The Town of Smithfield and their Majestic, Magical Hams

In the heart of rural Virginia lays Smithfield, a small town that boasts little more than a Taco Bell/KFC combo, a sparsely crowded Belk and a local newspaper with headlines that read “'Civil War' Shooter Charged” and “YMCA Teen Party Goes Sour.” The townspeople exude a welcoming Southern charm, and will graciously offer you large portions of scrapple if you’re hungry, blood lettings if you’re sick and disdainful looks if you are a vegetarian or a homosexual. In short, Smithfield is a bit of a shithole.

Despite everything, Smithfield has its perks. The town’s highest structure is its water tower, which reaches skyward from the town’s center, a forked road that divides two highways. The slogan on the tower lists Smithfield’s three greatest contributions: “Ham, History & Hospitality.” It also features a picture of a hog. If it seems odd that a town would brag about their ham on a water tower, take into mind that the town’s previous water tower simply boasted a crude drawing of a ham, so at least now they explain themselves to some extent.

If you were to create a map that details the most important pork spots in the country, Smithfield, Virginia would be its capital. Home to Smithfield Foods and Gwaltney of Smithfield, this small Virginia town has fed families their bacon for generations. The people of Smithfield have made butchering hogs and turning their flesh salty and delicious a local past-time. Rather than little league, Isle of Wight county public school children participate in pig wrangling, a sport with a stiff difficulty level that only gets worse as officials apply more pork grease to the hogs.

The people of Smithfield love their hogs (despite thriving on their systematic murder), and take particular pride in being home to the gold standard to all ham: Smithfield Country Ham. A specific type of smoked Virginia ham, Smithfield ham, by law, can only come from hogs raised within the borders of Smithfield. With its velveteen, salty flesh, Smithfield Ham acts as Zeus in the pantheon of the ham world, which means, unlike most hams, Smithfield Ham can turn into an eagle and have sex with young boys. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Growing up in the area outside of Smithfield, where people drive cars and use can openers, I have always enjoyed the porktious bounty that pours from the slaughterhouses of Smithfield. On Christmas, my family feasts on a freshly prepared (two years is fresh in ham years) Smithfield ham. Best eaten cut from the bone, the act of feasting on the salty flesh of long dead Smithfield pig affects you like a drug. As you start to carve at the surprisingly supple and juicy meat, you’ll begin to lose track of time, and next thing you know it’s three hours later, you can’t feel your tongue and half of the ham is gone. My family is so dedicated to this ham that once, my grandfather almost cut off his finger while on a a ham binge and he continued eating as if nothing ever happened. Unfazed, we washed his blood off the ham before taking him to get stitches. On a related note, some say that if you rub Smithfield ham on wounds, it can cure jaundice—it can do nothing for the open wound.

To say that Smithfield benefits from its delicious hams is an understatement. The township practically worships the carefully crafted meat. If you Google “World’s Largest Ham Biscuit,” the wikianswer that comes up simply reads:

“Smithfield, Va has the world record for the largest HAM biscuit....I live in smithfield, and we are the ham capitol of the world.”

When the people of Cadiz, Kentucky built the world’s largest ham biscuit, Smithfield quickly shot back with its own, bigger biscuit—the city of Cadiz burned to the ground shortly thereafter. The people of Smithfield insist on holding every ham-related record. One of Smithfield’s local museums also boasts the world’s oldest cured ham, and world’s oldest edible cured ham. It's probably best not ask how one judges a 100 year old ham edibility.

Traditionally the people of Smithfield elect a Hog Czar to sit on the city council. Dressed in a top hat and monocle, the Hog Czar roams Smithfield’s sparse the town sparse streets freely. Although the position of Hog Czar is popular among the town’s social establishment, his role in government is largely ceremonial, with his only real power occurring when the council grants the tie-breaking vote to a pig in a top hat. After his term reaches completion, the hog retires to the slaughter house where he lives out the rest of his life as ham.

The Ham Czar

Smithfield’s obsession with delicious, life-changing hams does have its downside. For one, the town’s only industry is pork packing. Secondly, the Pagan river has about four feet of pig remnants lining the bottom. In 1999, the Virginia Environmental Agency (obviously not ham eaters) sued Smithfield Foods for a $12.6 million violation of the Clean Water Act. While the cleanliness of the Pagan River is still in question, the locals insist that Smithfield Foods stopped dumping an atrocious amount of pig blood into the river and spend their summers splashing in the river’s majestic, greenish brown waters.

Fat Fat Fatty

I’ve always had a problem or two with my weight. I’ve never been one of those people that both disgust you and force you to take pity on them, but I’ve never been quite content with the size of my jeans or what belt notch I was using at any given time. I suppose I could always be a bit slimmer. Not abs of steel slimmer, just less… I don’t know, bulgy.

My weight seems to come and go like the tide throughout the year, which I suppose is the case for most people. During the fall months, I always feel fairly confident in myself and wear t-shirts that didn’t fit a few months earlier. However, by the time that Christmas comes around I cram myself full of Smithfield ham like I need the extra layers of fat to survive hibernation. Sadly, I tend to stay this way well into Spring and early Summer, when I finally decide to stop eating everything that I see and try to become one of those people that actually enjoys exercising and healthy living. Assuming that they actually exist, of course.

