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Dear Girl We Spilled a Beer on at a Lower East Side Bar Last Night,

You pretty desperately need to recalibrate your priority meter in life, and learn to take yourself -- and your designer handbag -- a little bit less seriously.

First off, I think it was fairly obvious to anyone within shouting distance that as my harmless-looking buddy and I saddled up to the bar to try and get drinks, we were really not there looking to stir up a fuss. A couple of young, vibrant, enthusiastic single guys obviously just looking to enjoy a few drinks, catch up, and maybe even chat up some cute strangers. We didn't need a sign to announce WE COME IN PEACE.

Why all frowny? I mean, was your childhood that miserable? Did they raise you in a cage without any toys or love? There obviously wasn't a ton of room at the bar, so the fact that my buddy accidentally dropped the beer as he tried to reach across the ROAD BLOCK you and your equally bratty friend created at the bar was sort of your fault too (and yes, I'm not sure you are aware of this, but it really was an ACCIDENT -- he didn't mean to unleash my Guiness all over the bar). Seriously, are you two trying to stop convicted felons here? This looked like a checkpoint from the Terminator movies. Were you girls planning to charge a toll? And would it have absolutely killed you to lean over, just a touch, while my buddy reached over you to get the beer? Oh no, please don't trouble yourself.

So here we are, my buddy playing Operation to get my beer out of the tiny space you've left us, and me being really, really thirsty, and he grabs the drink and it slips through his fingers (the glass was allegedly "wet and slippery"), and it bounces on the bar and there's a shower of Guiness and three drops get on your bag and your ugly excuse for a scarf, but the shower of beer is no match for the shower of BABY ASS TEARS you are shedding as you explode into a fit of adolescent rage. SIMMER DOWN, TOOTS. Poor guy did everything right. He said "excuse me" when he tried to get past you, and he said "I'm sorry" when he dropped the beer. We were not here conspiring against your terrible outfit. IT WAS AN ACCIDENT. As it is, he is probably feeling pretty crappy about himself, (1) because he dropped his good thirsty buddy's drink and (2) because everyone is looking at him like he just dropped a tray of food in the high school lunchroom. He doesn't need you piling on here, wenchzilla.

Oh, and by the way, WE GET IT, your bag was expensive and your clothes are expensive and you are uptight and horrendous. You didn't need to keep reminding everyone within earshot. Seriously, do people date you? And I don't mean date in the biblical sense, but date as in "want to spend any appreciable amount of time interacting with you." I have to guess no. I don't even know you or like you and I was still on the verge of slitting my wrists after listening to you screech for ten minutes.

Do yourself a favor. Stay home, have Thurston the butler serve you mimosas on your daybed, and you'll never have to worry yourself with dirtying interactions with the hoi polloi ever again. And please, for the love of all things holy, stop crying. You'll pull through these most trying times.

Editor's Note

Dear Readers,

Good day to all five of you.

Apparently my staff have received numerous complaints in recent weeks: one complaint by an expecting mother, apparently upset about our take on babies in bars, and the other by a single woman in the NYC area who claims that I "sound like an ass and a manho." I can assure you that my staff and our writers here at SomeoneMadeMe have been working round the clock to deliver the crappiest, time wastingest blog content they can drum up, and I can also assure you that their goal probably isn't to piss people off (OK, I'm not 100% certain of this). But these folks are working hard, people.

That said, given that we've now upset 40% of our readership, and given the alarming news my staff passed my way this morning regarding the estimated value of this blog, I'll be conducting an internal review to try and get to the bottom of this. While it's true that I know you're here, wasting your time, and you know you're here, wasting your time, I think it's important that we here at SomeoneMadeMe consider this reader feedback carefully and respectfully. Frankly, a decline in readership of 2 could significantly impact our profit forecasts, and the investors don't want any part of that.

Accordingly, we will be doing everything in our power in the coming weeks and months to ensure that that our readers remain satisfied with the time they waste with our crappy content. A wise man once said, "you can please some of the people all of the time, and please all of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time." Then again, I think he was talking about way more than 5 people.

We thank you for your dedication to the wasting of time and the rambling prose of others.

Yours truly,
The SomeoneMadeMe.com Family

Exfoliate

Dear High-Maintenance Girl Whose Apartment I Crashed At Last Night,

Thank you for leaving me that fresh towel before you left for work, because I otherwise can imagine myself having dried off with baby wipes and a curling iron and ending up in the E.R.

Why must you, and all the girls out there like you, have so many beautification products in the bathroom? What are you DOING with all this crap? Seriously, leaving me on my own in there is about as bad as just dropping me smack in the middle of the Martian desert. I have absolutely no idea how to navigate the place.

