The Book of Awesome (11 page)

Yes, hearing a stranger fart in public can be a
tiny, hilarious moment
in the middle of any day. If you’re the farter, I say be loud and be proud! We’ve all been there, so no need to be embarrassed. If you’re in the audience, I say enjoy the
hilarious social faux pas
and resulting reaction in the room.

So thank you, strangers farting in public, for adding a great bit of comic relief to the middle of our day.

AWESOME!

A bad burn and you’ve got black crumbs and a dry middle. A lukewarm bake and you’ve got a
gummy center
and soft crusts. So push the button down, twiddle the knob, and dial up some perfection.

AWESOME!

A jammed photocopier at the office is a terrible scene.

Toner fumes fill the air, plastic doors are swung open, and crumpled papers lie wedged tightly in the machine’s
Plinko board torso
of hot springs and
bright green clasps
.

And there you stand at the
scene of the crime
in your pleated pants and button-down shirt. Yeah, I’m guessing the last thing you feel like doing right now is dropping to your
hands and knees
and poking your fingers into that steaming engine of paper trays and twirly knobs.

That’s what makes it so great when a bugle blares softly in the background and out pops the
King of the Office
from around the cubicle wall. Yes, it’s
Unjammer Man
, that young techie kid from the IT department who declogs the photocopier in no time flat and is happy to lend a hand.

Your lips curl into a big smile and you hug your expense report, while knobs are twiddled,
clasps are fiddled
, and the copier quickly starts humming like brand new.

Now that someone’s unjammed it for you, you’re back in business, baby.

And you’re loving it.

AWESOME!

Sometimes you just gotta peek.

As you unwrap the chocolate bar, peel open the cheeseburger, or scoop up that second bowl of ice cream, you can’t help but turn the package around to glance at the
nutritional label
on the back.

And guess what’s waiting for you over there? You got it, baby: 64 percent of your daily
saturated fat
intake, 76 percent of your cholesterol, and a couple big buckets of carbs.

Then there’s the quick pause, involuntary
eye twitch
, or ashamed look at the person munching salad beside you. But I hope after that brief moment of self-doubt, you just keep going, you just keep scooping it in. Sure, you might have to turn the label away, avoid sodium for the rest of the day, or give a shrug and say, “Hey, it’s okay,” but I hope you keep going, hope you savor it slowly, and hope you enjoy every last bite.

Sometimes you just gotta read the nutritional label and eat it anyway.

Sometimes . . . you just gotta live.

AWESOME!

You know the feeling.

Your favorite characters are introduced, the story kicks off, a couple plot twists and turns seem a bit unfamiliar, and it suddenly dawns on you: You have
no clue
how the movie wraps up. No, you can’t remember who the killer is, who dies, or if the cats ever get married. You can’t remember the ending at all, and you’re loving every minute of it.

So you dim the lights,
snuggle under the blanket
, shush up your chatty husband, and stay glued to that screen.

Because it’s like, hey,
guaranteed blockbuster
.

AWESOME!

Harsh fluorescent lighting, slushy wet floors, and the cloudy
stench of raw fish
welcome you into your friendly neighborhood grocery store. After circling tables of
green bananas
, wobbly paper towel towers, and piles of day-old bagels, it’s kind of nice to stumble upon the coffee aisle and just take a big sniff.

AWESOME!

My friend Mike has rules for hosting parties. They go like this:

But those are his rules.

My rules are: If you’re coming over, bring a chair. See, because we rarely provide people with anything. No drinks, no seating, no toilet paper in the bathroom, and definitely no old butler with a pencil mustache walking around in tails asking if you’d like an endive covered in swan liver and truffle oil.

Instead we stick a piece of paper on the front door telling you to meet us in the back, and then help you get started on the two six-packs you brought over. If you’re lucky, we might have a leftover bag of stale nachos kicking around or maybe some puddings in the cupboard. If not, we’ll need
your credit card
to order a pizza.

I am an extremely cheap person
, so I get a kick out of the random assortment of drinks left over in the fridge the morning after a party. You can basically play detective to figure out who came the night before: buzzy energy drink with vodka (night-shift worker trying to stay up), cans of domestic beer (grad student on a budget), oversized brown bottles with flip-top stoppers and lots of consonants on the label (yuppie couple or Europeans), sugary vodka coolers (college girls), craft beers with names like Old Flag or Rocky Tundra (hipsters), fancy bottles of port (British Conservative Party).

Man, I love that random mishmash of assorted beers and drinks in the fridge. Mostly because it makes me feel like a better host next time people come over.

AWESOME!

AWESOME!

Keep the spit to yourself and just let it fly. It’s time to get windy.

AWESOME!