Whenever I see someone gaily jogging past me on the sidewalk, or on the off chance that I actually go to the gym see someone lifting weights while screaming at themselves in the mirror I always become overwhelmingly puzzled. What the fuck is wrong with these people? What could be driving these people to put themselves through such torture? I understand having low self-esteem but this just seems extreme. I can’t even wrestle with the idea of consistent exercise: you put your body through a heightened state of activity, working your lungs, heart, and muscles harder than what their used to, all while getting sweaty and smelly--and you tell me that it’s good for me? That can’t be right. I refuse to believe that anything as unpleasant as this whole exercise thing can’t be good for you. Has anyone actually done studies on this sort of thing? They have? Entire schools of thought you say? Well then maybe attitudes like mine are why so many fat people exist in this world.

It’s just that I’m not uncomfortable with myself to the point of actually wanting to do something drastic about it. Of course that doesn’t mean that I’m thrilled with myself either. I’m just not the type to look at myself in the mirror and feel the immediate need to start a diet consisting only of carrots and sugar packets. Although, every now and then I will stop eating fried chicken, which seems healthy enough to me.

I think there are two reasons that I’m a bit self-conscious about my waist line, the first being that I was always picked on in elementary school. Now, I’m not going to turn this into some self-pitying sob story about how nobody gave me a fair chance, and that the kids would throw rocks at me and call me Kris The Pig Fucking Fat Shit, but I acknowledge the fact that every class needs a doughy kid and that it was my job to fulfill this need. I’m just saying that spending your childhood, adolescence, and teenage years being considered the tubby friend kind of takes its toll on you.

The second reason I’m convinced is the heart of the matter: my mother has always been obsessed with her own weight. Now in order to understand this you need to understand my mother. Hanging out with my mother as a child meant that you had to become an immediate judge of other women, and my mother seems to have a radar for spotting out asses that are bigger than hers. “Kris,” she would say, “Kris. Do I look like that over there? Man look at that thing. I bet she takes up two chairs when she sits. I don’t look like that do I?”

She never has looked like that. Ever. But my mother still seems convinced to this day that she stands as the fattest woman in the grocery store, department store, restaurant, or beach. Of course, being a good son I always assure her that she does not, in fact, look like a borderline diabetic elephant seal—and I even mean it. This always puts her in a better mood, and makes me wonder what was wrong with her vision.

Still, my mother had me trained to pick out the fatties by the time that I was three, and together we treated life as if were constantly attending some sort of vaudevillian freak show. Once while in the doctor’s office with an ear infection, I loudly pointed out an oversized parent to my mother. “Mom! Mom look at the butt on that one! She’s HUUGE!”

Panicked, my mother pointed to the painting of whales on the wall and nervously agreed “Yes, Kris, but I don’t think whales have butts.”

“No mom! The lady! She’s got a big ol’ butt!” Sometimes I almost feel sorry for my parents—but then again they raised me, so ultimately anything embarrassing I did as a child is their fault.

After years of judging overweight people with my mother I think I understand where she was coming from—comparing yourself to those who look terrible compared to you makes you feel great about yourself. It doesn’t exactly get results like obsessing over someone that looks better than you does, but it does make you realize that life could be worse and that you at least look better than that schmuck whose ham thighs hang out from the bottom of his elastic waist shorts.

So while I don’t exactly have the healthiest outlook on the way that I look, but maybe I’m just a sucker for those Dove ads that promote accepting your body weight. Sure I might not be able to run very far without crashing into the bushes and dying, and I don’t really like carrots, tomatoes, celery, cucumbers, radishes, or cabbage; but at least I know where to draw the line. Because if my mother taught me one thing, it’s that fat people are gross and not to be trusted. Thanks mom!

And You May Ask Yourself

Once when I was sixteen I asked the girl who sat in front of me in my English class to be my date for an upcoming school dance. Now, I was never one to be forward with my romantic intentions. In fact, even speaking to a girl without the conversation wandering into awkward ramblings about the necessity of socks or the process of growing cranberries was nothing short of miraculous. So working up the courage to actually ask a girl out happened as often as a meteor crashing into the planet and ending life as we know it.

It took me weeks to figure out exactly what to say her but eventually I had my plan of attack completely figured out. I would intercept her after class and ask while she walked to the cafeteria. I had gone over exactly how I was going to do it a thousand times in my head, and I even managed to make it through a few practice runs where I would ask out the empty space beside me. If all went well I would use my best dapper voice and suavely sweep her into my arms and carry her into our future filled with wedding gowns, children, social security checks, and eventual death and abandonment.

That afternoon I followed my plan exactly, but as I approached her I suddenly realized that I hadn’t actually worked out what I was going to say to her and it dawned on me that I had planned the situation as if it were a military strike. I planned on moving in, destroying the target, and moving out before the enemy had enough time to put together a halfway decent counterattack. I never took into account that I might actually have to put some thought into what I had to say when asking someone out. I was flying in with no missiles and by the time I realized it I was already past the failsafe point. Before my eyes my flawless attack for romantic bliss suddenly turned into a kamikaze run of my social life.

“Bethany.” Oh Christ, I was in it now. “Yeah, Hi. Uh. Hm. Well.” I could tell already that things weren’t looking good. She smiled politely as I stumbled to find my words but her eyes told a different story: a story of horror, embarrassment, and desperation. I stopped breathing completely. My palms were sweaty, and the back of my head had a sudden inexplicable itch. I had to get this over with and by the time the first word reached the tip of my tongue the rest of them came flooding out over top of one another like a surge of vomit. “Wouldyouwantgothedancewithmeonfriday…………..?”

By the time I got home I had gotten over the rejection for the most part. She told me that she went the year before and didn’t really want to go through the trouble dealing with the money and effort it takes to find a dress, which seemed like an acceptable answer to a sixteen-year-old who didn’t know any better. Afterall, what did I know of the hardships involved in picking out a dress? There could be more to it than simply finding one that looks good and buying it. Maybe dresses had to be woven by hand around the girl while she stood perfectly still for days on end. It could have been a month long, life-draining process for all I knew.

