The Closet - A Short Story

William flips on the light switch in his bedroom to no response, something he always does when the power goes out. He mutters to himself and frantically flips the switch up and down in hope that it may somehow restore power to his old, drafty apartment.
“Goddamn mother fucking storm. I swear, it rains half an inch and suddenly life becomes Quest for fucking Fire.” William had a tendency to comfort himself stringing together expletives when no one else was around; it’s almost a hobby of his.
Fumbling around his drawers, pushing discarded corks and half empty cigarette packs out of the way, William finds a book of matches and strikes one. He chuckles as he reads the matchbook. Marymark Laundromat. The fact that a laundromat has its own matchbooks amuses him. He lights a cigarette from one of the crumpled packs in the drawer and then a small red candle that he keeps next to his bed. Pocketing the rest of the matches, he blows out the match just as it starts to burn his thumb.
The small candle, while diligent in its efforts, doesn’t provide much light. It doesn’t matter anyway; William doesn’t need the light. His bedroom glows dark amber from the flame and long, malformed shadows cascade the walls. His apartment was old. Too old for his taste. His ancient one-eyed landlady once told him the history of the building when he moved in two weeks prior; she told him how construction started in the early 40s but was stopped because of the war and how construction was later managed by four different contractors because the first two died in Europe, and the third, her husband, died on site in some sort of freak accident. The old woman’s story didn’t interest William, though it did explain why the brick walls and the wood of the floors didn’t match from room to room, and maybe even why the hall closet door was impossible to open. William hates that door.
Stifled from the lack of circulating air, William draws open his curtains to open the window. Bricks. William shakes his head at his lack of a view, bites down on his cigarette and begins pulling up on the closed window. He spits words through his teeth with every pull: “How. In. The. Hell. Did. They. Build. These. Fucking. Buildings. So. Fucking. Close. Together?” His hand violently slips off of the ledge. “Fuck! Nothing works in this fucking place!”
Irritated, William stubs out his cigarette, grabs his candle in a swipe and charges out of his bedroom. The only other window is in the kitchen on the opposite side of the apartment; William knows that opening it won’t remedy the temperature in his room, but he is determined to find something that works in the apartment. Walking down the long hallway leading away from his room, William tries to make sense of the design of his new home. On his left, several feet from his bedroom is the front door which would not open all the way because the width of the hall could not accommodate the entire width of the door. Further down, on the right is another long hall. There is no bathroom. The second hall puzzles William the most. Nothing is on either side of the hall, only the inoperable closet door at the hall’s end. As he passes the opening to the hall, a stream of hot air hits him nearly blowing out his candle. William pauses only for a moment, and mumbles under his breath before continuing towards the kitchen.
The kitchen offers William no reprieve from the heat. Even the touch of tile under his bare feet feels moist and lukewarm. The second window sits above the sink and looks out onto another brick wall; however, the window is far enough away from the adjacent building to allow a small sliver of sky to be seen. The rain rushes down the pane of the glass and William pushes it up, ignoring the raging torrent outside. He watches the rainwater pour into the house. “Fuck it, at least it’s cooler.”
Taking pause in the cool night air, William grabs a glass off of the counter and goes to fill it in the sink. He turns the faucet on. Nothing, just a moan from the struggling pipes. “Son of a bitch, this thing worked, like, three fucking hours ago. Why did I even move into this hellhole?”
With a loud groan William slams the glass down onto the counter and starts out of the room grabbing his candle in a huff. He walks through darkened hall towards his room but a sudden loud crash from behind stops him. He starts and scurries back into the kitchen. The window has fallen shut with such force that the glass had broken, leaving only a few long, tooth-like shards hanging, the rest of the glass was spread about the floor. He stares at his now wrecked kitchen. He takes a deep breath. “Fuck.”
