Where is my Dakotah report?
Burn victim
In my tiny corner of the world, everything happens on Thursdays- especially at work. Oh, sure, Friday might be just as busy- but when it comes to sheer edge-of-your seat excitement, there's nothing like Thursday to make you scream: “where is my report you fuckers! I want to finish and go home!” That report will never come, and I will be late getting home, which just rolls into the next day, and the next. And the next. It's a big smear of lateness that will someday end in horrific tragedy.
Thursday nights are “Magic Nights” at my house. “The guys” come over and play Magic, the Gathering- at least they used to play it. Now they mostly smoke a lot. It's okay, because that (and urinating into the bushes) is the purpose for which the desk was constructed. (I don't pee into the bushes)
If you haven't seen the chiminea at full tilt, you should stop by and get us to fire it up. Kory just bought a shredder, which quickly generates as much tinder as we could hope for. It is difficult to build a fire in the chiminea sometimes - a bit like building a ship in a bottle. I have seen a lot of lighter fluid and citronella oil expended in an attempt to get the logs going. Sometimes I have seen lighter fluid and citronella expended to create glorious fireballs. I haven't lost any arm hair recently.
That reminds me of Matt Hotujec's fireball story. He tells it with a certain glee that probably won't translate to written text, but I will have a go at it anyway, because it deserves to be told and retold - handed down from generation to generation, until it is not just a fireball that livens the story, but a volcano. That would be cool! A volcano and a balrog. Never mind.
Once upon a time, when Matt was a little bit younger and less experienced in the ways of the world, he was roommates with Bryce. They moved into an apartment with a gas oven. One day, Matt decided to cook something in the oven - probably a delicious pizza with lots of meat and cheese, but that's beside the point. Hmm. Actually, I think that meat and cheese is always the point. Mmmmmmm, cheese…
When Matt turned on the oven, he discovered that he needed to light it. Since he didn't have a match he closed the oven door and got some matches from another room. He returned to the oven and opened the door with an unlit match clutched in one hand.
If you know anything about gas (hehehe) you probably know what happened next, so maybe I shouldn't bother relating it. You probably want to hear more about the meat and cheese pizza anyway, since that is what is really important. No? Okay, fine, I will finish the story.
As young Matt struck the match, the sharp tang of burning sulphur took him back to his youth in Wisconsin, frolicking amongst the cheese trees and kissing a shy girl named Wendy - a girl he would never forget - a girl who… Well, anyway, right as Matt struck that match, Bryce walked in the door and witnessed a tremendous ball of flame that suddenly engulfed Matt with a loud FWOOSH! Overwhelmed with concern for Matt, Bryce collapsed on the floor in delirious laughter.
Matt, however, had heard the FWOOSH and a gentle sizzling sound as all the exposed hair on his body melted off - arm hair, beard, eyebrows - everything. The foul reek of burnt hair filled the apartment, and a fine powder of ash floated on gentle air currents throughout the kitchen. For a while afterwards Matt drew his eyebrows on with a sharpy. He drew angry eyebrows, which got him faster service at restaurants - but that is a tale for another day.
I don't know if the pizza made it into the now-lit oven. I hope that it did, because it is the right of every frozen pizza to meet its full potential of deliciousness. Mmmm…
Tonight's Magic Night has been eviscerated. Kory got a Liz Phair ticket for his birthday, so he will be at First Ave. Most of the rest of the guys are from Wisconsin, so they will be having a masturbatory cheese 'n' bratwurst festival at Gabe's in honor of a Packers game. I will be at home making a pizza. Delicious.
On second thought, maybe I won't use the oven.
Also, I just got my report. They had sent it to jesse.p.mullen, not jesse.p.mullan on Tuesday. Argh.
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