The Most Outlandish Tale About Anxiety and Depression Ever Told

Wait wait, the story doesn’t start here!  This is a blog hop, people!  Click HERE to start from the beginning.

—–

The taller of the two figures looks straight at me and says,

“Is there something I can help you with?!”

He seems a little annoyed. I try to play it light,

“Um, your extension cord is showing…hee, hee…”

The shorter one frantically begins looking over the bundle. The droplets of sweat that have accumulated on his forehead spill to the ground in a salty typhoon for any passing by ants to enjoy. He spies the extension cord and reaches for it with one hand.

“No! Stop! We are dropping it!” the Tall one grits through his teeth.

The bundle starts to shift in their arms. Both men grasp for purchase, but gravity reaches up and yanks the package hard from their limbs. It hits the ground like a 300 pound professional wrestler hitting the mat in an over exaggerated, yet somewhat aerodynamic, death fall.

The metallic thunk reverberates off the pavement and bounces off the apartment walls.

The tall one hisses, “Jesus, we are going to wake up every make-up wielding dateless chick in the neighborhood!”

“Hey!” I said indigently. “Do not, and I mean, DO NOT call me a dateless chick! I am a dateless woman!”

“Sorry,” the Tall one replies.

Suddenly all eyes look at the plastic bag lying on the ground, which is now tiger stripped shredded from the contents within. What looks like a rather large lava lamp wearing a Christmas turtleneck is revealed. It also has two big hubcap wheels on the bottom of it, and two antenna sticking out of the top of it. The largest extension cord ever protrudes from a small compartment on it’s…butt? Duct tape is randomly stuck to it here and there.

“Poop on a stick, she has seen it!” hisses the Smaller one.

“Well, you know what we have to do now…” Tall replies with a rather wicked grin on his face.

—-

Click HERE to continue the story.

 

Everyone Has An Amazon Best Seller But Me

When you immerse yourself into this WordPress cult, er..culture, suddenly every one you know has an Amazon Best Seller book to their credit.

I don’t have an Amazon Best Seller book to my credit.

I would like one…however that would require writing a book. I have put together some semblance of a book, but it currently sits in pieces between the apps/programs of Evernote, Microsoft Word, and Jotterpad X…like some century old Romans rushed in, tied it together and quartered it with their horses before galloping off to get Eggnog shakes from McDonalds. Jokes on you, century old Romans, the Shamrock shake should be available soon, and it’s a much, much, better choice in the shake-mosphere.

I do however have one published story, and one rejection letter:

Well you know what? Heads Will Roll is a damn fine story. Maybe you don’t like zombies Mr. Jonathan Starke, but don’t tell me about my time, effort, passion, and energy that I put into that story when you don’t know! Especially since I put no time or effort into it, AND I probably ate three packages of Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop Tarts while writing it, dribbling Pop Tart crumbs onto the keyboard in the process. I probably also drank/drunk several Coke Zeros too. Most likely I put more effort, passion, and energy into burping Brown Sugar Cinnamon slash Coke Zero fumes at the dog, who would in protest open it’s mouth and snap it shut over the invisible pungent odor surrounding it’s small stupid cranium.

And explain to me what  ‘festive pursuits’ means? This sounds like it  might put me in a Dr. Seuss inspired world.

Christopher McManus McBean De Voss

Often found himself at a loss

Which would make he proclaim,

“Gadzooks!”

Then decorate the town,

In his festive pursuits

Palooka is a dumb name for a magazine anyway.

While browsing my WordPress reader, I soon noticed just how many people that I associate with, either regularly or occasionally, have published books. (That sentence needs more commas. It’s like more cowbell, but for literary buffs. )

For example:

Carrie Ruben has a book that another friend of mine recommended that I read.  Imagine my friend’s surprise when I said, “Hey, guess what…I know Carrie!”  I looked really cool. Rodney Lacroix has two books and is in the process of writing six more…this week.

