Angel

Dear Sarah Mglo... Sarah Mc... Angel-singing-lady,

Is there a reason you had to write the SADDEST song that anyone has ever heard in their lifetimes?! Was it NECESSARY? What exactly did you think you would accomplish with this stunt? Why, Sarah, must you always dwell on the NEGATIVE. You must be a huge hit at parties. Look, the nineties were miserable enough, and you're not helping here, not at all. I mean, look at those guys from the Spin Doctors. YOU DIDN'T SEE THEM WRITING SAD SONGS. They were writing about FUN, and parties, and bong hits. Or was that Phish? WHATEVER, SARAH, DON'T CHANGE THE SUBJECT. And don't be smug. You know exactly what I mean.

Tuxedo

Dear New York City Alpha Males,

:sigh:

Come on guys, we do this every year. Every single year I go to this ball (yes, a ball, seriously), and I have to wear this goofy tuxedo, and I get silly drunk with a bunch of professional-types, and we make a jolly enough time of it. And then afterwards I'll bring a small squadron of people out to invade some bar to spread some good spirits and cheer and maybe even a little good-natured disorder. And EVERY SINGLE YEAR, without fail, one of you fancies yourself clever and makes the same exact comment.

NO IT'S NOT PROM NIGHT, ASSHAT.

Jesus Christ. No wonder you're all here alone. If there's a price on wit, you guys apparently aren't paying enough.

Chess

Dear Nondescript Blonde Girl I Made Out With At A Nondescript Lower East Side Bar Last Week,

I may owe you an apology, and this has been on my mind for the better part of five days.

You see, it wasn't right for me to sneak out of the bar like that at the end of the night without saying goodbye. But, in fairness, you forced my hand. You see, I spent the first few hours I knew you mostly trying to shed you with the old textbook pick-and-roll move I learned playing basketball -- so that I could talk to your much cuter roommate. You didn't seem to get the hint, which may not be entirely your fault, because I'm a relatively friendly guy and not very good at sending people the "BACK OFF" signal. But for every bit I tried to lose you, you'd try doubly hard not to get lost. And then I'd have to step it up and try harder. As the night wore on, it became an all-out arms race.

It got to the point where you were buying me drinks -- multiple, stiff drinks -- to get me drunk. You complained if I wanted a light beer, and called my masculinity into question. When I didn't drink it fast enough for your liking, you chastised me for "nursing it." At some point I vaguely remember thinking "I'M NOT A GIRL, WE'RE NOT IN HIGH SCHOOL, AND THIS ISN'T THE PROM."

To be honest though, I commend you for your effort. As I look back, I can see how well thought-out all of this was. I mean, first you get me drunk, and you do so subtly, by ordering me the strongest alcohol you think I'll actually drink, and you gauge it just right. Knight to C8. Then, when you finally figured out that I was interested in your roommate, it was smart of you to call her out on a bunch of stuff, pick a fight with her, and get her to leave. Rook to A6. Genius. Seriously. You then move us to a more crowded and darker bar where you could make your move. Bishop to E3. You're looking like Gary fucking Kasparov at this point, and I'm struggling to keep my liquor down and keep myself upright so I don't topple and knock all of pieces off the board. This was a masterful rout. Then you start mining my molars for gold, and I'm too stupid and/or drunk to resist, and at this point, I'm actually starting to fall prey to your "charms." I'm starting to think, "yeah, ya know, maybe, yeah. I mean why not." I've most definitely done dumber things in my life.

So here we are, you've got my king lined up for the taking, you've convinced me not to leave a dozen times, and you're all but thinking you've got me bagged here. On my 13th attempt to leave, you follow me out and say "ok sure," and follow that by whispering something into my ear that no proper lady should know how to say. QUEEN TO D-FUCKING-8...

With that, and with me teetering on the brink of disaster, you reach across the table to make your final move. I walk down the stairs first, fighting through a crowd, and you were a little behind. I get to the landing and look up just in time to watch your heel miss that first step. And, just like that, the best laid plans went awry...

