It's the most wonderful time of the year

...if you're homeless.

The holiday season seems to be the only time anyone cares about homeless people. There are all kinds of food drives, coat drives, and other charitable drives geared toward assisting homeless people. I've never seen a 4th of July homeless cookout or super spooky homeless Halloween bash. I came up with that little theory in shower this morning and decided to do a little research while heading into the office. Like most people, usually when I see a homeless person I avoid eye contact and pretend that I can't hear them, or if an encounter is eminent I'll pull out my cell phone and pretend I'm on a call. Even homeless people are usually polite enough not to bother someone on the phone. Today I stopped at the first homeless person I saw and started talking to him.

Jon: Hey buddy, how you doing today?

Homeless man: Pissah.

Jon: Could I ask you a couple questions?

Homeless man: Shoot.

Jon: With the upcoming holiday season rapidly approaching, do you notice that people are nicer or more generous to you?

Homeless man: Ya know, I hadn't really thought about it because I usually only think about gettin' shitfaced. [becomes distracted by a plastic bag caught in the breeze]

Jon: Um... ok? Could you think about it now?

Homeless man: [thinking] [eyes become wide] [looks down at spare change cup] [looks up at me]

Jon: [puts a 5er in his ratty Dunkin' Donuts cup]

Homeless man: Usually people just want to spit on me and scurry me back under a bridge like a fuckin' troll ...or a fuckin' Yankees fan. Ya know what I'm sayin' pal? [extends filthy hand expecting a high-five]

Jon: [straight-faced] I stopped high-fiving when I became an adult (that's a lie).

Homeless man: [becomes agitated] Ya think you're some kinda big shot!?

Jon: I don't need to deal with this shit. Thanks for your time. Have a nice day.

Homeless man: You scared of me!?

Jon: No, I'm heading to work and don't want bum stink on me.

Homeless man: [drunkenly stumbles off of curb and falls in the street thus blocking traffic]

Jon: It's supposed to snow today, stay warm.

Homeless man: [from street] Fuck you ya fuckin' prick!

So I guess this proves my theory correct. People are nicer to bums homeless people during the holiday season.

...and homeless people are just as caring.

The Wrong Stuff

Last night I was checking one of the 75 e-mail accounts I have and don't check regularly and saw that I had an e-mail from PayPal. The subject of said e-mail was Your payment has been refunded. I didn't remember paying for anything recently so I of course had to open it up. It turns out that my $7.94 was being refunded for a New Kids on the Block t-shirt I had won on eBay a month back. The sellers message about the refund was as follows:

Enclosed is a full refund for the New Kids on the Block shirt you purchased on Ebay. The shirt had already sold out so was no longer available. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this has caused you. Thank you.

Most people would accept this apology and move on, especially over a 99-cent shirt (shipping was extra) featuring Boston's favorite sons New Kids on the Block. I am not most people. Here is the response that I sent to the seller:

Dear son of a bitch,

How dare you cancel my order for one medium New Kids on the Block t-shirt in unworn condition? I purchased that t-shirt as a gift for the child I sponsor in Africa. Undoubtedly you've seen the commercials with the sickly looking kids covered in flies and living in what looks like a garbage dump. Well I got me one of them. Now little Njanu will have to continue to hobble (due to malnutrition) around Africa nude, which I've learned from the Conservative Christians is shameful and makes the baby Jesus cry. I hope you can live with yourself.

Respectfully,
Jon

When I got to work this morning I saw that the eBay seller had responded:

Dear Jon,

I again would like to extend my sincerest apologies for the mix up. I unfortunately cannot send you the item that was listed because it had been previously sold. Due to the special circumstances in it's place I could send you a Bryan Adams t-shirt, at no charge. Please let me know.

eBay seller

Bryan Adams!? The Canadian Johnny Cougar? I would not let this stand.

Dear asshole,

A Bryan Adams t-shirt!? Are you trying to be some kind of smart ass? How tough can Njanu look in a Bryan Adams t-shirt. I'm trying to get this kid action from some of those topless African women you see in National Geographic, not some hockey loving, mullet sporting Canadian. I am both insulted and ashamed for you. Please do not respond and prepare to receive negative feedback. I wish nothing but engine troubles and multi-car crashes on your favorite Nascar driver next season.

Sincerely,
Jon

So why the big fuss over a New Kids on the Block t-shirt? Maybe this little picture will answer your question:

Way hetero

How awesome would I look in that? Oh yeah, time to come clean. I don't sponsor any kids in Africa. In fact, I immediately change the channel when one of those commercials comes on because those kids are gross looking.

G-A-Y

A day which will live in infamy

or: I just booked my first-class ticket to hell

So I received this e-mail last week from my friend Ryan:

Dude, do you want to join a kickball league? I'm dead serious.

