I am burying 'That's what she said.'

Hello, readers.

Today we come to put behind us a phrase that has hurt us too much for too long. A group of words that have caused us too much pain.

Tonight we come to bury 'that's what she said.' This phrase is not a racist or derogatory one; it does not see color or creed. It simply sees tons and tons of double entrendres.

How many times have we regretted asking our neighbor, “Please, give it to me?” for fear of someone saying, “That's what she said?” When eating McDonald's french fries, how often have we been too scared to admit we like the biggest ones best? And how many times have we overpaid for groceries, afraid to tell the butcher we wanted him to give us more meat?

But today we come here to look at the future, not at the past.

So now, come together parents and children and feel free to talk about how long and hard the work or school week was. Even if at any point you had to quote “stay up all night.” Now, whenever we are done with leg workouts at the gym, we will have no fear of saying how sore our butts are. Starting today, when we come in from the rain, we need not be afraid to describe how wet we are. And from now on, we shall no longer be scared to talk about how many of anything we can fit into our mouths. Anything at all, whether it be a dozen cocktail wienies or a pair of sweet ding dongs.

So join me, proud to laboriously detail how you'd love to spend a few hours lathering your minivan's drive shaft with hot oil. It's routine auto maintenance, people, and now we will be free to discuss it without fear.

Freedom from fear. Nothing has ever tasted so sweet.

Don't say it. Don't say, “That's what she said.”

For JS

I'm really bad at sports.

My middle sister is awesome. Let's call her 'A'. She's a smart, kind, fun person. But I submit to you today that she is a thief. A thief of my athletic ability.

You see, I have absolutely, positively no sports skills whatsoever. I am god awful at any and every sport ever invented. The only sport I am even good at watching is baseball. I think if you were to hand me a football, I would spontaneously vomit.

My sister, however, is supremely talented at sports. As far as I can tell, she can play literally every known sport with supernatural ease and grace. She was blessed with the athletic ability of at least three average people.

Three people! You'll understand why I suspect she stole our skills, then, when I tell you that my one other sister is just as deplorable at athletics as I am. (But a wonderful person, nonetheless.)

'A' somehow stole our skills. She took whatever chance we had at being normal and hoarded it all for herself. She was a four-year starter on her basketball team in high school. They easily went undefeated in their league and won the state championship her senior year. And this wasn't no weak-ass state like Delaware or Nebraska. THIS WAS CALIFORNIA!

I, meanwhile, somehow managed to earn our cross-country team's 'Most Improved' award three years running. (We, by the way, were the worst team in the league.)

'A' went on to play Division I college ball, where in her Junior year the team won the Patriot League (a minor league, admittedly, but what have you ever done?).

What made 'A' such a basketball ace? Was it genetics? No. A goal-driven, competitive home life? No. Was it wizardry and magic used to drain whatever natural talent might have been bestowed on me? Probably.

I remember being on my town's CYO basketball team when I was in fourth grade. If you've ever played youth basketball, you probably recall the 'A' team and the 'B' team. The A's were stars and the B's were everybody else. But I wasn't on either of those.

Do you recall the 'C' team? Probably not, since not many towns had them. My town did. Thank God I wasn't on that one.

No, no. I was on the 'D' team. Ever heard of it? If you say yes, you're either a liar or you were one of the eight other kids on the team with me.

We were a team so definitively bad that there never was before and never will be again another 'D' team.

We were a ragtag group of shapeless, weak misfits, the kind Emilio Estevez would turn into a bunch of winners if this were a feel good family film. But we had no 'rise-to-glory' storyline; we had only weekend after weekend of crushing defeat.

We were ten boys who consistently lost to every team we faced. We regularly lost to girls team. It happened so often it eventually stopped being humiliating.

There was a retarded kid on my team. Let's call him 'M.' Now, I know fourth-graders will call anyone who's different 'retarded'. The kid who wore mismatched socks? Retarded. The kid whose parents didn't have cable? Retarded. Hell, I got called retarded for four years because I bought "Magic the Gathering" cards once.

'M,' however, was the more classical description of retarded. Learning disabilities, total lack of coordination, emotional and psychological impairment. Real 'D' team material. And we his teammates, being the horrible little snots we were, took advantage of his fragile state whenever we could.

Imagine an elementary-school gymnasium. There are the two main basketball hoops at either end of the court, but along the sides are auxiliary hoops that can be raised or lowered so more kids can practice at once. Someone (me?) convinced 'M' that those hoops were bonus hoops worth three points.