As you came barreling down the stairs LIKE A HERD OF DRUNKEN, WILD ELEPHANTS, shedding every ounce of grace or style or intrigue that you may have had before that first fateful step, grasping and groping at a railing or a person in between tumbles (SERIOUSLY, WHY BOTHER AT THAT POINT?), leading up to your ultimate faceplant at my feet, it all became clear to me. I considered helping you up, but there you lay in the aftermath, surrounded by the shrapnel of the pieces you'd aligned so delicately all night, and a tangled web of what was your pride and dignity. And I slowly, quietly, backed away, into the crowd, then out the door, then into a cab. ALONE.

CHECKMATE, NONDESCRIPT BLONDE GIRL.

Twitter

Dear Twitterers,

Can someone please explain this awesome new thing to me like I'm five years old and raised by wolves?

Here's what I've got so far: So these guys invent this service where you can send short messages to your friends. Ok, sweet. But what's even CRAZIER is that you can actually send and receive all of these messages -- back and forth between you and your friends -- on your cell phone. That about sum it up? Great. Well, I feel like I'm destroying the Santa Claus fantasy for a bunch of hopped up first graders here, but when I was in college A DECADE AGO I had a cell phone that -- wait for it -- let me send short text messages to my friends. And they could send messages back. And we could tell each other shit like, oh, I dunno, WHATEVER IT IS WE WERE UP TO AT THE MOMENT. zOMG!!1!11136

Wait, before you say it, lemme try and guess where you're gonna go with this.

You: "No, but Otis, you don't get it, because this is TOTALLY different, because you can like, FOLLOW people."

Me: wtf?

You: "Yeah, you know, like, you can see what your buddies are up to."

Me: wtf?

The other day I sat at a bar with one of my buddies watching the NCAA tournament. We were hanging out with all our other buddies. He was on his blackberry tweeting. And in an experiment to try and help me figure this thing out, we set up an account for me on Twitter. And then they set it up so I "follow" him. (Me: still wtf?). And so then we're all sitting around, and so he has a funny thought, and he says it out loud, and we all laugh, and then he takes out his blackberry and twitters (am I even saying this right?) this thought to all of his tweeters. Oh, by the way, his tweet people include me and his sister-in-law. That's it. Well, I'm right here, and I just heard what you said, and I know that's my blackberry buzzing in my pocket from your twitter. What's stopping him from just texting this to his sister in law? NOTHING. That's what. Absolutely NOTHING.

So I got people following me, and I'm following people, and we're all texting each other and whatnot, but somewhere in my gut I have this unnerving feeling that I'm not really following any of this shit. The inernet -- no, the world -- has officially passed me by. But I give these twitter guys credit, because they've sold you all a bill of goods, and you folks can't pay up fast enough. I've never seen anything like it. I mean, look at the freaking logo that they put on your account when you join -- it's a stupid emoticon picture of a confused face with one big eye and one little eye. (I only know this because the good people at Urban Dictionary say so). Even the brain trust AT TWITTER isn't really sure what the hell this is all about. They are so totally screwing with you, people.

By the way, I had this killer idea as I'm sitting here writing this blog. You know how you can, like, read it? Well, here's what I'm thinking. Wouldn't it be cool if I could send you my blog, VIRTUALLY. Not like on a newspaper, but, like, over the internet. OH OH. And if you have anything to say back to me, you could send ME a virtual message too. You with me? This will be all the rage with the kids especially. Folks will be messaging each other back and forth all day. No more sending letters. NO MORE POSTAGE. We'll call it something crappy and gimmicky, like booter™ or something. And in a year some asshole will ask in a blog "how the fuck is this different from e-mail?," and we'll just shake our heads at him. YOU DON'T GET IT, ASSHOLE. You just don't get it.