Because my company doesn't have a softball team, and I can't always find a pickup game of basketball, I currently lack any form of regular athletic competition. At a cookout a month back after playing a gays vs straights game of two-hand touch, I was asked if I would consider playing in a gay men's football league. I was considering it because I love playing football and would have a couple friends in the league, not because I love to bang guys (sorry fellas). But then I found this sexy kickball proposal in my inbox. After weighing my options of a co-ed kickball beer league, or a gay football league, I decided to go the kickball route. I am a very competitive person, especially when it comes to athletics, but I can tone it down depending on what sport I may be playing. When it's something like football, I'm 100% into it because it actually requires skill to do well, for kickball I think I can tone it down to 40% because the last time I played that shit I was in 6th grade and I think I went 7-for-7 with 6 homeruns. Another reason that I picked co-ed kickball over gay football is because I'd probably accidentally call someone a homo at some point during the season. Why did I bring up my competitive nature? Because the following is a sorta-recap of the worst day of competitive sports that I have ever played. I would say this one day was worse than my entire Freshman year of baseball when we didn't win a single game all season, not even scrimmages.

A couple years back my friend Marisa asked me if I wanted to play softball. Her friend was putting a team together for a charity game for Easter Seals and needed a couple more players. Being the charitable person that I am, I of course agreed. Ryan also agreed to play on the team. Because we're assholes, whenever we talked to Marisa about the game we asked that she was sure we weren't playing a team of retards. I don't remember exactly what she said but it was probably along the lines of "you have no soul for joking about that," and that we were scheduled to play against a team from Home Depot. I contended that because I was raising money for Easter Seals, it would offset any retard jokes I would make. And speaking of retards and Home Depot, I don't really trust any advice that any of their sales associates give me. If they're such experts then why the fuck are they working at Home Depot and not using their trade skills to acquire a job that undoubtedly pays more? Perhaps they just like wearing orange aprons and measuring stuff?

Because we were scheduled to play a legit team, I had to get my shit together. So for a couple weeks before the game Ryan and I trained, which consisted of getting our throwing arms back in shape. We'd play catch in the parking lot of our work during our lunch break for about 10 minutes each day. Actually, we could only play for about 10 minutes because everyday at some point Ryan would throw a frozen rope over my head which would be lost for the ages (or just end up in the parking lot of the DoubleTree that was next to our work).

So the day of the game finally arrives and the weather was fucking crazy, I wake up to thunder and lightning and downpours. I call Marisa to see if the game is still on and she said that it was. The field was about an hour away so like The Regulators, we mount up and head to our softball destiny. As we are heading south, the clouds gradually disappear and it's actually a beautiful day at the field. We meet the rest of our team and start to warm up. We see some of the Easter Seals kids hanging around the park and make a couple jokes about playing them; again we're assholes, but charitable assholes. It's getting closer to game time and we don't see anyone from the Home Depot team so I'm starting to get worried. We give the Home Depot team about an extra half hour to show up and they never do. So we win by forfeit, right?

"Here's my check, I'm heading home."

Well it turns out you can't win a charity game by forfeit, so they found us another team to play. Do I even need to tell you who was on that team?

I'll give you a minute to collect yourself.

...

..

.

Like Earl Hickey, karma just kicked our asses. The organizers of the event gathered every retarded kid that they could find and put them on the team, and maybe one or two of the extra-retarded adults. Through drinking and repression, I've erased most of that game from my memory. From what I remember, here are the highlowlights.

Everyone had to bring their own equipment. The retards brought plenty of helmets, but didn't share because they also had to wear them while in the field, so we had to "borrow" some from another game that was going on. (I now "own" a batting helmet)

When our team was up to bat: if you didn't swing it was a strike, whether the pitch be a foot over your head or landed in front of home plate. Luckily it was one of the Easter Seals volunteers pitching to us so there were a couple good pitches per at bat.

When their team was up to bat, the ump had three calls: ball, strike, they didn't mean to swing. I swear at one at bat the ump called "he didn't mean to swing" on 7 consecutive pitches.

Two fouls was an out, Ryan managed to foul out (oh yeah, this was slow pitch).

Their team got to bat around every inning, even if they got twelve outs. Actually their batting lineup fluctuated each inning, I think they kept finding more retards at the park.

Here's an actual conversation I overheard while in right field:

E. Seals volunteer: "Hey Billy, would you like to get a few cuts in?"

Billy (a retarded boy): "Daaaaaaah"

*I never actually heard that conversation happen, but then where else were these extra players coming from? I doubt that their parents were pushing them to play to make up for their own failed childhood dreams of athletic glory.

At one point the kid playing shortstop was telling me to hit the ball to his glove, so I did. He was not nominated for a SportsCenter top 10 play.

Our captain tried to raise our spirits after intentionally losing to a team of retards by saying "at least we had fun", to which I immediately deadpanned "I had no fun whatsoever." I stand by that remark to this day.

After the game we took a team photo. While lining up for the photo-op the third baseman of the retard team came over and started to taunt me, "Whee bee yoo bah!" (translation: We beat you bad) Note the intentional misspellings, because I tried to get across his flawless enunciation.

I was going to wrap this up with a note about my derogatory use of the word retard (I actually cut a bunch out), but I decided not to because if you were at all offended then you need to get a fucking life. You're what's wrong with America.

Hugs and Kisses.

-Jon