When he would shoot at them in games, believing he was a hero to our constantly-losing team, he did so with such horrible aim, such utter lack of precision and control, that it looked as though he were intentionally hurling the ball at the spectators in the stands.

If we were to get extra points every time the other team's parents were frightened that a kid with severe learning disabilities was trying to injure them, we would have made it to the playoffs. We could have gone all the way.

I write this anecdote now not to gloat about how mean someone (me?) was to a kid who obviously had it bad enough as it was, but rather to illustrate how rotten yours truly is at basketball. 'M' STARTED ABOVE ME IN THE LINEUP.

The coach would have rather endangered the crowd's welfare than put me in the game. He thought to himself 'Do I want 'M,' the kid who literally cannot tie his own shoes, or do I want Tony?' and he didn't choose me.

It was around this same time that I played my first (and only) Little League season. In one year, I did not make it to base one time. I only made playable contact at bat once; I grounded out to shortstop. Yet in that very same year I got hit in the face with a baseball... wait for it... twice. My face was hit by the ball more than my bat was.

With my limited knowledge of statistics, I could predict that every time my bat hit a ball, my face would be hit infinity times. From then on, I decided to stay home and read Shel Silverstein.

During the year all this was happening, my sister 'A' was playing and excelling on traveling soccer, softball, and basketball teams simultaneously. Coincidence? I think not.

I am a satisfied customer.

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Too much of a good thing

Half Hour of Evil

Grrr!

A lesson learned quickly.

It prevents your blood from clotting.

Keep It Simple, Stupid

I resolve to not eat cauliflower.

Ok. First, Feliz Año Nuevo! And a word of warning : Be sure to put that curly thing, that '˜' over your 'n' when you say that. Because though año means year, ano without the '˜' means 'anus.' People who speak Spanish will be offended if you wish them a happy new butthole. Unless that's what you really mean.

Now that that's over with, I want to talk about my resolution. I resolve to not eat cauliflower anymore.

This isn't really a new goal for me. Allow me to explain.

I remember being fairly young, maybe seven or eight and a teacher was talking about cauliflower. I thought, 'I've never had cauliflower... And I never will.' I decided that day to never eat cauliflower.

You see, other kids had dreams of being baseball players or astronauts or doctors. My thinking was that those are all pretty hard to achieve, but not eating cauliflower ever? Perfectly attainable. From that day on, I successfully avoided it. It was pretty easy.

Until college, when a girl peer convinced me into eating some since she had so much left over. She made cauliflower soup. It was alright.

College is a time of experimentation.

But this started me down a path of casual cauliflower eating. I just kept eating it whenever it was presented to me. I even have a bag of mixed vegetables in my freezer with cauliflower mixed in.

So as people talked to me about their resolutions these past few weeks, I thought, "Wow, exercising more or reading more books seem like really hard resolutions." I decided this morning to no longer eat cauliflower. I knew I could do that; I did it for twenty-one years.

I knew if I set my goals low, I would succeed. I encourage you to aim to underachieve just like me! You'll let yourself down far less.

Feliz Ano Nuevo!

I ended up on the moon.

Alright. Very funny. You got me, I admit it.

Now will someone please come and get me off the moon?

I guess I had it coming, huh? I did get pretty drunk last night. I must have passed out and you guys pranked me by shuttling me 238,857 miles from earth and abandoning me on the moon. Good one.

Last thing I remember I was hitting on those women who kept telling me about their kids and they wouldn't give me their cell numbers and then I had another shot and now here I am close to suffocating in an atmosphere one-thousandth as dense as earth's.

Whose idea was this, anyway?

Sure, I know one of you guys might be mad at me or something if I ever messed with you in your sleep. but I really don't think I deserve being ditched in some 200º F lunar crater. And I'm totally sorry if I was ever a dick to you, but this is way worse than drawing a dick on your arm, dudes. Not cool.

How am I supposed to get to work tomorrow? I can't phone my boss up and tell him I'm stuck on the moon because everyone already calls me "The Boy Who Cried Stuck-On-The-Moon." Poor planning on my part.

But, then again, I never really imagined I'd actually get left for dead on the surface of the moon.

I know I'm supposed to be a good sport and have a good laugh at myself but I think if I sound a little P.O.ed it's because I deserve to be and it's not because I can't take a joke. I know people say I can't take a joke and maybe it's true sometimes, but damn I wish you assholes hadn't left me on the mother-effing moon.