As he turns to retreat into his room a torrent of light bombards his eyes. The power’s back on. “Oh Jesus, thank Christ” he breathes as he looks down at the floor waiting for his eyes to adjust. He blows out the candle and starts down the hall. As he walks, he glances down the second hall and sees, for an instant, that the door at the end of the hall is open. Before he could register what he saw, a flash of blue light floods the apartment and he is left, again, in total darkness.
William quickly pats at his pants looking for his pack of landromat matches, and finding them, relights his candle. He holds the trembling flame towards the end of the hall, revealing that a closed door. Nervous, William begins walking down the uncomfortably narrow hall.
“HA! Fuck you, buddy! I’m not going anywhere.”
... Nervous, William begins walking down the uncomfortably narrow hall.
“What part of ‘fuck you’ did you not understand? Your curiosity isn’t getting me down that creepy ass hall.”
Wait a second, what is going on here? Go down the hall, you do what I say, I’m telling the story here.
“Yeah, and I’m living the story here, and I know that when I go down that hall towards your little mystery closet you’re just going to have some ghost or corpse come out and scare the piss out of me. Is that it? Is that your game, you sick fuck?”
Well, I wasn’t sure yet, I was going to have you get dragged into the dark closet just as you get towards the end of the hall and sort of figure out what did it later.
“You were going to fucking kill me and you don’t even have the decency to tell me by what?! Look, it’s bad enough that you have shacked me up in the idiotically shitty apartment, but now you’re just being dishonest.”
I’m not being dishonest!
“Horseshit, you’re using me to fulfill some weird fetish you have in seeing people killed by something that you have grown to fear in your childhood. Is it going to be a doll? Are you afraid of dolls, you enormous fucking pussy?”
Look, you little... Alright, it’s part of the plot. You’re that unlikable character that gets killed off early in the story to set up the more likable main character moving in and getting tormented by the weird things happening, which ultimately leads up to a scary, dramatic climax!
“I’m not even the main character? You suck. You know that? You really suck. I bet the main character is going to be some cute girl in her early twenties who researches the history of the building only to find out that the landlady murdered her husband and stuffed his corpse in that closet, and now it’s haunted by his vengeful ghost.”
Well, you know that’s pretty good!
“No it isn’t, you idiot! That’s a fucking horrible plot!”
Come on, it’s better than anything I could come up with! I can make you come back from the dead near the end and attack the heroine. You would be all bloodied and dead; it could be cool!
“Hm. So what you’re saying is that if I go down the hall and get killed by your little closet ghost, monster whatever the fuck, I get to come back as a zombie and torment people from beyond the grave?”
Sure.
“Can I eat anyone?”
How about I give her a boyfriend that doesn’t appreciate her enough, he’s cheating on her, gets drunk all of the time, you know a real bastard like you, and you can eat him, thus freeing her from her restrictive relationship?
“I like it. It’s sort of an anti-hero type of thing. I’m hated, but I sort of save the day in the long run by eating her prick boyfriend. Alright, fuck it, I’ll do it. I mean really what else can I do in this shitty world you’ve created for me?”
Sitting in the dark, complaining and swearing a lot for the rest of eternity is essentially your only other option.
“Fuck it. I’ll do it. I guess you can continue where you left off.
With the nervously walking down the hall part?
“Yeah, but don’t say I’m nervous, it makes me look like a pussy.”
Fine.
“Alright, go.”
Curious, William begins walking down the uncomfortably narrow hall. “Better.” Thank you, now shut up. “Dick.” I said shut up! The hall is narrow to the point where William has to walk at an angle. Reaching the end of the hall, William grabs the doorknob and turns. “Why is this taking so long?”
I’m building tension, give me a couple more sentences.
“Fine, Shakespeare, I’m just ready for some fucked up zombie action.”
God, I can’t believe you are a child of my mind. Anyway. William grabs the doorknob and turns. Nothing. Frustrated, William begins to turn when the door suddenly flies open. Several long, white spectral hands reach out and grab William by his head, and drag him into the closet. As his frantically kicking feet pass into the darkness, the closet door slams, muffling the screams emanating from within.