Let's start with the basics here. WHERE'S THE SOAP? There wasn't any. There were fifteen different implementations in there that could have been used either for cleaning or as instruments of death and torture. YOU'VE GOT A GIANT ROCK IN THERE. Who the hell needs giant rocks in the shower? And don't get me started on all those poofy things. Frankly, I'm far too concerned about my safety to screw with any of this stuff. The closest thing I could find to good old-fashioned liquid soap was some of this exfoliating emulsifying body wash stuff. It was infused with apricot and crushed peas and some other ingredients, and it smelled fantastic. Seemed like the right place to start. So I gave it a whirl.

Apparently this stuff slipped under the FDA's radar and was never tested on humans, because I can only imagine that this is what it feels like to get stung by a giant killer jellyfish down there. SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE THIS POISON OFF THE SHELVES. Or at least stick on a warning label for gentlemen, so we know not to mess with it.

I recovered as best I could, stumbled out of the shower with my eyes still watering, dried off, and pulled the old "brush my teeth with my finger" routine (I wasn't about to try and operate that rechargeable ultraviolet sonic tooth cleaning apparatus I saw on your shelf; I'd have surely been maimed). Of course, if you have a sharp edge on one of the fillings you got when you were a kid, you ought be careful with how hard you press down on that edge, because it could open an ENORMOUS GASH in your index finger (right now, as I sit here and type this, I've got my right index finger covered in a makeshift bandage of napkin and scotch tape).

I did my best to clean off my finger and stop the bleeding, but now my eyes are watering even worse. Still, I'm running late for work and have to get a move on. I next borrowed some of your hair gel. Or at least this stuff looked like hair gel. Seriously, watering eyes or not, no way I would have taken it to be anything but hair gel. I tried to manipulate the stuff with my one uninjured hand, and I'm not quite making any progress here, because the hair in front that I usually make a little spiky isn't looking spiky at all. It's at this point that I look closer and realize this isn't hair gel, and also that I start feeling like I stumbled into the house from Home Alone and you've intentionally booby trapped the jesus out of it.

Well, I finally made it into work, no thanks to playing Duane Reade For the Blind and/or Disabled at your place. And, here I am sitting in the office, and my undercarriage stings, and my teeth are sort-of brushed, and my hair is flat and soaked in shaving gel, and my finger is dressed in a ridiculous bandage that looks like it came out of Lord of the Flies or Lost, and all of this is tied up neatly with a little bow of "yes, I'm wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday." Lesson learned, High-Maintenance Girl. From now on I'm taking a bar of ivory soap with me everywhere I go.

Is it Friday yet?

Mitts

Dear Girl I Left At The Pizzeria On 2nd Ave,

Sometimes in life there are things that are out of our control, and we really can't be blamed for the consequences. Other times, well, not so much...

Listen, trust me when I tell you that I also wasn't expecting that I would be running at full bore down 2nd Avenue drunk late at night in flip flops. Really, that wasn't part of my plan either. But in retrospect I'm pretty sure there are two reasons this happened. One might not have been your fault. The other? Yeah.

1. YOU HAVE MITTS THE SIZE OF A GRIZZLY BEAR. This one's not your fault. I can't help that baby jesus made me a certain way, and he decided that I would be attracted to small, dainty women, and that's just how my internal circuitry is rigged. I don't like beasts. I can't change that. Neither can you change your affliction, which is why I feel bad holding it against you, and I wasn't going to ding you based on that alone. This is America. Land of opportunity.

2. I've had that late-night drunk thing going on, you know, where you're ravenously hungry and need to fill up after a debilitating happy hour on an empty stomach. I get that, and I get why you suggested we go to the pizzeria across the street. I just don't think this was the best move on your part. If you weren't 6 feet tall with gigantic paws, maybe it works. But for a girl like you? Christ. Go home and eat in the dark. Because when we sat down at the place, and you started cramming that vegetable pizza in your cake hole with those enormous veiny mitts, and all the various toppings were stuck either between your teeth or -- even worse -- stuck to the front of your lip gloss like a yardwork face mask, it was just all way too much for me. There we hit the point of no return, and this part was really all your doing.

So, I did what any gentleman in my situation would do: I picked up my phone, said hello, excused myself to take the important call on my cell phone that had been vibrating in my pocket (all a lie), stepped outside as I chatted with NOBODY, slowly shimmied out of sight, and then -- gracefully -- hauled ass as fast as I could, in flip flops, blind drunk, down Second Avenue.