I ended up not going to the dance and instead opted to spend the evening alone watching cartoons and counting discarded change left around the house, an activity I often resorted to when the relentless disappointments of suburban teenage life got me down. After all, the sting of unrequited love was nothing that $7.84 cents in rolled pennies couldn’t numb.

Later in the evening as my fingers began to brown from fumbling through pennies that had once undoubtedly been inserted into someone’s anus, I received a call from a friend.

“Kris!” he managed to shout above what sounded like “The Electric Slide.” “You will not believe who is here...”

That bitch. She lied to me. That rat faced, two timing, angel-haired witch had lied to me. She was there with Dennis Slattery—the head of the debate team. Not only did she reject me in favor of the quintessential Asian geek, she also wore a brand new blue dress. She could not get away with this. Who was she to toss my heart aside as if it were the browned core of an apple? She would not get away with this. I felt something inside me break. I wanted blood.

***

Now when you’re sixteen, revenge can be a tricky subject. My first instinct was to take all of the change I collected that evening, fill them into a sock, and savagely bash her perfectly shaped head in—but frankly I’m not that violent of a person, and I think homicide isn’t exactly something that gets you into a state school. I considered slashing her tires, but since she drove her mother’s handed down Volvo 244, I figured that would only get her parents angry; and since revenge by the hands of parents tends to involve lawsuits and community service I ruled that out as well. Obscene phone calls were also out of the question because, really, obscene phone calls aren’t so much revenge as they are a part of the masturbatory repertoire of men with thin moustaches named Walter.

This operation required something with more finesse, something with more charm, and, most importantly, something completely untraceable. Realizing that I couldn’t do this alone, I called together three of my closest friends: Patrick, Richie, and Michael. My friends and I shared an equally jilted and disenfranchised view on teenage life, and as such our collective angst was deadly and vast enough to fill a shark tank.

My blatant jilting at the homecoming dance was more than any of us could handle, so we put our collectively bitter and angst ridden minds together in order to finally strike back at those who made our teenage lives so superficially miserable.

However, it would seem that a childhood reared by video games and action movies didn’t exactly work wonders for our imaginations. The best idea any of us could muster was murder. Sure, we hated the girl—but the idea of shoving her corpse into a wood chipper or sharing a jail cell with someone who refers to you as Loraine didn’t exactly sit well with any of us. Some other ideas that we considered but ultimately scrapped for legal issues were as follows:

1. Set her car on fire.

2. Burn a hateful message into her yard.

3. Burn a caricature of a kitten into her yard (The kitten, somehow, made it seem less “hate crimey”).

4. Stab a cryptic message onto her front door.

5. Set her front door on fire. (Something about fire appealed to me at the time, I’m not sure why).

After several hours of debate, our ideas were running as dry. Since we were completely incapable of coming up with a revenge plot that wasn’t either implausible or a felony, we decided to call it a night and go to the grocery store to restock the house’s dwindling soft drink and junk food supply.

After gathering enough Cheez-its and orange soda to drown away our disappointment we headed towards the registers, but just as we had come to terms with our defeat something stopped us. Perhaps it was chance that brought us by the discount meat counter, or perhaps it was the will of God Himself; whatever it was, we came face to face with the objects that would make our rein of terror complete: pig’s feet. Rows of them, glistening in the halogen light of the 24-hour grocery store. They laid there untouched for weeks, and bore discount stickers as if they medals of valor.

After that, everything became clear.

***

One major draw-back to working with half rotten pork products as a medium of revenge, however, is that you have to work in direct contact with the stuff. A luke-warm pig’s foot isn’t exactly the most welcoming object to handle with your bare hands. The smell didn’t help matters either. After ripping open the cellophane the car immediately smelled like a retirement home—an odor reminiscent of soiled bed sheets and clammy skin. I still will never understand how exactly a person could bring themselves to cook one of these things much less actually consume one.

After becoming comfortable with our weapon of choice, the operation essentially planned itself. We would pull up to her house under the cover of night and strike in three-unit pincer attack: the first would hit the car, the second would strike the mailbox, and the third would take out the most vital target: the front porch. Nothing says “Fuck you” like rotting pig parts sitting on your front porch.

We pulled up to the house just after midnight, and the lack of light in the house assured us that nobody was stirring about. We burst out of the minivan like a squad of trained marines with a pig’s foot clenched in each fist. Michael took the driveway, and he threw the pig’s foot underhanded towards Bethany’s Volvo as if he was lobbing a grenade under an oncoming Panzer. Patrick ran straight for the side yard and launched his foot towards the roof, managing to land it in the gutter. Both had unloaded their payload before I even reached the front walkway—but then something happened that I hadn’t accounted for: motion lights. As soon as my foot hit the front step the lawn became flooded with a blinding light. Panicked, I haphazardly chucked the foot towards the front door slamming it onto the Plexiglas door leaving a pale white splatter where it hit. The impact of the foot violently shook the door and I was horrified when I saw the teeth of the family’s dog heading straight towards the closed door.

By the time the Harrington family dog’s husky bark flooded the neighborhood I was already halfway across the yard. My get-away car had already begun driving away by the time that I reached the street, and my friends reached out of the open door towards me, telling me to jump in as if I were a tramp hopping onto a moving train. I threw my body in towards the open door and the van sped off with my feet still dragging against the pavement.

***

When I went to school the next day I expected it to be ablaze with rumor mongering.

“Did you hear about Bethany’s yard? Poor girl. They say she may need therapy.”