The end.

“The end?! You asshole! What about the girl and the asshole boyfriend that I eat?”
I lied.

Putting Your Ninja To Sleep.

I can’t take it anymore. It needs to stop and I’m going to be the one who stops it. Ninja humor and its entire offspring (I’m looking in your direction, pirates) just needs to be put to bed forever. Don’t get me wrong, I get it. Ninjas are fast and they kill things without their prey even realizing it until it’s too late, but guess what, that stops getting funny after seven years. Now before you get all up in arms about killing me for attacking such an essential element to college humor, let me explain myself in the form of an overly long, opinionated, and pompous editorial.

Alright kids, step into my time machine, it’s December 10^th 1987, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has just premiered to overwhelming popularity. Over the next several years you watch the TV show, get the TMNT Burger King Kid’s Club special edition tapes, beg your mom for all of the toys and see the live action movies, even the horrible third one. Ninja turtles are all kinds of awesome, and your eight year old mind knows it. Now, step back into my time machine, devoted reader.

It’s 1999, you’re between the ages of eleven and fifteen and you have recently discovered the wonderful and constantly changing world of the internet meme. Your then best friend “BigSurf2004” sends you the following message on AIM: “lol man chek this!!!1.” You click, and oh my God, it’s Real Ultimate Power. You see all of those ninjas flipping out and playing guitar while that wonderful midi of “Big Pimpin’” blasts out of your speakers and all of those warm childhood memories of playing with your Ninja Turtles come rushing back and suddenly, ninjas don’t have to be amphibians to be awesome. Ninjas are the coolest, funniest things in the world. God bless you, internet. Alright, back into the time machine, don’t push.

So you’re in college now and you’re surrounded by all of these people who are in the same age bracket as you with similar backgrounds and interests. One day you are with your friends and somebody does something with remarkable quickness, and you remark “Man, you’re like a NINJA, all HI-YA and killing stuff,” everyone laughs and joins in because they all saw Real Ultimate Power seven years ago and played with Ninja Turtles as kids too. Then you start talking about ninjas killing things, who they can and cannot kill, if Chuck Norris is a ninja or not, and if ninjas feel the effects of alcohol. Everyone loves ninjas; they are a force that brings college kids of all types together out of support for their black garbed heroes. There are ninja parties, ninja concerts, ninja shirts, ninja clubs, ninja facebook groups, and anything that is remotely discrete or quick suddenly becomes a ninja. Then you realize that making other things ninjas makes them just as, if not even more awesome. Pirate ninjas, Viking ninjas, ninja groundhogs, ninja cats, ninja emo kids; it didn’t matter, if you put “ninja” before or after another noun it automatically became awesome. I took part in this ninja fueled thrill ride as well. I once made an incredibly poor Photoshop of an owl dressed as a ninja and thought I was the funniest person on the planet. But that was in 2002 and that part of me is dead and gone as it should be in all of you as well.

One thing that I’ve noticed in my three years of higher education is that college kids will take something and suck the life out of it until there is nothing left but a grayed, shriveled corpse begging to be put out of its misery, and usually, they do die from overexposure, as they should. But ninjas, for some reason, won’t go away. “That’s because ninjas are unkillable!” you say, and my reply to you, good sir, is to shut up. It isn’t 1987, and it isn’t 1999. Ninjas are old hat, and there is nothing clever about them anymore. Please, please stop. And this is not just for my sake, but for yours as well. I know it may be hard, it will be like putting down your beloved aged pet, but in the end, your favorite martial artists will appreciate you for it, and it will make you a better person as well. Let ninjas take their place in internet meme Heaven (or Hell) with the Numa Numa kid, Strongbad, All Your Base, End of the World, and Rejected. Send them home. And come Halloween when ninjas come up to your door asking for candy (or in JMU’s case, alcohol), just say no, and then punch them hard in the face.

I wonder what it was like in 2004... in 2004.... in 2004...

The article below represents my first (and only) attempt to get printed in my school paper, which, of course, failed miserably. It was written the night of the 2004 presidential election which apparently put me in a semi-political mood. I always liked this article even though some of the jokes fall flat because of convoluted writing, and I later found out that Bill Bryson already wrote this exact article with funnier jokes five years before hand, but I figured I would post it anyway. That's enough 2006-era ranting for now, I need to lie down because I honestly think my appendix is about to explode. Approaching 88mph:

Now that President Bush has retained his title of the Lord of Democracy I figured the climate was right to celebrate some of the men of American history that have achieved such a status that when any American simply sees a picture of them they think to themselves “... who in the Hell is that?” That’s right; I’m referring to the long forgotten and seldom discussed obscure Presidents of The United States. These are the men that your American History professors very well may not know, as for the most part they were completely worthless wastes of not only an important political position, but carbon as well.

The first of these presidents whom you probably know nothing about is William Henry Harrison, and there is a good reason that he remains spectacularly unnoteworthy: his main accomplishment in office was catching pneumonia and dying a month into his presidency. Of course, this gives President Henry Harrison the great honor of being the only president in American history to serve 3/146 of his term. It is also interesting to note that despite William being the first Harrison to serve as President, Benjamin Harrison managed to steal the thunder of the Harrison name, forcing poor William to be referred to by both his middle and last name. Which also illustrates just how worthless William Henry Harrison actually was, considering that Benjamin Harrison lost his re-election to the former incumbent that he managed to defeat in the previously (Grover Cleveland) which is as if the country collectively came together and said “You know what? Nevermind.”

