Oh, the memories...

Next weekend, my parents are moving out of the house they've lived in for the last 31 years. So I visited them and started rummaging through some stuff they had already packed. My dad's big about cleaning out stuff and one of his favorite things to clean out is the photo album. And I quote,

"I threw away the old pictures of you and replaced them with new ones. They were getting dusty and outdated."

To him photos are like clothes. The picture of me at the age of 4, wearing pink pants and a white/green speckled sweater is "so last season".

I miss that picture. I looked like casual Santa. You know like what Santa wears in November when he goes to his brother's house for Thanksgiving.

I miss the anxiety from 6th-11th grade when you would get your school pictures delivered to you during 5th period. That moment of nervous tension when you'd open the envelope and slide out the 8 x 10 glossy and be horrified.

"Oh no. Teacher, when's Re-Take Day? In fact, screw that, where does the photographer live? I'll pay extra just to have him burn the negatives."

God has a funny way of rubbing embarrassment in your face so you know never again to blink when the flash goes off. Because right behind the 8 x 10 glossy photo is the 45 wallet sizes or as I called them Ugly On The Go. I spent the next 5 years of my life, with my eyes bugged out towards the camera, making sure I never blinked again. I looked like I was about to be hit head-on by a tractor trailer in every picture, from the 7th grade on.

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My friend Jason, in college, had an iguana for a pet. Full-grown reptile that crawled around his shitty apartment, dodging beer cans, pizza boxes, and cigarette butts. It was like watching Jurassic Trailer Park

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There was a threat this week of dirty bombs going off at NFL stadiums. Cities like Houston, Seattle, and Oakland were targeted. Oakland? The Raiders are 0-6. Yeah that's how you scare America .. blow up their empty seats and unoccupied hot dog stands.

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The one legacy I did leave behind in elementary school was the cover sheet. Now I know I'm not the only kid people cheated off of in school, but at my school I was basically HomeComing King when it came to test day. So many kids sat around me at test day, it looked like a football huddle

"Okay, Use Me For My Brains On Three! One, Two .."

So in order to prevent other kids from looking on my paper, my teacher Mrs. Hermann made me use a cover sheet.

COVER SHEET: A blank piece of notebook paper that you placed over your test to shield off wandering eyes.

Now I didn't mind it. I thought it was flattering, but just so she didn't look like she was singling me out, she made EVERYONE use a cover sheet. Really Mrs. Hermann? EVERYONE? We had a kid in our class with a moustache. The rest of us were 10. He had a cover sheet? Hate to break it to you, Mr. Teenage 4th Grader, but ain't NOBODY cheating off you. What do I hope to pick up from you? Lack of ambition and nicotine breath? He didn't need to USE a cover sheet. He needed to WEAR one. So nobody would even think about becoming him.

Now before you become sympathetic to him and his academic plight. Realize that this was the 4th grade. And he was 5 ft.11". He could've at least intimidated his way into a C. When you're walking with your entire 4th grade class and you look like the chaperone, it's time you moved on.

He was so big that next Halloween weekend, at the age of 29, I'm going as him. I've finally reached his size.

Fight or Flight

My one childhood memory from the airport was when my uncle from Libya came to visit. We were dropping him back (this was back when you were allowed to sit with them at the gate before they boarded) and he gave me and my sister $50 to buy ice cream. According to my parents he was our one rich relative. He was such a baller, he let me sip beer for the first time.

I never saw him again.

No, he didn't die. He just never visited us again. He always asked my family to come visit him in Libya. But it's Libya. The one country that the U.S bombs every few months just to remind them ..

"Hey we still hate you."

The U.S bombs Libya with the frequency of an oil change. No reason too. Just because it's a slow day at The White House.

"Are you guys bored like me? Feel like bombing Libya?"

Have you ever met a Libyan here in the U.S? Of course not. Because they call themselves Egyptians. Because you can't hate the Egyptians. Racial slurs don't look so "slurry" when written in hieroglyphics. Egypt's the one country in the Middle East that Americans are cool with. Well .. them and Turkey. Because they're a Thanksgiving tradition.

So I'm in California for the next few days and the promoter who flew me up here for these shows arranged a rental car for me. I get to the Hertz counter and the clerk says that she doesn't have the car, in stock, that he requested for me so she was going to upgrade me to a Ford Focus.

UPGRADE? (Insert obvious punchline here)

There's even an alarm sticker on the passenger side window that reads "This car is armed with a passive security system." Because that's what I need guarding my car, an apathetic alarm. When it gets broken into, the alarm doesn't beep, it tries to negotiate with the carjacker.

Everytime I go to the airport I always get suckered into watching other people's bags. People I don't even know, while they go get food. I go from innocent bystander to CAPTAIN BAG PROTECTOR. It's a hard role to play because I'm annoyed watching my own bags, and now I have to fake an interest in theirs? I mean what am I supposed to do if someone runs off with their bags? Now I have to pick up my bags to chase the thief. I can't leave my bags alone. When you got brown skin like me and people see you running away from your bags, leaving them unattended? Folks get suspicious. I might as well be sprinting away from my luggage, counting down...

It's raining right now. Excessively. Night time rain puts me to sleep. Day time rain makes me want to be a folk singer. I would've brought an umbrella but I had no idea it was going to rain. And when it's dry and you have an umbrella, you look like you're going to break into a musical number at any minute or thwart the heroics of Batman