trophy at the end of the finish line of sorts, and after all my ideas for some type of sexual reward were shot down, we decided on a vacation destination of the winner's choice. I am going on my seventh week and it hasn't been much of a problem.


The bet is to stop drinking until St.Patty's day but I feel so good that I may go longer. I've found the biggest problem with my lack of drinking is finding things to do and this can be tough when the city is being dumped with 3 feet of snow. I workout every day and sometimes twice a day, I'm actually down to 183 lbs and I'm going to disappear if I keep burning all these calories without replacing them.


I found myself outside at seven in the morning on Saturday, shoveling snow and having no real game plan of where I was shoveling to. I just shoveled and shoveled until my shoulders and arms began to burn. I went back inside and drank another 3 or 4 cups of coffee; oh yeah, I'm heavily addicted to coffee right now, more so than I've ever been in the past.


I've been thinking over this whole blog thing and it's starting to make little sense, since I'm not drinking and I'm not really that broke anymore. I'm not saying I'm pressuring Trump to step down or anything but I'm no longer dumping change into the change counters in order to buy beer and snacks.

I also can't even bring myself to buy fast food anymore. I used to live on fast food and now I refuse to buy the stuff. I tempt myself by going through the drive thru but then I speed away with only a cup of coffee in my hand.

This whole sobriety thing is kind of weird but I'm feeling much calmer and the anger has dissipated.

*Pause*

Hold on, I'm going to kill this little bastard outside if he pisses on my porch again. See how far I can boot the pussy cat.

Just kidding.

Joining Jewish Friend Finder

I seem to treat certain friends as if they are omniscient. For instance, I only have one Jewish friend so I tend to think he knows everything there is to know about Jewish faith and customs, which I probably shouldn't, being he used to spend many nights in New York chasing overweight women and snorting paychecks up his nose.

My girlfriend works for a Jewish family so when I need to know if she has vacation days or not, I usually send him a text: Which holidays are the Jews celebrating this month? He'll laugh and then answer my questions.

The company next to my work went out of business, so I found myself rummaging through their dumpster. This isn't the first time I've gone dumpster diving and it probably won't be the last time. I'm just waiting to run into a Freegan one of these days.

Freegan: What are you doing here?!

Me: I'm shopping. The real question is - what are you doing here?

Freegan: I live here. Now beat it!

It was an old coffin company so I don't know what I expected to find in their dumpster, but I took a look anyway. I found and old, weather-beaten, brown box and picked it up. The contents spilled through the waterlogged cardboard and onto some other trash. I picked one up and removed the plastic wrap and found Jesus staring at me. Now who would throw away Jesus, I thought. I opened up the rest of the plastic wrappers and found old bronze crosses and multiple Star of David ornaments; this was obviously the work of an atheist. I collected my find and left the dumpster.

Now why did I take these? Well, I have connections in the flower business and I can put them to use in funeral arrangements, and that's exactly what I did. The floral shop owner told me he'd definitely use them. But what use did I have for the Star of David ornaments? The floral owner said he didn't have many Jewish customers so he probably couldn't use them.

I sent my buddy a text.

Me: I found a bunch of these Star of David coffin plaques. Do you want them?

Jewish friend: Why in the hell would I want those?

Me: Because you're Jewish.

Jewish Friend: Who gives a shit! Do you want me to send you everything I find with Jesus' face on it?

Me: That depends on whether or not it's worth anything.

Jewish Friend: I gotta go.

Me: Ok. I'll talk to you later.

He probably wishes I had more Jewish friends. Maybe I'll join Jewish Friend Finder.

a big cock

If I ever have a son and happen to witness a cat attacking a rooster, I'm going to stop and say, "Son, I hope you've learned an important lesson here."

"What's that dad?" He'll say.

"A big cock doesn't always get the pussy," I'll say with a smile.

I'd make a wonderful role model.

"Adorable" Adrian Adonis wrestling doll

I stopped by my mother's house yesterday and she asked me to get my old boxes out of her shed and I obliged. I couldn't believe all the stuff I found. It really brought back a lot of memories from my youth and I realized something, I was a little sports nerd as a kid. My biggest collectibles were always my WWF Superstars, the ones with the little posters under their feet, and I had around 70 or 80 of them. My nephew cleared out most but I did find my "Adorable" Adrian Adonis doll, still in the package. I remember keeping him in the package because he died in a car crash and I figured it'd be worth millions one day. Well, my blog starts with "broke" so I'm not sure how all of these collectibles have paid off.

I have Joe Montana starting lineups, still in the packages, and Topps sticker albums from 1982, when they cost only a quarter. Do you know the self-restraint it takes as a child to keep your toys in the package? It's unbelievable.

I have so many rookie cards, but I think most are worth nothing and can be placed next to the toilet to be used as wiping paper. Think of it, you could get some last minute stats before you discard the cards into the commode.

I still have boxes of Wheaties with the Stanley Cup Penguins on the front, wrapped in plastic, of course.

"Bo, you don't know diddley about collectibles!"

What will the garbage man take?

I noticed something unusual yesterday and stopped to gawk at garbage for a moment. I'm not sure what the borough's policy is on hauling away trash but I'm pretty sure most boroughs exclude large trees. I've lived in areas that will take away trees, if they are cut into three foot sections, but I'm pretty sure this doesn't fit into the category.

I stared at the trash and admired their creativity. I wondered if the family had ever worked for the mafia before, and if they had a hand in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. I played out the conversation between the homeowner and the trash man in my mind.

Trash Man: We can't take that trash bag.

Homeowner: Why not?

Trash Man: Because there's a tree in there.

Homeowner: I don't see a tree.

Trash Man: It sure looks like a tree.

Homeowner: It sure does but it's not.

Trash Man: I see a trunk and pine needles and I'm pretty sure I know what a tree looks like.

Homeowner: That's not a tree. It's an ornament.

Trash Man: That's a pretty big ornament.

Homeowner: You're telling me. You should have seen the tree.

If they get away with this I'll have to rethink what I throw in the trash. I wonder if you can simply cover things in trash bags and convince the trash company to haul it away. Maybe wrap an entire junked car in trash bags and push it out in front of the other garbage. Buy some property with condemed homes and spend the day wrapping the houses in garbage bags and telling the garbage man, "Yup, just take it away. I don't want the thing anymore. I'll look away if you want to put aside a little something for yourself."