when bigger wasn't necessarily better

Then, color TV didn't have to be big to be good.

Now, color TV needs to be big in order to be socially acceptable. Gone are the days of cathode ray tube (CRT) TVs. If your are an adult and your boob tube still uses cathode ray tubes, then you are a boob who is most likely still living in the basement belonging to your parents. If you are an adult who is still living in your parent's basement, the chance that you will ever have the opportunity to fertilize an egg from a woman's fallopian tube let alone see a real life boob is slim to none. In this day and age, blurry CRT has been replaced by HD 1080p. If 1080p is considered the sliced bread of television imaging, CRT is nothing more than a bucket of soggy grain.

Gone are the days when a television set was viewed as a fuzzy piece of furniture with an antenna on top. Television sets nowadays are crisp contemporary masterpieces, not mahogany monstrosities that you could eat a TV dinner on. The space on your wall where you would at one time hang a painting or a family portrait has now become prime location for a piece of Japanese wall candy. You could purchase Van Gogh's 45 inch Starry Night to hang on your wall or you could opt for Panasonic's 50 inch Starless Night for millions of dollars less.

If you are still a sucker for your parent's behemoth television set despite all this, my only advice would be less of a tip and more of a plead-- disassemble that mother fucker and take all of the mahogany wood that's salvageable and give your basement lair some nice hardwood flooring. Then google "Van Gogh painting". Print out some of Van Gogh's art. Maybe some of Monet's. Salvador Dali's got some decent work too. Hang them on the wall in your basement. Tidy up the place. Charge art aficionados a small fee to come and tour the worlds first basement art gallery. Maybe serve some toothpicked cheeses. Do that for awhile. Save up money. Take your earnings and buy yourself a nice big plasma screen TV. One with HD. Treat yo self. It'll be worth it. Seriously, because you weren't planning on moving out anytime soon.

celebrate celebrations

everything.

including:

Hanukkah

Chanuka

Canada Day

President's Day

Halloween Night

Birthday Day

Half Birthday

April Fool's Day

Fool That You're Pregnant Day

Conception Day

Valentinesless Day

Pi Day

National Pie Day

D-Day

Me-Day

The Day "the Music Died" Day

Fanny Pack Day

National High-Five Day

National Sandwich Day

If Pets Had Thumbs Day

Veteran's Day

Homeless Persons/Veterans Day

Racism Awareness Day

Martin Luther King Day

Black Friday

Grammer Awareness Day

Sarcasm Day

Extra Day, Fuck. Day (Feb 29)

Kwanza

Ginger Appreciation Day

Ginger Degradation Day

Festivus

Alcohol Awareness Month

celebrate like its 1933

naked in a jiffie

Please, help yourself to some Tanqueray. I'm going to go and slip into something a little more comfortable, *wink*

Janet finished reading the note that that Bones the Bulldog had scribed for her, after having watched him struggle with the ballpoint pen for approximately five minutes. As cumbersome as his paws were, they were equally soft, and Janet had held onto them tightly as they walked back from the bar earlier. Janet looked back up at the community college mascot, touched her index finger to puckered her lips, and gave the mascot her best bedroom eyes. As he animatedly skipped back into his bedroom fist-pumping his paws, Janet rose from the couch and fixed herself a stiff drink.

It had been a night of firsts, to say the least.

Earlier in the evening, Janet and the rest of her college cohorts had watched their team win its first football championship ever. It had happened to come against the crosstown rivals, and it had thrown the entire campus into a triumphant rage. At the bar just off campus following the game, she and the rest of her classmates had celebrated the big victory late into the night. Rounds of shots preceded rounds of shots, and extreme jubilation preceded the extraordinary hangovers to be had the following morning. But we haven't gotten to the ensuing morning just yet. As you may have guessed, Janet's night wasn't close to over.

Somewhere around the time she was standing at the bar waiting for her fifth or eight drink, Janet felt something furry rub against her thigh. Turning her neck she saw that it was Bones the Bulldog, his tail wagging uncontrollably as he celebrated the big win with the rest of the student body! Janet caught his tail and gave it a playful tug. The mascot turned and smiled at her with his wide, unmoving, grin of confidence. His big, round, excited eyes stared at her. He looked her up and down once; he waved. She waved back. He turned around, raised his furry arms and pointed his thumbs down towards the name on the back of the jersey he was donning. "Bones". He then pointed to her and cocked his head to the side. Janet said her name and the mascot put his paw behind his ear. Janet shouted her name. It was so very loud inside of the bar! Bones jerked his head towards the exit sign, and extended his right paw. Janet took it gingerly and followed him out the door.

Thirty seconds later, back behind the bar, after several failed attempts at translating what the muffled sounds coming out of the dog meant, Janet found herself recording another first as she rounded second base with her first-ever mascot.

Ten minutes later, Janet and the mascot were skipping back to his apartment.

Fifteen minutes later Janet was standing in his apartment, sipping Tanqueray and OJ with the most bated of breath.