Receipts

Dear Girl Behind The Counter At The Convenience Store In The NBC Building,

Why do you hate America?

I know you probably don't appreciate the complete havoc you wreak during my daily trip downstairs to your store, and maybe I'm either too laid back or too conflict-averse to bother raising this with you, but can you please, for the love of god, stop giving me a receipt for my purchases. I know, it sounds like I'm making a big deal out of nothing here, but bear with me....

You see me standing here, and I've got a protein shake in one hand, and my wallet in my other hand, and I haven't put my wallet away yet because part of this transaction is you giving me change. Now, maybe it's my own fault that I didn't have the time to precalculate the amount of the purchase plus tax and hand you exactly four dollars and thirty seven cents, but, frankly, I wasn't expecting this to be a big deal.

So I've got a wallet in one hand, a big cup in the other, and you're now handing me back the change. And my problem starts where you hand me a big fat receipt sandwich, with the bills underneath, receipt in the middle, and the change on top, like a big goddamned precarious Jenga that's ready to spill. Do you realize how difficult it is to sort all of that out with no free hands? It's impossible, that's how difficult. Impossible.

I BOUGHT WATER AND GUM. I'm returning neither. This wasn't a plasma television or a bicycle, and you DON'T work at Sharper Image. But now I'm left bumbling with all of this in my hand and I'm trying to pull a fancy coin sorting technique with my pinky so that my coins all flow into my pocket so that I can drop the receipt in the bag (I'd rather just throw it on the floor to be honest, WHILE YOU WATCH ME) and then put the bills back in my wallet. Because, yeah I'm not carrying a red polka dot hobo sack at the end of a stick that I can just toss this all into. No, like 99% of your other customers, I too have a wallet to sort my bills into. DO YOU WANT CHAOS, SALES CLERK GIRL?

Oh, and I'm under pressure here. DO YOU SEE ALL THESE PEOPLE STANDING BEHIND ME? That's a line. Every second I stand here screwing around with your receipt sandwich is a second wasted from each of their lives too. Times ten people, times every day for a year -- you do the math. IF YOU CAN, THAT IS, WITHOUT YOUR REGISTER.

Does anyone really want their receipt for gum and water? Are people scanning these things into Google databases for future reference? I know times are tough, but are we now BUDGETING gum and water? Christ almighty.

By the way, I know it's not just you -- I know that every one of the girls who works next to you behind the counter does the same exact thing. IS THIS PART OF THE TRAINING PROGRAM THERE? Should I be discussing this with your manager? Is that asshole doing this on purpose? Tomorrow I'm gonna watch his face as this goes down and, so help me god, if I see him smirking, I'm stuffing his cake hole with a receipt, a pack of Dentyne, and a bottle of Dasani.

Remember when Obama ran on "Hope" and "Change"? Guy is a fucking genius, that's what. Because yes, I'd like my change, and I hope you can give it to me in a way that makes some fucking sense. If I wanted a brain teaser I know where the Rubik's cubes are. However, unlike the Rubik's cube, I can't find a Youtube video with the solution to the problem you give me every day.

And you know this whole economic crisis we're facing? Yeah, well, it doesn't take a degree in economics to see what's really going on here. If it weren't for the billions of man hours per year that working schmucks like me wasted trying to unravel the clusterscrew of receipt and mayhem you spat in my hands every day, we might actually be, oh, you know, making stuff. But the terrorists have already won, haven't they, sales clerk girl, and you're in on it. YOU'RE ALL IN ON IT.

The Teacup

Dear Girl Who Bartends at a Certain Bar At or Near 7th and B,

Look, I'm not gonna lie, I know I come off looking like a total drunk when I roll into your bar drinking scotch out of a teacup. But you know what? I happened to be home enjoying a fine evening of NCAA basketball and decided to meet up with some folks for drinks, and this was a pretty fantastic scotch I was enjoying here in my apartment (good enough not to waste), and I don't think it makes me a bad person to want to take my scotch on-the-go to finish during my cab ride. So I did what any self-respecting drunk does, and I emptied it from a scotch glass into a small ceramic teacup. It had a little country print around the side, with a farm, and a fence, and some ponies. It was really a nice teacup.

