The Dastardly Villainy of My Youth

me, around 1988 or so.

When I was just a Lil' Ryan, I had a friend named Dale.  Growing up, he was a lot of fun and one of my best friends during grade school.  Dale was an interesting kid.  My mom thought he was weird, as did many of the other moms I'm sure.

We used to ride our bikes all over the neighborhood, play Super Mario Bros., and draw comics together.  Dale was a lot of fun because he was fucking crazy.

Dale was great at getting me in trouble too.  It's not like we committed first degree murder or anything, but stupid shit that kids get in trouble for.

There was a girl who lived down the street from me.  I think her name was Amanda, but honestly, it was over twenty-five years ago and that detail totally escapes me.  For sake of argument, we'll call her AmandaGlasses.  We didn't like her because she had nerdy glasses.

You can start typing all the hate mail you want.  I was, like, six years old and this was the mid-80s when it was quite common for kids with glasses to be made fun of.  And if you were a girl with glasses you got it worse than anyone else.

Dale and I just didn't like AmandaGlasses.  Maybe it was her glasses or maybe she had been mean to us in the park.  I don't know.  It was probably something to do with her glasses.  Did I mention she wore glasses?

Because she did.  She wore glasses.  It was terrible.

Dale and I decided we had been wronged by AmanadaGlasses for one reason or another (most likely because she was a girl with glasses and we didn't like her) and we needed to get back at her.  So we pooled our villainy together and did the most devious and dastardly thing we could think of.

We let the air out of her bike tires.

And then we dropped the caps from the wheels down the sewer.

Evil!

Dale and I goofing off like crazy mischievous little snot-balls are supposed to.

Now, we may have been acting like rotten kids but we did have a conscience.  Not enough of a conscience to turn ourselves in though.  Like all evil masterminds, we didn't want to be caught and thrown in prison for our villainy so we decided we needed to go into hiding in case AmandaGlasses or worse, her parents, came looking for us.

So we raided the box in my closet marked "winter clothes" and got some large coats and scarves so we could be incognito.  We didn't want our faces to be seen by anyone either, so we got our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Hallowe'en masks out too.  And that's how we walked around the neighborhood for a couple hours or so.

Oh, and this was the middle of summertime too.  The weather report wasn't calling for winter jackets.

It wasn't long before AmandaGlasses figured us out and told on us to my mother.

If there's a moral to this story, it's that justice should always prevail.  Instead of buying AmandaGlasses new bike tires, she agreed to let Dale give her his own bike.  Days and weeks went by and Dale never did give her that bike.  And AmandaGlasses moved out of the neighborhood shortly after.

Evil wins!

- ryan of the ryan fan club

...and this was us plotting our next tirade of villainy!

What It's Like To Fall In Love

With Valentine's Day almost here, I find myself reflecting on the one hundred years or so that my lovely wife and I have now been together.  Did I say one hundred years?  Maybe it's only ninety-nine.  Time sure does fly.

2002.

I met my lovely wife in the summer of 2002.  We were high school sweethearts.  And by that I mean she was still in high school and I was not anymore.  I'm nearly five years older than her.  At the time I took a lot of flack for it, but hey, I ended up marrying that girl so I guess the moral is... well.... I don't know.

The first time I met my lovely wife, she was working at a convenience store.  I bought a drink and a pack of gum.  This is an important detail to the story, so pay attention. Future Lovely Wife was so enamored by my hotness and raw sexual aura that she fumbled around and only charged me nine cents for the pack of gum.

Score! 

Hey, even if this relationship never went anywhere I could at least say I got a really good deal on a pack of gum.

Believe it or not, I never asked her out.  We got to talking on the phone a lot, and on ICQ (uh-oh!) and it turned out that while she'd had boyfriends before she'd never actually been out on a real date.  Future Lovely Wife had a great rack and gave off all the right signals, so I told her I was going to take her to dinner and a movie.

And I did just that.  But first, a stop in the park - because, really, what's more romantic than taking a seventeen year old girl to a boring park when you promised her dinner and a movie?  You got it - convincing her to give you a sweet back massage in the park!  And gosh darn that was a good back rub.  This was where we shared our first passionate kiss.
(On a side note, when I finally proposed to her years later so she could become Lovely Fiance I did so in the same park.  I'm a sucker for nostalgia and tradition)

So I took her to dinner at Frankie Pesto's.  It's always been a great date spot.  Vines on the wall.  Sinatra playing while you eat.  And, since I don't drive, there's a very convenient bus stop only a few feet away from the restaurant.

The movie of choice was The Master of Disguise, starring Dana Carvey.  You may have noticed it showed up on my Top 11 Romantic Movies list, only because it was from our first date.  That movie is otherwise complete and total shit.  But, if you think about it, that movie needed to be total shit in order for us to not want to watch it.   I mean, seriously, can you imagine if your first date movie was something like Star Wars?  You don't want to actually watch the movie during a first date, but at the same time it's fucking Star Wars.  That bloody classic deserves your attention.  Unless, of course, it's The Phantom Menace, then by all means start making out.

