Sizzign Hizzere

I actually have your pizackage in my trizzuck.

Self Help Book

Paychecks & Botox

Last week I had to run T-Whistle's route, and what a glorious route it was. Monday through Thursday were amazing days, filled with hope, excitement, intrigue, lust, dog food and sunshine. Thursday was paycheck delivery day in and around the mall. That usually means as soon as I walk in the store I get smothered in hot young women fighting each other to sign for the package. That's right, prettiest girl gets paycheck first! I love paycheck delivery day. It's a great feeling when everyone is happy to see you. The one exception to that rule is the Radio Shack. Paycheck delivery day at Radio Shack usually involves the courier getting wrestled to the ground by a greasy-faced, sweaty, overweight, mid-thirties, pasty white, asthmatic guy. It's almost as if you weren't delivering his paycheck, but rather his latest, hastily ordered, Russian Mail Order Bride catalog and information packet. I made sure the other Springfield courier had the Shack packet.

Thursday's in Springfield put me in an unusually good mood so I normally joke around with the customers. I had a delivery at the Med Spa near the Best Buy. Not only was I delivering their paychecks, but I also had a medical delivery. It was a styrofoam box filled with dry ice and Botox injections. As the receptionist signed for the Botox, I leaned in toward her desk, and in hushed tones I asked her a question. "Excuse me miss, but a friend of mine asked me to get him some information about your Testicular Botox Treatments. Do you have a brochure I could give him?" She stopped in mid-signature and looked up at me with her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open. "Sir!" She began forcefully. "We do NOT do Testicular Botox Treatments at this establishment!"

I'm not sure what effect I was hoping to achieve with my question. I'm not even sure there is such a thing a Testicular Botox Treatment. It was honestly the first thing that popped into my mind as she was signing for her bag full of botulism toxin. I was just trying to be funny. Anyway, I had struck a nerve. (Oh, just a heads up... Please don't google "testicular botox treatments". You'll have to trust me on this one.)

The rest of the day went about as well as I expected. I didn't really run into anything too interesting or exciting. I did see the lady at the TSA walk right off the end of the loading dock and smack into a parked truck face first. I also saw a PetsMart employee opening bag after bag of old dog food, and pouring the 40lbs or so of kibble per bag into the dumpster. I'm not really sure what that was all about, but by the time I had finished my delivery there was at least 300 pounds of dry dog food in the dumpster in the alley. At least the raccoons would be happy!

So when my cellphone alarm clock went off the next morning at 4:30, I stood up on the bed, pumped my fists and did a dance of joy. Joy at being alive in such an amazing time in human history, and joy that I would get to end a beautiful week driving a huge-ass truck through a cakewalk route. Sadly, that's not what happened. My break's almost over, and I have to go run a PM route in Old Towne. I'll have to fill you in later.

The Best Government Job Ever

Well, It's that time of year again. T-Whistle is on vacation. That means I get to drive the biggest truck in the station, and It also means that I get to run T-Whistle's route in Springfield, VA. (T-Whistle's truck is an extended G900 Diesel Heimlerspitzen by the way. Ron Torso will correct me in the comments if I got the model name wrong.) There's a reason that T-Whistle has to use the biggest truck, and that reason is spelled G, S, A. It's an enormous waste of tax-payer dollars, the United States General Services Administration. The GSA is contained within a fortified multi-square mile compound just east of I-95, south of Franconia and east of Loisdale road.

I'm not sure exactly what the GSA does all day, but it's probably pretty important. The entire compound is surrounded by a chain-link and barbed wire fence with the occasional Jersey barrier thrown in for good measure. The compound is divided into two sections, both of which are only accessible through their own choke point, guard shack combo. One of the guard shacks has the little railroad crossing arm in front of it. You know, the kind you get at parking garages and toll booths. It's got the rusted out iron mechanism with a sawn off two by four painted yellow bolted to it. I'm not really sure what it's there for. I'm driving the biggest truck in the FedEx fleet, and the arm has been cut down so short that even T-Whistle could drive around it. I'm guessing the folks at the GSA think it's a terrorist scare crow. The Iranians driving a panel van full of fermented fertilizer and home brew C-4 will see the tiny yellow arm and start screaming, "By Mohammed's hairy balls! We can't blow up this building, the infidel's military technology is too powerful! Achmed, turn this hadjwagon around, you motherless son of a goat!"

The other guard shack doesn't even bother.

Every day, I usually deliver somewhere between forty and two-hundred Dell, HP, or Cisco boxes to the various loading docks and freight doors scattered around the compound. Normally I mash my meaty palm on the loading dock buzzer until a surly, overweight government contractor opens the door long enough to tell me that I'm at building E3-1 Dock 1.3E, and I actually need to go to building E, Dock 31. Thanks GSA, you're the best. The address on the box said Building 3 Dock 13E, but you're the expert. After about four or five similar encounters at the different loading docks, I'll have delivered about half of my GSA freight. At this point I usually take a deep breath, and scan all the other packages with the code: 03 - Unable to deliver package - incorrect address. See you fat farkers tomorrow!

