Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Mandango

Not only do I think they should build a mosque at the site of ground zero...I also think they should build a...

Jotting at 35,000 Feet

I get my best ideas on the airplane at about 35,000 feet altitude. Well not my best ideas but my most interesting thoughts. Flying on a commercial plane gives you that rare opportunity to sit 5 mm from complete strangers and for that 120 minute flight fall victim to whatever food induced trauma they have put their body through for the past 10-20 years. While I'd like to think that planes are getting smaller, it's been so overtly proven that Americans adults are getting fatter, only to be one upped by their even larger children.

I usually just keep my iPod headphones in listening to some music or an Adam
Carolla podcast. This allows me to set the mood as I look around at the delicious range of passengers who have been stuffed into this flying cylinder with me. Who are these people?

I have a cold on this flight. Chicago to Washington DC. I can't stop coughing and I can tell the couple next to me is getting tense that I might be a SARS carrier. That makes me think about all the great things I could say to make them even more uneasy. Maybe just looking at them after a big cough and saying "at least the bleeding stopped," or “ya know, HIV only really becomes AIDS after a 6-12 month gestation period.”

I was in Chicago for a friend’s birthday, where me and 4 other guys from college all reminisced via endless dick jokes and perpetual "who could be gayer" competitions (I always win). There is nothing straighter, than acting gay, and you’re just going to have to trust me on that one.

Why are simple gay jokes so funny? Is it because gay sex is so revolting to us? Whatever the reason, I can't stop with the joking (half-joking) threats to smoosh my penis against my friend’s forehead when he falls asleep. It's always funny, and I have a feeling it always will be.

I have no more patience for people, mainly because I’m terrified of the whacos that the news, internet and media has to constantly remind me of. You don’t need more than one story about a mother who put her baby in the microwave to be weary of the other “human-shaped” mutants that walk amongst us. And, like the chicken and the egg dilemma, I don't know if these maniacs have always been around in these numbers or if it’s just the 24-hour news cycle making us more aware of the serial killers, rapists and child molesters. My response to all this is that when any person starts acting just a little bit out of sync with the social code i grew up with, I go into defense mode which usually consists of me keeping my hand in my pocket gripping my 5-inch butterfly blade ready to spear some raving lunatic in the carotid. I also stand with my right leg a little behind my left, just in case a nutty requires a swift front-ball kick to the fupa. You know when it’s going to happen too, it doesn’t take more than three words out of someone’s mouth before you realize they are completely insane and are walking freely on Earth with me. When that guy gets in the elevator with me and I can hear him audibly getting excited to blurt out something stupid while I'm confined in this 6 by 10 prison cell with him, I go out of my way to be very silent, and I stare at the ground in the hopes of cutting off his comment about "how hot it is outside". I know it's hot, it's summer, and we’re indoors now, please…don't rape me.