Drifting

I am weightless, here in illuminate darkness I can only drift. It's been ages since I encountered another out here, there is nothing to attract me or repel me. Stuck out here alone I can occasionally catch a whisper coming from a far off place, a planet, a star, maybe another drifter like me. Every day I watch the needle on my oxygen tank get a little lower. Is there a planet out here that's meant for me? And will I find it before the needle is finally at rest? Sometimes I talk to the far away stars, ask them if they have a planet I would survive or thrive on. Flat whispers return, I couldn't quite make it out. Think they said 'no' again.

Hang on, I'm getting close to that planet... I can hear it! There's people down there singing, it's the most beautiful melody I've ever heard! Maybe if I can just angle myself this way... okay, I'm on course for it! I can't wait to get down to the surface, to breathe real air, breathe life itself, and most of all I want to sing that beautiful melody with those people. Nearer now... what the hell was that flash? A large meteor shot past me, aimed right for my planet. My would be planet. Having to witness the further destruction of hope for a home, my soul bled. The force of the explosion blasted me away to the far side of the system. More alone than ever, I just floated and stared at that needle. My panicked breathing had accelerated it's descent. My melancholy turns to rage, and I scream into the darkness for the right planet to give me some sign, some indication that it exists, so that I might find it. My rage turns back into melancholy as the universe does not answer.

How long have I been drifting? The needle doesn't tell me the time, only the time left. It won't be long now. Huh... another planet way over there. If the universe sees fit to destroy this one, I'll have to give up finding my place entirely. Not enough oxygen to make it to another. I hear no singing from here, monotone beeps, and aggressive boops, but nothing I would call a song. I don't like this planet, but I'll land for a refill of oxygen. After that, I'm going back into space. Alone.

Unfiltered Rambling

TVs (among with all other technological wonders) have programmed us to be unfocused. We eat or clean while watching TV, barely focusing on the show. And if we do focus on the show, have no fear, the commercials will be there to break our focus. So, we end up checking our phones to see what Bob Saget is up to, or we just stare blankly at the ad for yoghurt that we know by heart. Anything but actual thinking.

The only time the average person uses the forgotten function of their brain ("imagination") is when they're in the shower or lying awake at night. And the average person will tell you that they win arguments in the shower and solve global problems right before they sleep. Poor fucks are cheating themselves out of perceiving the world in creative new ways, or imagining new and better worlds where Bob Saget will respond to your tweets. All because they think they need to be engaged by external sources at all times.

Every other toy these days is some singing-flashing-sensory-overload-piece-of-crap (probably some conspiracy Duracell orchestrated so they'll stay in business). New generations are being trained to be unfocused unimaginative little darlings even worse than we were. I know religion is getting more and more unpopular, but nonreligious people often forget that a lot of good ideas are put forth by religions (that crucifixion bit was classic*!). The Sabbath was to be a day to rest and to worship this God fellow (apparently he was a rather stand up gentleman). Since ancient times lacked our spaz-happy forms of entertainment, the Sabbath was essentially a day of contemplation. We, on the other hand, use our weekends to go to the bar, watch TV, or relax with some friends. Those things are all fine, but we should leave ourselves enough time to keep holy the Sabbath. The Sabbath allows our subconscious mind to be a bit more conscious. Maybe it always speaks to us, but we don't hear it because there were reruns of Breaking Bad that needed our full attention.

If I ever accidentally get a girl pregnant, and my Home Alone style traps around the house fail to cause a miscarriage, I think I'll promote my child's imagination. I'll ground the little bastard for no reason and tell him/her to think about what they've done. That's parenting the Randall way!


*yes yes, Romans blah blah blah.

The best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be.

Shit-tits and nipple-dicks. My other grandfather died. I was getting a little old to have a grandfather, but I'll miss him anyhow. I have a pretty good imagination, and even I can't conceive of a reason someone would dislike him. Except his wife. She had every reason to complain about him. After all, she was married to the greatest jester I've ever seen.