No hard feelings? Trust me when I tell you that I did you a favor -- I saw the way you were looking at that pizza, and I'd only have been a disappointment after that.

The Internet

Dear Readers,

You'd find it odd if I told you that me and my best buddy met up at a bar with a strange guy from the internet, got blind drunk, and then all went to a strip club together, but that's exactly what happened.

No, I won't explain.

Barbabies

Dear Bar Patrons Everywhere,

I can let this kind of thing slide once, but this has now been two Saturdays in a row that I've been at the same bar and seen the same guy with the same baby in his arms. Not like "oh man, just an emergency, and I'm stepping in to get coins for the meter," but like "hey, here I am, and this fifth Guinness is delicious, and whatdya think of my fat fucking BABY??" This is ridiculous, and I'll explain why.

Honestly, I don't care about the welfare of this child. He's not my child. If he ends up repeating the tenth grade three times because daddy raised him in dark seedy Brooklyn dive bars, that's no skin off my back at all. I'll probably never cross paths with the runt again. In fact, I hope I don't, because I don't need the little thug knocking off the one liquor store I happen to be standing in on some lazy Saturday afternooon.

But a baby in a bar is a problem because, for the rest of us, this bar is a sacred place. We're here to NOT think about babies, and life, and responsibilities that await us at home or in our futures. We're drinking, we're laughing, we're making smalltalk or funny nonsense talk about this and that. We're breaking the bartender's balls about his crappy local sports team or his ridiculous accent. We're flirting with the cute girl sitting next to us, and while our minds may be wandering to what the flirting might lead to, we DO NOT want to be reminded of what the thing the flirting might lead to could later lead to. Get me? I mean, imagine if when you were trying to conceive that baby somebody posted a giant STD prevention poster on your headboard, with some close-ups of some open sores or something. HAVING FUN YET??? Some things just don't mix well. Oil and water. Cigarettes and jogging. Babies and bars. Seriously, it's in the top three, at least.

I have thought long and hard about this, and I've come up with one and only one solution to this problem, and consider this a plea that you all join in with me:

Give the babies the finger.

I know it sounds extreme, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and we need to remain vigilant and defend the honor of our sacred spaces in this overcrowded world. Say it with me. Give the babies the finger. If enough of us give babies the finger in bars, then Daddy Buzzkill might be a whole lot less likely to show up toting the tot next time around. Hell, maybe then Junior actually ends up having a chance in life too. YOU'RE PRACTICALLY DOING HIM A FAVOR.

Fight the power, my drink-wielding comrades. Give the babies the finger.

Jackhammer

Dear ConEd Guy Operating The Jackhammer Outside My Apartment at 1:43 AM,

It doesn't take a keen ear to realize that you're an annoying asshole.

I suppose it doesn't matter to you that some of us have work in the morning, because you have work right now, and technically it already is morning for you. But here's the difference -- when I shuffle papers across my desk tomorrow morning and F5 my Facebook page to death, I won't be doing any of that so loud that your teeth rattle. No, I'm fairly certainly you'll never know I even went to work. This is a completely different situation. WAY TO COMPARE APPLES AND ORANGES, JOHNNY HARDHAT.

And don't give me this "buddy, I'm just doing my job" bullshit. First off, we're not buddies. I hate you. Second, imagine if halfway through the attack on Pearl Harbor we pressed pause, and carted one of the Japanese pilots in and asked him, "dude, WHAT. THE. FUCK!?," and guy just threw up his hands and said "hey man, this wasn't my idea." THE HELL IT WASN'T. This was absolutely your idea the minute you plugged that thing in and started pummeling bedrock in the dead of night, which was coincidentally precisely the moment I and my neighbors decided we aren't very fond of you.

You know what? I'm coming over your house tomorrow when you're trying to sleep, and I'm bringing a stack of papers from work and the loudest stapler I can get my hands on, and I'm going to staple and read out loud and make obnoxious speakerphone conference calls about my fantasy football team. Oh, I'm sorry, is this annoying you? I'M JUST DOING MY JOB, GUY.

The Recycler

Dear Ex Girlfriends (yes, all of you -- sorry, I know this is a little awkward),

I met my best buddy for lunch today and apparently my predilection for calling you all every time I become single has earned me a reputation of sorts. Recently-single-me has apparently also earned a new nickname: The Recycler. It's bad enough that I'm aware of how comical it is, and I'm aware that others are aware of how comical it is, and that folks have been so kind as to give me a nickname for this, but my buddy today over lunch hands me this t-shirt. I think folks are trying to send me a message.

So anyway, point is, I can't really call you anymore. We can't hang out. No more texting, gchats, booty messages, or any of that good stuff that's got us (me) through for so many months/years in between relationships.