* * *

After three sips, Janet heard her name being called. She set down the glass and sashayed slowly in the direction of Bone's voice. Entering the bedroom, candles glimmered. Shadows danced on the wall as she looked down and saw the mascot costume lying on the ground. Suddenly the closet door opened and a sixty year old man jumped out. Janet shrieked. He was extremely naked with the exception of his leisure footwear he was wearing-- Jiffies!

[Note to reader: Jiffies are comfortable. Nearly as comfortable as walking around without shoes. They're just alot better looking. The Continental (the style the old man in this narrative happened to be wearing) comes in six colors and costs only $7!]

Janet continued to scream as she turned around and sprinted directly into the wall, crumpling to the ground.

Girl was a waste case.

As she struggled to get up, she knocked over the candle that had been sitting on top of the dresser. The candle landed on the polyester mascot costume, instantly igniting it and creating a flaming barrier between her and her senior-citizen suitor. She stumbled to the door, snatched her clutch from the couch and darted out of the door of the apartment.

As Janet slinked back to campus with her tail between her legs, she heard the quaint sound of firetruck sirens crescendoing. She knew that Bone's would live to see another football season.

She just prayed that they wouldn't win another championship.

use protection, fool

Some people choose to live under the false pretense that if you don't use it, you are destined to lose it.

Well, mostly false pretense.

If you consistently neglect to use deodorant, you will likely lose some friends.

If you simply to forget to use it one day due to unforeseen circumstances, maybe you snuggled with the snooze button a little too much or perhaps you played with your belly button for a little too long in the shower, well, that's bound to happen to anyone at some point. You won't lose friends per say, however you may notice friends keeping their distance as long as you walk around with your armpits unprimed. But that's okay once in awhile. Maybe you deserve some alone time to think about what you did.

Typically, you are a dedicated deodorant wearer. You actually tend to tend to your underarms as if each one were a delicate bansai tree. Perpetually pruning, unconditionally conditioning, nourishing them as if they were baby kittens. On this particular morning however, your morning regimen was disrupted. You were running incredibly late, and you only had the time to take care of the necessities. You shower quickly. You get dressed. You brush your teeth. You make sure you have breath mints in your pocket because you didn't really brush your teeth for all that long. You make sure all the lint is out of your belly button. You put the lint in the lint jar in your medicine cabinet. The lint jar is right next to the deodorant stick. But I simply just don't have enough time time to deodorize this morning, you write in the condensation on the mirror, in italics. You race into the kitchen. You grab a pop tart from the cupboard. You don't have time to toast it. That's okay. You've grown to enjoy them at room temperature. You take frozen hamburger patties out of the fridge. You've decided that you're having meats for dinner. You run out the door just in time to catch the bus. But you rushed to catch this motherfucker. And it's hot up in this motherfucker. You feel your armpits beginning to perspire.

Sitting at your day job, your armpit kittens are straight up dripping. You smell putrid. You swear to yourself that you will never let this happen again. You brainstorm how you can remind yourself the following morning. You look for red string to tie around your finger. No red string anywhere. You look down at your shoe laces. Black. Shit.

You see a stack of post-it notes. You take one.

You write down the important reasons why you should take the time to apply deodorant. You flip it over to the sticky side and write how you feel.

You look at the post-it. It stares back at you. You place it in your wallet. You feel it staring at your ass. You take your wallet back out. You remove the post-it note.

You look at it again. It hasn't blinked. You stick breath mints under your arms. They fall out.

You grab the post-it. You crumple it up. It's superfluous at this point. You know you'll never make the same mistake again. But then again, anything can happen during the hazy stupor that is morning. You are about to throw out the crumpled-up reminder. You stop.

You smile slyly to yourself. You lift up your shirt. You put the crumpled post-it note in your belly button.

loss of innocence

And while we're on the subject... you boys each have different fathers.

[pauses]

Oh, I'm sorry.. I'm so sorry that I never told. I'm sorry I've kept this from you all these years. So sorry that I let you live this life, this lie. I wish I told you boys when you were younger.

[pauses, sobs]

Jesus.. my mascara is running. I must look like a hot mess. I just did my face too.

[gets ahold of herself]

Vitalis, he was none of your fathers. You've been living a lie. Vitalis and I worked on the same corner when he was younger. Your father's, they cut corners by not using protection.

If any of your real father's were half the man that he was, she thought to herself.

[loses herself again in a hysterical sob. she sounds like a remorseful hyena]

[boys stare at their mother, still in disbelief; still fixing their hair.

They use Son of Vitalis hair groom. It comes in a tube. Up until now, they had been led to believe that their father was a great man. A man who died trying to perfect his hair groom recipe. A man who died for his family.]

[mother partially regains her composure, looks up at them, smiling. Tears glistening in her eyes.]

But you're in an issue of Playboy!

Each of your fathers would be so damn proud, I can promise each of you that.

Here, here, come over here.

[sniffs, beckons]

Family hug.