I remember him teaching us (my brothers and I) piano. We didn't tickle ivories, we smashed our fingers into the table while chanting "PEE-ANN-O, PEE-ANN-O." This was to inform the women-folk that we wanted our dessert. Sadly, the silly old bints never got the message, as our cake never arrived any faster (and was sometimes fed to the dog out of spite).

What with all the mass graves and genocide, being a jester in the army was difficult, but my Papa managed. Once he was done liberating Italy he and the other Canadian soldiers relieved themselves on the Tower of Pisa. That is how it came to lean. After drinking and chasing skirts in France, Italy, the Netherlands, and finally Germany (not to mention all that boring liberation business), Papa sent his troops home. You may not think of it, but someone had to stay behind and organize all the trips home. I suppose that was his punishment for repeatedly pranking superior officers (by putting all of their underwear in a bucket of water in the freezer).

Papa could create fun from boring, a trip to a sports game could be more fun than watching Sealy stocks rise as the Blue Jays shit the bed. Before every overpass he would yell at us to duck. For a kid, it's a fun game to spot bridges ahead of time and duck before your brothers. We would measure trips in numbers of bridges rather than hours or kilometres. I still do this, but it's tough to explain to the Ontario Provincial Police after you've rear-ended a Buick on the 401.

Whether awful or hilarious (or hilariously awful), Papa always had a joke ready. He used to tell us he was good at three subjects in school: recess, lunch, and arithmatic. It might sound like an old, lame joke, but that motherfucker could times his wobbly-assed tables. He could legitimately do a math problem before my stupid piano-hands could finger the cuntulator 'til it multiplied its orgasm by i*

I've lost my train of thought. Perhaps I should fire the conductor. Seriously Miguel, I hired you because I thought you could do the job for less money, don't be fucking around now. Anyway, even at 87, Papa was independent. Whether he was just putting chairs away after a card game or taking his scooter to visit his wife who had severe Alzheimers. On the way there he would make a point of honking at some 60 year olds and telling the "young whippersnappers to get out of the way". Yes, my grandfather called people whippersnappers. He was so independent he could win Euchre games without a partner. He could make it on a 9 and take all 5 tricks. If you don't play euchre, that means:
a) he was really good at Euchre
b) you are a piece of human garbage and should learn to play some fucking Euchre.

I came quick, the whore of the week yelled at me. Papa went quick and I thanked him for it. No need to watch a great man suffer. His senile wife had forgotten him, so he decided this plane of existence had nothing left to offer him. He went to jest in some other realm. I've always seen just two options when faced with tragedy: you can laugh, or you can cry. I choose to laugh and celebrate the good times.
To celebrate, my Papa always picked the most extravagent clothing, be it a flashing hat, or a singing tie, he was always prepared to catch people off guard. The manager at the retirement home made him sound like a lovable dog, "he was into everything here. He would play with everyone, he would make us all smile." However, my favourite comment came from a man who was described as crochety on a good day. As I was cleaning out Papa's room he came over and told me to "stop making so much god damn noise... and I miss your grandfather."

*This joke brought to you by Bo Burnham.

Rye Night

For other kids, Halloween was that special time when you could be something you're not.  You could be Satan himself  and still be considered a lovely little child (instead of being acknowledged as the borderline retarded little quiff that you are).  I, on the other hand, never had any interest in being the saviour of the planet or the harbinger of its destruction.  Halloween was the one day I just wanted to be myself, I wanted to get away from the masks, not put another one on.  Trouble was I wasn't allowed to be 'me' for Halloween, that wasn't normal.  If I didn't wear a costume I was not allowed to go out.  I tried to articulate why I didn't want to dress up as something else but failed.  Me being a child paired with the fact that explaining things was synonymous with 'talking back' in my parents' eyes, I never could clarify my desire. 

And so, I was forced to be a dinosaur, or a vampire, but I was never allowed to be the thing that terrified me the most: myself.