The first time I covered the route for T-Whistle, I drove up to the guard shack, handed the guard my ID, opened all the doors on the truck, and got out. Two armed guards piled out of a trailer and took their dog for a walk through my truck. After making absolutely sure I wasn't delivering any kibble or milkbones, they allowed me back into the truck gave me directions to Building 13 Dock E, or was it Building E, Dock 3-1...

I started driving through the compound past an acre of parked semi trailers when I thought I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. I slowed down and looked to my left. In the clearing, amongst the parked semi trailers was a pile of fancy office chairs about 25 feet high. There were several hundred of the chairs at least in this pile. To the right of the pile was a large dumpster. In between the dumpster and the office chair pile was a middle aged white guy wearing a wife beater and driving a large backhoe. You know, the big yellow machine that rides around on tank treads with the snowplow looking thing on the one end and a large mechanical arm on the other. I stopped the truck and watched.

The dude swung the arm over to the pile and scooped out a single chair. He then swung the arm up and over releasing the chair at just the right time. The beautiful black chair flew along a perfect arc in the sky and then came crashing down into the dumpster. The dude pumped his fist in the air like he'd just made a game winning three pointer right at the buzzer. He swiveled the machine around to grab at another chair. He deftly worked the controls and moved the backhoe back on its treads at the same time as he swung the arm up and around. Bam! He released the chair. Boom BABY! Nothing but dumpster. What a beautiful fade away jumper.

I watched the dude for what felt like an hour. He kept tossing chair after chair. He'd occasionally miss one, drive over to it and toss it back in the pile. It was amazing. He was like the Dr. J of office chair tossing. He grabbed one chair and pulled it out of the pile. It had another chair stuck to it, their wheels locked together. He rolled his tank back, swiveled the arm, and released. Bam! Two chairs in the dumpster. All of a sudden a semi behind me blasted on his horn, knocking me out of my reverie. I tore my eyes off of the scene that had so captivated me and reluctantly drove forward.

I'd just discovered the best government job ever.

Ultimate Got Owned

I'm a professional courier. That doesn't mean I have a professional attitude, it just means that someone is paying me to do drive around and deliver stuff. So depending on how comfortable you are with lying, you could even go as far as to say that I'm a professional driver. I mean let's face it, the majority of my day is spent driving a giant diesel delivery truck around hell's half acre, at least the northern Virginia part of it anyway.

Unfortunately driving is mood dependent. If you aren't in a hurry and it's a nice day out, you can deal with the hourly vehicular stupidity. The guy picking his nose while stopped at a green light right in front of you doesn't make you mad, it makes you chuckle. But if it's raining, and your packages to time ratio is upside down, then seeing the lady stand on the sidewalk while holding her baby stroller four feet out into the street can really disturb your calm.

Every day I'm bombarded by a wide variety of "less than ideal" driving behavior. Let me give you an example. You know that guy who just figured out that he actually needs to turn left at this intersection. Only problem is that he is sitting in the right lane and the light is red. Instead of just biting the big one and turning right, hoping to make a u-turn later, he'll just sit through the green until traffic clears and he can make the patented Jed Clampett multi-lane left turn. Depending on your disposition that can either be a minor annoyance or a crime against humanity.

There are a few factors that can ratchet up the tension level before you even see your first act of vehicular retardation. Maybe the courier who used your truck on last night's PM shift took a big steamy piss in it. (That happens a lot more often than it should where I work.) It's possible the cleaning crew siphoned most of the gas out of your tank. (That also happens more than it should at my station.) Perhaps the mechanic got grease all over the Han Solo bobble head doll you've got glued to the dash. (That really made me lose my cool.) Anyway, as I've been trying to illustrate, the deck is usually stacked against most professional couriers before they even get the opportunity to follow some guy who, for whatever reason, loves to keep his left turn signal blinking and blinking and blinking and blinking.

Just last Monday though, I was having an amazing day. The coffee in the break room was actually coffee. No one in my area had called in sick. I'd been assigned to run a powder puff route over in Springfield. It was going to be easy, only 19 priority stops. I normally get close to 30. My truck not only had a full tank, and was clean, but it didn't smell like piss! Ron Torso had even agreed to trade me for an easy route the next week. I should have bought a lottery ticket.

I had been cruising around all day, singing to myself in my truck; delivering flowers to the pretty girls, and chocolates to the chubby ones. When I needed a signature, the people were home, and when I didn't they weren't. Like I said, it was an amazing day. I only had maybe 5 deliveries left when I got to the intersection of Old Keane Mill, and Westmore Drive. You can see the 7-Eleven parking lot in the picture. There was a car stopped at the light, and there was a guy in the parking lot who wanted to pull out toward the intersection. I was coming up behind the guy stopped at the light, and I saw the guy in the lot. I was feeling great so, what the hell. I left a big ol' gap and waved at the guy in the 7-Eleven parking lot. "It's your world, squirrel!" I called out to him as I waved him on.