Moving on to even more lackluster executive leaders we find Millard Fillmore. I’m going to repeat that name again, not because it bears repeating, but for the sheer purpose of personal amusement. Millard Fillmore. What a great name. Fillmore was a man that many people considered as a shining example of the American dream, having been born in a log cabin in New York, marrying his elementary school teacher, eventually managing his way into the Vice Presidency and only becoming president because Zachary Taylor decided to die a little over a year into his term. Man, hearing that story actually makes me want to go out into the wild, find a bald eagle and lovingly smother it to death. But unlike William Henry Harrison, Fillmore actually had some accomplishments while in office other than simply moving into the White House and promptly dropping dead. For example, Fillmore passed the Fugitive Slave Act which provided southern slaveholders with federal agents to more efficiently hunt down escaped slaves. What a sweetheart. And of course, Fillmore also admitted California as a state, but really, who cares about California?

Fillmore was defeated by our next obscure president, Franklin Pierce. Pierce presided over a country that was a powder keg of sectional unrest that needed only a spark to set it off into a frenzied civil war; and rather than preserving the relative calm that was starting to show when he entered office, Pierce decided it would be fun to shoot roman candles at aforementioned powder keg. This is the man who managed to make Kansas bleed profusely and caused civil unrest to skyrocket; he also tried to buy Cuba. Pierce was so lame that his own party wouldn’t renominate him, opting instead for James Buchanan. James Buchanan. What in the Hell was wrong with people in the mid 19^th century?

Now, jumping forward in history a little more than a half century we come to a man who isn’t quite an obscure president as he is a complete abortion of one. That’s right folks, I’m talking about Warren “Worst President Ever” Harding. Harding simply gaining the Republican nomination for presidency is flabbergasting enough considering he was a widely known alcoholic despite prohibition being in tact, had a terrible relationship with his wife, was involved in a long standing extramarital affair, had a limited education and to top it all off, he spent two years in a sanitarium. That’s right, the Republican Party nominated a man who spent two years of his life locked in a nut house, and here’s the kicker: He won the election. By a substantial margin. That’s some fine electing there, America. As president, Harding appointed many of his old friends into cabinet positions who, of course, all turned out to be money hungry criminals who decided to rob the government blind with their newfound power. Which, come to think of it, is fairly normal presidential behavior but let’s just move on for the sake of this article. Here is a short list of some of the activities that Harding’s cabinet took part in: accepting bribes, destroying documents, earning fat-back kicks, and running drugs and alcohol. Two members of the cabinet earned jail time and two more committed suicide. Amazing. Harding supposedly had little involvement in the actual scandals which may actually be true considering that when he heard the full extent of his cabinet’s corruption he collapsed and died. Wow. However, the cause of his death is probably not because of the shock of hearing about his administration’s scandals but more because his wife probably poisoned him. Really, that’s actually not a joke, look it up.

Thinking that we’ve escaped the era of bland and forgettable presidents is probably far from the truth. There have been several contemporary presidents that I think history will sweep under the carpet of time, but really the only way to measure the validity of this assumption is through the passage of time. But I wouldn’t be shocked if in one hundred years a collective group of thousands of college students will probably say “Who in the Hell is that?” upon seeing a picture of Gerald Ford. Then a brave young student will stand up amongst the masses and say: “Duh, it’s obviously William Clinton.” History’s funny that way. And for any potential History majors or professors who stumble upon this article, it should be noted that most of the information gathered here stems from a series of Google searches. So if any false facts have been presented, I blame the internet.

How Can The Allman Brothers Still Tour When One of Them Has Been Dead for 35 Years?

I hate classic rock radio. I just thought I would get that out in the open before I start my pig-headed rant of mildly epic proportions. I simply don’t understand it. You turn on your radio, tune in to your local classic rock station, and then sit back and enjoy the same songs you’ve heard every day for the last thirty years. Seriously, how many times does a person need to hear “Magic Carpet Ride?” Based on what’s on the radio the answer is twice a day until you fucking croak because they play that fucking song fucking constantly. “But Kris!” you say, “You can’t hate the classics! They’re the classics, they’re classic!” Yes, dear, devoted reader, they are classics; and they need to stop. Classic rock destroys the way people look at music, and I have a number of reasons for why this is true. Of course the main reason being that radio-goers place their taste in music in the hands of people like this:

Now before I get my scathing, convincing and eloquently written argument underway let me clear things up a bit for you non-believers. I will concede that not everything played on classic stations is unbridled shit. They will play the shit out of The Beatles, CCR, Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and the like to no end. But this isn’t entirely true; a more accurate list would be: “they play the shit out of ‘Yesterday,’ ‘Bad Moon Rising,’ ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,’ and ‘Foxy Lady.’” Variety is like kryptonite to Hotel California radio. It’s just single after single repeatedly, honestly it’s like they took some college freshman’s seventy track “Classix” iTunes playlist and played it on shuffle. It could be so much better if they would play album tracks or live cuts (besides Frampton Comes Alive). Seriously, they’re exploring roughly twenty years of music (1960-1980) and they come out with a dozen bands with two songs each, and they’ve been playing the hell out of them since the beginning of the 1980s. Dust in the Wind radio offers a stagnant pool of over-listened music and people still voluntarily dive in.

Moving on. The main damage that You Can Go Your Own Way radio does to people is that it makes them readily accept sub-par music as unsurpassable feats of human creation. Folks, I hate to break this to you, but The Allman Brothers kind of suck. I know, it’s a bit hard to accept, but it’s true. The only reason people think Duane Allman was a great guitar player is because he died early in his career and he was made into an idol by the radio. Nobody questions what they hear on these stations, they just automatically accept what’s coming out of their car speakers as solid gold. An entire generation has grown up being brainwashed by this stuff, and the results? Jam bands, red stater rock, and Dave Matthews being a successful musician. You know who opens for the Allman Brothers now? Government Mule. How can people support this?!

Another thing which Somebody to Love radio does is ignore important music from the era. Bands like The Velvet Underground, Love, Television, Big Star, post-“You Really Got Me” Kinks, Roxy Music, Brian Eno, The Stooges and other not really obscure groups are left un-played. All of those bands are more important and better than fucking Steely Dan but nobody would ever know that would they? And now that some stations are trying to appeal to Gen Xers by playing 80s pop hits they ignore a whole new era of music. Think you’ll ever hear The Smiths on the radio? No, because they’re playing “In The Air Tonight” again.

I suppose the main draw for Fly Like An Eagle radio is familiarity. Everyone enjoys listening to something that they know, you can sing along to it, and you know you like it. You don’t have to think when you listen to something you know, and that’s okay... to an extent. Since these stations play only music which their listeners can basically tune out or sing along to and not change it up with something that challenges them, it causes a dumbed down listening population. And it’s going to keep happening unless something changes in the way these stations are managed. It’s bound to happen someday isn’t it? One day people are going to get tired of hearing “Spirit in the Sky” everyday on the way to work, aren’t they? Please?

Paul Simon, Death Threats, Missile Launchers and Pizza Delivery.

Pizza delivery can be a pretty tough job. Alright, I’m lying, no it can't. Pizza delivery is, by far, the most mindless, skilless job an unambitious person could ask for. Which of course makes it perfect for me. There are some slight drawbacks, however. Driving incredibly greasy junk food to the masses can be a bit mind numbing and to cope with this the mind tends to wander, and sometimes goes to interesting areas. Noticing this, I decided it would be a good idea to keep track of the shit that passes through my head for a few nights and writing them on the back of tickets. Besides discovering that writing while driving at the same time is probably not too wise, I also discovered that I have an unhealthy view on, well, everything. Just see for yourself:

1. My newfound discovery of The New Pornographer's AC Newman's lisp has made their song "July Jones" unlistenable. I seriously think the title should be changed to "July Jonths"

2. Steve Miller Band is music for people who don't really like music. His music is safe enough for mass appeal and its constant air time on “classic rock” stations gives the illusion that Steve Miller is an incredibly important musician. Fact is he isn’t. Steve Miller is for people who listen to “the classics” but are, for the most part, largely out of touch with music. “But Kris,” you say, “Steve Miller is so damn talented.” And so is the man who can do a handstand gargling “Stars and Stripes Forever,” but that doesn’t make it worth listening to. Of course, the modern equivalent of Steve Miller is Dave Mathews, but that’s a whole article in itself.

3. People who give crappy tips but are really friendly are incredibly aggravating. Nothing is worse than coming up to a smiling face and a “How are you, great night tonight, eh?” and then leaving with thirty-seven cents.

4. The release of Paul Simon's album Graceland marks the point where world music became popular in the mid 1980s. Because of this, Paul Simon should be killed.