Marc Schuster has also written a couple of books either by himself or with other people, AND on top of that, he teaches other people how to write more better…I have not taken his course. It seems like my friends Maddie Cochere and Kayla Lords are always publishing something new.

I don’t read her, but apparently she is the quintessential name in blogging, The Bloggess has a book, and from the reviews it looks pretty funny…and might feature dead stuffed rodents. Don’t quote me on that, I’m just guessing from the cover. The Hook, who has written a book, recently featured this guy, Tom Lucas on his site. Guess what ol’ Tom did? Tom wrote a book.

(On a side note…Dear Mr. The Hook…For some reason my WordPress reader likes to unfollow you randomly…so if you were ever wondering why I follow and unfollow you a lot, it’s not me. Some one doesn’t want us to be together. WordPress Reader is being a dick.)

Ned Hickson is a real life journalist who happens to have a real life published book. Yay Ned!

Looking at my fellow Pausers; Jack is trying to get funding for his finished book on Kickstarter, and Justin Gawel revealed to me over lunch at Dick’s Last Resort that he is putting the finishing touches on his novella. Monk Monkey’s best friend, who shall remain nameless due to his request, also has several published books.

What is the point of this you ask? Why are you rambling about all that?

Just write a book already, you say?

I am, so get off my back.

I am announcing that I am currently in the process of putting the final touches on my brand new, multi-chapter….

Coloring Book!

Shut up! It still counts as a book.

Look for it on the Amazon Best Seller list soon.

It will probably be along the same lines as this one:

Grandma De Voss Finds Some Old Movie Posters

Grandma De Voss was up in her attic again, cleaning. The last time she sent me some books. This time she found some old movie posters from the around the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. I thought they might look good on the loft wall.

Thanks Grandma!

The Other Me Is A Fashion Designer

When you are trying to take over the internet, it’s not narcissistic to use Google Alerts.

It’s not.

Ok, it is a little…but it’s a great tool to find out where you land in the search engines, if anyone is interested in the product you’re putting out, and helps to capture who your audience is outside of the WordPress community.

I use Google Alerts to track this nonsense, as well as (and more importantly) my sister project: Long Awkward Pause.

If you are not familiar with Google Alerts, it emails you when certain words that you ask it to track are typed into the Google search engine. The other day, this pops into my email:

There are a couple of things that make this even more funny and coincidental then it already is…probably only to me…but I’m going to share anyway:

– There are a lot of people with the last name of DeVos, with the one ‘S’, not a lot with the two ‘SS’ ‘s, (that’s a lot of processor apostrophes) like mine. So the fact that there is another name exactly like mine is incredible. It would be like if there where two people named Hippo Bandersnatch in the world.

– If you go to Long Awkward Pause and look at the writers list, you will notice my brother, Jack, is also on the staff. If you really pay attention, you will notice he is billed as Jack DeVoss, while I’m billed as Christopher De Voss. (With a space between the De and the Voss) There is no space in Jack’s last name. That’s because he spells it correctly, and I do not. Why have I chosen to add a space? When I was younger, and trying to be a famous actor, I thought it looked cool. That’s all, just the coolness factor. (which there is none…(and I’m not famous, but kind of stuck with it now. (this is just to add another parenthese)))

– Target is my favorite store.

Now going back to the article that the Google Alert, altered me to; this I think, is supposed to be a picture of the Target fashion designers: Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Voss:

The article didn’t credit who is who…

One looks like a shorter version of the lead singer of Coldplay and the other looks like any lead German-born bad guy in an action movie such as Die Hard. (Die Hard 12, Die Hard With A Fashion!)

Here are some examples of their die hard fashion designs:

It all looks like something Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas would wear.

In case you are not familiar with the reference:

Sally

I think if any of my friends would say that if I designed fashion for women, it would look something like this:

Not true!