I remember Halloween when I was six years old.  I was living in a new town, and didn't have friends yet, so I needed a parent to accompany me on my quest for toothaches and gut-rot.  My father worked a lot and I didn't get to see him much, so I asked him to come along.  He had very little time to himself as it was, but he agreed.  I was ready to shoot out the door and start amassing a saccharine empire, but my father made me wait.  He fixed himself a large drink of rye, and we began our trip through the suburbs.  After a few houses, I was so excited that I couldn't think straight.  My father stopped me and asked "Did you remember to say thank you?".  It sounded like he was interrogating a murderer.  I guess dad always kept murderers and rude people side by side in his mind.  I told him that I had forgotten and I went back to the house to say thanks.  Dad sipped his rye.  He always had the ability to seem like a moral paragon while breaking open container laws. 

"You ready to empty that pillowcase?  Looks like it's getting heavy!"  It wasn't.  He needed to refill his drink.  We repeated this process a few times, finally ending with him insisting that I looked really tired and should go to bed.

In my adult life I finally granted my own wish, like some manner of genie autofellatio.  I drank rye all night and was completely myself, not stifling my most inner thoughts.  I was feared and adored by the locals, like any good ... uh, Halloween guy.

Years later my brothers and I still refer to Halloween as 'rye night' and one of my brothers takes his kids out Trick or Treating with a large glass of rye in hand.  Sound like bad parenting to you?  Perhaps, perhaps not.  What I do remember is that my dad spent what little free time he had making sure his son was happy and well behaved.  It doesn't matter to me that he needed alcohol to do it.

Musical Instruments

Nobody Does Funerals Like My Family (Bittersweet Symphony)

I'm the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral- the Barenaked Ladies, One Week.

Grandpa died. He was better than you at everything. I went to the funeral home for the visitation. My SJ father asked me why I shaved (I had been growing a beard) which is ironic because he previously used to threaten to ground me for not shaving. I looked through a photo album, noting that my brother would insist on giving the shocker in a photo even when he was an infant. I looked through my grandpa's old report card (expecting high marks since he later became a teacher) only to find that he received a 28% in arithmetic. Even sadder was he was ranked second in the class for math. Despite other lackluster marks, the teacher noted that "[Grandpa] is doing very well indeed." Who knows, maybe there were only two people in that class.

My brother's and I were in standard form, that is, as inappropriate as possible. Ringleader grabbed his girlfriends tit not ten feet from the casket. Grandpa would have wanted it that way.

I talked to many of my Grandpa's friends, many whom I had never met before. I asked one, Ralph, how he had met my Grandpa. He told me that he had been golfing alone and noticed that my Grandpa was golfing alone as well, so they had decided to go together. Ralph scoffed as my Grandpa wound up his shot with only one arm (a stroke had left his other arm nearly useless). Ralph ended up getting his ass kicked. He didn't know that my Grandpa was better than him at everything.

The funeral director approached me and asked me who the hot, tall, blonde chick was. I told him that she was my fifteen year old cousin. The funeral director replied "No, uh I meant that other blonde chick. The short one." The short blonde chick told me that she couldn't believe that she was jealous of a fifteen year old.

Proving that he is classy once and for all, my brother makes fart noises with his hands and discusses how he wants to leave an upper decker in a Dairy Queen bathroom. We reminisce about how our Grandpa used to fart involuntarily and tell his bum to shut up. I laugh so hard that I hurt myself. My Grandpa was better at flatulent comedy than you.

Prior to my Grandpa's death, my Facebook status had read "I'm growing a beard for Manuary to raise awareness for my face." In response to this Ringleader slapped my face a few feet from the casket and informed me that his hand was familiar with my face.

The visitation was over, so we went to my Grandpa's favourite restaurant to honour him (I'll uuse as many fuucking 'u's as I want oumw). We went to the Keg for dinner, oh wait no. My Grandpa was a real man so he liked to go to the truck stop to hang out with real men. My Grandpa is better at being a man than you.

After dinner I drank my depressive (or derpressive) face off, anxious about fucking up the eulogy I was going to give the next day (with the help of my brothers.)

My three brothers and I took turns reading what we were going to say. After each speech we responded as a chorus with "Nicely written, asshole."