“Her parents might get divorced because of it.”

“The CIA is at her house now—they think it might have been terrorists.”

But when I arrived I was thrown off by the lack of buzz reverberating through the hall. Still, I was giddy to see what was left of my victim’s shattered psych; or at least satisfying a gross out story about finding a fly-covered pig’s foot stinking up her front porch.

When I got to class the seat where Bethany normally sat was empty—a rare site considering her perfect attendance and penchant for punctuality. A good sign. Maybe she got sick when seeing the foot and threw up on her door step. Perfect! It was personal damage without anything permanent or traceable bogging things down. I stared at the door nearly shaking with anticipation just waiting for the delicious sight of her stumbling through the door looking colorless and disheveled.

The sound of the bell snapped me out of my trance. Where was she? Where was my revenge? Jesus Christ, maybe something bad did happen. Maybe all of those rumors running around the high school in my imagination were true. Maybe her grandfather did have a stroke after finding out about the desecration of his favorite granddaughter’s house; maybe the pig’s foot did drive her insane and she ended up hanging herself; my God, maybe her dog found the pig’s foot ate it and died! Jesus, I just assassinated a girl’s dog! What the fuck is the matter with me? I was a dog murderer. I was on the same level as child molesters and men who eat used chewing gum. I was an abomination.

After an eternity of living out scenarios like a secret world government hunting for me, or being eaten alive by angry, footless pigs the door to the class opened bringing me back to my senses. It was her. My chest swelled with relief, she was alive. In fact, she looked amazing. Her hair and make-up were perfect and she was even wearing a new outfit. Wait, Goddamnit, after all of that effort and three dollar expense she has the gall to come waltzing into my classroom looking amazing? That bitch! Maybe I should have killed her fucking dog. I should have broken its stupid neck and left its bleeding carcass right in her God damned bed. My quest for revenge crumbled before my very eyes as she jaunted into her seat.

I spent the period staring furiously at the back of her head as if my eyes would burn a hole through her skull. What could have gone wrong? As far as I knew pig’s feet didn’t dissolve when exposed to open air, and I didn’t dream the entire evening. Did I?

***

Despite our apparent failure, this wasn’t the last time that my friends and I consulted the discount meat counter out of acts of revenge. In fact it almost became a bi-weekly tradition. Every time we would strike in the night like the undead we would hope that maybe this time someone might actually find what we’ve done. But in all the time of us sneaking around and calling ourselves the Pig’s Feet Bandits no one ever found anything. It wasn’t exactly as effective as other methods of high school revenge, but I’d like to think it was at least healthier than taking your grandfather’s World War II rifle and shooting your geometry teacher. I still haven’t figured out what could have happened to all of those pig’s feet, and I suppose in the end that never mattered. But if you’re reading this and you’ve always wondered from where that pig’s foot on your porch appeared, it was me. And if it also managed to kill your cat, well then I’m sorry—you shouldn’t have spilled milk on my history project.

Whoever Said “No Pain, No Gain” Should Be Killed

I have never been one for frivolous sequels or uncalled for cash-ins, but the topic of how soul crushingly terrible I was at sports in my childhood never seems to get old. One would think that after repeatedly failing at a fairly lax sport like baseball would teach me to pack away my cleats and stick to the warm glow of the television and the safety of a firm Nintendo controller. After all it’s hard to have a career ending injury while playing NFL Blitz, except when the person you’re playing with relentlessly goes off sides and suplexes your quarterback every. play.

But something inside of me never let go of playing sports. It may be that the spirit of competition was sewn into my very genes. My father both wrestled and played football in his youth, my uncle played football and even went semi-pro, my grandfather coached football, baseball, and basketball; even my cake-baking grandmother was captain of the basketball team. Nevertheless, failing at playing soccer (crushed between a crowd of hyperactive six-year-olds), basketball (I made a basket once, during practice), and baseball (a well-documented incident involving a lot of blood and temporarily blinding a parent) left me with only one sport that I had yet to try: football.

Now, I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to try my hand at a sport that actually required me to dress in full body armor, but considering my large stature compared to the other eleven-year-olds at the time I figured I was made for the sport. After all, all I had to do was knock the smaller kids over, right? How much skill and coordination could that require?

One qualification that little league football had over other sports I had played in the past was a weight limit, because God forbid the fat kids get to play the sport practically designed for them. So taking into account that I was shaped like a Thanksgiving turkey I was made ineligible to play with my age group. But feeling sorry for me, the local sports organization gave me the “opportunity” to go into the next age group--which meant that if I wanted to play, I had to play with the twelve to thirteen-year-olds. Now age is a funny thing. Looking back, the difference between a 10 and an 11 year old is pretty negligible; but through the eyes of a ten-year-old, an eleven year old is like a mountainous God. They were in middle school; they had a facial hair; they were not quite pre-pubescent; and most importantly, they could kick the shit out of a fifth grader without batting an eye. So let’s see what happened when I played hyper-aggressive contact sports with them, shall we?

The first time I ever put on football pads I came up against a person who was about my size, so he too was playing along side the twelve-year-old demigods. Feeling confident at going up against someone my own age, I lined up to him not knowing what was to come in this boy’s future. If only I had known that this boy would go on to dominate the varsity football team, eventually going on to play college ball where he was an All-American linebacker for two years in a row. This person was the first person who ever hit me in football. After regaining consciousness, I found an oxygen mask strapped to my face and the blurred image of my coach with two fingers in front of my eyes barking at me to tell him how many that he was holding up.

