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.

Why I Don’t Like Vomiting

How utterly unpleasant. Here I am, an adult legally allowed to vote, fight in a war and buy as much alcohol as a seven-year-old in France, and I’m hunkered over a toilet wondering if calling my mother would be the grown-up thing to do. Ever since I was a boy I’ve dreaded vomiting. The smell of stomach bile, the sight of a half-digested turkey sandwich mixed with a more thoroughly digested bagel, and an unexplainable completely intact piece of bell pepper—it’s simply no good. Now there are people out there who encourage the nauseated. “Just get it over with,” they say. “You’ll feel better!” Fuck them! They aren’t the ones with their face inches away from the vessel typically reserved for defecation. What do they know about making a person feel better? I just won’t tolerate it. Those holding a pro-vomit agenda simply need to face the facts that vomiting is an unpleasant, physically and emotionally scarring event that can shatter a person’s entire evening.

I’m not sure when my distaste for the act of vomiting began. Perhaps it was all the vomiting as a child. I was like a small machine designed specifically for vomiting. Whenever I suffered from the slightest ailment my body’s immediate reaction was to spew various colored liquid onto irreplaceable objects such as fancy table cloths, oriental carpeting, or whatever else was on hand that looked like it may have been a foreign import. I suspect that my inability to shout groceries somewhere acceptable as a child came from my refusal to acknowledge that it was going to happen. If I ignored it for long enough this nausea would go away like magic. Regardless of my stern volition, I was never able to will away the impending stream of grossness that was destined to spew out of my six-year-old head. Thus, my parents, scarred by high dry-cleaning bills, introduced an object which to this day haunts my dreams: the bucket.

The bucket typically housed the family’s cleaning supplies, but when one of the King children whined of an upset stomach, its contents were emptied and it became a cauldron of our darkest nightmares. “Want me to get the bucket?” The words still make me shiver. The stench of Windex that lingered on that bucket still makes it difficult for me to give my windows the streak-free washing that they deserve. My parents never even put a bag in the bucket for easy cleaning. They would simply wash it out with the hose out back and return it in case of any aftershocks—but the smell still lingered. The bucket still sits in my parents’ broom closet all these years later, patiently waiting to torment the next nauseated person that happens by it. I know that the bucket had nothing to do with my sickness as a child, but to this day when I see it, I tremble.

Since I’ve managed to overcome my childhood refusal to vomit in a toilet, I’ve discovered a whole new world of vomit anxiety that comes with puking in a bathroom. Vomit anxiety comes in stages when dealing with a bathroom. First, you have to accept that you may, indeed, be sick in the near future and move into the bathroom. The action is in the same vein as grabbing an umbrella on the way out the door if you suspect rain. It’s completely precautionary. After all, the feeling may pass, right? You keep telling yourself that.

Stage two involves pacing. There you are; your stomach churns and your mouth feels dry. But do you really want to get down on the floor? The feeling could still pass. After all, if you get sick you’ll have to clean the bathroom, and that’s just a chore. But then it hits: the palms become clammy, the throat begins to tighten, and saliva flow begins to increase. Stage three begins when you accept the inevitable and prostrate yourself in front of that horrible white demon and wait as your insides ready themselves to purge. Your shoulders tense up, your neck arches, and your throat opens up. Then all sorts of ugliness comes out of you. It’s at this point when you realize how long it’s been since you’ve cleaned your toilet, as odor from the unseen residue of human waste makes its way into your nose. If you had taken any stomach-soothing medicine beforehand you watch as it separates itself from the bile you just choked up. A lot of good it did. Then you sit back and flush away the madness like a bad dream.

There is, however, one undeniable perk to the act of vomiting. It automatically gives one an excuse to skip out on anything. Don’t want to go into work today? That’s okay, you just vomited for God’s sake—you could get someone sick! Or worse yet, you could get sick again. At work! Nobody wants to see that. Children constantly get out of school because of it as well. If a child wasn’t feeling up to finishing the day in elementary school, all he or she had to do was throw up during lunch. And within minutes they would come in, cover the mess in sawdust and send the child home with an excused absence and a smiley-face sticker.

Sure there are other perks to vomiting as well. It could save your life one day if you decide to drink a bottle of Lysol, or rid your body of harmful bacteria or viruses. But who needs any of that? I don’t care that vomiting is the healthy alternative to death. I care about wondering if I should throw away my toothbrush after using it to clean my mess of a mouth post-vomitum. I care about that horrible taste of stomach acid and tacos that sticks to the back of your throat. Healthy immune system, my ass. I’m looking into having the vomit center of my brain surgically removed. That’ll show those pro-vomit elitists a thing or two.