My nephew said goodnight to us by telling us that we had herpes on our respective lips. Three year olds are fuckin' perceptive.

memory deleted

At the funeral the priest informed us that my Grandpa had saved him from going to jail. I think he was serious. He told us that my Grandpa used to read Bible verses at his church. The priest told us that my Grandpa had once been reading a passage and had leaned on the lectern too much and made it topple over along with himself. Apparently unfazed he continued reading the passage while the churchgoers tried to upright him. My Grandpa is better at focusing than you.

It was time to give the eulogy. Two of my brother's struggled but made it through with the support of the remaining two brothers. Ringleader knocked it out of the park. Despite being shy and socially awkward, I too knock it out of the park. I am reminded of the time that 30+ people told me that I am the greatest public speaker they had ever seen.*

The priest talked about the right hand giving us all pleasure. He was talking about Jesus being the right hand of God, but still most of us had a good chuckle.

As a pall bearer I had to lift my Grandpa's casket into a tiny burial plot. The graveyard was way too small and I nearly tripped over a tombstone while attempting to get my Grandpa into his grave.

Afterwards several people came up to me to tell me some variation of "Your Grandpa would be proud" "You spoke so well" "I hope my grandchildren will read as well as you." There were too many of them to be just a coincidence. I, Randall, like my Grandpa, am better than you at everything.

*Excerpt from my part of the eulogy:

I used to think that I had a firm grasp on the English language. That was before I saw my Grandpa talk to some of his fellow Newfies. I remember the joke/riddle he once told me that was clear to his Newfie relatives, but was baffling to me. It was as follows [said as fast as possible]: "Two legs sitting on three legs, with one leg in his lap.  Along comes four legs takes one leg from two legs, up jumps two legs, throws three legs at four legs and gets his one leg back again." To the Newfies it was clear that it was a story of a man on a stool, his leg of lamb, and his dog. The confusion brought on by that joke is one of my favourite memories of my Grandpa. Another one of my favourite memories of my Grandpa was actually my final one. My three brothers and I all had the privilege of having our final words to him be "I love you." And you can't ask for a better memory than that.

I get bored at work

Sometimes when I listen to music at work I replace the word "eyes" with "ass" in any song that has the word.  Here are a few of the more amusing results:

"I want to spend the whole night in your ass" - Lonestar, Amazed
"She can wound with her ass" - Billy Joel, She's Always a Woman
"Little girl dry your ass daddy's on his way" and "Why can't you open your ass and see that they're dying inside?" - Student Rick, A Child's Cry

Rogers and Me

A Festivus for the Rest of Us

To those of you who are familiar with Seinfeld, you know about Festivus.

This December 23^rd I attended a bar where Festivus was being held, complete with the traditional aluminum pole. One of the Festivus organizers, Cooper, had attempted to cut down a fence pole in his back yard,, but after failing, he sent his girlfriend to a hardware store. A woman buying a single aluminum pole on the night of December 23^rd is no doubt an unusual thing and the cashier asked why she was buying it. Her reply was "my friends are retarded." If loving Seinfeld enough to celebrate Festivus is retarded, then I'm profoundly retarded.

Since the bar was also a restaurant, it was supposed to be a family environment and therefore had no bouncers. This meant that the bar was unprepared for the drunken debauchery that we unleashed. Imagine this for a moment: you have no knowledge of Festivus, and you're having a nice evening out with the fam. Then, a man walks into the bar with a six foot pole, says nothing, and leans it against the wall, inspects his handiwork, then heads to the bar to get a drink. How loudly would your brain be screaming "What the fuck?!"?

Eventually the normal people escaped and we were able to celebrate Festivus undisturbed.  Every time that someone entered the bar we would all shout "Person is here! It's another Festivus Miracle!" And Person would grin at the rest of the bar and be assimilated into the drunken hivemind.

