Rush Week

My friend Sarah recently asked me for an update on Night Time Thoughts. I was devastated to report to her that I hadn't had any I could recall in at least half a year or so! Oddly enough, once my subconscious was aware that something needed to be done, I had a new Night Time Thought* a mere few days later. The next day, I woke up to a strange memo in my cell phone application aptly named "Memos":

"Sorority house during rush wk"

For those of you who haven't been following Night Time Thoughts, this means I had sleep-typed, if you will, this idea so as not to forget it in all of its profound wisdom come morning. Essentially, it's a short dream I have that for some reason I feel, at the time, is INCREDIBLY important to write down.

Now, upon my first contemplation of this Night Time Thought, I was befuddled and mentally exasperated. As I lay there, trying to wake up while simultaneously reeling through my hazy memory of the previous night's slumber, I felt all hope was lost. Whatever ingenious idea I had come up with regarding sorority houses would never be regained. The future of Rush Weeks everywhere was simply doomed.

And then I remembered. I had envisioned "Rush Week" to be personified as a rushing wave of college girls LITERALLY rushing into a sorority house as a creature all of its own, wave like and with the force of a hurricane. My mind took a turn for the worse when I realized that this wave of girls was literally drowning the already sworn in (Is that what sororities do? Swear people in?) sisters and other pledges, ultimately resulting in whoever was left alive as being able to become a member of that particular house. Survival of the fittest, most blood thirsty, girls.

Yeah...I don't know.

I hope to never set foot in a sorority house for fear of having flash backs to this nightmarish Night Time Thought. Okay so I never wanted to set foot in a sorority house ever. I shouldn't blame Night Time Thoughts for that.

BUT I FEEL IT IS PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE TO BLAME THE FOLLOWING VIDEO (If nothing else, you'd be doing yourself a favor to read the viewers' comments.)

Feel free to submit your own Night Time Thoughts to me via Email. carsten.tice@gmail.com

*Night Time Thoughts need not occur at night. On the contrary. They can occur whenever one is mostly asleep and only awake enough to scribble down a quick note. Come on, people. It's just a name. Does Taco Bell ONLY sell tacos? Does Burger King ONLY sell burgers? No. No, I didn't think so.

Jesus Made Me Do It

At work today, I was reading an injury report filled out by one of our truck drivers. These consist of a series of questions relating to the driver's injury and the surrounding incidents. As I was perusing the report, I was befuddled by this particular driver's answers to some of the questions:

Question: Who was the injury reported to?

Answer: First to Jesus, then to [our company.]


Okay... I can understand if that may have been his answer. However, I'm not sure if I would have written it out on the official injury report...


Continuing on, I came to another interesting answer.


Question: How could this incident have been avoided?

Answer: It could have been avoided if I did not pull from the handle. (Note: I was instructed by Jesus to pull from the handle.)

Okay. At this point I was feeling like this was getting  a bit ridiculous. I understand there are many people in the world who are very in tune with their religious beliefs. But, really? This seemed like a pretty odd variant of "the devil made me do it." I don't feel like this would hold up in any kind of worker's compensation claim.

As my neighboring coworkers had already gone home for the evening, I sat there, wondering aloud to myself and being generally distraught and quite confused about this report for a good long while.

Then, as if it fell from Heaven, I was struck by a very important detail that I had been overlooking the entire time:


I live and work in Southern California where there are many, many Hispanic males named "Jesus."


Thank you, Christian college.

Truth Hurts

I was talking to a bartender a while back about how pretty much everybody who lives in LA is working on doing something other than what they're currently doing. Supposing she didn't intend on tending bar for the rest of her life, I asked her which path she thought she might go down.

She excitedly responded that she aspired to be "an insulting greeting card designer." Obviously intrigued, I asked her for an example.

"My best idea is a card for a baby shower," she said. "On the front it says, 'Congratulations' and on the inside it says, 'WHORE!'"

I spent a significant amount of time trying to decide whether I would be offended by such a card or find it wildly amusing.

I spent an equal amount of time genuinely hoping she has some backup ideas.

Sometimes life sucks. But SOMETIMES you see Full House stars at hick bars.

You know how on Full House, Uncle Jesse is in that band "Jesse and the Rippers"? Of course you do. Well, a few months back, I went with some people to this old fogey bar called Cowboy Country over in Long Beach. We're standing in line outside and hear a bunch of the people walking out talking about John Stamos. "Odd topic of conversation for so many people to coincidentally have chosen at this random location," I mull silently to myself. And then we walk inside where, low and behold, John Stamos is playing the drums. Ahh... so that's why...