Being the grandson of a successful high school football coach, I still felt confident in what I was doing—even though, in retrospect, I had absolutely no idea how the to play the game. The various rules and complex plays were completely lost on me, and as it turns out there is more to the sport than Super Tecmo Bowl put on, and apparently just doing 87 yard Hail Mary passes every play, in reality, never, ever works.

When confronted with actual football plays, I was aghast when I realized it required route memorization, organized blocking, pulling, opening up holes, double teaming—what the fuck was this? . I just thought I just had to go out there, knock some kids around, leave the strategy up the quarterback and call it a day. I had no idea what was going on. After the center snapped the ball, I would always try to follow the play the best I could, but by the time, it was over, I found that the quarterback had been killed and that I had blocked my own teammate.

I actually didn’t learn what clipping was until an official called back a forty-five yard interception return because I decided to start arbitrarily knocking people over for the hell of it. I mean, why not? It was football. They were standing there, so I knocked them over. Pussies!

Seeing that I was a strategic black hole my coaches put me on defense, probably hoping that the less complex philosophy of “less talkin’, more hittin’” of the defensive line would be a better suited position for me.

Playing on the defensive line introduced me to new levels of pain. What I thought would be an opportunity to crash down on good-looking quarterbacks or break the spine of puny running backs. I quickly discovered that defense really meant repeatedly crashing into an impenetrable wall of flesh only to be bowled over by a full back three times my size as he careened down the field like an unstoppable freight train. Who would have thought that good-looking quarterback would be protected by an impenetrable wall of flesh, and that my crushing that puny running back may actually involve catching him? Little bastard ran like a cheetah covered in chicken grease.

As the season progressed, my coaches came to their senses and simply decided never to let me play. Ever. Every game I would come in my pristine jersey, and my team mates went on to actually enjoy themselves, I just watched from the sidelines and pretended to be a part of the whole process of actually playing. Really, my amount of playtime was probably limited to maybe four plays in the entire season. The coaches would feel sorry for me, put me in, then I would pull the wrong way and run into another team member, then they would promptly put me back on the bench. At least they gave me a chance. I guess.

The end came during practice. The only time I really got to participate was during practice. The team mostly just used me as a living, breathing blocking dummy that just also happens to be able to experience pain. Intense, unforgiving pain. We were practicing a fundamental running play where I was supposed to open a hole in the center of the line. When the play started, the defender pulled right and with all of my momentum counting on him to stop me I slipped and fell face first. As I rolled over to get up, my own running back came charging through the hole and rather than being the sensible freight train and hop over me, he opted for the obvious option and simply dug his cleats into my unpadded mid-section.

After the play, the team collectively groaned as I gasped for air as I grasped my stomach as if I had to shove my intestines back into my body. I laid in the cold dirt as my coach hovered over me, asking if I could still practice, and looking up into the cold, grey November sky I replied that I couldn’t. After that, I took off my shoulder pads and sat on the wet grass until practice was over. I never went back after that.

For a while, I felt like I had let my entire sports loving family down. In a matter of ten years, I managed to fail at every sport possible, and after my failure at football, I never played organized sports again. I didn’t even have a good career ending injury. Maybe if that happened I would have just been looked at like a paradigm of lost potential—I could have gone out like Joe Theisman, except hopefully without the whole worst televised sports injury in history part.

As I got older, I started to be thankful that I had given up football, as I suspect the kids that the coaches were filling my former teammates with human growth hormones. While I grew to a reasonable height for my weight, they grew to be the type of people who were six foot seven and would eat nine sandwiches for lunch. Also, something about forcing a fourteen-year-old into a regimented weight lifted program seems deeply demented looking back on it. So as my peers formed into a High School version of the 2007 New England Patriots (18 and awwwww), I was happy to eat hot dogs in the parking lot and watch the game from the stands. I still got to enjoy the game but there was the added benefit of not having to worry about being killed by a person with a rare genetic growth disorder.

Slam Dancing

Hello is this Mr. Terrence Clark of Clark Carpentry Associates?
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Oh my! It’s worse than I thought; you should be grateful that I called. Because the company that I represent can save you up to—are you sitting down Mr. Clark?--$2.50 a year on your phone bill.
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Now all I need for you to do is agree to sign up for one of our call packages of remarkable value. Now judging by your type of business, I’ve pegged you as an unlimited sort of guy. Who wants limits, am I right? With Legiticom’s unlimited plan, you can talk as long as you want anytime you want except for between the hours of noon and 7 PM and all day Tuesday, and also stay within our monthly fair use limit of three hours of talk time. Imagine the freedom of picking up your phone and being able to talk to anyone you want for almost half a week—as long as that person isn’t using a mobile phone or lives outside of your ten mile call radius.
Of course I will tell you how much our additional charges are as well as send you our full terms and conditions through the mail, but I just need to get your verbal consent in order to do so. And keep in mind sir, that you will have a full three days to cancel without risk of a termination fee.
No sir, there’s no obligation to stay with us within the first 72 hours of signing up, after this generous period which we allow you to decide you would only be obligated to stay with our company for the remainder of the five year contract period. But I’m sure you will agree that three days is more than enough time for a man of your status to decide what is good for your business. Sign up today and see the savings for yourself and I guarantee on both my and my family’s honor that you will be an extremely happy man if you sign up with our company because you will be saving your hard earned money.
You say you are currently in contract with your current provider? Well my brother, I could see how that’s a problem, but since you have been such a patient man and have dedicated so much of your precious time, I am willing to give you a very special offer that we give to everyone. Sir, my company is willing to offer up to fifteen dollars to cover your termination fee. All you would need to do is pay for your $150 termination fee, send us written proof of your payment, and allow us six to twelve weeks to judge whether the payment would fall in line with our terms and conditions, and then we would give you fifteen dollars in credit redeemable at some participating Walgreens stores.
Yes sir, you will see all of what I have laid out for you in writing once you agree to sign up. Now that I already have you signed up, you will be receiving the paperwork in the mail sometime within the next month. And keep in mind, you can cancel this contract at anytime within your 72 hour trial period, but after that period an early termination fee of $1200 will apply. If you have any questions or concerns, or if you want to cancel your new contract just give our customer services number a call at any time of the day, as long as that time is between 2:15 and 4:26 AM Monday through Thursday.
You want to be put on a no call list? Very well sir, now that you are a customer you needn’t worry about our company phoning you any more at all. In fact, you will be lucky to get in touch with us if you try! Thank you very much for your time and patience Mr. Clark. I appreciate your generosity as if it were a gift from my ancestors. You sir, truly are wise and smiled upon by the Gods. Now if you will excuse me, I need to go spread my commission over the bed and rub your hard earned money across my naked flesh. Good day, sir.