As a symbolic gesture, I'm now gonna drink this 12-pack of miller lite and -- no, not recycle -- throw the cans in the trash. I can't vouch for what transmissions I'll send out on my cellphone thereafter when I'm half in the bag, but I'm sure there are lessons to be learned here. The bottom line? Please turn your cell phones off, starting...... now.

Manners

Dear Alvin,

Yes, I'm aware that's not really your name. But you're short, chubby, and have those round cheeks and that ultra blue-blood prepster thing going on, and I can totally imagine you wearing a big nerdy sweater with your first initial on it. Admit it, you have one in your closet at home, don't you. And your two friends there? Dead ringers for the other two, because you've got the tall lanky one with the glasses, and the middle-sized nondescript one, and you all look like you're out for a big night of Glee Club Gone Wild.

And you know what? I wouldn't even have said anything if you hadn't been rude. AND THEN FOLLOWED IT UP BY BEING FAUX THREATENING. Look, if you're gonna push past me at the bar to hand drinks to the rest of your a capella group -- and I appreciate that you don't want to spill your drink -- why not just hit me with an "excuse me"? You can do it in a single breath, and quietly, and it makes everyone including me a little less sad that we're packed into this bar like tuna in a net. But you didn't, so I excused you. "Oh, excuse you." I guess what I'm trying to say here is I DON'T KNOW WHAT PREP FARM YOU WERE RAISED ON, BUT THEY DID A SHITTY JOB OF TEACHING YOU MANNERS. And then you started getting feisty, and this is where I don't think you've done a very good job of evaluating the situation.

I'M TWICE YOUR SIZE, ALVIN. What are you trying to prove here? What exactly is your plan? This isn't a game of Who's Got The Most Popped Collar. If we go down this road I can only imagine one of two things happening, and neither of them is really any good for anyone, but in either event you end up looking even worse than you do now. IF THAT'S EVEN POSSIBLE. SERIOUSLY, DO YOU OWN A MIRROR? But look, this obviously is not why I'm here. I'm smiling, talking to a pretty girl, and enjoying the drinks and company after a long day in the office. I don't need to make you relive the horrors of your adolescent years, EVEN THOUGH I CAN. All I'm trying to say here, Al, is let's not do this, for everyone's sake.

Oh screw it. You know what? Schoolyard, 3pm. Bring your sweaters, I'll bring a big can of sit the fuck back down, and we can go from there.

Cameraphone

Dear Crazy Cameraphone Chick,

Got your "text" last night. Thanks for that. Look, I don't wanna sound like an ingrate here, and the picture message was really great and all, but I think it's time we have a little talk.

The first few times you sent me the cameraphone nudes, I thought to myself, "oh. cool." No, wait, that's a lie. I was totally and completely psyched. It was one of those items on the long scroll I keep in my pocket identifying all of the things I want to accomplish in life. "Get girl to shoot some nudes of herself to my phone." Check. Sweet. It seemed like a pretty cool accomplishment at the time.

Trouble is that was, what, FIVE YEARS AGO now? And how many times have we hung out since then? Zero. That's how many. Exactly zero. Oh, and I've since grown up a little, got a real job, got a work-issued PDA, and decided that I've outgrown a few things that I used to think were fun. Incidentally, as I've gone through this transformation from slug to delicate butterfly, you've taken things in a different direction. The first pictures were, I suppose, harmless enough. But somewhere over the years they started to get weird. I mean, like, waiting-for-the-late-night-knock-on-my-door-and-ice-pick-into-the-back-of-my-head weird. I'm not gonna get all graphic here because baby jesus reads my blog and is probably already weeping, but the world doesn't need that kinky stuff, cameraphone girl, and I certainly don't need it shooting over the airwaves at my Blackberry.

Now, maybe you've dated legions of guys over the years and you have a huge distribution list you fire these things off to now. Hell, maybe I'm just not that special anymore. But at some point -- probably around 4 years and 11 months ago -- I decided that I was OK with that. Actually, I think this realization coincided with the night you grabbed your purse off the counter and stormed out of my apartment after talking to someone in my bathroom, and later proclaimed in complete honesty that you just had to leave because, as you put it, "Otis, your roommates were freaking me out." (I lived alone at the time, and it was just you, me, the walls, and, apparently, the voices in your head).

The bottom line here is we all need to move on in life. I mean, I'm now authoring a wildly successful blog with hundreds dozens single-digits of visitors, and I just don't have the time for these antics anymore. Please stop pummeling my Blackberry with smut. Kthx.