Then from out of nowhere an old beaten down Chrysler minivan two or three cars behind me pulls out into the oncoming traffic lane. I saw the movement in my side mirror and I zoomed in for a closer look. Holy Poop! Female Muslim Driver! Now I tell myself I'm not sexist or anti-muslim or anything like that, but there's a reason they don't let 'em drive over in Saudi Arabia. I barely had time to blink when Fatima pushed the pedal all the way down and tore up beside me in the oncoming traffic lane. The guy in the 7-Eleven lot started edging forward into the gap I'd left for him when the Hadjwagon made a hard right, nearly clipping my truck. She pulled past the gap stopping buddy in his tracks, but she'd got the Hadjwagon a few feet up, cockeyed, on the shoulder. There was enough time for me and buddy in the 7-Eleven lot to look at each other with expressions of fear and surprise on our faces. Then Fatima popped it in reverse and executed a parallel parking maneuver that ended with the Hadjwagon perfectly filling the gap I'd left for buddy. I'd just been owned.

On a bad day, I'd have been tempted to give her back bumper a little kiss with my cow catcher, even thought there was a good chance it'd set off the explosives her husband kept in the spare tire compartment. But like I said, it'd been a pretty amazing day. I just shrugged, looked at buddy and then just started laughing.

How To Identify Wood

Hoskins Got Owned

Hoskins is my long time buddy from back home. We've been friends since junior high. I'd like to say that we always joke around and play tricks on each other, but that's not really true. The pranks are pretty one sided. Straight from me to him. Rinse, Lather, Repeat. It started when I clamped his leg to a table vice in shop class, and has gone downhill from there. Honestly, I'm not sure why he still hangs out with me...

Recently he came out to stay at my place so he go to a training class in Arlington, VA for a week. He picked a bad week for it. My wife's Thesis Concert at the university was that Thursday and Friday. She was stressed out and had late rehearsals pretty much every day. I had to work two double shifts that week, and my in-laws were coming to visit that weekend. I was going to have to lay down the law and tell old Hoskins that he was going to have to stay somewhere else when he dropped the big one on me.

"Ultimate," He said. "My company is allowing me to expense all my meals for this trip."

"Uh, that's really nice Hoskins." I said as I started making an obscene stroking gesture. I think he could tell by my tone of voice that I wasn't all that thrilled.

"I don't think you understand, Ultimate." He replied. "My company lets me spend up to $50 on food per meal... AND $75 ON ALCOHOL PER PERSON PER NIGHT!"

"Hoskins, can you email me your flight itinerary? Also, do you need me to pick you up at the airport? Are you sure you can only stay one week?"

Anyway, the week was a blast. We had an amazing time. His training class sucked. My worked sucked. DC sucks. His OCD sucked. My unrelenting asshole-ish personality sucked. BUT THE BOOZE WAS GREAT!

Anyway at the end of the week, Hoskins decides that he doesn't want to carry anything on the airplane on the flight back. So he fills up several packing boxes with miscellaneous BS he's gathered over the course of the trip, fills out the airbills and leaves them on my kitchen table. Then he sends me a text saying something like: "Oh yeah, make sure my boxes get delivered..."

That's when I grabbed one of his boxes in one hand, my favorite pen in the other and drew this little gem:

I was expecting the box to get routed through my company's delivery system pretty much intact. I expected that my little sketch would thrill and delight all who saw it, and that Hoskins would have a little chuckle when the Delivery Guy had him sign for his packages. But that's not exactly what happened. Let me just say that the gods of practical jokes were smiling at me that day, because it succeeded better than I could have hoped for or even imagined.

He didn't notice the drawing. He sold some stuff on eBay, packed it in the now defiled box and took it to the post office to ship. Let me post Hoskins own remarks about the prank. The following is taken directly from the email he sent me:

Dear Ultimate,

Imagine taking a box up to the friendly postal employee at the
counter. You've spoken with her many times as you've cleaned out your
closets via eBay. Her name is Sandra, but you and the other regulars
know her as Sandy. You begin to make the typical small talk one does
while waiting on the archaic computer systems to meter out a postal
fee.

She cheerfully punches in the zip codes with her obscenely long finger
nails, reads off three or four options that no one ever chooses, and
finally hits the standard mail button. Bored, you take notice of her
window's family pictures. What cute children she has.

Then, your eyes are drawn to something that seems a bit out of place.
Something isn't quite right with the package on the scale in front of
you. You don't know you've seen it, but you have. It is a crude
drawing of a man spraying the seed of life from his giant penis.

Immediately, as if commanded by your realization that the Ultimate
Delivery Option has defiled your box, she turns the box to get a better
view of the address. With all your will you plead with the gods of fate
not to let her notice what you failed to find and cover up. Yet, she does.
Immediately, you see it in her eyes. She's found your little buddy and
his giant dong.

The contempt on her face is complete. Your shame almost matches, but
is somewhat diluted by the fact that it is actually kinda funny. Funny
until you realize that the box is full of children's books and it's
really too late to cover up. No, the penis and his flowing sperm are
protected by a layer of packing tape. This Moaning Lisa will be
preserved for the next generation to enjoy.

---Hoskins


Dear Hoskins,

You got owned!

---Ultimate