Crazy Average – Mediocre Living At Its Finest

Every year hundreds of Rug Doctor carpet cleaners go missing or are stolen. The men and women of the Rug Doctor Recovery Agency are charged with bringing these wayward machines home. These are their stories.

St. Louis.

Other than Cousin Lou’s Sweet Down Home Rib Shack and Taxidermy Emporium I couldn’t say I liked the place much. The hustle and bustle of urban life never appealed to me. Phil loved the place though. The nightlife, the women, the reasonably priced motels…all of this appealed to his no-home drifting ass. We had done our mandatory three weeks of agent training here together, and despite my better judgement I dragged his fat, booze-soaked ass through it like I owed him a favor. Guess I just liked the cut of his jib. I’ll have to look up what that means later. Its just one of those things you hear a lot, but no one ever bothers to explain it, you know?

But there would be no time for hookers or monkey torsos sewn to fish bodies on this trip. We got a priority alert from Headquarters. All hands on deck. That meant they were calling all the agents together for some kind of meeting. Phil hadn’t said a word the whole trip back, and we’d made sure to put our rookie partner Ethan three rows away on the plane out of Tucson. We rented the agency standard Ford Fiesta and headed out to the home office at the Salty Pines Marketplace strip mall in the heart of St. Louis’ outlying suburbs.

We walk in the front door and all 21 of our fellow agents are there. The smell of Old Spice, cheap booze and cheap smokes made me feel right at home. There wasn’t a lot of time for shop talk before Chief Hernandez-Beckenbauer called for quiet.

“HAVE A SEAT LADIES! I SAID SHUT UP!!”, The room finally fell silent and focused on the Chief; a large man with a double chin and a temper to match. The lights went down and he spoke in his loud, booming tone with a projector behind him.

“You MAY be wondering WHY you’re all HERE. As you all KNOW our CASE load has increased 200% over the last YEAR, and that its left us a bit SHORT-HANDED.”

“You’re telling me!”, it was Victor Pricebell that had spoken up. A mouse of man that dressed like a accountant from the Fifties, but no one would say he wasn’t a crack shot, “I had to cancel my trip to Mount Rushmore three times already! What gives?”

“ITS A GOD DAMN LACK OF RESPECT FOR PROPERTY I TELL YOU!”, now River Thompson was yelling his head off. His parents had been hippies and he was still angry about it at age fifty, “THESE GOD DAMN KIDS THESE DAYS DON’T RESPECT NUTHIN’ OR NOBODY!!”

“Maybe its like, uh, terrorist thing.” Rick “IceHot” Slidell. A Californian of all things. Slicked-back blonde hair, perfect tan, chiseled good looks…he was the newest hotshot agent. Dangerous, and full of himself. Can’t stand ‘em. “Maybe they’re, uh, using parts from our Doctors to make bombs or something…you know, man?”

“Enough!” The Chief bellowed, “Its not any of that. Look at the projector”. He started showing slides of Rug Doctors that had been torn apart, mutilated. They were hardly recognizable, no chance for reapir.

“Pensacola, Temecula, Spokane, Boise, Cincinatti, and a dozen others. We thought they were isolated incidents at first, but new evidence is showing that these cases are related.

“But Chief! Who would do such a thing!?” Phil had finally come out of his coma.

Chief Hernandez-Beckenbauer looked at us gravely. “Well, some of you may be to young to know, but…” he clicked onto the last slide. What I saw made my heart skip a beat. It was a man. A man I knew too well. A man whose eye’s could’ve been the Devil’s themselves, “our main suspect is this man. Wayne Gerard Archambault Jr.”

A gasp passed through the room. Our suspect was one of us.

Hello.

There are many therapy techniques nowadays that help people combat issues like depression, and…other stuff like that. I could look them up and list them, but frankly that would take time, and I’m not really into right now. Just Google some brain problems if you really want to know, and get off my back about it okay?

That brings me to my new fangled technique: Anger Redirection! There’s a lot of bullshit going on in the world today. I think. I’ve heard some stuff, but I don’t pay much attention. Mostly I watch Netflix. I got shit to do.

The point is these bad things happening in the world can get you down. Make you mad! They would probably make me mad if I knew what they were! So, I’m going to help you out. I’m going to list a bunch of stupid, petty thing that you can get angry about instead, and then you won’t feel so bad! It makes sense if you don’t think about it too hard, trust me. Here we go!