And that's what we did, because The Master of Disguise is a waste of film, and there were only five or six other people in the same theater as us.  We sucked face in the theater during a shitty movie where Dana Carvey repeats the line, "turtle turtle turtle."  Boy, do I know how to show a girl a good time.

Our hot make-out session was only interrupted for a moment by two little girls.  They were at the movie with their parents a couple rows ahead of us and took the time to inform said parents that we were, indeed, "ewwww kissing!" And those two little girls grew up to be Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus.  Okay, that last part is a total lie, but I'm sure they remember more about The Master of Disguise than I do.
(Side note number two... I bought The Master of Disguise on DVD for Lovely Wife one year for our anniversary.  We've still never sat through the entire thing)

There was an awkward moment during the movie though.  Future Lovely Wife was concerned that I wasn't having a good time because I kept getting up, leaving, and then coming back.  She thought maybe I didn't really like her... even though I had already stuck my tongue in her mouth by this point.  Silly. In all actuality, I was starting to get the flu and I kept running to the washroom to blow my nose.  I didn't want her to see me blow my nose.  Thought it would ruin my chances of getting in her pants later.  Am I right, ladies?  Exactly.

After the movie I took her back to my place.  Okay, I took her back to my PARENTS place because I had moved back home for a little while.  This was an opportunity for Future Lovely Wife to meet my mom and dad, even though it was now close to midnight.  Mom was asleep.  Dad was awake when we came through the front door, and he was in his tighty-whities, peeing with the door open.  For the whole world to see.

This is where I'd like to end the story of my first date with Lovely Wife, and I'd love to be able to do so in some classic Disney-ish fashion, where we share another passionate kiss and promise ourselves to each other forever and ever.  Instead, I tried to get in her pants.  But that's tough to do when you live with your parents.  Some things take a little more time.

And hey, would'ja look at that - I ended up marrying her.  Now that's a love story.

- ryan of the ryan fan club

For Hallowe'en she was Supergirl and I was Johnny Depp.

The Worst Date I'd Ever Had

Everybody's had one really awful date.  True love doesn't just fall into your lap, you know.

I was decent looking in 2002.

Mine occurred in Spring 2002, about three months before I met the girl I'd eventually spend the rest of my life with.

The worst date I ever had was with a girl we'll call "MargarineGirl".  Not because I'm trying to be mean to her, but because I can't actually remember her name... and honestly, I never really knew what it was for certain to begin with.  One thing I'm sure of, is her name sounded like "Margarine".  Yep, I went on a date with a girl who's name I couldn't even pronounce.

C'mon, she was really pretty.

MargarineGirl was a friend of a friend whom I'd always thought was pretty attractive.  And she was really cool too.   I bumped into her one day downtown and she was looking for a job.  I offered to pay her to clean my apartment for me.  She laughed about it after actually considering it, and honestly I had hoped she would do it.  My roommate at the time, Joshua Lindsay Mercer Clements, was the type of guy to clip his toenails and leave them on the living room table.

Gross.

Anyway, when I offered her some temporary employment she asked why I didn't ask my slutty girlfriend to clean my apartment for me.  I let her know that I was recently single, which resulted in me getting MargarineGirl's phone number and the promise that she wouldn't be cleaning my apartment for me.

I called MargarineGirl later that week to set up a date.  She was in the bubble bath while talking on the phone to me.  I still think that's kinda awesome.  And really, it made me extra excited for our upcoming date.

This isn't actually MargarineGirl

We met at a Second Cup coffee shop, one that doesn't exist anymore and has been converted into a Starbucks, and she was right on time.  That's a big deal to me. Punctuality is important.  Especially if I want to get naked and do the dirty with you.  It's not as important as cleanliness, but it's still in the top five.

So we each had a hot chocolate and talked.

About nothing.

Nothing at all.

I've had quite a few first dates in my time, and usually they're a great chance to get to know someone new.  An opportunity to chat about what you like, what you enjoy doing, where you're from, etc etc.

Nope.  MargarineGirl was boring as fuck.  And so was I.  I actually hope that somewhere she's blogging about a boring date she once had with a guy named BoringSelfIndulgentFanClubGuy.  That would be pretty sweet.

We tried a couple times to get the conversation ball rolling, but nothing.  She asked me why I had my own fan club.  I told her.  She didn't think it was funny.  I asked about how her classes at Queen's University were going.  I think she said she was a literature major or a psychology major... so she had nothing really important to say about that either.

To put this in perspective, I was once stood up on a blind date with a girl from ICQ (remember that?) and it was a way better date than the one with MargarineGirl.

I don't know what I'm doing here.

