It's just a MEAL.

Well my computer went balls-up on me today in a big way. I'm talking full-on Meg Ryan at the end of City Of Angels (there's two hours I'm never getting back), flattened by a truck, get the toe-tags, balls-up.

But hey, in the spirit of Thanksgiving I'll tell you something I'm thankful for: I'm thankful that my wife has, like, 17 computers in her tiny office. And I'm especially thankful that one of them is a PC, because while I'm Mac-friendly, It's been a long time since I had to use one, and working on a Mac now feels awkward and uncomfortable, like being felt up by your grandma.

Not that I was ever, um... felt up by my... Did I just type that?

Moving on, I wanted to get the thankfulness out of the way right up front, because now I'm going to shit all over your Turkey-Day.

That's probably not fair of me. I enjoy T-day as much as the rest of you. I'm a big fan of pie, I come down firmly on the side of cranberries, and to turkey with gravy I say a hearty "Yes please!" I have nothing against Thanksgiving really, except for one tiny detail.

It's not a holiday.

It's a freaking meal disguised as a holiday.

Seeing as how I attended most if not all of the first grade, I am fully aware that Thanksgiving is meant to be a celebration of our coming to America, and of the great bounty we found here. Put away your cute construction-paper pilgrim hats, I get it. Never mind that the bounty we found here included a brutaly cold winter and a little bit of genocide. My problem is not with the political correctness of the holiday. I leave that to the hippies. (Other things I leave to the hippes: wheat-germ cookies, Cat Stevens, hackysack.) My problem is that calling Thanksgiving a holiday just isn't being honest.

These days those of us no longer in the first grade could give a rat's ass about the pilgrims and/or the indians, and I don't think anyone really spends a long time contemplating all that they should be thankful for. What we really do on this day is eat a big meal, usually with family members, and usually with turkey.

And hey, eating is fine. I myself do it at least once a day. Sometimes as often as thrice a day. (crazy!) For purposes of discussion, let's just say I do it three times a day. That makes 1094 times I'll eat a meal this year and not call it a holiday. Well, I suppose that eating on Christmas counts as a holiday. So, 1093 non-holiday meals.

Okay, there's my birthday as well... That's certainly a holiday to me. (doesn't everybody celebrate National Wombat Day?) 1092. You get my point.

Please don't mis-understand me, I like Thanksgiving. In a few hours I'll be over at my Mom's house, hanging out with my family and eating what I hope will be a very tasty bird. I predict a 93% chance that I will have a good time. I am not not not anti-Thanksgiving. I just won't be calling it a holiday, for I, my friends, am all about the painful honesty.

And so, in the spirit of painful honesty, I hope that all of you have a great time on Thursday, and enjoy your ritualistic large meal in the company of family, most likely involving turkey and, if you are lucky, something with cranberries. And hey, if you do have a good time, get your family together in May or April and do it again. Don't wait for a non-existant holiday to tell you to go enjoy a meal with your folks.

And before you guys start jumping in my shit, Christmas is a holiday. Oh yeah, baby. We do not mess with the man in red.

Consider yourselves thoroughly decorated.

What can I possibly say to encapsulate the time I just spent in Syracuse? How can I ever break down into simple words the complexity of my experience there? What mundane prose can hope to contain every facet and nuance of the 4 days I spent wrapped in Syracuse's snowy embrace? Could a writer of my meager talent ever rise to the challenge of summing up all that is Syracuse in, say, 3 words? You never know until you try...

Syracuse: Don't go.

Hey look, I did it. Guess that wasn't so hard after all.

And with that, my 6-state-wide homicidal decorating spree has come to a close. I measured malls in Pennsylvania and Florida, decorated malls in Texas, Virginia and (barf in my mouth a little) Syracuse, and I only nearly throttled one horribly impossible monster of a Marketing Director to within an inch of her life. All in all, I call that a successful season.

If you live near Plano Texas, get thee and thy children to Willow Bend Mall, and if you live near Fairfax Virginia, get thee and thy brood to Fair Oaks. The sets we built in those places are tie-ins with the upcoming Narnia movie, and they're quite cool. There's a huge walk-through snow globe, and actual props from the movie... I honestly think your kids will love it.

If you live near Syracuse New York, move as soon as humanly possible. Do not take the time to visit Great Northern Mall. I mean, I did a wonderful job there as well, but seriously dude, move somewhere that doesn't suck the will to live right out of you.