5. As a child, I had incredibly crappy taste in, well, everything. In 1997, I thought Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin was great and I owned the single for Puff Daddy and Jimmy Page’s “Come With Me” (Luckily, I had enough sense to know that Godzilla was terrible). Actually, I think my taste was fine and then hit a sharp decline when I turned eleven. When I was very young I liked Star Wars and Ghostbusters; then, all of a sudden I started to listen to No Limit, wore Jncos, and watched fucking Independence Day.

6. Not enough games rely on lives and continues anymore, it’s all save points and big open ended worlds. I want more bottomless pits and water that kills me with my car jackings and digitized school shootings.

7. Theory: There is at least one Subway restaurant within every square mile of the country. Even in the middle of Nebraska, I bet there is a solitary Subway sitting in the center of a massive cornfield.

8. The two things which make my heterosexuality suspect are my man-crush on Morrissey and my obsession with Williams-Sonoma. I can’t help it; I love asexual animal rights activists and overpriced cookware.

9. I've never delivered pizza to an Asian person. I wonder what that means.

10. There is a little girl on Mardean Street who refuses to tip me and seems to get great deal of pleasure out of watching me fish 46 cents out of my pocket. She is my arch-enemy, and one day I will kill her with a sock full of change.

11. Rhapsody's “Symphony of Enchanted Lands” is 2006’s Album of the Year despite being released seven years ago

12. I feel like I should have a cannon mounted onto my car in order to blow competing company's pizza drivers off the road. Ideally, delivering pizza would be like Twisted Metal but with less hook-handed cab drivers.

13. On 7/14/06 I couldn't stop thinking about Ronnie James Dio, but only to the extent of his name repeatedly popping into my head. Were I in the climax of Ghostbusters, a giant Ronnie James Dio would have appeared and destroyed the world with an Earth shattering rendition of "Holy Diver." He would also be dressed like a Viking.

14. The quickest route to depression is to listen to my mix CD entitled "Summer's Dead" while delivering pizza on a Friday night in July.

15. People are most vulnerable when they are peeing. If you need to attack someone, do so while they are relieving themselves. However, such a move does have a high risk of you being peed on in the process.

16. Bowling alleys should only be allowed to play slow depressing jazz. I think it would increase beer sales, and it's sure as hell better than the shit that they play in there now.

17. Black people have a strange affinity towards giant stuffed tigers in their homes and I don’t know why.

18. Chesapeake, Virginia must have the largest population of Insane Clown Posse fans in the nation. And they are all suburban, lower middle class, male white kids with baggy clothes and facial piercings who date girls named Crystal who was pregnant when she was sixteen.

19. Out of all the words in the English language, “hackneyed” is the most pretentious. Its general meaning and the fact that it is not commonly found in colloquial speech make it irresistible to English majors, scenesters, and college know-it-alls (See “College Kids” entry). Closely following “hackneyed” in is “ennui,” for the same reasons; and it’s French to boot. You know, this might just be a tie.

20. Who buys Girls Gone Wild videos?

21. Those tiny motorcycles which people ride around are the nerdiest form of transportation. If you aren’t familiar with what I’m talking about, these tiny motorcycles are exactly what they sound like: they are like full sized motorcycles which have been hit by that shrinking ray from that Rick Moranis movie. When a full sized adult rides one down the street it essentially looks like they stole their child’s Kawasaki Ninja power wheels to go to the mall.

22. I wonder if there is an Israeli Dental Association.

23. I went to a Starbucks earlier and ordered a Grande Non-Fat Sugar-Free Iced Vanilla Latte and felt that a part of me had died in the process.

Trips to the Beach Built on the Shoulders of Paper Mache Dinosaurs and Ellis Island

There’s a thin stretch of beach off the coast of North Carolina that goes by many names. Sailors of the 19^th century called it the graveyard of the Atlantic (copyright David Stick 1952); wayward vacationers call it the Outer Banks; some call it the OBX because, goddamn, abbreviations and the letter ‘X’ are too hip to resist; and the rest call it Nags Head even though Nags Head is only one of the ten other towns on the strip. Regardless of what you call the place, I call it Nags Head, this hot vacation spot and I have a rocky relationship.

It’s a scientific fact that every living soul in the North Carolina tri-state area holds Nags Head in such high regard that outsiders may very well think it is the resting place for the lost ark, the Holy Grail and those glowing rocks that let the Indian guy rip out the dude’s heart. Shit, even I do it. For being so vocally against the place, I still find myself singing its praises to those less enlightened and I don’t know why I do it. I don’t like going to the beach, I don’t really like seafood, and I don’t fish but I’ve been to the place nine-million fucking times. It’s like repeatedly sleeping with a girl you don’t even like and not being able to stop yourself. It’s horrible. But, being the amateur social scientist that I am, I returned once again to analyze the place that I both adore and detest.