We then decided this was the most boring date we'd ever been on, and that I should just walk her home.  I didn't really want to, but the weather had turned to rain and I was the only one of us that had an umbrella, so I did the right thing.  Also, maybe I'd get a one-afternoon stand out of this.  Perhaps she was one of those cool girls who were just really into random sex.

Nope.

We had more boring conversation about nothing at all as we walked back to her place.  And after what seemed like forever, but was really only fifteen minutes, we were at her front door.

"I hope you understand," she said, "that I'm not going to invite you in."
"I hope you understand," I replied, realizing that any random sex was not going to happen, "that I don't really want to come in."

Then I walked myself home.  And, really, I actually meant what I said to her.  In that moment, I really didn't want to go into MargarineGirl's place and do dirty things with her.  Even if I had been thinking about it all week and what it would be like.  I know it sounds crazy that while I hadn't been offered any sex, if I had then I may have turned it down.  I had concluded to myself that she'd probably be very boring in bed too.  And she would probably think I was extremely boring in bed too.

We were both just boring as fuck that day.

And that made MargarineGirl the worst date I'd ever had.

- ryan

Harold, Another Green Apple

Only a handful of apples ever really come to the incredible realization that Harold the Green Apple did that day.  You see, while Harold was a green apple - which is really nothing out of the ordinary as far as green apples go, most of them are different shades of green that sometimes even range into the yellow-ish realm of things - he wasn't the only one of his kind.  He was, however, the only one of his kind - the nothing out of the ordinary green kind with a skin that was nowhere near tinted yellow-ish - to discover the cause and potential solution to his own demise.

Harold, in all of his green glory, was just one of the bushel.  A bushel which in fact was no more than seven apples on this particular day.  Oh, they all had names given to them by whoever it is that gives names to apples, and for sake of argument you could let such labellings as Hector, Helena, or Hugo roll off your tongue, but such details about the other apples in the bushel would be determined as trivial, considering our adventure is about Harold.

Harold knew he was different.  Maybe it was a certain amount of curiosity that floated within his consciousness.  Perhaps it was that he was saving up a degree of bravery for a rainy day.  Some might have suggested that he, quite simply, had an abundant amount of tenured charisma.

What is most certainly for certain is that Harold still had a stem on his top, while the others did not.

Yes, that's correct - Harold was separated by a digit growing out of him that had not fallen or been pulled off, and while the other six apples in the bushel could see this protrusion that had been protruding from him, Harold could not.  And since apples don't speak in the audible languages that we, as human beings, are used to then it was relatively and incredibly impossible for any of the other six apples in the bushel that were also not at all yellowy tinted to let Harold in on the difference that made him different.

As it were, the apples had once taken a vow of silence anyway, and weren't about to break it over a silly little stem that could simply fall out at any inconvenient moment in which someone might just pass by and accidentally bump into their bushel.  Unfortunately, these things do happen.

So it's also safe to say that Harold, also harboring the inability to even look up at his own top, was completely unaware that he even had a stem or was different from the others at all.

It came as a shock to all of them when a larger man, spouting profanities in a European accent - and if you're reading this story somewhere in Europe then feel free to substitute "European accent" for "American accent" or "Islamic accent" or even "Icelandic accent" if you're really full of hatred - grabbed the bushel and proceeded to spill all seven of the apples onto a very clean stainless steel counter top.  If, in fact, Harold couldn't see the stem on his top then he could surely see the collection of well-sharpened kitchen knives in close proximity to him and his bushel companions, all of which - possibly from an unnerving apprehension in this moment - had seemingly started to tint toward a yellowish-ness that they had never tinted towards before.  It was very brief, the yellowing, and they were all most definitely back to their usual green shade within a moment or two.

Soon, an aroma of cinnamon filled the air.  Good cinnamon, the kind your mother's mother would use when baking a pie, which is not to be confused with the discount variety often utilized by large corporate baking facilities that pay their employees in the most minimal of wages.  Harold, entranced by this pleasuring odor, followed the rest of his bushel friends into a round pan, about twelve inches in diameter.  It was like a warm, newly made bed with freshly washed linen that had been air dried on a clothesline in a Spring meadow.  Harold wanted to lay there with his friends and nap for the rest of forever.

Another warm blanket, almost like a comforter, soon covered up Harold and his hardly unique pals.  The darkness that now surrounded them became warmer and warmer until it reached a loving three-hundred and fifty degrees.  The comforter sunk down on them all, and it was at this moment that Harold finally realized he was physically different from the other green apples.  No, he didn't manically believe he was now a yellow apple - or heaven forbid a red apple, because that would be enough to have him tossed into an asylum - but instead discovered that ounce of building bravery that was now stemming from his seeds inside of him.

