I guess that makes me an indoor owner

Can someone tell me—what’s an outdoor cat? I just don’t understand the concept.

Person A: Oh that’s such a cute cat. Is it yours?
Person B: Oh yea, she’s my cat. That’s Charlotte. But she’s an outdoor cat.

That makes sense to some people? Let’s try this:

Person A: Oh, that’s such a cute squirrel. Is it yours?
Person B: Oh yea, that’s my pet squirrel Linus. But he’s an outdoor squirrel.

How the hell is an animal a pet if it always stays the hell outside? Someone might say, ‘Oh, well I feed it and pet it and make sure it has water every day.’ Wow, that’s mighty big of you, ma’am. If I drop a peanut on the ground on Park Avenue and a pigeon picks it up, did it just become my pet pigeon? Am I now obligated to drop a peanut on the ground every day for this rat with wings? Does this mean that I can claim a duck as my pet if I throw some Wonder Bread crumbs in a water hole at a golf course?

‘Oh, that? That’s just my pet duck Woody. But he’s an outdoor duck.’ Fuck me, he better be … unless your name is Joey and your roommate is a guy named Chandler.

You think you're so slick

I think it is an utter conspiracy what these petroleum companies do to us nowadays. We all know how monumentally wealthy companies like Exxon/Mobil, Texaco and BP are, but there are some tiny, underlying reasons why.

I pump gas at least once a week. I put the credit card in the slot like everyone else does, put my pin in like everyone else does, put the handle in the gas tank like everyone else does and stand there pumping. And the pump goes until it stops, usually just before it’s completely full. So what happens then? I’m usually at like $34.68 or something, so I want to top it off, like everyone else does. I want to pay a nice even $35 for my tank of gas. So I click the handle fairly firmly a few times until I get to like $34.95. Then what do I do? I click ever so gingerly: .96, .97, .98, .99. I have the perfect touch! The perfect amount of tension! I am inching up perfectly, one cent at a time. Then what happens? At .99 I click with that same gentle touch to get to exactly $35 … YET THE PUMP IMMEDIATELY JUMPS TO $35.01! AARRRGGGHHHHH!!! EVERY-SINGLE-FUCKING-TIME!!!

Is anything more frustrating? And is anything more of a crock of shit than that? It is a vast conspiracy to gain one extra cent out of every single paying customer in America. Think about how much extra money that is in those oil companies’ fat pockets?! See, it’s not just a penny; it’s your penny, combined with tens of millions of other people’s pennies all across America, every single day. This is why they are rich. Don’t just blame the Saudis. This is fucking crap.

Apprehend The Misconception

I don’t really understand the ‘convenience’ of drive-thru ATMs. It’s one of those ideas that sounds good on paper, but never really pans out. You know, like electing Sarah Palin governor of Alaska. Drive-thrus work for fast food, and they even work for liquor, but they just don’t work for ATMs. I pull up, but I can NEVER reach the damn thing, at least not without taking off my seatbelt and contorting myself in such a way so that I can lean out the window to access the keypad thereby crushing my ribs in the process. You can never get within 3 feet of the window because there is always a large curb and/or one of those monumental yellow iron poles in the way (you know, the ones women drivers use to take those pesky little side mirrors off of their BMW 330’s?). C’mon, I am not the only one who feels this way, am I?

Fleedom from oppression

One of my closest friends is Philippino. And so I asked him: Why do Asians have absolutely zero sense of personal space? He had no answer (and then corrected me and said he was a "Pacific Islander").

I was just on line the other day to pay for two things at Duane Reade. The line formed down the main corridor in front of the registers, and there was probably about five to six feet of space between the customer at the checkout and the next person in line. One person moves to the checkout, the next person waits five or six feet back--that’s just how it goes. There were two people in front of me when I got there and about four people behind me. I was there to get the two items I couldn’t get at the grocery store and so as I was on line I had two heavy bags in my hand, one of which had eggs in them. So when I’m next, I approach the register and gently place my two grocery bags at my feet so I can pay for my two things and get out as quickly as possible so the next person can go. As the person in front of me paid, I was five feet back.