Anyway, the short version is, I'm back. My wife has been smooched, and my home toilet seat has been... well, that's been smooched as well, if you get my drift. All is right with the world. The blogging will begin again in earnest, and I promise to get back to the absolute lack of hilarity that you've come to expect.

I want to give a quick shout-out to my Baltimore-blogger peeps (JT, Snay, Zenchick, Jennetic and Fool...did I forget anybody?) for answering Sal's call and sending me a river of funny pager-mails just when I needed them most. You guys totally kept my head screwed on, and quite possibly saved that marketing monster's life as well. Also a shout-out to Karla for many funny emails when they were very much needed, and to Miss Kendra, for making me feel missed just by leaving a comment saying "Where are you???" Thanks to all you guys for being such good virtual buddies. Consider yourselves shouted. Um... Out. Shouted Out. Or Shout-outed. Not sure what's the proper way of saying that. Also not sure it matters.

You've all been Shout-outeded.

Now fuck off while I think of something funny to blog about. Sheesh.

Toilet Humor, Part One

To those of you who already think you know where this is going, I'm about to blow your tiny minds. Because I am not here today, my friends, to talk about poop.

Oh, poop may be mentioned... Poop may hanging around the edges of the conversation the way the Dippin' Dots kiosk hangs around the less-traveled hallways of the mall, but it will not be the main subject of our discussion for today. So rest easy, those of you with weak constitutions, and try not to be disappointed, ACW, for today we take a (somewhat) poop (or at least graphic descriptions of poop) -free ride into the American public toilet for a few observations.

1: I'm A Sniffer

As many of you have no doubt figured out by now, I am in no way prudish when it comes to matters of the bathroom. And yet, I recently noticed that I am a chronic shit-sniffer. Now, before you all start dry-heaving, when I use that term I do not mean to imply that I smell shit. I may like talking about it, but I find it as unpleasant smelling as the rest of you. I'm talking about that little thing we all do when our bathroom privacy is impinged upon.

You know how it goes, you are all alone in a public bathroom, situated comfortably in the stall of your choice, when you hear the door swing open. Then come the footsteps on the tile floor and before you even think about it you make some little noise. You quietly grunt. You clear your throat. You shuffle your feet. For my part, I sniffle.

This is your subtle little way of alerting the new bathroom-dweller to your presence. Okay, understood. The thing that bothers me is, why?

What exactly is it that we think this new person, believing the bathroom to be unoccupied, is going to do? I doubt that he or she entered the bathroom fully intending to smear feces on every available surface, only to be utterly stymied by your little noise. "Oh damnit," comes the soft whimper, "I thought I had this place all to myself. Oh well, I suppose I'll just pee like a normal person and be on my way..." (I should note that when I typed that I imagined it in the voice of James Mason for some reason. No, wait. I stand corrected. I should not have noted that. Please ignore this note, and any other notes that may follow.) I doubt it's because we are afraid the intruder might be a psychotic axe-murderer, because let's be honest: The best way of dealing with an axe-murderer is to be silent and not alert them to the presence of a nearby and half-naked victim.

(As a side note about axe-murderers, I have this question: Why on Earth would anyone want to murder an axe? I told you to ignore these notes.)

What I think is really going on, is that we are trying to avoid that moment when Mr. "Just arrived in this bathroom" decides to yank on the door of our stall to see if it is empty. For some reason this is the most terrifying and vulnerable moment in the modern human's life. We can survive plagues, wars, and bombings, but the thought of someone yanking on that little stall door just about paralyzes us. Someone explain that to me. (That's rhetorical. Don't explain it to me. Do not interrupt when I'm ranting. I care nothing for your opinion.)

2: Lock Obsessive

Am I alone in thinking that all "single occupant" public bathrooms should have a slide-lock on them, or at the very least some sort of deadbolt that makes a visceral and satisfying "thunk" when engaged? If I ever go into a "single user" that just has one of those push-button locks in the doorknob, I spend my entire visit doubting that anything really locked, and then getting up over and over again and re-pushing that little button. "Click. Oh god, did that work? Jiggle. Now it's definitely unlocked. Click. Did that do it? Maybe if I click it again. Click. Did that lock it, or unlock it? Click. Oh Christ I've lost track now... Is it locked? Maybe one more click... Click..." And on and on and on. I'll spend five minutes checking and rechecking the lock, and never get around to actually going to the bathroom. All I'm saying is, with a slide lock, you know you're safe, and you can get down to business.