And stemming is what he did.  His stem, that one iota that made him stand out in a crowd, was no longer simply protruding from his top.  That stem was reaching from his top all the way up, as high as it could go, which just so happened to be just enough of a distance to puncture the comforter that had been keeping the pre-heated darkness inside.

Something funny happens when one apple comes to the realization that they are contrasted from the others in any given bushel.  They desire to fit in, to belong, to kiss the prettiest girl at the high school semi-formal (assuming apples go through such tedious and traditional happenstances) - and when they realize they can't, like Harold did this day, they decide to stick out once and for all - much like the stem on Harold's top did this day - and then fade into obscurity with the rest of the bushel.

And so Harold stuck out, once and for all, and pushed his stem as far up as he could - which was just enough to garner the attention of those with the European (*you know what to do here) accents to pull the snuggling bed out from the three-hundred and fifty degrees.  And upon inspecting the green apples further, they noticed one small stem laying amongst all of the friends who had left the bushel together.  Moments passed, and the assumption determined that something must have been wrong with one of the green apples and thus all of them would be spared.  Many experts would refer to this as quality control.  Others, divine intervention.

A voice in an accent that really doesn't need clarification because it will change from region to region then suggested that yellow apples should have been used all along anyway.

And so, Harold had discovered not only his own demise, but that of his fellow green apples, and in the process assured their safety for the future (well, time being anyway, apples only last a few days once they've been picked) all the while discovering that he was, in fact, different and would now be fitting in for the rest of his days.

At least now Harold finally felt as though he was one of the bushel.  No longer would anyone make a comment having to do with the comparison of him and his greenly, un-yellowishly tinted comrades as being, "like comparing apples and oranges."

The end.

- ryan

The 15th Anniversary of My 19th Birthday

The 15th Anniversary of My 19th Birthday

that was me in '99.

In Canada, your 19th birthday is a pretty big deal.  You've been old enough to vote and buy pornography for a year by this point.  What's more important is you can now legally buy alcohol everywhere in the country.  If, like me, you grew up in Ontario there were only a few ways to get drunk on a Saturday night until you were 19.

1. Take a quick drive to Hull, Quebec.
2. Take a long drive to Manitoba.
3. Raid your parent's liquor cabinet.
4. Become friends with older kids who could legally buy beer already.

Number one and number four were always the easiest to accomplish.

This coming Wednesday I'll be turning 34. Holy cow, where did the time go?  Did I really drink away that many years?  Am I really just a 21-year old trapped inside a 33 year old's body?

My 19th birthday (August 13th, 1999) was a great adventure indeed.  So let's take it from the top.

That August I was earning a living at a summertime art camp for little kids.  My hair was really long at this point, but still not at it's longest.  I was avidly wearing red jeans, unbuttoned leopard print button up shirts over top of black tank tops, lots of bracelets and necklaces, and a top hat. Also, my love for Converse All Stars had only been going for a year or so. I guess you could say that Converse and I were still in the newlywed stage.

I had become close friends with the guys who would continue to be my closest friends for the rest of my life - The Dickheads, though we hadn't been given that moniker just yet.  The Dickheads were (and still are to some impact) Chris Morris, Brian Crofton, Adam Thom, Peter Fairley, Joshua Lindsay Mercer Clements, and myself.  You could argue that this other guy, Rob "The Beef" Trentadue, was also a part of the Dickheads but that would depend on which Dickhead you asked about it.

As my nineteenth birthday approached, I left the details up to the Dickheads.  My parents had decided to go out of town to visit my sister for a couple weeks, so I had the place to myself.  The possibilities were pretty much endless.  And since my 19th birthday fell on a Friday, I had an entire weekend to wreak havoc if I so chose.

The Dickheads decided we'd been partying in Kingston enough as it was, and since I had actually been going to pubs and bars while I was 18 I had to agree with them.  It was then Chris Morris who came up with the plan.

"Let's get him right royally fucking drunk at a dirty strip club in Belleville." - Chris Morris (paraphrased but probably pretty accurate to a quote)

The Dickheads - Chris, Adam, Ernie (filling in for Josh), Grover, Crofton, Ryan.

And that's what happened.  I've always been a big fan of road trips, so myself, Adam, and Peter, all piled into Brian's mom's car that Friday when I had finished work. The Beef might have come along too, but I really don't remember.  This car was special, because it was still sort of new.  You see, The Dickheads kinda killed his mom's first car, The GEO, on the 401 Highway a few months back.  This new car was a sleek NEOGEO.  We were late leaving, of course, because we were waiting for Adam "Always Late For Everything" Thom to finish taking a big poop in his house.  I'm not making that up.  Then we hit the road, stopping only for gas.

Chris was living in Belleville at the time and when we got to his apartment we couldn't figure out which buzz number was his.  We did, however, know which balcony was his so we did what any Dickhead would do... we climbed up the balconies to get to his apartment.  Made sense.