I would actually design something more in the lines of this:

Although, I would probably sneak something like this into my fashion line:

I will use this same name thing to try to score free clothes from Target:

“You don’t know who I am?! I designed this plaid button down shirt! I’m fashion designer, Christopher De Voss! Now put these clothes I have in my basket here on Target’s tab! I’m headed to the food court!”

Questions For Guadeloupe

I work with this lovely young woman named Guadeloupe. Whenever I run into her, I like to ask her a random questions. When I do this, she always stops, looks at me funny, and says,

“You ask the weirdest questions!”

Then she thinks a moment, and answers my question!

It’s hilarious.

(Sometimes the questions spark debate amoungst other coworkers. That’s even more hilarious!)

Here are some of the questions I have asked of her:

If you were reincarnated, would you rather come back as a bowl or a plate?

Would you like to star in your own novel about horses?

Which is larger…sliced bread or toast? Remember this could be a trick question!

Do you think candlelight is more romantic at 8 o’clock or 8:15?

If you were stuck watching one TV show for the rest of your life, you would rather watch a show about camels or dwarfs? You must pick one. And why?

Which spice would be the toughest in a fight, cayenne or curry?

If it’s true that the Freaks come out at night, what do you think they do in the day? Besides sleep?

Do you think that Hakuna Matata did indeed become a passing craze?

Would you bail the Easter Bunny out of a jail if he asked you too? How about his cousin?

Which finger would be cooler to have a cell phone implanted into too…the pointer or the pinkie?

If you were stuck in the middle of the ocean, with no food or water, on a raft made of Cheez-it crackers, would you be tempted to eat it?

If you lived in an animated world,  would  you feel handicapped by the fact you now have only four fingers instead of five? What if you had yellow skin?

If ponies ruled the world, do think oats and barley would be as popular as Italian food?

If penguins and ostriches went to High School together, do you think they would make fun of each other?

Thank you, Guadeloupe for always being a good sport.

Yay! Sports!

I’m not a sports guy.

I think I finally want to be, it seems fun.

I like the fact that you get to use the terms “we”, “our”, and “us” when referring to “your” team without actually being a paid member of the team.

That’s really cool.

“How did your team do this weekend?”

“We did great. You know we are really looking  good this year. Our running/kicking/goalie/batter leads the league in runs/kicks/bleeding so far!”

“I know! We really wish we had him on our team!”

You don’t do that with anything else on the planet.

“Our Coke-a-Cola tastes so good! How’s your brand?”

“We are also refreshing! Go Pepsi!”

I want to be part of the comradery that happens every Sunday in American homes. I want to wear someone else’s name on my back with some random number underneath of it. Except I would probably pick the worst member of the team just to be difficult.

“Hey, De Voss…who’s that on your back? Sticklockski? Number 109? Whaaaaaaat?”

“Really?! You have never heard of Sticklockski? C’mon! Sticklockski! 420 career bench warms! 16 stubbed toes in a single season? And you call yourself a sports fan!”

I think really, really, really fat guys in NFL jerseys are hilarious:

Are you ready for some football?! Or chicken wings?!

I think women in NFL jerseys are hilarious too:

Ha ha ha…so….funny…Man, is it suddenly warm in here?

I’m just glad dressing like your favorite sumo wrestler isn’t big here:

FYI: He has a Big Mac tramp stamp over his ass.

Starting a new trend

Which Would Win In A Fight…Writing Or Child Birth?

Writing for me is hard.

It’s really hard.

Writing to me, is like spending days, weeks, months, even years in labor. Pushing and prodding, sweating and cursing, groaning and straining and out pops the top of the head…but only the top of the head. You look at the head and think,

‘That’s a nice looking head, but what could be better about the head? I mean, I like the shape and the little wispy hairs, but..is that a dent on the side? What are those red blotches? Can I make those red blotches look better? I can’t. I don’t know what would make those red blotches look better! Dammit! Is there too much hair going on up here? Is there too little? I hate this baby! No I love this baby, I will never give up on it!’