It’s obvious that the main draw for Nags Head is the water. It is an inarguable fact that humans are drawn to water, to the point that it’s not even worth discussing. But what makes this water so incredibly special? If there were some sort of beach beauty pageant, Nags Head would not only win the contest, it would also win Miss Congeniality, the swimsuit competition, and the viewers fucking choice award. The beaches aren’t combed, there’s no boardwalk, and there isn’t anyone waking you up to ask if you want your goddamn picture taken. See? It’s happening again. I sound like I’m on the Nags Head street team and I’m not even trying. But there is a growing seed of commercialization that threatens to kill the uncultivated charm of the place. For every old house that the sea destroys every Hurricane season another bright yellow Sunsation building is built in its wake right next to an Applebee’s.

The place has some odd quirks as well, and I think this is what I enjoy most about it. Like every other beach community, there are several hundred mini-golf courses but none quite as peculiar as the ones in Nags Head. There are your typical pirate and beach themed courses; I mean come on, those are too obvious to not exist. But where does a course that’s main feature is a gigantic neon green T-Rex poised on a volcano/waterfall that looks as if it is about to eat putters if they fuck up on their first stroke fit in? Or another that is so heavily “influenced” by Star Wars that the obstacles should have “copyright LucasArts” painted all over them to avoid lawsuits. Even the aforementioned “beachy” themed courses are closing in favor of just flat out weird shit, like a pirate one that turned into an epic cave exploration quest complete with 50 foot tram ride. I suppose any place that boldly features giant spaceships crashed into a volcano (Volcanoes are big in mini golf in general, I’ve noticed) gains points with anyone.

Another oddity which Nags Head boldly features is their secret immigrant work force. But these immigrants don’t even have the 21^st century flare of being Mexican. Nags Head apparently continues to kick it old school by pawning off the work nobody else wants to do to 15 to 20 year old Eastern European girls, just like the good old days. Most every item of food I was sold was given to me accompanied by an eerily deep voice coming from the emaciated frame of a 12 year old girl named Sonja. You just don’t see shit like this anywhere else. I didn’t even know how to react. Why a beach town in North Carolina? Why? Why would what seems like hundreds of girls from the former USSR want to work in Nags Fucking Head? But I suppose it’s better to the number one job for under aged Yugoslavian girls in America, which is, of course, amateur porn. Which leads me to wonder if Nags Head has a large underground amateur porn ring that I don’t know about. All the better if it did, I say.

Despite my constant insistence that I hate Nags Head, all I can do is talk about how awesome it is. I simply cannot stop. Please help me.

College Kids

After being in a university for three years you start to notice things about people. You’d like to hang on to the idea that each person is an individual snow flake, slowly fluttering through their time at college gaining the experiences that will allow them to form into a snowball of knowledge or something, I don’t know. Individuality hardly exists anymore, especially in college. Everyone can be categorized and lumped into a mass of people that are exactly like them in every way. True, some are more difficult to pin down than others, but it can be done. And now, thanks to this article, you too will be able to judge people the way that I have for three years because I am going to list and describe the major personality types easily found at every university in the universe.

Group 1: The Spring Breakers. Probably the largest group of students (at JMU especially), the Spring Breaker lives and breathes for one thing: getting drunk and yelling “WOOO” at 3:30 in the morning. These are the people that vomit on the drunk bus on weekends and take pride in it. People who instead of taking their alcohol poisoned friend to the hospital, will draw cartoon penises on their forehead and laugh, order pizza, and fall asleep. Fueled by pop-culture, frat-pack movies, and the ability to ruin anything by referencing it constantly, Spring Breakers are basically the people not interesting enough to pursue interests that are actually, you know, interesting. Of course, the name for which this group is named derives from their favorite week of the year: Spring Break; when they can get their parents to pay for a cruise so they can do what they do best. You guessed it. WOOOOOOOO SPRING BREAAAAAK!