Honey Nut Cheerios:

Honey Nut Cheerios recently declared themselves “America’s Favorite Cereal”. We can go two ways with this. First, we could assume that General Mills are fucking liars and that this declaration is totally false. That’s right General Mills! Liars go to hell! OR we can wonder what the fuck is wrong with everyone loving Honey Nut Cheerios so much since they are slimy, disgusting barf pellets. Take your pick!

The Sun:

Seriously, why you gotta be so hot and hurt my eyes? Slow your damn roll!

People that Drive Below the Speed Limit in the Fast Lane:

This happens to me a lot, and it drives me insane! Don’t you feel sometimes like you’re the only person that’s actually trying to get somewhere, and everyone else is just jerking off and getting in your way? Drive like champions! While I’m at it; what’s the deal with airplane food? Also, did you know there are a lot of differences between men and women?

Writer’s Block

I feel like I had 4-6 strong entries for this post yesterday or the day before. I should write that shit down more.

The Economy, Preventable Ecological Disasters and Social Injustice

Oh, sorry. Those are real things. Moving on.

16 and Pregnant

I love this show, but they need to make more episodes!  I can only watch each of them 3 or 4 times before they start to get a little old. I need to know if Josh is going to man up and be a father to Stacy’s baby FOR FUCK’S SAKE.

The Internet

You know how sometimes people that comment on websites are total assholes? I hate that! Also, sometimes the internet doesn’t work right…like it isn’t fast enough or you can’t find a porno that’s getting the job done. THINGS ARE SO HARD SOMETIMES, GUYS.

That’s all for now. A quick sidebar before I go, however, if you like things that are good you should go here and help my friend get her book made. If you do, you will get something cool; I guarantee it.

Today’s post is about a candy bar, but I would be remiss if I didn’t talk a little bit about how I got this candy bar. I am a follower of VAS Littlecrow across various platforms, the most pertinent in this case being twitter (@vaslittlecrow, @catnosecomics and @velvetrasputin), and there was a contest in which the participants guess what sort of mythological creature a character in one of her awesome comics is. Clues were given, and…

Look, I’m not a smart man, I’ll be honest. I just happened to be looking at twitter when the final clues were given. I did some Googling and came back with the correct answer first. To the victor went the spoils, some rare fantastic VAS comics and a candy bar of my choice from Chocomize.

I chose…THE ZIMMERN!! FIGHT!

Because I tell you people, this is a candy bar that doesn’t want to be eaten. It knows how good it is and it will repel your attempts to eat it at any cost. When you put your mouth to it the first thing that happens is the layer of Pop Rocks start to explode in an attempt to make you waiver in spirit. It tries to break you so you’ll leave it alone. I braved on however; tiny explosions in my mouth going off left and right, and I took my bite. High grade dark chocolate, pretzel and coffee bean being my reward for braving the Pop Rock onslaught. Delicious!

But then…what’s this? My mouth! ITS BURNING! Oh shit…I had forgotten the

cayenne pepper! If you survive the Pop Rocks and take your bite The Zimmern tries to cut its loses and make you quit by burning you in your mouths parts. Luckily for me, I go nuts for spicy and this didn’t even slow me down. I tore through The Zimmern. I ate it all up! The odd Pop Rock in my teeth going off, lips burning, I sit here telling you surely it is the best candy bar I have ever eaten. EVER. PERIOD. DONE.

Dear Pineapple!

I love you. You taste so very good!
Sweet and delicious; probably nutritious?
I’m not really sure…

While on the inside you are sweet
Your outsides are prickly
…much like my heart?

SO HEAD ON DEAR PINEAPPLE!
Your #1 in my book, but I can’t eat too much!
Or my mouth you will burn

fin

Every year hundreds of Rug Doctor carpet cleaners go missing or are stolen. The men and women of the Rug Doctor Recovery Agency are charged with bringing these wayward machines home. These are their stories.

Phil and I were in the Tucson field office doing the part of the job that every Agent dreads. Paperwork. The equipment in this field office was less than ideal, and the office staff were less than happy to have us rough and tumble types around. Most of the people in these field offices were used to their routines: filing, typing, phone calls. The sort that get their jollies from $4.99 birthday cake and those little pointy hats when the receptionist turns 47. These aren’t the sort of people that like when one of our recovery teams takes over their little worlds; shaking up their precious lives and meaningless jobs while the big boys come in to do the real work.