I've got an appointment to get my cast off on Monday and if I miss that I'm gonna be so mad. And, while I'm talking about the cast, I just wanna say that being in one-eighth earth's gravity doesn't feel great on my healing hand.

It's pretty inconsiderate is all I'm saying.

Some one come pick me up. And bring some clothes. Can't find mine.

I definitely don't.

You ever sit alone on a weekend night, singing along to "She Will Be Loved" on repeat?





Yeah, me neither...

I had a simple costume.

You got it! Thank God, someone finally got it. I'm dressed as an AMISH person. What's so hard about that?

It's a simple costume.

Look, I've got the suspenders, the beard, the straw hat, the blue collared shirt, and the black work pants. I'm totally Amish.

I was worried that some people would see my right hand in a cast and think that the cast was part of the cosume. It's not. I'm not Amish-Dude-With-A-Cast. I happen to have a cast during Halloween and I'm dressed Amish. And you saw that in me.

I also got a more than a few curious glances at the pistol I have on my waist here. I'm sure those children were just trying to figure out how the gun played into the costume. Silly kids! The gun's not part of the costume. It's for protection! Have you seen the crazy people out in San Francisco on Halloween? A man's gotta protect himself. I keep the safety on most of the time anyway.

And the syringes sticking out of my pockets? I heard some people asking about those, too. Relax, people! No need to get so scared of the Amish guy with all the mismatched syringes hanging out of every one of his pockets! They aren't part of the costume. They're for me! To take a little bit of the edge off! Who knows what's in 'em, but they sure do wonders. Halloween can be so stressful, what with all these little kids screaming and running away from me just because I'm an Amish man with a cast, syringes, and a gun totally covered in blood.

Am I the crazy person here!? I mean, so what? Can't a guy covered head to toe in blood just be dressed as an Amish person without having every passerby pull out their cellphones to call the police as he limps by?

Nearly every last drop of blood on me is my own! I was hit by a car downtown earlier tonight. It sure is hard navigating all those confusing one-ways around Market St. when you're super high on a grab bag's worth of syringes you got from a guy named Scratcher in an abandoned warehouse. I tried to get the driver's insurance information, but once I pulled out my gun and let out a few warning shots, the guy just drove off! Can you believe it? A hit-and-run. Some people, man. Really makes you wonder.

Oh, no, don't worry. I'm feeling fine now. I've re-set most of the broken bones now myself, and I have had quite a lot to drink since then. So I feel surprisingly good for suffering such apparently-massive damage to the entire right side of my body. I myself am surprised I'm still standing.

Yeah, my doctor said I shouldn't be drinking while I'm on these pills he gave me, but thank God I ran out of them three days ago. Where's the fun of Halloween if you can't drink because you're still on your anti-psychotics? LET'S DO SOME SHOTS!

What are you supposed to be, anyway?

Zombie Michael Jackson?

Not cool, dude. Too soon.

Me and a little piggy. Before all the blood and most of the drugs.

I apologize.

Loyal readers of Reasons I'm a Bad Adult (the 8 or 9 of you):

You all assuredly have heard about the personal troubles my fellow entertainer David Letterman has been having. A blackmailer caught him with his pants down, so to speak, and he decided to nip the problem in the bud by fessing up on national television. And it worked. Yes, his public admission of guilt on the Late Show was a success. It was sincere and funny, but, most importantly, it was great for ratings! Viewership shot up fivefold when the nation saw that this great comedian was vulnerable and human. In that self-centered, fame-obsessed spirit, I've got some apologies of my own to make.

First, I want to apologize for the opening sentence of that last paragraph. If you take a second look at it, you'll notice that I called Letterman "my fellow entertainer." To call him my "fellow" anything is a huge gaffe on my part, and I could not be more remorseful. To be perfectly candid, as I feel I must in such a public forum, my true "fellow" entertainers are something more akin to childrens' clowns and open-mic folk singers. Dave created The Top Ten List; in high school I used to have my classmates gather round me and have my buddy Zack kick me in the stomach. See? I'm sullying Letterman's name by just mentioning him. So I offer my humblest apologies to all those I caused pain when I insinuated that Dave Letterman and I were colleagues, including Mr. Letterman himself, his family, the whole Late Show staff (especially those he had sex with), and my loyal readers (hopefully it will be more than just the 8 or 9 of you once the news of this mea culpa spreads).