Group 2: The College Know-It-All. You know the person in your class who always has something to say regardless of the topic and will drone on and on about it even if he or she obviously has no idea what the hell they’re talking about? That’s the College-Know-It-All, and everyone hates them. Typically these are the most pompous people within any major because they know a little about the subject and are not afraid to let the rest of the world know. For hours. We get the point; you did some extra reading last night, now shut up. Socially, these types tend to huddle with their own kind because nobody else can stand being around them. And because they went to the coffee house last week, have seen Pi, and listen to Iron & Wine they think that they are on a higher cultural plain than everyone else. If the Spring Breaker is MTV, The College Know-It-All is MTV2.

Group 3: I Care Kids. A bit of an offshoot to the College Know-It-All but distinct enough to warrant its own category, the I Care Kids love to do nothing more than talk about starving children in Africa and promote how much that they care about said starving children in Africa. They are the kids that you see carrying backpacks covered in ribbons, buttons, orange bits of cloth, and slogans penned in white out all over them. Their favorite movies are Hotel Rwanda, American History X, Requiem for a Dream or anything else that deals with genocide, drugs, racism or any other sort of social hot topic. They have the uncanny ability to draw attention to themselves through their deep caring for other people and love it. I’m on to you I Care Kids.

Group 4: Hippies. Hippies are a lot like their 1960s counterparts except they are not as cool and make much crappier music. This group of people is the sole reason why jam bands exist and for this reason alone I should be allowed to kill them and get paid for it. They are hookah smoking, no shoe wearing, dirty, smelly things that sit in a circle on the quad and jam out on their bongos and acoustic guitars for hours; and when they get tired of that they eat vegan fries and go to the Little Grill because, hey man, it’s proof that socialism WORKS!

Group 5: The Pitchforkers. You know, radio kids. Named for massive indie music news site Pitchfork Media, Pitchforkers think they are the raddest people in the world because they know who Built to Spill is and you don’t. Their main interest is finding more obscure bands (via Pitchfork Media mostly) to add to their sweet playlist that they’re working on for their radio show at 2:30 am on Tuesday. These kids are easy to spot. They are the ones on the bike who wear thrift store clothes and an ugly accessory that they think is ironic (Pitchforkers love irony). If they are a male, they have a beard. If it is a girl, they have short hair and a nose ring. Their greatest ability is to use the internet to get things before you and like it until you learn about it. Then it becomes passé and the cycle repeats itself.

Group 6: Invisible People. Exactly as the title suggests, Invisible People are invisible and few know about them just because of it. Thought to be merely a myth, Invisible college student exist, and they want revenge.

Group 7: Nerds. You know how you can spot a nerd? Fedoras. If you wear a fedora and think it’s awesome, I’m sorry to tell you that you are a nerd. You love webcomics, anime, RPGs, “random” humor, and html. You hang with other nerds and see yourself as a sort of new counter culture. You fix the Spring Breaker girl down the hall’s computer in a futile attempt for action, but it never pans out. You love Penny-Arcade. You listen to techno and German power metal. You eat Pocky and read Tokyopop manga. You, my friend, are a nerd.

Group 8: Jenga Kids. People who live in substance free housing and opt to stay in and play Jenga than go to a party. Most of the time this is for religious reasons, but such is not always the case. However, it is always true that these kids hate everyone who drinks. Beer is Devil Tonic meant for drug addicts and sodomites, and they are infinitely better people for resisting peer pressure and playing Boggle instead. They are strong advocates of the idea that a person does not need alcohol to have fun, and try constantly to prove it, which always fails. Outside of boardgames, Jenga kids live for midnight games of flashlight tag and capture the flag. But when you see these kids out running in the cold night air, you can see just a glimmer of sadness in their eyes. You can tell they aren't really having fun at all, and they know it. Capture the flag isn’t fun. I’m sorry, it just isn’t. Unless you’re drunk, of course. But the Jenga kids hold strong onto their belief that they can find alternative means of fun in college until they ultimately give up and start drinking mid-junior year. Although this isn't the fate for every Jenga Kid, some hang on to their ideals until death, after living a long life of looking down on people for trying to have fun while they still can.

One could go on for pages about the different types of college kid, but these eight make up the bulk. Of course there is some crossover as some of these groups interact well, like I Care Kids and Hippies (who are basically I Care Kids who don’t shower). Others, however, just don’t mix. For example, Pitchforkers hate Hippies and vice-a-versa—though a Hippie would never admit to hating anything, that’s just too confrontational man. So now that I have armed you with a very basic outline of what most college kids are like, try judging people for yourself. It’s fun, anti-social behavior that will make everyone hate you, but you will know deep down that the person telling you that you are being judgmental is just a stupid College Know-It-All and should just shut the hell up.

The words go here, right?