For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge

A new study has been released out of that bastion of bastard-calling, England. Turns out that swearing at work can be a good thing. Apparently, it can boost morale and create solidarity among the workforce.

Well, I knew I had to do something with this information.

We’ve been going through a complete corporate reorganization here at work. It’s affecting more than a thousand people. Needless to say, tensions are running pretty high. Some people have been put out of jobs. Others have been put in jobs that are pretty miserable. Everyone’s been testy and on edge. So, as usual, it was Donkey the working peon to the rescue.

I sent out a memo to the entire marketing communications department here at work along with a copy of the article.

“Dear Marketing Communications Department,

I know many of you are having a rough time with the current reorganization. You’re frustrated, flustered, confused, and feeling a little bit helpless. I am too. I wanted you all to know that I’m there for you.

To demonstrate this, I’m designating the time of 2:00–2:30 for you to come into my office and swear at me. That’s right. You heard me. Swear. At. Me. Research has shown that it can be healthy for the workplace.

Hope to see you then,

Donkey”

The line started at 1:50. Before 2:00, it was ten people deep. I work with almost all women, many of which are nearly old enough to be my mother. The hallway was wall-to-wall skirts. 2:00 rolled around and in they rolled, one-by-one, cursing. Cursing like a sailor. Cursing like a Tourette’s Syndrome patient off her meds. Cursing like part of a George Carlin special. Cursing like a rap star. Cursing, cursing, cursing, for a solid 30 minutes. Building a wall of obscenities that blocked out the sun.

I knew women could curse, but I didn’t know they could curse like this. I heard things so vile that I never heard working five years as a bouncer in a bar. The blue streak that came out of their mouths ripped open a hole in the ozone layer as it shot out into space. I’m sure there’s some meteor in its path that will be obliterated by their combination of f-bombs.

When 2:30 came, they left sweating and shaking with their newfound vocal power. As the last one left my office, I reached down and clicked off the recorder. I packaged it with my memo to H.R. on how working with so many women has led to the creation of a hostile workplace. I was contemplating filing suit. This tape, I told them, was just a sampling of what I had to put up with every day.

So now, the only question is, “How much are they willing to settle for?”

Don't Supersize This

You know what’s not a good combination? Warm Diet Pepsi Maxx and leftover chicken teriyaki. I can’t stop burping it up here at work and every time I hold one in, it burns my septum. Do you think I can file a workman’s comp claim for this?

Good God, here comes another one.

More Things I Wonder About

How much time needs to elapse during a power outage before looting becomes acceptable?

We lost power for 17 seconds here at work the other day and I was able to procure 2 Blackberries, an iPod, and 17 reams of paper. I would have nabbed the color copier, but my boss beat me to it.

Setting the Table for Disaster

A while back, I was in an interview for much better position than the one I currently hold. Towards the end, the interviewer paused and said, “I know this is a cliché, but what can you bring to the table that none of the other candidates can?”

I thought long and hard on this one. It forced me to do an honest appraisal of myself and my skill set. What did I do better than any other person?

For a moment, the only thing that came to me was that I have a sixth sense about movies. You see, I can walk into any movie I’ve never seen before and tell you within three minutes the four following things: 1.) Whether or not the movie will have nudity, 2.) Approximately how long you’ll have to wait to see any nudity (usually accurate to within 5 minutes), 3.) What type of nudity you’ll see, and 4.) Whether that nudity is male or female.

You may doubt my skill. After all, it does sound rather incredulous, but my accuracy is uncanny. It’s a gift that I’ve never taken lightly. Throughout our teenage years, my younger brothers and I watched all manner of cable movies on HBO and Showtime (no Cinemax, that would be too easy) and they were routinely floored by my estimates. There has only been one movie that thwarted my ability, In the Bedroom. Seeing Marisa Tomei frolicking around early with some young jasper led me to believe there would be some skin. There was not. And you know what? The movie was so damn good, I didn’t give a whit.

But, the real question was, how could I work this skill into the interview? I pride myself on taking a different tack on everyday problems, but something told me this guy would not be impressed with this particular skill.

So, I wussed out and told him that I like to burn stuff and I’d probably bring an awesome smoke detector to the table so that no one else got hurt.

He pulled out his Zippo and said, “Me too, Donkey. Me too.”

Since it’s been a couple weeks and I haven’t heard anything, maybe I should have gone with the nudity answer. Well, I’ll just file that away for next time.

Silence, Please

Today, a new law goes into effect in Illinois. In a nutshell, students have to do what teacher’s have been begging them to do for decades, shut the fuck up. OK, maybe not in those exact words, but something pretty close. All schools in Illinois are required to start the day with a moment of silence. Students can use this time to pray, meditate, mentally undress their classmates, imagine midgets playing Parcheesi, or rebuild the alternator in a 1979 Chevy Malibu Classic. Their choice.

There’s a lot of problems with the law, the biggest of which is that there is no set punishment in place for students who don’t comply with the law. But the main problem I have is that no one has stopped to ask the basic question, “How long should a ‘moment of silence’ last?” 30 seconds? A minute? Theoretically, it could last all the way through the school year.