The Quad of Earthly Delights

Life isn’t always all that pleasant on a college campus in the spring. Sure, the sky isn’t vomiting an inch and a half of ice on my car anymore, and it no longer gets dark just after lunch, but all, still, is not well. Besides pollen besieging my unprepared sinuses, and the horrible smelling white tree blooming outside of my window, I generally enjoy spring weather. But then they come out. As soon as the first warm breeze wafts its way through town, the rumble of trampling bare feet heading towards the quad can doubtlessly be felt on the far outskirts of town. Overnight, the typically serene and green field on campus becomes an amusement park. I’m honestly surprised the school doesn’t set up pretzel stands.

I’ve talked about this with people in the past. Typically I’m just told that I’m too easy to irritate, which irritates me somewhat. How are these people dirtying up my picturesque quad not widely considered a nuisance? On a sunny day in April the quad looks like a landfill has manifested itself into human form and taken up residency. At first glance it seems like quad-goers simply wish to enjoy the warm sun after a long and unpleasant winter—but no, their true motives are far more sinister. I’m convinced that they’ve taken root on the quad for the sole purpose of annoying me.

This matter goes far beyond simple clutter. The increased number of people slows mobility, and a few hundred thousand people on the quad doesn’t exactly make for the ideal environment for a swift bike ride. So now I have to walk. Which is okay in and of itself, but then I have to deal with people. Now that campus swims with chipper students on a warm weather high, everyone wants to be more social. So the typical “How are you?” from a classmate transforms into genuine curiosity on their part. This is typically bad news for me. Aside from the concept of spiders laying eggs in my brain, nothing terrifies me more than the act of small talk. Whenever I need to speak generally with someone with whom I’m not completely familiar, the social portion of my brain simply sizzles and shuts down leaving only hundred-year-old baseball statistics.

“Kris! What’d I miss in class today? The weather is sooo nice.”

“Did you know that Nap Lajoie batted .376 in the 1904 American League season, Callie?”

“My name is Melissa.”

It just isn’t pretty.

Direct interaction with people doesn’t even bother me as much as some of the indirect interactions which occur while I walk along the quad. First of all, there’s the ever-present threat of being hit in the head by a stray baseball, football, or frisbee. It seems that merely taking up space on the quad isn’t enough for these people; they apparently need to throw things over large groups of people as well. Not only do I have to look out for people who may want to talk to me, but I also have to worry about getting a concussion. It’s like walking through a war zone. If a ball happens to land near you, they also expect you to retrieve it for them as if you wanted to play with them but just didn’t realize it yet. You threw it and missed, asshole—you can get it. I’m telling you, there should be a law.

A lot of people also use this opportunity to practice their instruments en masse. Trying to work out the chord progression to “Crash Into Me”? Take it to the quad. Need to go through your didgeridoo scales? Quad. Attempting to adapt “Dani California” for acoustic guitar, Irish kettle drum, and bongos? The quad is both your practice room and stage. So now I am not only being physically and mentally assaulted by quad-goers, but I’m also forced into listening to their crappy college music. I once saw a person sitting high on the steps of Wilson Hall loudly and sloppily strumming out what I think was “Hotel California” to the entire student body. Where does this impulse to perform come from? These people impose their music on others and nobody can do anything about it. Simply complaining to them makes things worse, because then you’re accused of giving off bad vibes, and that’s just no good for karma, man. Someone please shoot me.

I suppose one advantage that comes from the Garden of Earthly Delights that the quad becomes in the spring appear as if by magic: puppies. These little guys run around and trip over their awkwardly proportioned legs, only to get up to chase a leaf that’s blowing in the wind. Cute little rascals. But then their owners come after them. The people who bring a dog to the quad are never what you would expect by looking at the dog. A small, brown ball of fluff probably belongs to a fraternity-type who goes by the name Smokestack or Gym Locker—and the worst part comes when you find out that Smokestack has named his dog Guinness or some other form of alcohol. If anything, something like this makes me feel sorry for the dog. How would you like to go through life with a name like Miller High Life or Captain Morgan? The only thing that I see in these animals’ future is death by being force-fed grain alcohol—and something about that just doesn’t sit well with me. Also, these guys don’t seem to like it when other males pay attention to their puppy. I assume it’s because it distracts their little Corona from his true purpose: to lure in women and hook them like large mouth bass. Now I’m no animal rights activist, but that doesn’t seem like the ideal reason to invest in a dog.

