Same Crap. Different Day.

Yeah, I know the last thing a wrote about was a giant floating turd breaking loose and wreaking havoc, and I'd really rather not have two back-to-back poop stories, but remember when Shaun the Homeless Black Guy and Sandra Bernhardt left a present in front of our office? Well, it happened again. Of course, we can't be certain exactly who's been laying bricks out there, since everyone's a suspect.

But somebody did it. And it's been there since Monday. That's not really a smell that you want to start your week off with. The guilty party did have enough shame to cover it with the foil wrapper from a burger. I didn't really examine the thing to see if it was from McDonalds or Burger King, but regardless of what the wrapper said, underneath was definitely a Whopper.

Again, in addition to our little graphic design outfit, this building houses, an art gallery, two salons (one of which is called Isoci, which I guess is pronounced EE-SO-SEE, but I always say it as i-socky) and whatever the hell they do on the fourth floor. Those places rely on walk-in business. Well, you probably have to get an appointment first, but you still have to literally walk in, and an unholy smell emanating from a lumpy burger wrapper plopped right by the front door just might dissuade you from going in. You'd think a building manager would want to do something about it right away, right? But after several calls made throughout the day to inform someone about the situation, all that happened is someone came and dumped some water on it. Which made it worse, because now it's all mushy and spread out! You've got to scrub that stuff, man! Then, they just dropped a stack of magazines on top of it. Even today, three days later, the streaks are still there. And this morning, on the sidewalk just a few feet away, there was more! I think this latest batch came from someone's dog, and some poor sap stepped right in it so it's smeared all over and there's chunks shaped like faint footprints. I don't want to go outside anymore.

I guess I'm fortunate to be gainfully employed, and, same as last year, I'm trying to get a second job. Still no luck, though. I went to a few places last night, so hopefully something will stick. Why the hell can't I get hired? Come to think of it, I'm not even sure how I got my current job. I started as an intern, then everything went black, and then it was this morning.

I want to be Billy Mays, the bearded screaming infomercial guy. That guy never needs help finding work. And I could totally do his job. I can yell at the top of my lungs about Orange Glo. I have a blue shirt. What else is there? I guess I'd have to grow a beard. And smile a lot. Actually, I don't want to be Billy Mays at all, I just wanted to talk about how he's branched out from shilling Oxi Clean and Kaboom to inexplicably pitching health insurance. It makes sense. Why not get your health insurance from the same guy who sold you Zorbeez? But wait, there's more! In his newest commercial, he's plugging windshield wipers called GatorBlades (not to be confused with the Gator Mulcher Blade, a lawnmower blade that's home page is www.gatorblade.com) To demonstrate the awesome wiping power of the GatorBlades, the amazing new wiper blade that outperforms others, guaranteed, Billy whips out this thing that looks like a leaf blower/Supersoaker and yells, "THIS IS A BUG BAZOOKA! INSIDE ARE HUNDREDS OF BUGS!" Then he pulls the trigger, and bug guts splatters all over the window with an extremely satisfying THUD. "THEY HIT THE WINDSHIELD AT OVER A HUNDRED MILES AN HOUR!!"

The commercial then goes on and on about the secret of GatorBlades clean-sweep diamond technology that cleans and wipes at the same time. But screw the GatorBlades. They're just windshield wipers for Christ's sake. Where can I get a bug bazooka? That is possibly the greatest and most important invention in the last 500 years, if not all of human history. How many people do you just want to shoot in the face with hundreds of bugs at over a hundred miles an hour? I can think of a few. I'd keep one at my desk and every time Joe clomps in here to say something asinine, BLAM! Face full of bug guts. And maybe our mystery pooper would think twice about dropping trow in front of our building after getting their ass tattooed bugshot. I guess the only downside is everyone knows the bug bazooka's only weakness. GatorBlades.

