Costanza and Turtle: A Truly Beautiful Love Story.

    When I was in college several years ago, I took a writing/current events class to fulfill a requirement for my major.  At the time, I had no interest in writing, so I spent the majority of class time talking with my cousin Turtle, drawing stupid things on my notebook, or staring aimlessly into space.  Sometimes I engaged in all three at the same time.  I have a high IQ, and I am able to engage in highly difficult and impressive stunts.
    This class was exceedingly boring, to say the least.  Usually, the students of the class would painstakingly sit in the uncomfortable desks and listen to the screech of this Red Rocket of a woman, but occasionally, things would perk up enough to catch my attention and provide a laugh or two for the class. 
    On the first day of class, when the professor walked into the room, I was floored by what I saw.  I originally thought that I was in an episode of Seinfeld, but after checking my surroundings, I realized that I was still in a dull colored room in a portable building connected to the side of the library.
    This professor had short and curly reddish hair, was dumpy and squat, and her voice squealed with the pig-like charm of Mrs. Costanza.   At first it was funny, and Turtle and I spent a few minutes giggling like small girls.  Then she started to repeat the same phrases, such as “It’s not fair!“ and “It’s such a heart stopper!”  Each time she said this, we snickered at her foolish comments. 
    I thought that this class would be a good time and a fine addition to my schedule, as it was easy, but not too easy, and boring, but not so much that I fell asleep.  My hopes were soon drowned out by the dreadful stories this woman would reference.  She seemed to know as much about writing as I do about heart surgery.  Faded paint has more going for it than this class did.
    I spent a lot of time doodling on my notebook, as did Cousin Turtle.  One day during class, while I was completing an intricate work of art consisting of the four colors of my Four Color Pen, Costanza made mention of the Texas mother who drown her children in the bathtub.  This story was all over the news for months, and it was sad, to say the least.  She drown her kids!  What is sadder and less deserving of a joke? 
    She began to describe the killer mother’s traits and explained why she was sick, then mentioned  that she home schooled her children for their entire lives.
    Cousin Turtle, who had not even coughed in class, let alone speak, called out with the gravest of faces and most serious and steady of voices, “Yeah, that was her first problem.”  Everyone in the room laughed at this comment, while Costanza stood frozen by the comment.  I may have laughed the hardest out of everyone, mainly because I am immature, but mostly because it was so far out of bounds, even for Turtle, that I could do nothing more than laugh.
    She recovered after a few moments, trying to work her way around the interruption of the joke.  I give her credit for even continuing the class after that, because “It was a HEART STOPPER!”
    This moment lives on in my mind as the funniest thing to ever happen during this class.  I think Costanza agreed with him, but was too mature and serious about her part time teaching job to laugh also.  I’m convinced that she took an odd liking to him, and I could have sworn that I saw her and Turtle out at a candle lit dinner a few weeks later.
    At the end of the semester, after I had written every paper she assigned and completed every homework assignment (despite the boring topics and easy parameters), I received a B+ in the class.  I was content with this grade, and later that day, I met up with Turtle at “Snack East,” the on-campus eatery with such finery as tuna sandwiches and chicken baskets.
    Turtle told me that he had received an A in the class.  This angered me thoroughly, because Turtle wrote approximately 75% of the papers, and completed even less of the homework assignments.  If it was anyone other than Turtle, I would have smashed his face in my tuna sandwich and stabbed him with the pickle, but I had to laugh in the end.  He barely did any of the work, and he got a better grade than I did.  What an ass.
    You may be asking yourself what the moral of this story is.
    Make inappropriate comments to your professors about the saddest and most serious of topics, then laugh about it with your friends and classmates.  Then, complete less than three-quarters of your assignments, and spend as little time as possible paying attention in class.  If you follow these carefully crafted rules, you are sure to ace any class.

Intolerably Awful Drivers, and How Road Rage Will Save Your Life.

NOTE: I do not advise doing the things that I write about.  Keep in mind that I am not a bad person, just an angry person.

    I hate awful drivers.  I hate them so much that it is probably not healthy how much I hate them.  I spend a lot of my personal time thinking about how much I despise these people, and I get angrier and angrier the more that I think about them.
    