So you push some more, and it hurts…oh boy does it hurt! But you produce a whole head! You look down between your legs and marvel at the head you have just produced. You see two bright blue sparkling shiny eyes and a nice button nose…wait…my baby’s nose is really a button! That’s not good. We can fix that in the next draft, no worries. OK, what else here? Oh yes, cute little mouth with some toothless gums…that works…and a right ear and only a right ear…

What the hell? Where is the other ear?! I just spent three weeks on this baby and it only has one ear! How can I fix this? I can’t! I just squeezed out this whole head and it’s missing an ear! There is no repairing this! I can’t just shove this head back into my cranial vagina…it’s already hanging out there! I even made the mistake of telling a few friends that I was thinking about birthing something! I remember telling the neighbor yesterday,

‘Yeah, I decided to birth a short story. I don’t know, maybe if it goes well I might turn it into a novella or possibly a novel. We will see. There a couple of publishing nurses I was thinking about shopping it around too, but you know it’s so hard nowadays with all the HMO Blogs and the Affordable Health Care Self-Publishing Services nowadays…the completion is fierce. Dr. Mom says I should go for it. She says I have always had the writing cervix for it, so I figure…what the hell? How hard could it be?’

So now I’m hunched over, cradling this one ear baby as I try find some inspiration. Do you know how hard it is to waddle around with a one ear baby dangling between your legs? Starbucks won’t serve you in this condition.

I tried.

“Um yes…I would like a Mocha Machismo Skinny Carmel Al Pacino Latte, Extra Froth, Double Lid, please.”

“Sorry, we only serve Hipsters, Accomplished Writers, and Moms here.”

“Really?! Since when?”

“Do you know you have a one eared baby hanging between your legs?”

“Yes! I guess I’ll go to Café McDonalds instead.”

“Good, and you might want to be careful! You’re banging that baby against your leg every time you take a step…on its good ear.”

Writing sucks.

It’s also hard to sleep with a one eared baby between your legs. It’s annoying. The thing is always crying,

‘Feed me! Finish me! Fix my ear! Change my sentence structure, its dirty! Where’s my Starbucks?’

I can’t get you Starbucks, its only for clever people, clever people that can sit down and bang out a 92,000 word novel in two hours and its sequel over tea with the Queen of England while inking the movie rights to Steven Lucas del Toro.

I can’t even fix your ear. I’ve tried. I tried hot glue, duct tape, cookie batter…

Then it comes down to the point of:

Do you just live with this baby head, ignoring it for the rest of your life?

Or

Do you take a Samurai sword to it, aborting it into the digital trash can, never to see the light of day again?

Or

Do you keep pushing, hoping the rest of it comes out alright? You know, two arms, two legs, a feasible plot line, a cute little belly button romance perhaps…or at least an “innie.”

(“Outies” are so in your face.)

Or

Do you just put a gigantic hat over it, covering it up, and call it, “taking a break.”

If you could see all the gigantic hats I have in my drafts folder, you would call me a whore.

More often than not I want take this one eared baby between my legs and punch it in the face and scream at it,

“I hate you one eared baby! Things were going to well! Why did you have to have only have one ear?! Do you think Steven King ever produces a one eared baby? No! How about Tom Clancy? I think not! What about J.R.R. Tokien? I’m pretty sure all the Hobbits had two ears and that extra ‘R’ in his name stood for Radical!”

Whoever invented writing hates puppies.

So why do it? Why write? Why bother?

I don’t know. These thoughts just get inside my head and I feel the need to put them on paper regardless if they are good, or bad, or rambling…or stupid. Does everyone else in the blogisphere actually really enjoy doing it? Am I the only one that hates it? I would rather sit on the couch and eat jalapeño Cheetos and watch really bad reality television than write…but I know my brain will turn to mush.

Well…mushier.

Mush potatoes.

McMush potatoes.

Now to be totally honest, there was no point to this except I’m stuck at a point in my story called, “Fatty McFat Fat Fat” and I needed to take a break. I decided to continue the birthing process, be it good or bad, or if it has one ear or three…so thank you for listening for a minute.