Phil had the rough end of it, having discharged his weapon and punching a fellow Agent. Lot of paperwork there. Seems every five minutes Phil would slam his fist on his desk and yell, “FUCKING VISTA!”. I wasn’t even sure what that meant. Computer nonsense. Phil gave me never-ending amounts of shit for it, but I did all my paperwork on an old typewriter that had belonged to my great-grandfather. Sure, carrying it around was a pain in the ass, and I spend a good portion of my salary on ink ribbons, buts its an old friend; I wouldn’t use anything else even if the TSA always thinks I’m carrying a bomb. Idiots.

With our paperwork filed, and our job done Phil and I hit the local dive for a cold domestic beer or ten. Phil was always a little quiet until he’d had his third Coors Light, but once he’d taken his third silver bullet he started doing his Chatty Kathy routine.

“So whatcha gonna do now, Steve? Head back to Bismarck? Little time with the Old lady and that kid of yours?”

“Nah. We got into it again before I left. Took Steve Jr. to Pierre to stay with her mother.”

Phil chuckled a bit. My marital woes were a never-ending source of amusement for him, “Working on our forth divorce are we? That was fast.”

“Third, asshole. The Vegas one was an annulment.”

Phil laughed out loud and polished off his forth brew, “Well hey, man, why don’t you come to Tallahasse with me? We got at least a week before we’ll grab another case unless the shit hits the fan. Come down South! Relax! We’ll hang with Tommy…”

“…coke dealer Tommy?”

“The same! We’ll get some girls, go out on a boat…”

I just shook my head as Phil pulled his now ringing cell phone out of his pocket. I called for another Hamms and when I looked back at Phil his face had turned ashen.

“Yeah. Of course. We’ll be there. Bye.” He dropped his phone on the bar.

“What’s up?”

“We’re going to St. Louis.”

“Headquarters? The fuck for?”

“Shit just hit the fan.”

On a normal day Phil and I would be taking the front. Our other team mate, Bobby, was a long in the tooth vet with six months left to go before retirement and he wasn’t up to breaking in any front doors anymore. Phil and I are still hungry for the adrenaline so we take the doors while Bobby sits out back making sure our targets don’t get away. He’s earned it.

However, today Bobby was using up the last of of his vacation time and so on this trip we got a wet behind the ears rook named Ethan. He’s green, and he’s got a mouth on ‘em…full of piss and vinegar and desire for action, so today him and Phil take the door while I sit out back with my thumb up my ass waiting for something to happen.

Well, it did.

I hear the rook yelling out who we are, why were here, and the distinct noise of a door being kicked open; but what I hear next turns my blood to ice. Two shots from a .45 that doesn’t belong to one of my team. A yell. Two more shots from one of our standard issue 9mm. I’m already running towards the back door. Kicking it in, weapon drawn. I bolt into the living room ready for anything, and I see Phil standing over our target who has two holes in his chest. The rook is writhing on the ground with his hands over his face.

“What the fuck happened?!”, my heart still pumping hard.

Phil always went a little quiet after having to use his sidearm, “Well, this fucker got the drop on us. He must be the worst shot on the planet because he had us point blank and missed. I dropped him before he could get another off.”

I look down at the rook and he’s bleeding from his nose and moaning in pain. I holster my sidearm and my heart rate slows. “What about him?”

“Punched his lights out for not checking his corners and nearly getting us both killed.”

“Fair enough. Call an ambulance, and keep an eye. I’ll look for the goods.”

I can already hear sirens as Phil gets on his phone and I search the house. Doesn’t take long. In the garage. They’re always in the garage or the kitchen. I take a look and see that not only had our target not returned the unit, but had not taken care of it while he had it. The water tank was filthy, the bristles covered in hair and garbage. It would need some love from the service department, but it’d clean again. They always do. This is a hard job sometimes. You get caught up with the worst society has to offer, and sometimes your partners, your friends get hurt in the line of duty. But today we got our machine back, had a clean shoot and none of the good guys got killed. This is a hard job, but today was a good day.

My name is Steve, and I’m a Rug Doctor Recovery Agent

Obituators!! Mount up.

Today I learned that Nathaniel Dwayne Hale, aka Nate Dogg, passed away at the age of 41. Its a sad thing, to be sure. You may not know it, but this man’s life did effect my own in a small way. Not just me either. I’ve spoken with more than a couple other Nathans and Nates in my days and for the most part we share an experience similar to my own.

When this song came out and hit it big in the early 90′s I was 13 or 14. It was popular in a way that things (songs, television shows) just aren’t anymore. So basically everyone in my sphere had a least heard of it. When it hit big people actually treated me different. I can’t tell you how many “WASSUP NATE DOGG!!”‘s I’ve gotten in my day. Literally thousands. Even close friends do it. All the time! Still happens. This has been going on for the better part of 17 years. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the perception was, after “Regulate” came out, that just because your name is Nathan or Nate that you’re 5-10% cooler. Not the guys who go by Nathaniel though. Only a doucher does that. But, honestly, people were more willing to accept me as a person because of the person who sang a song that had literally nothing to do with me besides a name. Funny how that worked.