I arrive at the bar, and I spend maybe 94 seconds saying hello to the folks I was meeting with, kisses on cheeks, sipping what was probably the last 2 fluid ounces of my tasty scotch. I was feeling good, frankly. I had just rocked some great new music on my iPod during the trip, and I was excited about the prospects of the evening, and the great unknown adventures that await me. The world was my oyster. And your crappy little bar was my supermarket-bought oyster. I walked in, I thought to myself "this place sucks," and then said out loud to my sister, "this place sucks," but I wasn't going to let the fact that these girls picked the worst bar in the east village dampen my spirits. With a smile on my face, I approached you at the bar eager to order a beer for myself and 6 or 7 assorted drinks for my friends here. You asked me what was in my teacup, and you had this scowl on your face that looked like like I'd just run over your dog with my vespa and then made him into a rug. But I'm happy, and feeling fun, and trying to spread my cheer to the masses, so I smile and respond "tea!", and give a little wink. Anyone else in the city would have just giggled it off. Anyone else...

Now, I had a hard time understanding why you felt the need to tear the teacup out of my hand and smash it into the garbage behind the bar. That made me (and the ponies and the farm) sad. My oyster suddenly smelled like it had been left out on the counter a little too long on a hot summer day. But I had a harder time understanding why you had to THROW ME OUT OF THE BAR. OVER A TEACUP. I didn't understand then, but through the haze of this hangover it somehow all makes perfect sense...

It was funny that as the "bouncer" (he was literally half my size) you summoned escorted me to the door -- you know, because this teacup incident with a mild mannered, friendly, sober patron required immediate backup -- your short bartender chick companion with the lazy eye screamed out "cheap asshole!" Now, that's funny on about 14 different levels, not the least of which being that anyone who knows me knows I am ANYTHING but cheap, I am notoriously terrible with money and spend it like a drunken (teacup-toting) sailor, and I'm a generous tipper. But what makes it funnier on this particular night is that I'd just raked in about $4k in online poker before I left my apartment. So, really, as I saw it, I was playing with house money here tonight, and I was so excited to buy drinks for anyone and everyone who'd have them and then leave a big fat tip for you and lazy eye at the end of the night. I mean, what fun is success if you can't share it with others?

But, like I said, I get it now. Honestly, and I don't want to get all Tucker Max here, but if I were you, I'd hate me too. I'd be angry -- no, furious with the world. Especially the bastard who walks up looking all ... HAPPY. And SMILING. No, if I knew that I was stuck spending the rest of my life being you, I'd probably hang outside the teacup factory with a baseball bat after work and smash every teacup within reach. I would make it my life's work to eradicate teacups from the face of this earth. I'd probably set up a cool lair in the side of a mountain, and I'd have some thugs and a large screen with a Google map of the world with little tags on all the major teacup locations.

We ultimately found a bar that did not suck (I say "we" because: thanks sis for getting yourself kicked out too -- that's what family is for, and I'd have done the same). And out of spite -- no, principle -- I tipped the bartender at the next place $100 after he served me a PBR in a can. He seemed like a friendly guy, seemed like he was working hard late on a Saturday night, and so I figure he deserved it. You and lazy eye? No, you don't deserve it.

So that's that. As I said to the bouncer after he apologized profusely to me at the door, "hey man, life's life, this sorta stuff happens." I'll just cross your sucky bar off my list and work my way through this hangover and move on.

By the way, whenever I'm hung over, I like to start my day with a shower and hot cup of coffee. Well, I'm just out of the shower, and I'm sitting here right now enjoying my coffee, and you wanna guess what I'm drinking it out of? (It was a set of eight -- suck it).