Next, I must apologize for the tardiness of this joke, the staleness of this premise. I mean, this whole Letterman thing happened, what, like two or three weeks ago? For the love of God, I wrote about the balloon boy the very same day he fake-floated away. But I decide to crack a Letterman joke almost a month after everyone else stopped talking about him? I have no one to blame but myself. Sure, I could tell you that I've been too busy, that I've been dating someone new, that I've been working on a soon-to-be-completed novel, that I recently got promoted at my job. Yes, I could tell you those things, but I would be lying. Because none of those things are true. I simply wasn't quick or smart enough to come up with a worthwhile idea for a post at the time, so here's something semi-worthwhile a few weeks down the line. That was wrong and lazy of me, and I'll be the first person to admit it.

And finally, let me apologize for taking advantage of Mr. Letterman's misfortune. What kind of vain, shallow, hateful person would use a celebrity's private pain to further his own career? Me. What kind of empty, soulless, vile husk of a man would exploit a talk show host's admirable candor in order to gain a few more readers for his middling, low-brow blog? Me. What kind of wine goes with a fine veal scallopini? Cru Beaujolais. You get the point; I'm exploiting the guy.

So, again, I'm sorry. And tell your friends.

--Tony

I have side effects.

Tony Payne has proven effective in cases where one needs a totally-straight-but-somehow-still-kinda-gay friend (costume parties, dance contests, opinion on clothes you just got at Nordstrom), occasional comic relief, or someone to split a cab to the airport with. However, people who have hung out with Tony have reported several undesirable side effects.

Side effects associated with Tony include:

Being forced to read, and laugh at, his blog in front of him.
A lingering, vaguely unpleasant smell.
Thoughts of suicide.
Hearing him repeat the same damn story about "how cool" he was in college, despite the fact that you know it can't possibly be true.
Awkward silences.
Thoughts of murder.
Wet shoulders from when he cries on them because you accidentally brought up his exgirlfriends or childhood dog.
Thoughts of murder-suicide.
Making things maybe just a little bit too gay.
Diarrhea.

I launched myself in an experimental, homemade hot air balloon.

Thursday, October 15 2009

OK. One bottle of water? Check. One blanket? Check. Tenuous grasp of meteorology, physics, and direction? Check.

I think I'm ready to launch myself in my experimental, homemade hot air balloon.

God, this is gonna make me really famous. Everyone down below is gonna see me and they're gonna call the news and say "There's this guy in a shoddy-looking hot air baloon up in the sky!" and the local news will alert the national news and pretty soon all of America will have its eyes on me!

Fifteen minutes of fame, here I come!

Just gotta hack away at the ropes tying me down, and we are OFF! Just me, my blanket, my radio, and my overwhelming desire to adored. Nothing's gonna stop me now. Not the precarious open flame above my head, outdated map, or lack of safety equipment. NOTHING!

Time to sit back-- Hm. Not a lot of space inside this old laundry basket I'm using as the passenger compartment. Time to just squat back, turn on the radio, and wait for the news to start talking about me.

Wow. Well, according to the radio, someone out in effing Colorado is up in the air right now. In a mother-effing homemade hot air balloon. Mother-effer!

And, gee, wow. I'm floating a little high right now, aren't I? There's no way to control that is there? I think I'm just gonna have to keep on floatin'.

Ok. What can I do? I guess I'll just have to wait until people see me and then just hope we both get famous? We can both get famous for doing the same thing on the same day, right?

Just squat back and listen to the radio.

For the love of God, he's six. The other hot air balloon has a six year-old in it. Alone. Mother-effer! I'm never gonna get famous now!

I'm just embarrassed now. Now I'm just a twenty-three year-old with too much spare time cuz I'm on worker's comp.

I wish I could just lower this balloon and forget this whole thing. But I don't know how to lower the balloon. I was hoping the police would have to shoot the balloon out of the sky. Don't think that'll be happening since there's a six year-old doing the same thing now. Dammit. The world's supposed to be watching ME!

It's getting pretty cold up here too, man. I sure wish I'd brought more than one blanket.

Oh crap! The little kid's balloon landed and it was empty! WHAT? Oh my god. If he died, people are going to HATE hot air balloons. I'm gonna look like such an idiot in one. So help me God, if that kid died I will be SO pissed.

Up here the air is... thin up here. Having a hard time... thinking straight.

I think I'm over a body of water. I can't even tell right now. Why isn't the radio talking about me? Still talking about that... stupid six year-old, how he was on "Wife Swap" and how MAYBE he died when he... MAYBE fell out of a homemade, experimental hot air balloon his dad made?

Holy... moly. They found him.... alive in his... attic. I'm gonna kill him when... I get down from here.