After airing grievances as loudly as we could, Cooper wandered the bar with the aluminum pole. One of the patrons, Ron, asked if the pole was aluminum or galvanized steel. In response to this, Cooper handed the aluminum pole off to someone and knelt down in a Tim Tebow pose. Cooper slowly made a fist and drew back his arm, then he unleashed a savage uppercut to Ron's testicles. Ron immediately grabbed his crotch and ever so slowly tipped over to one side and fell on the floor. The waitress calmly stepped over his corpse and wandered off to deliver some food. Later Ron's facebook status would read "I should not have questioned the validity of the aluminum pole."

A Day in the Life

7am.

At work already. The sky didn't want to work this morning either, so it stayed in bed knowing that the clouds would cover for it. I paced back in forth in front of my crew, a hypnotic pendulum that would likely send them back to sleep. The coffee was strong and black like something in a vaguely racist metaphor. We took to calling it 'a punch in the face,' because it wakes you up like one.

"Why the fuck are we here so early if the delivery truck isn't here yet?" said one of the crew. He was all the worst wigger stereotypes, Vanilla Ice himself would be embarrassed. The crooked hat completed the look.

"It's here now," gestured the second crewman, Sean, who was a friend of my boss.
I stopped pacing back and forth and looked up. The delivery truck took over as the pendulum, repeatedly backing up and pulling forward. I looked at the markings on the ground and realized the tires were driving precisely over the same tracks. I sighed, as my boss tried to direct the truck driver back. It was like a mind-boggling version of the broken telephone game, played with only two people. No matter how clearly my boss instructed the shit-chucking-ape-of-a-truck-driver, nothing got through. Meanwhile, the crew and I tried to guess how many points this turn had already. We settled on thirty.

I'm reminded of all the joy and laughter that Family Circus didn't bring me over the years.

After ten minutes of dicking about, he spontaneously recovered his knowledge of truck driving and put the damn thing in park. Even though we see them all the time, you never realize how big a 18 wheeler truck is until you have to unload one.

Well shit.

We set up to unload, the profoundly retarded truck driver and his assistant unloaded the cargo onto a set of rollers, at the end of which was a flight of stairs. I stood at the bottom of the stairs and passed the cargo up half a flight to Vanilla Ice who in turn would put it through the railing at the top of the stairs where Sean, my boss, and his father would put it away.

Oooooh, now I get it. Cargo is slang for cocaine, right?

Naturally, the most intense work is passing stuff up the stairs, because you have to lift a lot of weight straight up, while everyone else just jerks off or something. I set an impressive pace, knowing that the masturbators wouldn't tell me to slow down, knowing that I'm doing the harder work. They call me the Energizer Bunny.
  

Ladies.

Part woman's bathrobe, part lagomorph, all badass.

After about five minutes, Vanilla Ice acts like a jive ass bitch and switches with Sean. Now Sean and I are doing the hard work, while everyone else is chatting about fishing or something in order to distract themselves from the fact that they're secretly lonely.

"Fuck, I'm really out of shape, man" said a red-faced Sean fifteen minutes later.
He started begging to switch back with Vanilla Ice, who refused, citing my maniacal pace as the deal breaker. I expected Sean to walk up the stairs to get Vanilla Ice but instead he took a few steps down the stairs. I was confused, what was happening? Then it hit me.

 In the face.

"Sean, did you have an onion bagel for breakfast?"

Epilogue
-Sean was sent home for being "fucking useless."
-Sean returned and apologized and gave me "the most deserved case of beer in the history of mankind."
-Sean had chili for breakfast, which is a WTF in itself.
-No, I'm not exaggerating about the fifteen minutes thing.
-I have renamed the coffee "a puke in the face." 

Maple, the Drunken Smartass Tree

Tale of an Eight Year Old Randall

I decided that I wanted to leave my band of hellions and become one of the cool kids.  I decided that in order to prove myself I had to be the first person to win at Monster tag, excluding all the times someone won by catching the slow, fat kid.

Monster tag was a retarded game we had invented, which was to be played on the playground.  The person who was 'it' had to make stupid monster noises and couldn't climb on equipment on the playground.  So, naturally everyone who wasn't 'it' would climb to the highest point on the playground and deride the monster.