After a quick debriefing of plans, we called some cabs and headed out to drink.  Little did my horny and perverted newly 19-year old mind know, the boys insisted on some pre-drinks first at some other bar that didn't have any naked women in it.

WHAT??????????

I had never been to a strip club before, and most of my friends were already a year older, and thus a year wiser, and informed me that the beer at the strip club was priced up the ass and we needed to get a good buzz on for cheap, because we needed to save cash to give to the strippers.  That decision was economical and fair to the women who were probably paying for their therapy with whatever fivers get tossed their way.  Remember, in Canada, the lowest denomination of a bill is a five, so a stripper single can go a long way.

We finally got to the strip club, a little place called The Cabaret, and we weren't even greeted at the door.  No carding, no checking for our ID, no cover.  In all fairness, we were there a little early.  The sun had just gone down.  In August.  But this was good, because I was honestly worried that even though I had turned 19 that day and was legally able to drink anywhere in Canada that they wouldn't let me in.  You see, I didn't yet have a driver's license (not that I have one now...) and I was still using my birth certificate and student ID for my picture to get into places.  Lame, I know, but it's still better than Adam trying to use his birth certificate with a photo of him cut out from the local newspaper with his name under it.  Let's just be glad we got in with no hassle.

Here you see three Dickheads being awesome.  I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong, they were awesome.

We immediately sat in Pervert's Row and ordered several pitchers of Molson Canadian, which we excitedly drank and then ordered more.  We were still kids, remember, and to us Molson Canadian was the coolest beer out there.  I have since developed a hatred toward that awful beer and you probably couldn't bribe me to drink it even if you offered naked women.

Well, maybe.

This is where the night got a little hazy and my memory escapes me a bit.  I remember going to the bathroom and putting a loonie into a machine to get a porno bubble gum card, except it had no bubble gum and I was disappointed.  I also remember Peter "The Robot" Fairley trying to get some of the strippers to join the Ryan Fan Club.  I remember Chris referring to my face as being many inanimate objects and other things.... "your face is a beer".... "your face is maple syrup"... "your face is richard nixon"...

But what I remember most is how the Dickheads got me up on stage with a stripper.  There we were drinking away and staring at boobies when suddenly a voice came over the PA system, announcing to everyone that it was indeed my birthday and that I should get up on stage.  I didn't know what to expect, and actually thought for a second that I would be required to do a striptease like the guy in Detroit Rock City.  Who would want to see that?  Especially from me?

A bouncer then came onstage and offered me a seat.  He was a nice man, considering he could have eaten me in three bites, and he could sense I was nervous.  The bouncer informed me to just relax and let happen what was going to happen, but also made it very clear to keep my hands to myself.  I dramatically put them behind my back to make sure he saw me do so.  I wanted to live to see twenty.

"hey guys, check out my GnR t-shirt... PSYCH!"

Then the PA system lit up with Guns N' Fucking Roses... "You're Crazy"... the slower acoustic version... and this french girl came out and started dancing.  Just for me.  Sure, everyone else was watching too, but fuck them, this dance was just for me.  It was my goddam birthday.  And at this point I was also really wasted from beer and shots.  I think all I could do was smile at her and reassure her that my hands were comfortably behind my back because I didn't want to get assraped by the bouncer.  I guess she thought that was cute.  I bet they say that to all the boys.

Next, "Angel" by Aerosmith... and the stripper was on my lap. Sweet Mary Jesus this was incredible.  Just relax, and let happen what was going to happen...  WHAM!  My face was smushed right into her average sized boobs.  I remember thinking they were real, even though I had very little basis for comparison at this point in my life.  And then after blinking a couple times to make sure what was happening was real, I had a face full of good ol' French Canadian beaver.  Not the kind you'd find on the other side of a nickel, but the kind that would make you want to set up a dentist appointment the very next day.

Then something was very cold. Ice cold.  Almost like it was ice.

It was ice.  And it was down the front of my Superman boxer shorts.  Yep, I wore Superman boxer shorts to a strip club.  Fuck.  And everyone knew now, because the stripper had pulled down my pants when I wasn't paying attention.  That ice was cold.  You might say it was cold as ice.   Another lap dance followed, and the ice continued to be cold.  When she was done, the nice man on the PA system asked everyone to give me a round of applause and I stood up, ice falling, water dripping, and my arms in the air like I'd just won the WWF Intercontinental Championship at Summer Slam.  Even the bouncer shot a thumbs up my way.  This was my moment.

it's a wonder anyone ever kissed me.

The next thing I remember is waking up in Chris' living room, on his floor, unsure if he had passionately man-raped me while I was asleep. I knew for a fact that I didn't puke, and I was a little proud of myself for that.  To this day, I'm still excited when I wake up after a night of crazy drinking and no vomiting.  Oh, the birthday gifts didn't stop either.  Chris' roommate sent me home with a box of Count Chocula.