Now, you’d expect the person behind you to do the same. It’s one of those natural laws of etiquette, one that’s unwritten but that everybody follows, like not staring at a retarded person in the mall or where to walk and where to stand on an escalator. So I finish paying and am about to leave, I quickly put my debit card back in my pocket and bend down to get my two grocery bags. Lo and behold there is an Asian man standing RIGHT BEHIND ME! Literally 12 inches from my back where I just paid. Oh no, this man will not wait five feet back like everyone else! He cannot possibly! He has to have his fucking nose in between my shoulder blades! As I picked up the bags to leave they nearly hit him, because obviously I wasn’t expecting anybody to be that friggin' close to me. And if my eggs broke I swear I would have found the nearest Hello Kitty bookbag and beat him to death with it!

Bright Lights, Big City ... and other places

Living in New York City I understand that I forfeited the right to sleep in actual darkness. However, modern technology is NOT really helping me in this department. Ever look around your room and notice that every single thing you have plugged in has an indicator light? It’s mind boggling. Are all those lights really necessary? If I still lived in a studio apartment I’d never get to sleep.

Right now, just looking around my living room, here is where I see indicator lights: each of my two computers, the monitor, my cable modem, my wireless Internet/VOIP phone router, my KVM switch, computer speakers, wireless mouse, mouse USB signal, printer, my telephone, my water cooler, my wine fridge, my television, my cable box, my DVD player and my Wii. And that’s literally just the lights I can see from the desk I am writing at right now. It’s like I live at the airport.

Smell of success?

I think Abercrombie certainly has the monopoly on the dirty frat boy look. And I know there is no shortage of rich Long Island boys who go off to Indiana or Delaware or Towson and sport this look. But then those kids grow up and maybe have to look a tad more respectable but still want to be able to buy a pair of sweatpants or rock a polo with an elk on it on the weekend. Well Abercrombie is making it pretty much impossible.

I know this is going to make me sound like an old fart (bear in mind I graduated college in this decade), but I can’t get within 100 yards of an Abercrombie anymore. First off, there’s generally a half naked man at the front door with abs like a MMA fighter to remind me what I USED to look like. Then there’s the techno music, which is so unbelievably loud and horrible that I would think I was still at the Limelight in 1999. Then, of course, you get inside and see that everyone in there is between 13 and 17 years old. Normally I’d enjoy the view of a cute 17 year old girl—as all men would—but I’m just left feeling like a pedophile because they are usually dressed in either shorts up to their vaginas or Victoria’s Secret sweatpants that just don’t quite reach the top of their ass cracks. … And they are usually standing right next to their moms!

But I think worst of all is the smell! My god, does anybody actually put that shit on their bodies? It is so nauseating to think that’s actually a cologne. And that some savvy marketing exec at Abercrombie thinks it a good idea to circulate that stuff from the air vents. Just to give you an idea of how strong it is: I was at the Miracle Mile this weekend on Long Island. Abercrombie is a few stores over from Crate and Barrel, and from the back side it is also UP A HILL. The distance from Crate and Barrel to Abercrombie must have been 100 yards and up an entire story, and the moment I stepped outside of C&B I could smell the stench emanating from Abercrombie. Fuck it, from now on if I want a muscle tee that says ‘Fitch’ with a picture of a bulldog on it I’ll borrow it from my little brother.

(Aside: To contrast Abercrombie’s stench, what is it that The Body Shop wafts out of their store front at the 57^th and Lex location or the one just off 71^st Ave. on Austin Street? That shit is fucking delicious. And you can usually smell it for like three blocks. Takes a lot to make a NYC street smell like a fruit salad, but that stuff is so incredible I’m liable to lick the sidewalk in search of it.)