I feel better.

I’m going to waddle out of here now, please stop staring at the baby head between my legs.

The Story of the First Black Friday

Many, many years ago the Pilgrims sailed across the ocean surviving cramped conditions, disease, and weather.

After almost turning around twice since Google maps was lacking the proper updates, they finally reached the New World when Mrs. Jones made Captain Jones ask for directions from some sea Sirens.

But things were not any better once they landed upon the shore. They endured even more hardships: food was scarce, the winters were hard, the wifi signal sucked, and no HBO.

One day, as chance would happen, a native of the land was sent out by his wife to pick up a six pack of deer skin, when he happened upon the dying settlement. Seeing a need to help these people, and knowing his wife was going to be out all afternoon with her friends down at the river gossiping about the new shorten hem lines of the latest buffalo skin dresses of 1621, he decided to school these white devils.

The name of that Native American was Squantoski. He had learned to speak English from an illegal obtained copy of Rosetta Rock. Little know fact, it was later renamed Rosetta Stone as the program became more streamlined.

Squantoski made the mistake of introducing himself to the Pilgrim Vinny first. Vinny had the bad habit of giving everyone nicknames, and dubbed Squantoski as Squid Lips. Squid Lips did not take a liking to this nickname at all and threatened to scalp Vinny if he didn’t come up with something cooler, and thus was introduced to the rest of the village as Squanto.

Squanto taught the village how to fish, build better shelters, plant maize, and build hedge mazes.

The Pilgrims were so grateful that they invited Squanto and his posse over for a big feast of turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole with those crunchy fried onions on top, canned cranberries, and small pox.

The Pilgrims thought this to be a big success, and decided to hold this dinner every year there after. The Native Americans agreed, until they started dying off from the small pox. Those that survived plotted revenge.

They thought and schemed all year and came up with a four fold plan.

Step One: Introduce the game of football. This would distract the men folk from helping to prepare the Thanksgiving meal and making the woman angry and resentful.

Step Two: Come up with the concept of Black Friday where the village merchants would hold incredible sales deals the day after Thanksgiving. The woman would go crazy over the opportunity to save money and also be sleep deprived as they stayed up all night running from store to store, and deal to deal in order to get the biggest bang for their wampum*.

Step Three: Have a plan in place so by the year 2020 Black Friday would actually start at 9:00 am on Thanksgiving Day. This would cause division and fights in families as to whether or not to shop, watch football, or eat turkey.

Step Four: As the white man slowly destroys itself every Thanksgiving Day, the Native Americans retake their land with all the casino money they have acquired over the years.

Happy Black Friday everyone!

*wampum is the currency of the pilgrim.

The Do-Over Fund

There should be a time in everyone’s life that you get a do-over, especially if you have totally messed up your fiances…but not on purpose, mind you…

I really need a do-over.

I was thinking…

I don’t really understand the whole concept of the value of money anyway.

We print these little pieces of paper, all made from the same type of paper, and place different denominations on them. Some have a little 1 on them, some have a 5…some have a 100…we like those…those 100s. Now, it’s my understanding that you’re not allowed to add zeros to the ones that only have a 1 on them and turn them into 100s, although they are printed on the same type of paper. It would be nice if you could do that when you need too. Basically, when it boils down to it, if you were able to erase all the print on a 1 dollar bill and a 100 dollar bill then the paper is worth the same amount of money.

Nothing.

Well, maybe it would have the value of toilet paper.

I’m told that it’s not actually the value of the paper itself, but it’s what is backing that paper…which is gold and silver, maybe diamonds and other shiny stuff from the ground*.  What makes this shiny stuff from the ground so valuable?

I’m not quite sure.

After you brush the dirt off of it, it’s pretty. Is pretty enough to be a value? If it was, I would be able to spend Angela Jolie the next time I ran into her.