Trouble bubbled at my friend Scott’s house one night.

See, earlier in the week Scott found a used
McDonald’s Chicken McNugget
sauce container wedged between the car seat and the door in the Honda Civic he shares with his wife. He dropped his keys in there, and when he slipped his hand down to fish them out, he came up with a sticky, crusty
barbecue sauce
container instead.

His wife Molly was caught grease-handed. In Scott’s mind their sturdy
New Year’s pact
to eat healthy suddenly dissolved into a dimly lit puddle of lies and deception.

Lucky for me, Scott decided to raise the issue one Monday night while we were all watching TV.

Here’s how it went down.

Then there was a short, silent pause.

And then we all just burst out laughing.

Because, seriously, we’ve all been there, man. Sneaking in those secret
McDonald’s Drive-Thru
trips and ditching the evidence. Yup, gotta make sure you’ve scooped all the fries off the bottom of the bag,
wiped the salt
off your lips, checked your shirt for
ketchup spillage
, and safely filed the excess napkins away in the glove compartment. It’s a delicious guilty pleasure and your secret is safe with us.

Just remember to roll down the windows,
pay with cash
, and play it safe out there.

And never ever order the nuggets.

AWESOME!

Hanging out with friends late, late, late one night, dim music playing in the background,
splayed haphazardly
on a fat, squishy couch, my brother-in-law Dee started waxing nostalgic about his family’s big, old
1991 white Chevy Suburban
.

He just broke into it too.

“That monster seated nine people, I swear to you. Honestly, nine! There was a bench in the back, a bench in the middle, and
a bench in the front
. I remember when my parents bought it, I said, ‘Why not get the captain’s chairs in the front?’ and they were like, ‘No, that’s just not practical.’ But I guess the benches did come in handy. My dad drove our entire baseball team around. Fourteen
twelve-year-olds
wedged in tight and twisted. We called it The Team Tank. Ha ha, honestly man, I miss that old beast.”

And then he just smiled softly, shook his head, and stared absently at the remote control on the coffee table for a minute.

Dee’s wistful late-night rambles got me thinking.

For my sister Nina and me, nothing beat sitting in the backseat of our
1984 Pontiac Station Wagon
with brown paint, brown interior, and classy
fake wood trim
on the outside. The backseat in this Logmobile was about eight feet away from the driver but a world apart, really. You could talk and play games out of earshot, all the while looking and laughing straight out the back window, distracting people behind you on the highway.

In the summer the
metal belt buckles
would grow red-hot and scald your skin when you buckled up. The cup holders were full of sticky remains from the half-dozen spilled Cokes that didn’t get sponged up by the handful of McDonald’s napkins stuffed in there. The air conditioning was temperamental, the windows wouldn’t roll down all the way, and there were no entertainment systems or talking maps. You invented your own fun and sat patiently on the dark fabric seats, deeply stained from the time somebody
sat on a hot banana
.

So what was your car? Was it a
’69 Dodge Dart
? A Chevette in Classic Dull Gray or ’95 Chevy Lumina van? Was it a monstrous ’68 Impala, a ’54 DeSoto, or a bright teal ’91
Ford Taurus
?

Whatever it was, I bet it sure does give you a trip down memory lane when you see that car,
the same color
, the same style, just driving around town like nobody’s business. Or maybe fixed up real nice at the antique car show.

Or maybe coasting calmly on cruise through your brain every so often.

Steering up some memories.

AWESOME!

Why hello, little cup of strawberry-kiwi punch. How
you
doing, pepper-dill crackers? Don’t mind if I do, tiny salami wrapped around a piece of melon.

Yes, eating a free sample of something you have no intention of buying is a great way to stay on top of what’s happening in the grocery store. You swish the new drink, chew the new gum, toss back a tiny cup of the new
pasta dinner
, and introduce your tastebuds to a little surprise.

Assuming you don’t actually like the product, maybe you do what I do and pretend you’re going to buy it anyway so you don’t hurt the sweet, heavily lipsticked
Sample Lady’s
feelings. So you pick up the box of dry crackers, salty salami, or all-noodle-no-cheese lasagna and say, “Hmmm. $4.29? Not bad, not bad. And I get a fifty-cents-off coupon too? Hmmm.” Then you smile back at her, toss it in your cart, and say, “Why not! Thank you very much!”

Then you roll out of sight and guiltily drop it in another aisle.

AWESOME!

Okay, who’s the smart one who brought an umbrella? Because I know it’s not me.

No, when the sky cracks up and the rain smacks down, I’m the one wearing heavy jeans and a
thick, spongy sweater
that soaks up everything and turns me into a
swampy slab of peat bog
. I’m drenched, I’m dripping, I’m ice-chilled to the bone.