Hammers to the Forehead

Essays

Aug 8

Skip has a way for me to be on 100 podcasts in a year, and it only takes 30 minutes of my time to learn how to achieve this insane metric. I would rather tiptoe over hot coals and then put my feet in a foot sauna engrossed with snakes on a random Wednesday. There was a lot of slop before AI slop. Everything that goes in my mailbox is basically paper slop.

A girl from NJPIRG knocked very hard on my door the other day. I never answer my door, but it sounded like a neighbor knocking to tell me water was seeping out of somewhere, or there was a brush fire coming, so I answered. I saw her shirt and said, “I know the pitch, I’m good.” I never opened the storm door. She looked taken aback that I would be taken aback by her assault of my door to get me to sign something.

A couples therapist once asked me, after a first session with a girlfriend, if I thought I would be back. I said, “No.” He looked perplexed. He wore something resembling a cowboy hat throughout the session. He seemed more uncomfortable than I was. I wonder if some people own personal aura mirrors for reflection. I got an earful after that.

“What do you do?” is just like asking me if I would rather have corneal surgery than watch Beef. Punch me instead. Small talk is an invasive devil running around in ski pants and one of those tuxedo t-shirts, yammering on about Def Leppard. I remember going on truly blind dates when I was younger. Sometimes, I am impressed and horrified with myself at the same time.

I was once told at a job that my hard work and skill were making other people look bad. I asked if it would be more efficient for them to call those people in for a chat and ask them to work harder. They didn’t think this was funny. It wasn’t meant to be. I wondered whether they threw stones at glass houses or just hoped someone else would.

I’ve never had coffee, other than a sip here and there. When people hear this, you would think I just called them a child molester. I can say that because I spent more than a year as a prosecutor in a Sexual Battery and Child Abuse unit. It was called SBU on the inside. It would have made a good television show. I could rarely sleep at night with what I read every day.

I have a very good sense of smell. I don’t think this is impressive. If I were in a contest on ESPN for smelling, I would simply say, “I was born like this.” I have good hearing, too. Somehow, my daughter still snuck out of the house during COVID. A lot of people think you watch someone take their last breath, but it’s really about hearing. You stop hearing them breathe.

I liked bologna and cheese sandwiches when I was younger. I would still like them if I didn’t know what they were both really made of. A warm beer is like a random dude missing the urinal at a club in Lake Havasu and it hitting your leg at 3:11 in the morning. I don’t drink anymore, and I don’t wear Tevas. Some days, everything feels like hammers to the forehead.