Greatest Hits, I

Introduction, preamble, what have you:

I often go back to the columns I wrote in college with the intent of somehow ‘collecting’ them into a bound edition, much like I did with my ‘Top Ten’ collections from the same time (which made me something like $40 dollars, total, over two books). I realize there is virtually no audience for this, but I need to do it in order to close that creative chapter in my life so I can do something else.

I had a similar issue after high school, which I finally closed out in 1997 in college when I wrote my mammoth “Haunted by Spirit” piece for the college paper. When I finished that piece it was like a weight lifted off me. It was after that I did my best work as a columnist. “Haunted” kicked a door open for me fan wise, beyond friends and friends of friends, and now random strangers were coming up to me, thanks to my editor’s insistence that my email address run under the column, which, 15 years ago, was not the norm it is today.

During that period I alternated between campus issues, national news issues, and the circus sideshow that comprise my friends. It all had a larger following than I had any right to have.

In order to counter this, as I was massively uncomfortable with celebrity even on that myopic level (and yes, I appreciate the irony of that discomfort in a blogger), one of the post-“Haunted” pieces was a verbatim recounting of my friend Bobby and I’s trip to the Price Club. It was pure filler, massively offensive, and written because I had no other ideas and a deadline. It ran on a Thursday, traditionally the slower of the paper’s two publication days.

Naturally, it was a colossal hit.

After the Price Club column, I received a steady stream of requests for more Bobby columns. I routinely told people Bobby was a person, not a fictional character, so he actually needed to do something worth writing about, or at least entertaining, in order for me to write more columns. This was not entirely accurate, as I could make a career of just telling stories about Bobby, but the reality is he did so much best described as “out there” that if I told it all no one would believe it.

Gentle reader - take in the story below, one of my many “holy shit” moments with Bobby. It has no real ending. And neither does Bobby. He’s still out there, keepin’ on.

FYI – if elements of this seem dated, they are. This took place in ’97 or ’98.

Greatest Hits, I

Today, rather than bore you with commentary concerning the minutiae of the world around us, we will revel once again in the domain of that bonehead of boneheads, the master of disaster, my old friend Bobby.

For those of you who are new, I’ve written about Bobby a number of times before. Bobby, to give you a little background, is that friend of yours that your girlfriend hates. The one your mother calls “loser.” You can rest assured that if, for whatever reason, I don’t have something to write about one day, I’m going to crack open the Bobby vault. For all of his loathsome qualities, he still is if nothing else a constant source of entertainment.

I would like to end this preface by saying that this is a bit outlandish and quite possibly disgusting, so, the faint of heart may want to skip over to the Style Section.

Bobby does not work anymore. He is one of the tech geeks I detest who never did any real work in his life, cashed out his stock options and at twenty four spends most of his time at the driving range. That or, on days when the weather isn’t so hot, he plays with his newest toy, his DVD player.

I recently arrived at his pad after work to find him and his roommate, Phil, watching “Heat” (one of my favorite movies, best gunfight in history, hands down). Rather, Phil was watching the movie and eating peanut M & Ms while Bobby was banging his head against the wall. Not mosh pit forehead banging, but the left side of his head.

This action begged the question. “What are you doing?”

He explained that he has been in the pool yesterday and still had water in his ear, and he was trying to shake it out. While odd, this was far from the stupidest thing he ever said (so very far, in fact) that I just let it go and sat down to watch the movie. Bobby drifted into his room and eventually the banging stopped.

If only it ended there.

About ten minutes went by before Bobby emerged from his room and asked Phil where his Swiss Army knife was. This sent off alarm bells in my head. Phil told him where it was and I half yelped, “What do you need that for?”

There was no answer.

At this point, this story’s going to get ugly. There is no time like the present to go to the Style Section.

Bobby emerged from the bedroom with this, this brownish-yellow “thing,” in the tweezers from the Swiss Army knife.

He opened his mouth to speak, and I felt like someone about to receive cancer test results. “This was in my ear.”

And Phil piped in. “Is that wax?”

You’re damn right it was.

They set it on the coffee table, and my mind finally kicked in gear so I could ask, “What are you doing with it? Throw it away.” I’ll be honest, it frightened me.

Bobby just stared at it in shock. Phil took a piece of his candy and held it next to the thing. “Holy shit, that’s the size of a peanut M & M. What’s wrong with you?”

All I could say was, “Aren’t you going to throw it away?”

They just stared at it.

I was becoming irate. “WHAT - ARE - YOU - GOING - TO - DO - WITH - IT?”

Take a moment and imagine the worst possible answer to that question.

Phil said, “I think we should smoke it.”

All I thought was, “What’s this we shit?”

Bobby sat that there staring, and I got a chill as it occurred to me that he might be considering it. Fortunately, reason prevailed. He said, “Nah, man, remember what happened when you smoked that scab?”

Waiter, check please.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I left. I don’t know what finally happened. I don’t care.

When I got home I locked the door behind me. My roommate looked at me like I was crazy, which wasn’t too far from the truth. All I could think to say was, “I gotta get some new friends.”

I had a nightmare about it. I’m afraid it’s still out there.