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So a clown broke into your home.

What was that?!

What was what?

Did you just hear that?

The crash of a kitchen window breaking and then what sounded like disproportionately large loafers hitting linoleum? No.

Huh?

I am an internet advisory column. I do not 'hear'. Really, this is not time to lose your head.

Loafers?

Yes, those hideously brown dress shoes that your dad used to wear. Is your dad here? If so, why would he use the kitchen window? Oh, that's right! I get it.. Your father is having an affair with your wife. My work here is done. Never let it be said that an internet advisory board did not advise you justly. Good day, sir.

What? My wife's not having an affair with my dad! She's right here, wondering who I'm talking to. Also, my dad's dead!

Oh dear. Things are more complicated than I thought. I'm afraid necrophilia is beyond my legal scope of expertise. The courts forbade me to advise on the wonders of cold dead-fish sex along with ingesting copious amounts of cleaning fluid for fear of mass genocide back in the 70s'

You can have sex with dead people? Why did I not know about this? Shit, what was that?!

Maniacal laughter coupled with happy music? Have you ever had the occasion to piss off a clown?

A clown?

There's a clown in your house.

Why is there a clown in my house?! On that note..why is there a disembodied voice in my head??

Shh. Stop freaking out. They feed on that. Now, what do clowns hate most?

Happiness? Sanity?

Water. They hate water.

That's not right at all.

...And maybe Children. But water works best for our purposes right now. Unless you have a child around the house for sacrificial purposes?

Definitely not. Can't I just call the police?

You could, but by the time they get here you will have become one of them.

I'm pretty sure that's not how clowns are made.

You want to bank your life on a 'pretty sure'?

Fair point. What do we do?

You take the conveniently located hose in your bathroom and attack the clown with its fatal weakness: water. Why is there a hose in your bathroom anyway.

My wife and I...

Never mind, I don't want to know.

We use it to clean the tub.

Is that a euphemism for something? If so, it's terrible. Now run downstairs and hose that happy bastard down.

...there's a person inside.

What?

I hosed the clown and there was a person inside.

That can't be right.

He's drunk too. He's crying now.

Get rid of it then! Fast! Before your wife comes downstairs and you have to kill her too!

What? No! I invited him to dinner on Sunday.
Now you've done it. The thing knows where you live now and it knows that you're weak.

I didn't think about that.. what now?

No idea. Well, congratulations. Your house is no longer in danger of being broken into by a clown and/or your dead father! Check out next week's column So You've Invited a Clown to Dinner for more information .


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** Disclaimer: this format is not my invention. That dubious honor belongs to Chris Bucholz of cracked.com.

The Four Kinds of Customers - A Hate Post

Being in retail, I frequently have to deal with people. And as if that isn't bad enough, I frequently have to deal with very weird people. People who make you cock an eye-brow at the guy upstairs and say "Really? Really? You could've created anything, anything - blue Doritos, a girl Spongebob, giant killer rabbits, even - and you made this guy right here?". They're the human equivalent of the ocher crayon in the 64 pack which can be used to draw nothing but poop. I mean, I'm a pretty fair person - I hate indiscriminately. But these four kinds of people? I sincerely hope there is a shoppers' hell.


1) The Story-tellers. General rule of thumb? You only small-talk to the people you're gonna get married to. They're the ones who need it most to cover up their agonizingly bland life with you, not your cashier, not your accountant, and definitely not me. I might make a sympathetic face when you're telling me you're getting a couple of movies to spend a quiet night at home (like every other night), or when you need to buy a new movie for your kids every week because "Omg, aren't kids so easily distracted?? I swear we weren't like that when we were young! I mean, you're a kid, and you don't sit around all day watching movies, do you??". No, moron, I have this thing called a job. But I am hating you inside. Even worse are the people who ask me if I have seen a particular movie and when I am forced to say no, proceed to explain the entire plot to me. And boy, do they get passionate about it. Every Tuesday a charming old timer comes to work to buy musicals. Afraid of having to listen to the story-line to every single one, I told him that I am, indeed, a fan of musicals and have thus seen most of them. Biggest mistake of my life. Now whenever the 70 year old sees me, he sings and acts out portions from the musicals. After he's done, he urges me to sing along too. I am proud to say I now know all the words to Bye Bye, Birdie...