“Hey, how much for that hammock?”

“Why, that’s two Angela Jolies.”

“Damn, I only have half an Angela Jolie on me…”

“Really? Which half? Maybe we can make a deal.”

Now I know when the Pilgrims or Romans or Ancient Egyptians or Dinosaurs were first finding the shiny stuff in the ground, it was a lot harder to find. Thus making it more valuable. They didn’t have the luxury of using backhoes and that big crane looking truck that pounds the pole into the ground over and over…

What is that thing called anyway?

So…yeah…the gold and stuff was a lot more valuable. It was also harder for them to make charm bracelets out of the gold because they needed a big hairy sweaty guy to pound it out** on an ACME anvil with a big fire blasting forge behind him.

Which is why he was always sweaty. Maybe they should have invented the oscillating fan sooner then they did. I know they weren’t around because you never see an oscillating fan in movies that feature the medieval blacksmith.

Nowadays we can dig quickly and more freely.

Maybe we have found all the gold already…I don’t know. What I’m getting at is that these pieces of paper are just pieces of paper, and gold is just a shiny metal that we, the humans, have placed a big value on. What else I’m saying is, I’m broke and rambling.

Do you think aliens from another planet think gold is valuable?

So back to my original thought, I need a do-over fund. Just something like 200,000 of those little pieces of paper with the ones on them, nothing super crazy. I just want to get out of debit, buy a couple of cars for my kids, move to a smaller house, and maybe go on that cruise that my wife mumbles about in her sleep. Apparently it’s called the Allure and they have a Broadway production of Chicago on it. I would prefer if it had a Broadway production of Book of Mormon, but you know…whatever! It’s a cruise!

I don’t have to be so wealthy that I don’t have to work anymore, I just need a reset. Everyone should have one opportunity to reset.

Now what of those that don’t have to reset, like they are in a good place financially. Then they should be rewarded too, maybe with a couple of life bonus options:

Option One: You get to eat for free in any restaurant at least twice a week. Whatever you want. Just don’t forget to tip the waiter on whatever the bill would have been or you forfeit this reward.

Option Two: Ladies: Free Pedicures and Manicures for 10 years. Guys: Free season tickets of your favorite sports team for 10 years. (Go sports!)

Option Three: You get your own daytime TV talk show.

Option Four: Free oil changes for life.

Option Five: You get a street named after you, like a real long street, not just a cul-de-sac or an alleyway.

Option Six: A movie will be made of your life and it will be directed by Peter Jackson and have Leonardo DiCaprio in it, that way it will be extra long.

You get to pick two out of six options by the way.

 

 

*This has not been researched in any way. Please do not take any of this as fact.

**Snicker

Ode To My 64 Box Of Crayons

Oh there is Maroon, Antique Brass, Plum,

And Aquamarnie,

Asparagus, Yellow,

And Atomic Tangerine,

Who can’t live without Beaver, Bittersweet, Black,

And Blizzard Blue?

Or Blue Bell, Blue Grey, Blue Green, Blue Violet,

In fact Blues of every hue?

It’s better to Blush than be Brick Red,

As also to be Brown, than Burnt Orange,

But to be Burnt Sienna is something to be said.

Cadet Blue is pretty,

While Inchworm is silly.

Caribbean Green, Carnation Pink, Cerulean, or Cerise,

If it had one, would be the color of the breeze.

Chestnut and Copper,

Are understated colors,

While Cornflower, Cotton Candy, and Dandelion,

Stand out amongst the others.

If the world was colored Denim, Red, or Eggplant,

Then Scarlet, Magenta, and Forest Green

Would be jealous of that.

Fuchsia is to Purple,

As Gold is to Goldenrod,

However Fuzzy Wuzzy is not to Midnight Blue,

Those colors are too cool.

Grey and Green like Vivid Tangerine,

While Mango Tango hates Magenta,

If you ask

Tan and Pink,

They are always ones to think,

That nothing rhymes with Orange.