 

John Stamos

                                  The Neil Morrow Band









Since I was practically raised in that health-and-fire-code-breaking full house alongside those Tanners, this definitely goes down as one of the top 8 greatest moments of my life.

<-----Thanks to that night, Jesse Katsopolis and I are like this.


Highlights of the evening include:

-The lead vocalist/keyboardist breaking out into the Full House theme song as well as "Jesse's Girl" (much to Stamos' chagrin).

-The fact that the rest of my group had to point out to one of our friends which one John Stamos was. (WHAT?!)

-The fact that one of us had the knowledge and insight to realize that it would be a grave mistake to exit the bar without having gotten a photograph with Mr. Stamos. Though this did require a bold and daring dash onstage during the set, it did result in the photograph that he himself POSED for whilst drumming along. It also resulted in security escorting us out of the building... but that was to be expected.

Elise (the brilliant stage-bombing mastermind), Stamos, and myself. We're the three best friends that anybody could have. Obvi. (Do you love how I had to blow the picture up to EXTRA large size for you to even remotely identify him? Haters gonna hate.)

So the next day, I told one of my roommates about this little escapade. She laughed... and then went on to tell me that, several weeks earlier, she had been sitting in an airport in Europe next to Mr. T, kindly offering him her Tide-To-Go pen when he spilled his beverage all over himself.

She wins...

...for now.

How To Not Pick Up Chicks

You may or may not but probably definitely maybe sorta do remember my post about a clever way to pick up chicks. This post is nothing like that.

I work in the compliance department of a company that hires and manages truck drivers. Drivers have to pass drug tests in order to get hired. A few weeks ago, a Girl I work with got a particularly interesting call from a driver saying he didn't know what to do because he was told to leave the drug testing clinic before he could find it in his heart or bladder to urinate.

While she was on the phone, Girl realized that the rest of us in the office had tuned into this chat and were getting severe hits of joy from it. So she started repeating the stuff the driver was saying solely for our benefit. You know, like how they do in the movies when you can only hear one side of the conversation and it sounds super unrealistic because nobody would ever talk that way? Yeah. Like that. Like this!:

"What do you mean you left the clinic before they gave you your drug test?"

[Driver talking]

"I don't care if you waited 45 minutes and couldn't pee! Department of Transportation regulations clearly specify that the clinic isn't allowed to let you leave until you have waited three full hours. As a clinic, they should know that, and as a driver, you should know that too."

[Driver talking]

"Okay, sir... well, if this doesn't get cleared up it will qualify as a refusal to test, which is just as bad as having a positive result. Who exactly told you to leave? Did you get a name?"

[Driver talking]

"You don't know her name... but she looked like Snooki from Jersey Shore... Oooookay...................."

Girl calls clinic.

"Hi, my name's Girl and I'm calling from Company and I'm wondering if you by chance have a receptionist that looks like Snooki from Jersey Shore?"

[Clinic talking]

"Oh you do? Great! Because I have driver who's telling me about how........[she explains situation]"

Apparently, what ended up happening was the driver had a "shy bladder" and spent his 45 minutes at the clinic pacing around the waiting room, drinking heaps of water and ogling Snooki. Ogling turned into approaching and approaching turned into maybe possibly definitely stepping behind the desk and telling her she was beautiful which turned into "Hey, you wanna go down the street and grab a few beers with me? Maybe that would help me pee." ODDLY enough, Snooki wasn't down with that suggestion, and had security kindly escort him out of the building despite the fact that his three hours hadn't passed yet. They told him if he came back, the cops would be called immediately.

Girl called the driver back. She gave him the lip he deserved about having conveniently left out the part of the story where he sexually harassed a Snook-a-like, trying to woo her with promises of alcohol and an all around grand adventure of a time. She continued to explain to him for the next twenty minutes how this incident had rendered him ineligible for the position of driver within our company. I guess that was a concept he couldn't really grasp.

There are several morals to this story. I suppose one might benefit from printing them out and carrying them in one's wallet. Think about it.

Moral 1
If you are waiting to take a drug test for a new job, it is advisable to not pass the time waiting for your bladder to be ready by trying to take the poor tanorexic girl who does her make up in the dark out for beers WHILE SHE'S AT WORK.

Moral 2
If you've already made the mistake of ignoring the suggestion offered in Moral 1, do not attempt to lie about it to your future employer. It probably will not work and you will look like a fool.


Moral 3
You shouldn't allow trashy television to influence the standards you set for your potential mates.


Moral 4
If you've already made the mistake of ignoring the suggestion offered in Moral 3, at least go for someone who looks like JWOWW.