I resisted at first, I was an alterakid lovingly shitting on anything that wasn’t “cool”, and rap music most certainly unacceptable! As years passed I became more accepting and embraced it. It was more fun that way, anyway. I even forgave Nate Dogg his love for the L.A. Lakers, the sports franchise I hate more than any other. Yes, even the Anaheim Ducks.

So, that’s all I suppose. He will be missed, and in his honor if any bustas step I’ll regulate in the name of the 213.

I’m going to keep this short because, honestly, I didn’t watch most of “Play the Game”. The room mates were watching it, and I was in my room doing other, way more awesome things. However, I wanted to watch “The Runaways” and so I came in towards the end and caught the last portions of this “film”. Not ever having even heard of this thing I figured most others hadn’t as well so I decided to share with you the insanity that is the last ten minutes.

Okay.

So, first of all Matlock, Seinfeld’s mom and Everybody Love’s Raymond’s mom are in this movie. There is this whole old people in love aspect to the story. I should say its a horrible, horrible clichéd romantic comedy. The story centers around the main character (whose name I don’t even care to learn) played by Paul “I was awesome on BSG as Billy I totes should have never quit to do this garbage” Campbell. From what I gathered he’s a love-em-and-leave-em type lady’s man and he meets this girl who he ends up sleeping with and she takes off. He realizes he can’t live without her, makes a horrible RomCom speech and everyone lives Happy Ever After. BUT WAIT!!

Billy and Matlock are fishing next to a pond while The Girl and Everyone Love’s Raymond’s mom sit on a nearby bench. ELRM is telling The Girl how she wants Matlock to do something with their relationship or something. The Girl then explains how ELRM needs to, wait for it…

PLAY THE GAME…of love! Hey! That’s the name of the movie. What happens next is bizarre.

It goes into a montage of The Girl scoping out Billy before they had actually met, and this elaborate plot she had enacted from the very beginning to turn Billy into a one woman man by sleeping with him, leaving and making him realize he can’t live without her. Watching it unravel was insane. The girl room mate thought it was adorable, but I could come to only one conclusion:

The message here was this, “Hey Ladies! If you stalk a guy, sleep with him and bail there is a very good chance he’ll realize he can’t live without you!”

THAT IS THE MIND OF A CRAZY PERSON AT WORK. HOLY SHIT. In the span of less than ten minutes I went though this cycle of emotions:

1. Boring RomCom. Yawn.

2. THIS CHICK IS KEYSER SOZE

3. Oh, I get it! The screenwriters want to send a horrible message!

4. Sleepy

So, anyway, don’t watch this piece of shit. I feel sad for Billy.

Because I love Twitter.

Its true that I spend a completely unreasonable amount of time on Twitter. I know this. I’m only slightly ashamed about my Twitter use. Let’s face it; I have so many other bigger things to be ashamed of that Twitter just doesn’t get what I like to call a Shame Priority Vector. When it comes to my shame time Twitter just can’t compare to things like eating at McDonalds, listening to Air Supply or watching the movie “Old Dogs”.

I’m getting off track…uh…

Anyway! Now, one of the beautiful things about Twitter is that it can lead to great minds collaborating on a whim with instant and magnificent results.

Case in point:

It all started here. A discussion began on Twitter (including the creator of the work, Twitter user@velvetrasputin) about how Metal Finland is, and how they, those practitioners of only the Blackest of Metals would one day rain fire upon their particle board-laden, meatball-obsessed neighbors, and celebrate the deed with a feast of unicorn meat. Okay, maybe that’s not exactly how it went, but it sounds awesome, right? So, inspired by this conversation @velvetrasputin LEAPED INTO ACTION (at least I’m assuming that. I wasn’t there) and created the work you see above. Our heroes, The Finnish Metal band, watching the burning remains of Ikea whilst eating their unicorn, uh…pitas. I know pitas aren’t very metal, but…I mean…once in a while they can be tasty. Who doesn’t like a pita now and again?

So there you have it. Twitter brings great minds (not mine, I barely had anything to do with it really) together to create something totally awesome. I guess my point is SUCK IT, FACEBOOK.

Very special thanks to @velvetrasputin for the artwork. For more go to upirsmark.com. DO IT.