A Day in the Life of a British Telecommunications Employee Who Doesn't Sell Anything and Also Isn't British.

8:00
Alarm goes off. Turn it off and immediately go back to sleep.

8:15
Frantically check the oven clock to make sure that it isn’t actually 10:45. At this point I’m relieved that I’ve defeated the inevitable, at least for today. I know that my future holds a time when I glance at that damnable clock and see that it’s 7:45 the next day. At this point I turn on the television and watch a children’s show about animals.

8:30
In the short time I’ve spent in Britain, I’ve developed a theory about British television. At any time of the day the BBC will be broadcasting at least one program that will make your head liquefy out of complete boredom. It doesn’t matter if it’s prime time on a Thursday or 4:45 on a Saturday morning, it’s almost guaranteed that at least one channel will be playing a show about maintaining your garden or a series about what herbs the ancient Britons ate before the Norman invasion. Regardless, morning television does not break from this formula. The English version of Good Morning America or The Today Show is even duller, less interesting, and generally more torturous than their American counterparts. So I watch Will and Grace instead. Jesus, I don’t know which is worse.

9:15
After getting dressed, eating a piece of toast, and having to re-tie my tie four or five times I leave during the first commercial break during Fraiser (Hello, 1994. How are you?). As I’m walking out the door, I check to see if the mail has come in the three spots where it may show up: crammed into the mail slot but not pushed all the way through (nope), left in a pile on my doorstep (nope), or left in a box in the lobby of my apartment complex (and nope). I have not gotten mail in weeks. I’m not entirely sure if mail even exists in this country.

9:30
British public transportation seems to be the only thing that works in this country, except when there’s a tube strike; or when bus lines close down for no reason; or when someone jumps in front of a train and closes down the line for the rest of the day as rail workers try to pry their mangled corpse from under its wheels. Okay, so British public transportation doesn’t work either but it still isn’t as bad as the fucking Royal Mail.

A set of unwritten rules exists for riding the London Underground that becomes immediately evident to anyone who steps foot upon a train (with the exception of, of course, Americans). The rules are as follows:

Rule #1: No talking. If there is to be any talking it must be of a mild topic and spoken in a near whisper.

Rule #2: No eye contact with anyone. Ever.

Rule #3: No eating on the tube. If you eat anything on the tube people will look at you like you are a pig that they want nothing more than to slaughter and leave to rot.

Rule #4: No cell phones. Don’t even fucking think about it.
In fact, the only things you are allowed to do on the London underground is sit quietly and read. Oh, and drink. You can openly drink an oversized bottle of grain alcohol on the train. That’s perfectly okay. But god forbid someone hear what song you’re playing on your iPod.

10:00
Jesus, work. I work for a relatively unknown telecommunications company answering phones all day. So in a sense I’m living out my nightmare job. But since I constantly have a computer in front of me the internet always comforts me when my brain begins to eat itself out of boredom. Thank you, internet.
Unlike most jobs that require a person to answer the phone constantly throughout the day, I usually take about thirty calls that take about 4 minutes to get through. Other than that I have absolutely nothing to do in between those calls. So let’s do some math. I work between 10 and 7 with one hour for lunch. That’s eight hours of work time with only two hours of doing what I was actually hired to do. Let the fun begin.

11:00
By this time I’ve checked every site of interest on the internet only to realize that they won’t update for another three hours because the UK is in the future. So I go about reading yesterdays news and take maybe four calls until noon. At times I stare at my desk and cry on the inside, and when I’m not doing that I try to pretend that I’m not bored. This never works.

Judging by the design of the room where I work, I think that it was originally a storage space as the ceilings are unreasonably high and the walls are completely devoid of those things called “windows.” In essence I work in a torture chamber. The room has an utter deprivation of natural sunlight. The brick even shows indications that at one point windows did, in fact, exist in the room only to be bricked up, no doubt as an attempt to give me a massive headache.

12:00
Half of the people I work with leave for lunch which means that the load of calls doubles. This period is usually the busiest time of the day when I will take four or five calls in a row. Regardless of actually doing work in this period, I still can’t shake the feeling of doing absolutely nothing of value. The most gratifying moment at this point of the day is when the clock strikes 1:00 and I can turn my phone off and leave for lunch.

1:00
If it isn’t raining (please God, please don’t be raining, please please pl-SHIT) I tend to spend this time in a nearby park eating painfully mediocre food from the corner deli. This, by far, represents my favorite part of the day. The rustling leaves drown out the sounds of the city, and dogs always run about and play while their owners keep a distant watch. In fact, the only sign that the park rests in the heart of a major metropolis is the slight rumble of the ground caused by an underground train. But by the time I finish my lunch and become engaged in my book I have to go back into that sunless hell. That chamber lit by four bright florescent lights and the pale blue of computer screens.