I’ve always wondered about the “moment of silence.” You’ll be at a sporting event and the announcer will ask for a moment of silence for whatever the cause du jour is. For the most part, people comply, but eventually the cheering starts up. Slowly at first, then building to a roaring crescendo before the announcer says, “Thank you,” and everyone goes back to ogling cheerleaders.

I want to know what goes through the guy’s head who starts the first cheer. Does he feel like a martyr? Does he say to himself, “Screw it, I’ll be the asshole and get this party started right.” Or, does he tell himself from the get-go that this is total b.s. and he’s not going to shut up for anyone? I want to know!

If I were a team owner, I’d keep a guy on payroll specifically for breaking the moment of silence. I’d give him all the beer he can drink plus a foam finger of his choosing. Then, I’d tell him to do everything in his power to disrupt the moment of silence. Why? Because if you give people too much time to think, they’re going to wonder why they just forked out over a hundred bucks for tickets and parking and then they’re asked NOT to cheer for the team or make any noise at all. I’m sure people really like paying money so you can tell them what not to say.

And, if I were a teacher, I’d do the same thing. I’d find the weirdest kid in the class and say to him, “Johnny, when the moment of silence starts, I want you to sing ‘Happy Birthday to You’ in your head. When you’re done, just start clapping and hollering and I’ll give you some fruit snacks before lunch.” Because, if I were a teacher, I wouldn’t want that moment of silence cutting into my workday. I’d want to get out of there ASAP before the sickening smell of young learners starts to get fetid.

Yeah, this law is pretty stupid.

I’m Pretty Sure I’m Going to Hell

Why? No particular reason. It’s not like I did one big thing that will send me there. It’s mostly just the usual stuff. You know, making fun of hillbillies. Sneezing on my boss’s doorknob after he’s left for the day. Thinking about Star Wars while I’m in church. Throwing dog crap under our neighbor’s deck. Proactively seeking to destroy the world economy and implementing my own special bartering system with an inordinate amount of value designated to people who can belch really, really loud.

Like I said, the usual stuff. Man, I hope they have burritos down there.

A Tangled Web, Or Weave?

Here’s an article that made me dumber just by reading it. Then I realized that someone actually funded this kind of research. Imagine that, you can get funding for determining what kind of hair gets tangled more often, but I can’t find anyone to fund my burrito-powered helicopter research. This sucks.

Back in the Day

Good or bad, there are days that change your life forever. I want to talk about one of the bad ones. We’ve all got a handful of them that we keep buried deep inside our pockets. Nobody sees them, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still feel them there resting against our bodies.

One of mine was an October Tuesday on a football field outside Philadelphia back in 1988.

People look at me and assume I was a good football player, simply because of my size. I wasn’t. I played at 5’11” and 160 pounds. But it wasn’t the lack of size that didn’t make me a good football player. It was the lack of consciousness mostly.

Being smaller than other players means you have to hit harder to make an impact on the field. It comes with a risk, though. While you’re trying to knock someone silly, a lot of times you knock yourself silly. It’s part of the game. Unfortunately, I didn’t like throwing up every other night because I was still seeing stars from that day’s practice. I didn’t like being unable to concentrate. I didn’t like “losing time” out on the field, unable to remember a series of plays. I could never get used to it. So, if I could bring a guy down without knocking myself for a loop, I tried to do it.

People noticed.

Don’t get me wrong, I could unleash a mammoth hit with the best of them. Of course, I could only do it 2–3 times per game before the blackouts started and nausea kicked in later. So, I tried to pick and choose my spots.

During a Saturday game, The Hun School had different ideas.

I was playing strong safety at the time, lined up over the tight end. I still remember their formation. Slot left wide. I remember our right defensive end Dave bit hard on the fake dive by the fullback. I remember that our right linebacker Shaughnessy was blocked way too easily by the tight end and didn’t even fight it. I remember the right cornerback Nate got engaged with the slot receiver. But, mostly I remember seeing their 240-pound halfback taking the option pitch and running untouched towards the outside.

It’s just simple physics, really. 160-pound me running full speed at a 240-pound guy is probably going to lose. You can factor in things like technique and desire, but in the end physics usually wins.

It did.

I tried to pop his hips and knock him off balance. As I neared him, I broke down and launched my right shoulder into his hips, hoping for the best. It never came. He slowed maybe half a step and kept running as if I had never even been there. I remember trying to hold on and feeling my arms slide down a thigh that was almost as big around as my waist.. It wasn’t for another second or two that I heard the whistle and looked up to see the referee spotting the ball after a nearly 20-yard gain.

I don’t remember much more from the game after that. I know that we lost, though. When a team’s starting halfback is bigger and stronger than anyone on your entire team, that tends to happen. I do remember the film session, though the next Monday.

The above play happened in the third quarter. By the time we got to that play in film session, we’d seen their halfback run over just about everyone on the field multiple times. I don’t know why, but Coach Davis stopped the film after that play and called me out in front of my teammates and friends.

“Donkey,” he said. “Why’d you hit him like such a pussy?”