Before leaving Belleville we stopped at a Chapters bookstore.  I bought some magazines, and in the process we saw the strippers there from the night before.  We all made eye contact and it was awkward.  Mostly because none of them joined my Fan Club.  And that was my 19th birthday.

- Ryan

Did I Ever Tell You About The Time I Climbed A Boulder?

...Did I ever tell you about the time I climbed a boulder?

There it was, a big 9 foot tall boulder, full of life and love and ready to be discovered by yours truly.  The only thing is, I didn't actually discover it.  It was discovered  by the Romans in 1947.  I know that seems silly considering Rome was burnt down way way back in time, but it's how I remember it.

So anyway, I walked up to this boulder and believe it or not (go ahead and believe it, it makes the story better) there was a little troll in front of it.  Upon closer inspection, the troll wasn't actually a troll, but a troll look-a-like by the name of Roberto.

Roberto, that's a funny name for a troll look-a-like if I ever heard one, but sure enough that's what his little name tag said.  "Roberto.  Boulder Inspector and Host Extraordinaire."

He looked me up and down and said, "Hey there Jesus, we've been expecting you.  Your table is ready, but none of the guests have arrived yet."  He went on to inform me that the tab had been previously arranged and paid for by the city of Tuscon.  He also let me know that my dinner entree was boiled chicken.  All of this seemed strange to me, considering I was just walking down the street and saw this boulder.  I had no clue that I was expected for a dinner party, or that I would be meeting a troll look-a-like named Roberto.

"You'll have to climb that boulder all the way to the top in order to get to your table," said Roberto.

The boulder was smooth.  Not smooth like butter or a baby's behind, but more smooth like Tom Selleck was in "3 Men And A Baby."  Still, the boulder wasn't nearly as smooth as Tom Selleck  was in "3 Men And A Little Lady."  It was clear to me that Roberto The Troll Look-A-Like Boulder Inspector and Host Extraordinaire took his job seriously and maintained that boulder with pride and a blue-collar attitude.

So I climbed it.  With my bare hands.

Let's not kid ourselves, it was only nine feet high.

When I got to the top I was greeted by nobody.  The table was set, the boiled chicken was cooled off to a less than desirable eating temperature, and the guests were nowhere to be seen.  Instead, a note was left for me in dainty little black n' white envelope.

The note read: we regret to inform you that today's dinner guests have decided to skip out on dinner to attend a formal training seminar on Boulder Inspection and Hosting in Extraordinary Ways at the Tuscon Institute For Troll Look-A-Likes.  If interested in joining, please bring three dollars and ninety-nine cents to the top of the twelve foot tall boulder on the west side of town.  Sincerely, The City of Tuscon.

I didn't go.

- ryan

That Time I Went To A Museum

statue of Abraham Lincoln

The year was 2009.  It was a cold January morning.  You can tell it was cold because in the pictures I'm wearing my winter jacket.  And I was there.  I remember it being cold enough to wear a winter jacket.  Or even a light jacket with a really heavy sweater, but that might not have been all that comfortable.  Winter jacket it was!

I had a hankering to go to a museum.  But before I went to that museum to see all the fine historical pieces of art and bones, I knew it was important for me to have a good, solid breakfast.  You see, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  At least that's what we're told.  It's probably a scam from the media or the government, but how am I supposed to know that?  And if breakfast truly is the most important meal of the day, then why is it always the least expensive on the menu at any restaurant?  You would assume that the boneless rib steak with garlic shrimp and twice-baked potato with a side of grilled mushrooms and a lovely glass of red wine would be the most important meal of the day.  That little feast can easily set you back a good fifty dollar bill or more.

There I go getting off topic again.  I'm pretty bad for that sometimes.  I have an important story to tell about my trip to the museum.  This is no time or place for grilled mushrooms.

So I woke up, remembered it was cold enough to need a winter jacket, and decided to have a healthy breakfast.   Pancakes are my favorite food, so naturally I gravitated to something that would involve putting them in my belly.  And what goes perfect with pancakes?  Why, bacon of course!  And pancake syrup.  The good stuff.  It's gotta be made by that lovely lady Aunt Jemima or else it's just not good enough to touch my lips and tongue.  Sorry to burst your bubble readers, but when it comes to pancake syrup, I'm kind of a snob.

While we're on the subject of syrup - do you say "sir-up" or "seer-up"?  It's this strange debate I've been having with people for years!  You might try and pull the whole "tomato/tomahto" case of 1972 as your backup, but really, a good bottle of Aunt Jemima's finest deserves to have a unified, decisive and agreed upon title given to it.  So sir-up it is.  Spread the word.  Anyone who says seer-up is a communist.

And not the good kind of communist either.

I'm studying the remnants of a tiny people village.  I'm looking through the entrance to the town and the welcome sign.