    Exhibit A: The other night, on my way home from work, I was driving on interstate 395, between the towns of Griswold and Plainfield.  I came upon a Massachusetts driver (MASSholes) who was in the passing lane and maintaining a 60 MPH cruising speed.  May I remind you that the speed limit os 65 MPH, and the acceptable protocol, in my world, is to drive AT LEAST 65 MPH if you are in the traveling lane, and between 65 MPH and 79 MPH in the passing lane.  This waste of space wasn’t passing the car on the side of him, but only keeping the same speed as him, effectively blocking any cars from passing him.  Not driving the speed limit, blocking my way, holding me up.  You suck, and I hope you crap your pants in public.
    I waited for approximately 30 seconds for him to move out of the way(which was 29 seconds more than my usual wait time).  When he did not vacate the lane, I flicked my high beams at him one time, only a quick flash, and then waited a few more seconds for him to respond.  He stayed where he was, oblivious, or so it seemed, to any other driver other than himself.  I flashed the high beams again, and this time, the guy took off like a rocket, accelerating to over 80 MPH.  I proceeded to press down on the pedal and continue on with my trip home in a terrible mood, but managing my anger in the usual fashion.
    
ANGER LEVEL: 3/10
    At this point, I am thoroughly annoyed and yelling at my dashboard about douche bags who shouldn’t be allowed to drive, and lighting up my second cigarette.  I can see the idiot in front of me as I maintain my speed of 75 MPH, and I am quickly catching up to him again.  Why did he go from 60 MPH to almost 90MPH, only to then drop down to 60 MPH again?  Because he is a complete tool and should not be allowed to procreate.
    He moved to the traveling lane after rocketing off, so I put my left blinker on and passed him, looking over at the driver and praying for him to flip me off so that I can black out and end up covered in his blood.  He only looks at me with the dumbest of expressions as I pass by him, looking more like a mouth breathing inbred imbecile than a regular person.  In disgust, I put on my right signal, and move in front of him.
    I see the lights glint off my rearview mirror before I see him pass me, so I know that he is passing me now, trying to be the stereotypical tough guy on the highway.  I turn on my interior light so he can see me and throw up my middle finger as he passes, then  roll down my window and yell out a tirade of profanities, and think of ways that I can hurt this bottle of Summer’s Eve.  I hate him, and he has broken my unspoken rules of the road.  Yes, I am so narcissistic that I have my own set of rules when driving that I expect all driver’s around me to follow.

ANGER LEVEL: 6/10

    My anger is spiking quickly, so I press the gas pedal down and keep up with Mr. MASShole.  He moves back over in front of me, and then slows way down again.  Now, I’m about to approach the point of no return in terms of anger, and this sad sack of crap is the intended target of my outburst of epic proportions.
    It’s not safe to pass someone on the right hand side in this country, and I don’t condone this type of behavior.  Either way, I did this, and the jerk decides to speed up too, so that I am not able to pass him.  There is a car and a tractor trailer truck in front of me about a quarter of a mile ahead, and I want to pass this guy before I get to them.  Alas, he will not let me pass, and I am punching my steering wheel because it now looks just like the driver of the car on the side of me.

ANGER LEVEL: 9/10
    
    I decide to risk it, and while this guy is pacing me and not letting me pass, I put my left blinker on and start to merge into the passing lane, coming dangerously close to the side of the ass mouth’s car.  He stomps on the brakes, because he is a little girl and I am a real man.
    This display of cowardice is exactly what I am looking for, so I let him pass me, and then proceed to get behind him and continue on with my high beams blasting into his back window for about a mile.  I put my blinker on early so he knows where I am going in case he wants to test me some more, but he only continues north on 395, no doubt making his way to his ballet rehearsal.
    I approached the ultimate 10/10 ANGER LEVEL, but did not reach it.  I am kind of happy that I did not reach this level, because, let’s be honest, it’s not healthy or advantageous to become so enraged by someone you don’t even know who happened to do something that you didn’t like.
    The moral of this story is incredibly simple: Please don’t act like a piece of crap when driving.  Don’t drive under the speed limit, don’t try to disturb other driver’s with childish antics, and don’t test someone who is better than you at everything in life.  You will look like a complete jerk to anyone who sees it, and it will bring you that much closer to being a no-count piece of backwoods trash who has nothing going for him in life besides the cool car his mother let him borrow to go out cruising.

Explaning Away the "KGB," and tramp stamps. How are these two things related?

     For anyone who might be concerned that I am part of the KGB, please rest assured, I am not a member, leader, or in any way involved with the KGB.  Those are just the initials of my full given name. 

     I think these initials are pretty interesting, and I really like having them.  I like them so much that when I was 18, I had these initials tattooed on my lower back.   Yes, I have a tramp stamp.  When I was 18 years old, in the year 1999, lower back tattoos were becoming quite popular, but they had yet to be called tramp stamps.  

     But now, almost 11 years later, I am stuck with this faded set of initials on my back.  My wife and family constantly make fun of this tattoo, and I find myself defending it each time.  The truth is simple, and I need to just admit defeat on this matter: I HAVE A TRAMP STAMP, AND I AM PROUD OF IT!