We were bright enough to know that being the monster sucked, but we were still dim enough that we kept playing the game anyway.

You must be at least this stupid to lose at monster tag

We gathered at the playground during recess and as usual, no one wanted to be Monster.

Children, fair and balanced.

"I'll do it," I said.

The crowd gasped and whispered that I had gone crazy.


No one had ever volunteered before, usually the group just shouted at each other until the mob reached a consensus, and the selected person resigned to their fate.  The mob silently agreed that I was the Monster and they scrambled to the safety of the top of the playground where they could try to spit on me.  Except for John, the cool kid.  He was a daredevil, standing on the bridge, which left his feet within my reach.

 
John: one lanky fucker.

This was it.  I just had to run forward, leap, and tag my way to coolness.

Feel good release of the year is how I sometimes describe my farts.

I unleashed a gutteral growl and channeled my strength into my legs.  One, two, three steps... jump











aaaand...






















I shrugged off the devastating blow I had just received, crying wouldn't help make me cool.  My head was throbbing, but I heard John descend to a lower platform.  Only an idiot would give me another chance.   I let out a deafening roar, it would have made a terrifying war cry. 

John was standing on the lower platform, he wore a concerned look on his face.  I saw that fat Mike was standing atop the ladder with the rest of the kids behind him who had come down to see if I was okay.  John couldn't escape up the ladder, and there was no way he could outrun me on the ground.  My legs were still powered with all of my strength. 

John spoke "Randall, you're bleeding!"  Pfft, what a lame stalling tactic. 

I was mere seconds from my triumph.  Waitaminute.

  Your story checks out.

 My head REALLY hurt.  I felt a blood trickle reach my eyebrow.  Uh oh.  Maybe I'd better get some help.  I left my friends and ran off to find the nearest teacher on yard duty.  I saw my  teacher, Mr. Farley a short distance away.  I approached him from behind and unsure of what to say, I said "Uh, can you help me?"  My voice was barely a whisper, too much of my strength was tied up in my legs and battling the pain in my head, so I didn't properly convey the urgency of the situation.

 Unfortunately for me, Mr. Farley was a Manners Nazi, anyone who didn't phrase their questions politely were not worth his time, so he said "No," and walked away without looking back.  He didn't realize I was injured, he was expecting me to follow him and ask again with the word "please."  However, in my panic I didn't realize this and wandered off to find someone who would help.  By this time, blood was gushing out of my head.  My entire face was covered in blood when I ran into my classmate William. 

 Level of blood: actually not exaggerated.

Wasting no time he grabbed my arm and dragged me to toward the school, passing by students who couldn't believe what they were seeing.  We made it inside and began passing more dumbstruck students. 

As Murphy's law would have it, the teacher's lounge was on the opposite end of the school from the playground, so we had to walk the length of the building much to the chagrin of the janitor who had to mop up the blood.  We entered the teacher's lounge and stood there in silence,  all at once the teachers looked at me the same stupid look affixed itself to each of their faces. 

National Synchronized Horrified Facial Expressions Team

Then a chorus of "Randall, what happened?!"

"I killed my head."

The next day in class everyone was interested in my stitches, and people were retelling the story of my facebridge.  Cute girls would touch my stitches then pull their hand away quickly and giggle.  "That's nothing, I heard that Dr. Quackers gave him a needle in his head too!" Fat Mike shouted.  Then John told me "Randall, you're so cool." 
  
I still have a badass scar, but somewhere along the way I lost my coolness.

And now for something completely different.

I'm sure you might be wondering why I refer to myself as a complete nutcase, so here is a story that doesn't give any insight into that whatsoever.

As a child I was the same free spirit that I am now. In a nutshell, I do what I want. 

Me doing what I want in a nutshell.

My father was the kind of guy who likes to be in control, he was an executive. So naturally, one day when I was ten he said "You have a choice, either follow the rules or find somewhere else to live." I left. During this period I peed on the outside of a portopotty and lived on the playground. 

Really important, thought you should know.