Watch Billy Mays fire the bug bazooka into a windshield here

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Giant Poop Terrorizes City

No, not this, it's a story in today's Metro:

BERNE, SWITZERLAND. A giant inflatable dog mess, the centerpiece of an exhibition at a Swiss museum, broke free of its moorings, brought down a power line, smashed a window and landed in the garden of a children's home. The wind carried the house-sized fake poop 200 yards.
METRO

Forget the creepy eggman, this is the now the best thing ever. I especially love how every news outlet that's picked up this story has used different euphemisms for "dog turd." But I am disappointed that no one referred to the escaped crud balloon as "loose stool."

Here's some more about the incident, which happened July 31 but is only being reported internationally now, from the UK's Guardian:

...The exhibit, entitled Complex Shit, is the size of a house. It has a safety system that is supposed to deflate it in bad weather, but it did not work on this occasion...

The installation is part of an exhibition called East of Eden: A Garden Show, which features sound sculptures in trees and a football ground without goalposts. The exhibition opened in May and is due to run until October.
The centre's website describes the show as containing "interweaving, diverse, not to say conflictive emphases and a broad spectrum of items to form a dynamic exchange of parallel and self-eclipsing spatial and temporal zones".

Because I love you, here is a picture of the giant pile of dog crap.

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Mmm...Floor Chocolate

I'd never heard of Amy Vanderbilt, but she was one of those Annie Cavanagh-type purveyors of etiquette and taste until she fell out a window. Does my ignorance of Ms. Vanderbilt mean that I'm uncultured? Perhaps. For example, I had no idea that black suits are only proper for servants or the dead. That doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, and why lump servants in with dead people? Apparently this obscure rule that most people have never even heard of came about as a result of President Abraham Lincoln being assassinated in a black Brooks Brothers suit. According to Brooks Brothers' Wikipedia page, anyway.

Incidentally, that's the second instance that someone's made a point to mention that Lincoln died in a Brooks Brothers suit. The Duck Tour guides usually mention it when they drive by the Brooks Brothers at the corner of Newbury and Berkeley Streets. Is that really a big selling point? "Brooks Brothers reminds you that if you're going to be assassinated, why not go out in style?" Even their logo, which I think is a sheep suspended by a pulley system, reminds me of the goat from Jurassic Park. I guess it's supposed to represent the Golden Fleece, but I can't help seeing Sacrificial Lamb.

Anyway, I walk past that particular Brooks Brothers every morning on the way to work, and this morning there was a MONSTER turd (monsturd?) on the front steps. This thing was immense, and oddly rectangular, about the size and shape of a croissant from nearby Au Bon Pain if it was dipped in chocolate coating. Actually, that sounds pretty delicious. Or gross. I'm torn.

The worst part is, this wasn't the work of a dog. No, this was human plop.

Coinciding with the appearance of this mystery loaf is the reemergence of the homeless couple that used to sleep in the doorway of our building. I can't find the link, but I know I've mentioned them before; a black guy named Sean (or Shawn, he doesn't wear a name tag so I can't be sure of the spelling) and a white woman who I'm almost positive is Sandra Bernhard. Now I'm not saying it was them, only pointing out the serendipitous timing of their latest camp-out and someone indiscriminately dropping a brick in front of a classy place like Brooks Brothers.

The last time these two hunkered down in the breezeway of our building, completely blocking the front door, they slept well past seven AM every morning, when the first wave of workers from one the six businesses in the building begin to arrive. They'd groggily move their blankets and soda bottles out of the way so someone could get by, then go back to sleep, only to repeat the process a few minutes later, and again a few minutes after that. Usually they were compliant, but occasionally one or the other would get aggravated that their sleep was being disrupted by, you know, people who work and don't smell like crotch. They were there every morning for a few weeks, maybe even months, and then one day, they were gone. But not before leaving behind a gift of...something...smattered all over the wall and floor. Maybe it was explosive diarrhea, maybe it was vomit, I still say it's a little of Column A, a little of Column B. Whatever it was, it was a chunky burnt sienna mess, and the last we saw of Sean and the missus for a while.

But now they're back, and perhaps the giant dump down the street is an indication that they've learned something on their sabbatical: Never shit where you sleep.

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