2:00
The time right after lunch is by far as the most horrible part of the day. I can no longer look forward to lunch in the park, and I can only cling to pale hope of going home. Too bad that hope is a solid five hours away. That’s half of the Lord of the Rings movies. That is almost the entire original Star Wars trilogy. That is Das fucking Boot. After roughly an hour of reading contracts to people who barely speak English and surfing every corner of the internet that has nothing to do with downloading music, playing Tetris, or pornography (Note: After removing illegal downloads, games, and pornography from the internet only %12 remains) I retreat into my personal fortress of solitude within the office: The bathroom.

The bathroom, in a way, is like the park for me. The open windows bring in a cool breeze of fresh air and the high stall doors bring about complete privacy. Barring the distinct smell of urine I would say it’s the most pleasant room in the entire office, if not all of London. But I’ve begun to notice that those who work near the bathroom shoot me inquisitive looks as I march into my keep for the sixth time in three hours. Apparently, near constant trips to the bathroom does not exactly work wonders for my image, as I can tell that my co-workers don’t view me as a bright, young, up-and-coming American waltzing into the bathroom, but rather a bizarre foreigner suffering from either a disturbing digestive disorder, or a crushingly anti-social addiction to masturbation. These aren’t exactly the traits I want listed on a letter of recommendation.

4:30
By this time of the day I’ve gone into a complete trance of apathy, depression, and a complete lack of motivation. Sadly, it’s also the time when I have to deal with the Indian telemarketers the most. The best part about working with Indian sales agents is that they sound like living caricatures of themselves. It’s as if someone taught them English with the distinct purpose of making their accent sound like my great uncle’s most insulting impersonation of an Indian person. To make things worse people in these call centers assume Westerners won’t be able to handle being on the phone with someone named Raj Ranchampolujar, so in order to solve the problem they give themselves fake English names. Playing it safe is one thing, but it sometimes it feels a bit ridiculous talking to someone who sounds like Apu but calls himself Mark Twain or Brian Williams. How does a person living in Kashmir know who Brian Williams is anyway?

5:30
Holy FUCK when can I get the shit out of here?! By this time of the day the calls have started to dwindle away and I’ve lost almost all semblances of sanity and self respect; I’ve simply become a crumpled ball of flesh that stares longingly at the clock on the computer. Nothing can relieve me of my boredom. I’ll try reading only to give up after a sentence. I’ll try to look up articles of interest on Wikipedia but find that reading about Hitler’s career as a painter or the early childhood of Charles J. Guiteau can only hold a person’s interest for so long. Phone calls become increasingly more irritating since the ringing of the phone breaks me from my trance and forces me to do actual work. So by this point of the day it has finally reached the point where I’ve entered a horrible loop not wanting to do anything but also no longer wanting to do nothing.

6:30
Why am I still here? Why in God’s name am I still here? The phone hasn’t rung in an hour, over half of my co-workers have gone home and the sun has already dipped below the line of buildings outside. The utter lack of sunlight throughout the day while I work simply proves that I’ve taken a job specifically designed for the undead. Happen to be a vampire and short on cash? Take up a job sitting in your sepulcher while talking on the phone with annoyed immigrants until the witching hour. It is, however, likely that any vampire working this job would run screaming into the sunlight after a week, preferring their skin being seared off by the rays of the Sun rather than sit for another second in that windowless pit my company calls an office for nine hours a day.

7:00
Finally my sentence ends and I’m free to make the long journey home amongst the other dark eyed, slumping shadows. There’s no joy or hope in being free for the evening; there’s not even the slightest glimmer of happiness. People just seem to dread the very idea that tomorrow they will have to crawl out of their warm bed, put on the same crumpled tie and repeat the process. By the time I finally reach home, I barely have enough time to eat and shower before my body caves in on itself. Sleep overcomes me before I even get the chance to begin enjoying a movie, a book, or even my own dinner. If anything, working like this forces me to think about the next big stage in my life that will help me escape living this lifestyle: dedicating my life to science in order to build a time machine and go back to a time when all I did was play Sonic the Hedgehog and watch cartoons all day. That lovely period of my life which took place anytime between 1992 and the first half of 2007.

An Adventure in Adventureing -- Kris King's European Vacation.

As a child the furthest my family would regularly venture from home was a beach spot an hour and a half away. To me, the world further outside of my hour and a half travel bubble existed in a dream world that my teachers, text books, and the weather channel merely claimed to be real. But now I finally found out that the world (at least part of it) actually exists, and the following are journal entries for the first half of my European trip. I’m only posting half because that’s all I wrote. It seems that my crippling laziness follows me everywhere.

May 10 – Flight to Texas

Shit, I’m really high—physically, not physiologically of course. Looking out of this hole in an aluminum tube rocketing through the air at 500 mph feels a little bizarre. It’s unnatural for one, and then there’s all the weird shit speckling the ground. I’m still trying to figure out the identity what seemed to be a massive sheet of metal in the middle of a suburb. It looked like a one-hundred square foot cookie sheet that someone put there solely to befuddle and blind me. I can understand how easy it would be for a person’s thoughts to dissolve into a whirl of philosophical or introspective thoughts as they gazed over America’s vast country-side from the lofty heights of an American Airlines jet. The neighborhoods look like scabs festering amongst uniformly shaped fields, cars travel down the roadways like blood pumping through an artery, and factory pollution blends into the clouds like it was their job to create them. But I think I’ll keep any thoughts that spawn from witnessing these sights to a minimum. The world doesn’t need anymore bong-water speculation and pseudo-philosophy (The human race is like a disease on the planet, man). Nobody wants to hear that. I refuse to let being high confuse me into thinking that I’m actually stoned.