When I make pancakes, which is about once a week or so because like I already mentioned above, I'm a bit of an enthusiast - I like them to be thin.  Not so thin that they're crepes mind you, after all I'm an Irish lad not a French garcon, but I don't like them to be super thick and fluffy.  If they get to be too thick, then you can really only have one or two pancakes for breakfast and that's just not enough to fulfill my pancake appetite.  I like to be able to knock off five, six, sometimes seven pancakes in one morning.  Seven is a good round number.  I'd go so far as eight, but I'd hate to look like a pancake glutton.  What would our darling Aunt Jemima think of me?

It's also important to use a non-stick frying pan when making pancakes.  You don't want those bad boys sticking to the pan and falling apart on you.  No, a perfect pancake needs to keep it's perfect figure, much like a sexy lingerie model, looking you directly in the eyes as if to say, "Hi.  I saw you standing there.  I want you to ravage me."

I get shudders just thinking about those perfect pancakes.

Where was I?  Right.  Going to the museum.

So once my pancakes were finished and on the table, I sat down and gazed at them.  Marveled at them really.  They were a thing of inexplicable beauty.  I light dusted them with some margarine - I'm too cheap to buy real butter - and then slowly glazed them with the Aunt Jemima syrup.  (sir-up!)

They looked so pure and innocent that I almost couldn't bring myself to cut off that first bite.  Did my pancakes have feelings?  I made a little half frowny face at my plate, all the while trying to decide if I really should be eating this wonderful creation.  What would you do?  Imagine yourself face-to-face with the Mona Lisa herself.  Would you kiss her?  I'm talking about the real Mona Lisa here, not that silly painting.  Who wants to kiss a bunch of paint?  Weirdos, that's who.

I finally decided to just eat the pancakes.  If I didn't someone else would probably come along and break into my house while I was at the museum and then eat them from right out under me.  That would be a bastard thing to do, to steal someone else's lovely breakfast like that, so I shoveled the pancakes into my mouth, one at a time until they were all devoured and in my stomach.  The initial work was done.  My part was over.  The rest was up to my stomach acids to take care of.  They rarely disappoint me.  We have a good working relationship, and I love them so.

I wore a winter jacket, because it was cold outside.

I rinsed off my plate because if I didn't then I'd have a hard time doing the dishes later.  Dried-on syrup is tough to get off, especially when it's of such high quality as Aunt Jemima.  I contemplated just doing the dishes right there and then because all I had was my plate, the frying pan, and my coffee cup and - - oh no!  I had forgot to make some bacon to go along with my pancakes.

Boy was I stuck in a pickle.  Do I make a small side of bacon to eat after I'd already had my pancakes?  Should I keep the museum waiting any longer?  I do like bacon.  It's like opening up a birthday card from a cheap relative that you don't expect to have any money in it and then - BAM!  Five dollar bill!  That's how good bacon is.

I contemplated.  Thought about it.  Mused the idea.  Let the notion roll around in my mind a bit.  I was starting to get a bit too warm at this point.  After all, I had been wearing my winter jacket since this whole breakfast thing started.  I decided to save the bacon for another day.  A special day.  Maybe Veteran's Day.

Now was the time to go to the museum!

Then I went to the museum, and a few hours later came home and went to bed.

The end.

- ryan

The Inside-Outside Penis Fiasco

... I can't believe I've never blogged about this before, especially considering it's one of the great stories of RFC lore.

...me in the year 2000.  Yep, look at the hair...

Let's bring it on back now to September of the year 2000.  Y2K was done.  The world didn't explode.  And the Artist Formerly Known As Prince had just become the Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince because he changed his name back.

So there you have it.  2000 was a big year for big stories.  And here's mine:

I was working in a University cafeteria, washing dishes for just a little bit more than minimum wage.  They gave me free meals and made me wear a hairnet.  I had been doing this job for about two years and was pretty efficient at it.  That dish room was fucking hot.  The machine that washed the dishes was about fifteen feet long, and one dude would put the dishes in one end and they'd come out clean on the other.  I was usually stationed at one of those two ends.

So there I was one random Monday night, loading dirty dishes into the machine when I started to feel a little queasy.  Lightheaded.  Possibly puke-ish.  The old man working the clean end, Ignacio was his name, got me some water and a peppermint candy.  I kept doing my job.  The thing about those dish rooms, is if you're short one person then you're pretty much fucked for the entire night.  I started blinking profusely like I was going to pass out and thought I felt a little weird down there.  You know, the place where the manscaping takes place.  I excused myself to the washroom to see what was going on.  I pulled up to the urinal, unzipped, gazed down, and nearly fainted.

Something was really wrong with my dick.

Now, at the risk of giving too much info away, I don't exactly have a usual shaped penis.  Bear with me here, because this is actually important to the story.  I was never circumcised, and I have an extra fleshy part at the tip... but not right on the tip.  It's more like a hook.  Or an alan key.  Actually, I've always compared it to one of those toy ducks that drinks water.  Some of my closest friends actually call me Duck Dick.