2) The Awkwards: These are the poor souls who are so used to ordering groceries, clothes and movies online that they are,unbelievably, even worse at contact with fellow human beings than I am. Their bumbling, miserable, unsuccessful efforts at socializing are actually quite entertaining. We have people who turn red whenever they say a word, people who turn red whenever a word is said to them (that includes a simple hi, by the way), and people who turn red for absolutely no reason. Its both cute and sad, like watching a fat kid run and my cat trying to get past a glass door. What makes them annoying is trying to help them get what they want. First you have to bolster their courage by giving them encouraging nods, and then you have to spend precious minutes searching the store system for the obscure nerd thing that they're looking for.


3) The Impatients: Believe me buddy, I want to be here as much as you do - not at all. We all would just like to go home as soon as chronologically possible and woe be me if I knowingly delay either of us. But there are people who came here before you and my sense of justice and equality says I help them first. What's that? You have important stuff to do after this? So do I. I have another customer to help, and another, then another, and then another - and after that I have to go home and feed my cat. It's a tough world, pal.


4) The Intellectuals: We all accept that large, soul-sucking, evil, exploitative chain stores are also human and so we learn to forgive them for their ungainly inefficiency. Not these guys. "Megas XLR is not anime," they tell me, "even if it does have giant robots, time travel, and a witty hero, it has many features that mock the classic anime cartoon. It shouldn't really be in the anime section. Tell me, is there a shelf for satirical or ironic cartoons?". Oh yes, it's right next to the shelf called 'movies mapping out the lives of the main heroine as they move from obscurity to fame and stardom. They are also prostitutes'. These customers also include the type who think they are too smart to need help from a lowly, dumb sales clerk who doesn't know anything and probably didn't go to college anyway - never mind the fact that I am standing right there to help you and I have a 3.9 GPA, asshole.

I swear this seemed clever at 4 in the night

Blonde moment?

You'd think if strawberry lotion LOOKS like strawberries, SMELLS like strawberries and SAYS strawberry lotion on it, it'd taste like strawberries too.

Bleekh =(

There is nothing under the bed.

There is nothing under the bed, Lola thought firmly. I am a senior level theoretical psychologist and there is nothing under the bed. Its all a matter of perception, really. My room is dark and I am here alone, and these are ideal conditions for the brain's primitive defensive mechanism to kick in. In a minute or two now it is going to relax enough for me to fall in a deep, refreshing sleep...

There is nothing under the bed, Lola told herself strictly. It wouldn't even fit in there, for hell's sake!, she mentally pictured her little bed reassuringly. Its not physically possible and even monsters have to obey the laws of physics. Unless it was a tiny monster, a teeny voice inside her head said. But everyone knows tiny monsters aren't that scary, Lola argued with herself. Its the big ones you should really look out for. Somewhat comforted by her reasoning, Lola rolled over and closed her eyes.

There is nothing under the bed. Lola was cross with herself now. Everyone else managed to sleep without being driven paranoid by the thought of childhood fears under their beds, so why not her? There are no monsters anyway. I believe someone would have mentioned something by now if there were, she thought, trying to put her resolute mind to rest. And besides, people have looked all over: in jungles and space and even under the earth. If they couldn't find any monsters on mars or under the Gobi desert, there is no reason why there would be one under here right now. Does the Gobi desert even exist anymore? Why, I am just going to get up and prove to myself that there is no monster under my bed. Muttering at the injustice of the world and her poor over-worked brain, Lola got up and knelt down to peek. See? Nothing there.

And the monster under her bed swallowed her in one big fat gulp.

Serious post #5

"I hate old people."

"Wow. You're such an ageist!"

"Fuck you, ageist isn't a word."

It is.