3:17 – Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport

“The stars at night are big and bright...” Ever since I saw Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure as a child I’ve always want to sing that line in Texas and have every cowboy around me stop in their tracks, clap and erupt in a mighty chorus of “Deep in the heart of Texas!” Needless to say if you sing that song in the heart of Texas the plain-dressed people simply respond with saddened, sympathetic eyes. Judging by the airport alone, Texas has an unremarkable amount of Texans. The shops sell plenty of things that I would imagine a Texan would own (oversized bull’s horns, belt-buckles that could crush a dog, Willie Nelson CDs, etc) but not a single Texan is actually in sight. I realize that an airport isn’t exactly a perfect microcosm of the region’s culture, but I least expected to see one person that looks like Yosemite Sam. I would be surprised if any of the people in this airport have seen Dallas outside of the airport. They just look miserable and from Des Moines. Frankly, I’m incredibly disappointed in seeing so many people from Iowa while in Texas.

The Dallas/Ft. Worth airport rivals the size of Manhattan; I know this because a poster featuring a brightly colored appletini boldly claimed it to be so. A tram connects the airport’s five lettered terminals which are about the size of five interconnected shopping malls. Considering I had a seven hour layover in this sea of commerce, travel, and misery I managed to visit all but one. I was most fond of terminal E. It certainly isn’t the oldest terminal, but the seats are comfortable and there are no young businessmen throwing back spirits in a Bennigan’s. The ceilings are low, the carpeted floors dampen the sound, and it’s generally more pleasant than terminal D.

I’m not sure where to begin with terminal D. It’s as if if two normal terminals fused into one super airport monster with teeth made of Ben and Jerry’s kiosks, eyes made of authentic Texas briskit, and skin of shiny, brand new tile flooring. When it opens its mouth all that can be heard are Motorola commercials. Terminal D sucks. It’s most interesting feature is a sculpture that looks like skyscrapers having a giant drug induced orgy. But as interesting as it is, the thoughts on what turns a building on or how skyscrapers would even have sex shake me to the core.

May 12 – Eurostar, Somewhere in France

“Ehy ‘ad ahrms ‘ees bieg!” – A cockney fellow on London’s South Bank.

Despite people constantly telling you that stereotypes are mostly false, the English live up to all of them. They are reserved to the point that they would sooner look at a dead sewer rat than make eye contact with you, they work at a medium pace, and they have fairly horrible teeth. Even the weather holds up to stereotype. It seems like a rain cloud permanently resides over London and stays there year round. It could be a cloudless day in the country and it would be rainy and miserable within the city limits of London. And I’m okay with that. I’ve based my entire perception of the world on stereotypes and it’s nice to be proven right. I just hope the French are different than how I imagine them because as it stands I’m scared shitless of being beaten by some cranky Parisian toting a baguette.

May 13 – Paris

Having spent the better part of a day in Paris now, I’ve decided that it isn’t the French people that scare me so much as their language and the city itself. I feel that if I lose my friends then I would be lost forever and then thrown in the river for being ignorant of some oddball French custom like forgetting to blow on your cheese before you eat it or neglecting to take one shoe off when in the presence of a clergyman. But I made it, and here I am in a one room Parisian apartment watching a French MTV show called “Shake Ton Booty.” Apparently the hot new single here is Cypress Hill’s “Insane in the Brain.”

I’m not sure what to make of this place. Electronic music blasts from every direction, the buildings are older than every building at home combined, and there are people making out on every single street corner. I’ve heard that the rampant displays of public affection in Paris is because the city actually pays couples to go to popular sites and make out for an hour. I hope so. Regardless, it took the sight of a seven-hundred-year-old building and a woman licking her boyfriend’s neck on a bridge for me to experience some semblance of culture shock. This certainly isn’t Portsmouth.

May 14 – Return to London

Despite what you may think, the Eiffel Tower is shorter and fatter than it looks in pictures. It’s as if some sort of magic surrounds the place so that it sheds a couple of pounds for the camera—it’s impressive, really.

After the initial shake up of being surrounded by French people, things became decidedly normal. If anything, the French are more like Americans than the British. They just work less and rely on the government for everything. They’re like a lazy step-brother who cooks better than you and gets more girls. Really, I was a bit disappointed in the lack of rude people. Most strangers actually helped me when I stepped into the role of stupid American tourist. The rudest people I saw the entire time were Americans. One middle-aged couple stepped in front of a car and blamed the French for driving insane in his boisterous Southern accent. “Jesus Christ, you gonna hit me with your fuckin’ car? Goddamn!” Well, I suppose that isn’t quite being rude, but the dude certainly lived up to the fat American dickbag stereotype.

My biggest discovery while wandering about Paris further bridged the cultural gap between Americans and the French, and it also exonerates the American people of the fat slob stereotype. In a French fast-food chain called Quick they have a quadruple stacked burger called The Giant Master. Now I know Americans are behind some fatass innovations like fried Twinkies and the double stuffed Oreo, but a four patty cheeseburger is pretty goddamn tough to trump. But I feel as if the burger was there, in part, as a trap to lure in wayward Americans because I had some odd, uncontrollable urge to stuff the entire thing into my mouth. It was four burgers. How can I turn that down? But for the betterment of the image of my people, I resisted.