3: Turbine Hand Warmer

Note to public bathroom owners: Those little jet engines that you install so we can dry our hands do not work. You can maybe go from wet to damp with these fucking things, but full-dry is right out of the picture. The only thing air-driers are good for is making you feel like you just stuck your head inside Joe Satriani's amp. The instructions should read 1) Press button. 2) Go completely deaf. 3) Wipe hands on pants.

Get some fucking paper towels you cheap dipshits.

4: Midgets and Cripples

If I go into the bathroom and all the normal "skinny" stalls are taken, I'll use the huge two-car-garage sized handicapped stall. When I do this, I spend the entire time terrified that a wheelchair-bound person will roll in and discover me using his toilet. The guilt I feel is so overwhelming that if one of the regular stalls becomes available while I'm in mid-shit I'll actually consider hopping over to use it rather than face the wrath of some paraplegic with a case of the runs. "Hey man, I swear to God the other stalls were occupied I would never ever steal your holy Christ what happened to your legs?!?!?"

Also, if the bathroom is very crowded and I end up forced to use one of the midget urinals, I feel like I just got picked last for a game of dodgeball. Using the shorty urinal is like getting turned down by every girl in school and having to take your mom to the prom.

5: Bun Music

If you make a funny fart while shitting or peeing, I should be allowed to laugh. I'm just saying.

I have seen the face of evil!!!

Okay, no I haven't. I haven't seen the face of evil. I did, however see the face of Karla. I also saw the arms of Karla as well as the hands, hair and ears.

Legs. I'm pretty sure there were legs also. They bent. At the knees.

As those of you who actually read this blog (as opposed to you who simply use the find function on your browser to skip to the dirty words) know, my infernal master, St. Nicholas the Oh-so Terrible, sent me to Texas, and I was afforded the rare opportunity to actually meet my all-time, gold-star, peed-myself-laughing, favorite blogger face to face.

"You met Andy Rooney???" I hear you all gasping. No, damnit. Pay attention. I met Karla. Christ. It's like trying to talk to Sea Monkeys...

I know that the popular belief out there is that Karla is not a person at all, but in fact an entire room full of highly trained (and heavily drugged) monkeys with internet access. Some of you believe that she is an elaborate ruse concocted by the creative writing class at the Mt. Pittle's Bluff County Correctional Facility for Insufferably Obtuse Women. Yet others think she is in fact Charro.

I can now confirm without a shred of doubt that none of these things are true. For I have met her in person. I have sat across a table from her and looked her in the eye (she has only one) and I have seen her true form. I learned many things about Karla during that dinner. I learned at least 5 of the 100 things wrong with her that have not yet seen print. But those are her secrets to reveal, and I won't divulge them here. I can tell you one thing about Karla though. One thing that, until now, nobody knew:

Karla is a dude.

You heard it here first folks, Karla's totally this big hairy albino dude with a rusted prosthetic leg who goes on long crying jags after only one beer. And she/he smells like vinegar and suntan lotion. Believe me, no one was more surprised than me. The really crazy thing is that he/she doesn't speak a word of English. Just wheezes and grunts. Karla sounds like a 1972 VW Beetle trying to start on a cold morning. It stands all the hairs on your body straight up. Yeeesh.

Okay, you and I both know that's bullshit... In fact, the only way for me to truly tell you about meeting Karla is to turn the funny off for a minute.

Funny Off.

Karla is awesome. In person she is absolutely as cool and funny as you think she is. Seriously. Quick-witted and warm and just a little bit insane. And what's even better is that she comes complete with a posse of similarly cool people. I met her husband Brian, who is one of those guys who immediately makes you feel liked and at ease. I also met her friend Vanessa, who is hysterical and generous, and her friend Brooks, who is laid back and cool and has a pretty twisted sense of humor.

These Santa Inc. trips I go on are pretty tiring. They involve hard work and long, long hours in the dead of night, and I'm away from my wife and alone in strange places and it can really wear a guy down. For just a few hours I was totally among friends and it really picked me up again. While I have the funny turned off here I just want to say thanks to Karla and her gang, for making me feel so welcome, and for giving me one of the best times I've had in a while. You all rock and I hope it goes without saying that if you're ever in the Baltimore-DC area, you gotta look me up so I can return the favor. We really need to get them to move Dallas and Baltimore closer together.

Okay everybody, deep breath... Funny back on.

I'm totally serious about the prosthetic leg though. It's fucking creepy. And when she tries to dance, it squeaks.