He rewound the film. “Look, you had a clean shot at him. But instead, you wussed out.”

He rewound it again. “You could have at least held him up, couldn’t you?” he asked as everyone watched my feeble attempt at holding onto his leg.

He rewound it again. “Everyone. This is how NOT to tackle a guy. Remember this.”

I did.

We ran a lot that practice. No contact on Mondays after watching film. Instead we did up-downs, hill climbs, over-back/over-backs until we were exhausted. The whole practice I got more and more angry. Why me? Why call me out when the same thing happened to our entire team?

I took that anger with me and held it in my hands the rest of the day. I heard Coach’s voice all night as I studied. I don’t remember a single thing from any of my classes Tuesday, but I remember practice. I remember it.

Coach moved me to cornerback that day. I guess he figured it was because I wasn’t a big enough hitter to play safety. In hindsight, he was right, but I didn’t want to admit it to him that day. So, I played with a reckless abandon. I remember frustrating our regular WR to no end by locking him up on every play so he couldn’t get off the line and run his patterns. I remember going after our running back and chasing him down like he was standing still. I remember the feeling of adrenaline.

Then the freshmen and sophomores came in to run the scout team. I lined up opposite a freshman WR named Brandon. He was about 5’9” and 140 pounds at the time. He had no speed, no quickness, no hands, no talent, and no clue about what I was about to do.

The hitch pass to him was a little high and a little slow. Not high enough that he had to jump, but high enough that he was completely prone. Not slow enough to pick off, but slow enough for me to get a full head of steam going. There are few things that a cornerback likes to see more than a completely exposed WR. So, I did what I was supposed to do.

I destroyed him.

I was a high-speed cruise missile. I was a wrecking crew. I was the Angel of Death disguised as a defensive back. I swear as God as my witness, I never unleashed this kind of fury in my life before.

Time slowed. It always does with stuff like this. The hit was loud. Gunshot loud. I felt his breath knocked completely out of him. I could see his body go completely limp before he hit the ground. The ball rolled harmlessly towards the sidelines where it tottered and came to a rest pointed at me.

For those of you who played football, you know what the perfect hit feels like. You get this instant feeling of giddiness that won’t subside. It’s orgasmic. Your body shakes incessantly and try as you might, you can’t get the grin off of your face.

Until you look down and see that he’s not moving. Heck, you’re not even sure if he’s breathing. Before you know it, the entire coaching and training staff is assembled around him. There’s a part of you that feels sick. There’s a part of you that wants to cry. But you can’t get that damned grin off your face.

Look, I know I wasn’t wrong for anything I did. Football is a contact sport. Going into it thinking you won’t get hit is ludicrous. It’s just that for once I had done everything right and I still felt like the worst person in the world. I saw what I was capable of doing and it scared the shit out of me.

Coach Thomas came and put his arm around me. “That was a hell of a hit, Donkey.”

“Yeah.” I muttered and walked away.

That was it. I paced by myself. Suddenly, Brandon’s eyes opened. He looked around and wiggled all his extremities. Nothing broken. Nothing torn. Just knocked unconscious. Eventually, he rolled over and threw up. Practice was over. No wind sprints. No hill climbs. Just shower and call it a day.

I didn’t feel right after that. I had a dull ache in my stomach that didn’t go away for months.

Then it got worse.

Thursday morning, the ambulances came to school. A student had fallen to the ground outside the student lounge and gone into a seizure. No one had to tell me who it was. I already knew.

I started to clean out my locker that day, thinking about what I was going to tell Coach besides, “I quit.” I mean, how do you keep playing after you do something like that to a kid? I’d hit opponents in games before and taken them out. Heck, I’d been knocked out of games before. This was different. This was a teammate. He wasn’t a friend or even an acquaintance, but he was still a teammate. You don’t do that to a teammate. You don't hit someone so hard that he eventually goes into seizures.

The guys came into the locker room before practice and saw me there. It was epilepsy, they said. Ran in his family. The hit had nothing to do with it.

So I didn’t quit. I played the rest of the year, but I didn’t like it that much. I didn’t like myself too much for a while, either. I couldn’t bring myself to really unload on anyone in a game again.

When I was a kid, I skipped a grade. I was always the smallest guy in class until puberty kicked in. I got picked on, bullied, and teased from first grade through junior year in high school. I always wished I was tougher, so people would leave me alone. All my life, I wanted to be tough. That year, senior year, was my year to be tough. Only, the strange thing is, it didn’t suit me. I wasn’t the hard-ass football guy. I was just a regular kid who wanted to have fun on the football field. That hit showed me everything I needed to know about myself.

My senior year in college, I went back for homecoming and ended up at a party where Brandon was. I walked in the door and before I could say anything, he looked at me and said, “You hit me so hard.” It had been four years and he was still thinking about it. It’s been 19 years and I’m still thinking about it. I’m sure if I were to run into him again on the streets, it would be the first thing he said to me.

So, why am I writing about this? I don’t know. It’s a Tuesday. It’s October. And there’s still a little part of me that feels sick about all this.