Here.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk71GY02diY Use your imagination.

But back to the problem at hand.  There was something really wrong with my duck.  I have a really good grasp on what it "normally" looks like, and this wasn't it.  Can you imagine what thoughts were going through my head at this point?  Allow me to share:

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

And then I vomited into the urinal.  Not sure who had to clean it up that night, but I'm really sorry about that. 

I went right to my boss' office, stunned and at a loss for words.
"Hi Ryan.  What can I do for you?"
"Hospital... I'm going to the hospital... now, I think..."
"What's the matter?
"...uh.... something...?"
"Something?"
"I think... something's wrong... with my.... uh...."

I had a female boss, and she was a very nice lady.  If my boss were a dude I would have just blurted it out.  Call me sexist if you want, but you try to say "penis" to a woman of authority and tell me how it goes.  So I just gestured toward my crotch instead.   I don't remember what she said, but I practically flew to the hospital.  Luckily, the hospital was only a block and a half away from my work.

The emergency room is not a fun place.  The first thing you see when you walk in is everyone else waiting to see a doctor and you immediately start to wonder how long you'll be waiting to get looked at.  As far as I was concerned, my penis was practically being sucked into another dimension by an evil demonic force.  But before I could see a doctor, I had to deal with the triage nurse.

"What's the problem?"
"Something's wrong with my dick."
"Excuse me?"
"Sorry, my penis."
"No, no, what's wrong with it?"
"It doesn't look right.  It feels weird.  And I'm very lightheaded."

She looked at me as though I'd never had an erection before.

"What do you mean by, it doesn't look right?"
"Well, to begin with it doesn't look right.  But for me, it really doesn't look right."

Another odd look.
So I grabbed her pen and drew her a before and after picture.  Right on my admission form.

"Wait.  This is what your penis is supposed to look like?"
"Can I please just see a doctor?"

I wasn't in the waiting room long, but long enough to phone my father and let him know that I may be dead by morning.  My dad rushed down for moral support because that's what guys do for each other.  If one of my best buds called me up to say he was bleeding from his dick or he thought his dick was falling off, I'd be there in a heartbeat.  I'd make fun of him later for it, but I'd be there when he needed me.

The doctor had me take off my pants and underwear, and he was accompanied by some student interns.  Great.  There's something wrong with my dick and two pretty nursing students are going to get an eyeful of it.  Okay, okay, I'm giving myself too much credit.  They'd only get half an eyeful at best.

The doctor went on to explain that my foreskin had pushed it's way down the shaft of my penis, and that's why it was looking so weird.  I kept waiting for him to say that it was a pretty common thing, but nope.  That never happened.  The look on his face was suggesting that he didn't know what he'd gotten himself into that night.  I completely avoided any kind of eye contact with the hot nursing students.  If I had been circumcised this would have never happened.  Imagine wearing a long sleeved shirt and pushing the sleeves up to your elbows.  That was my penis.

Yep, my muscle of love was completely exposed.  My penis was inside-out.  I don't think it's possible to feel any more naked than that.

The doc looked at it for a bit then handed me a big thing of gauze.  "Bit down on this.  Hard."
Before I could ask why he was yanking my foreskin back up my penis shaft.  I made a noise I had never made before.  "Please, try to keep it down.  You might frighten the other patients."  He actually asked me to try and not scream as he was pretty much giving me the worst tug-job of all time.  He yanked again and I vomited a bit in my mouth but somehow managed to swallow it back down.

"There.  All done."
"...um... no.  There's usually a little more."
"What do you mean?"

He clearly didn't look at the before and after picture I had given the triage nurse.  That's when I reached down and gave a little tug to put my hook back into place.  It was the least painful part of the entire experience.

When I asked the doctor how this all happened to me, he couldn't give me a straight answer.  He'd never seen it before, but gave me some bullshit about moisture and heat and maybe I leaned up against something the wrong way.

....?

He then went on to say that I should give that extra bit of foreskin a little pull a few times a day, just to make sure it was feeling right.  Yep, the way I see it, the doctor (a certified medical practitioner) suggested I spend more time playing with my penis.  I should've asked him to write me a note.

I went home, watched a few minutes of WWF Raw and went to bed.  The next day at work was a little awkward, and whenever anyone would ask about what happened to me the night before I told them straight up that my penis had turned inside out.  When the pretty girls I worked with asked, I added in that I was lucky to be alive.

What's really funny though, is how a couple weeks later I received a cheque in the mail for $13.86.  Apparently, one of those forms I'd filled out with the triage nurse was related to worker's compensation and I was reimbursed for my time away from work.  So in essence, I was paid almost fourteen bucks to get the worst hand-job of all time.

I'm such a whore.

- ryan