Sadly, I was dragged home by my brother before I could complete my first day as a homeless person. Apparently when my father told me "you have a choice" he really meant "you don't." My parents decided that defiance was a sign of mental illness and took me to the doctor. Dr. Quackers told me that I was suffering from depression. Depression is supposed to be diagnosed after a battery of tests, but he didn't bother with that.

Pediatricians are great with psychiatry. Not pictured: a battery of tests.

That is when I began taking antidepressants. Looking back, I don't think I ever really suffered from clinical depression, though perhaps I had a major depressive episode. I can never know for sure. At the time however, I believed that my doctor knew what he was talking about. So, I took the pills and my parents watched as their attempts to drug me into obedience failed, regardless of how many meds were tried, and regardless of dosage. You can't fix a free spirit because it ain't broke. 

Man am I glad I took that symbolic logic course.

Shortly before my 20th birthday I decided enough was enough, I was going to do away with the pills and resume my normal life. However, there is a little known withdrawal effect caused by certain antidepressants that had caused me to fail at ditching the meds in the past. Brain zaps (or brain shocks, brain shivers, head shocks) are easily the most distressing things I've ever experienced (and I've had an abscessed tooth). The name is very descriptive, it feels like your brain is being electrocuted. When do they happen? Sometimes they occur randomly, but they usually happened to me when I moved my eyes or closed my eyes tightly.

Go ahead, wince. It'll only lead to more zapping.

Yeah, just don't move your eyes, you'll be fine. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep your eyes still all day? To make things worse, I had constant nausea as well. When the withdrawal symptoms reached their peak, the brain zaps were intense enough to bring me to my knees. Luckily the symptoms only lasted a few days. Oh wait, no. Even five weeks later I was still being zapped regularly. Did I mention I didn't miss a day of work during all of this? After eight days I was a wreck, my legs had been replaced with spaghetti and the zaps were coming in harder than ever, and in clusters rather than single servings. Something had to give. Luckily I found that alcohol helped to mitigate the intensity of the shocks, so began I drinking absolutely extreme amounts after work. Unfortunately this required regular trips to buy alcohol, and driving properly is impossible with brain zaps. Try checking all of your mirrors without moving your eyes. 

Maybe if I smoked a lot of pot the bribe would have worked.

After the worst of the withdrawal I went through premanstrual syndrome (or possibly manopause), I was a bag of emotions, none of which made any sense. I tried to take it easy by watching a movie and I ended up bawling my eyes out. Have you ever seen the movie Life is Beautiful? The one where that father and son are in a concentration camp, and the father convinces the son that they are in a contest to win a tank? Well, that wasn't what I was watching. I cried my eyes out while watching The Matrix. No, I didn't cry when Neo died or anything of the sort. I made it about ten minutes in when Agent Smith drives the truck through the phone booth just as Trinity jacks out (is that the term? Fuck it, that's the way it is now). When I watched my first dog being put to sleep I cried, and I wondered what would be the next thing to make me cry. If you told me that I wouldn't cry until six years later when I watched the Matrix, I probably would have called bullshit. Emotions baffle me. I have been off the antidepressants for years now, and I'm as happy as ever. Regaining the full use of your eyes can do that.

Notes

1. I should probably point out that I don't hate my parents, what they did was just a misguided attempt to improve my life.
2. The whole withdrawal thing gave me a lot of perspective on drug addiction. I hated the pills, and yet I still kept going back to them after a few days of headzapping. I can only imagine how hard it would be to give up something that gives you pleasure when you use it and agony when you don't.
3. I really did pee on a portopotty when I ran away from home.
4. Brain zaps

Four years of this earned me a university degree

I was sitting in my camping chair (that I bought with my then girlfriend's bread money) in the middle of a parking lot of a factory that I don't work for when it occurred to me that long, unruly sentences are the best way to ensure that no one reads your blog past the first sentence.

I'm apparently too incompetent to do a proper introduction, so let's just jump into this thing shall we? 

Npte to self, fix the spelling mistake in this sentence.  Comic inbound.