Now perhaps I’m just being a curmudgeon. But seeing the quad treated like it’s the beach, complete with people sporting bathing suits (in the mountains), bugs the hell out of me. It doesn’t even have to be sunny or even warm for this phenomenon to occur; I regularly see a girl in her bikini on a sixty-degree, mostly cloudy afternoon. It’s as if the mere idea of warmth drives these people into whatever patches of sun they can find. And that’s okay I suppose; my torment will pay off when I can chuckle at their skin cancer.

I Suppose Twinkies Do Look Somewhat Like Baseball Bats

Growing up as the fat kid was never easy. No matter what I did nothing could change the stigma that surrounded my chunky little body. My peers wouldn’t allow me to forget my place in the Western Branch Intermediate social structure as the kid who ate Twinkies every day for lunch despite never having a Twinkie or any other Hostess brand product in my lunches—I rather fancied Goldfish and apples, actually.

In retrospect, I’ve come to appreciate a lot of the insults that my classmates tossed at me, like “if you farted it would crack open the world and you would fall in and die.” Or “you eat a ham everyday before school. An entire ham.” But sometimes the kids just weren’t feeling creative and would simply throw out a “hey, you’re fat” and call it a day. Ah, youth.

Somehow during this turbulent time in my life, I thought it may be good idea to try my hand at sports. I’ll never figure out what I was thinking. Now not only was I the Twinkie kid, but I was also the Twinkie kid who couldn’t hit a baseball to save his fat little life. Like most problems from my childhood, my utter futile attempts at athleticism were probably my parents’ fault. “Come on, Kris. It’ll give you some fresh air and it’ll be fun.” Sure. Fun. That’s exactly what it was. In all likelihood they were probably trying to con me into losing weight, sick of flashing all the empty smiles when they re-assured me that I wasn’t really made entirely out of whale blubber like my classmates insisted.

So there I was, a portly seven-year-old who had to special order his baseball helmets because his head was two sizes too big for the ones provided by the league. While most kids enjoyed their little league years knocking triples into left field, or breaking off increasingly faster and far more dangerous curveballs at the trembling nerds at bat; I remained in right field watching butterflies or throwing rocks into the air. To make matters worse, the area’s little league forced kids into trying out to play, as if they weren’t already guaranteed a spot to begin with. Every year I tried out, and every year I “made the team,” but I imagine that the coaches picked me last, right after the near-sighted kid with one arm.

Thankfully, my sporting life ended early because of two events from the same game that liberated me from the confines of those itchy polyester uniforms. This series of events began when my coach rather stupidly felt sorry for me and decided to let me pitch for one inning. Three pitches later and I was back kicking sand in right field, which I suspect probably had something to do with the sobbing, bloodied eight-year-old who was just hit in the glasses with an out of control baseball.

The next incident occurred while I at bat. I could never really get the hang of making contact with the ball, and at this point my fear of getting smashed in the face by a wild ball was doubled because of the bloodshed I caused earlier. Apparently my violent display of complete ineptitude left a visible scar of discouragement on my face. Reacting to this, Mrs. Fansler, the sporty mother of a teammate whose birthday parties I would often attend, comforted me and gave me pointers on hitting the ball. “Don’t turn your head, Kris. Always remember that. And keep your eye on the ball. Head straight. Eye on the ball. Now get out there.” I walked up to bat, took a deep breath, and readied myself for the coming pitch.

The first ball whizzed past and I clenched my eyes and swung the bat. Strike 1.

“You can do it, Kris!” Mrs. Fansler yelled from her position along the fence of the third base line. “Eye on the ball!”

I straightened myself for the next pitch but shied away when the ball came by; I wasn’t getting hit for anybody, much less so I could hit a ball into a field full of people who hated me.

The outfielders moved in out of anticipation of my weak hitting ability, and I glanced towards Mrs. Fansler once more. She reassured me with a nod and a smile. I turned towards the pitcher and narrowed my eyes. He confidently threw the ball and I whipped the bat around without even thinking. Contact. The ball flew from my bat in a direct path towards Mrs. Fansler’s face. Contact.

Mrs. Fansler lost consciousness briefly and went temporarily blind in her right eye. Needless to say, I wasn’t invited to anymore birthday parties. Now it was either the desperate screams of an injured woman begging for her sight to return, or I simply realized that I wasn’t exactly the sporty type, but that day marked the end of my career in amateur sports. Unfortunately for me, this attitude lasted until I decided to take up playing football three years later. I never had the best memory as a boy.

Kristianology: A Look Into What My Parents Were Thinking

I’ve often wondered what my parents were thinking in bestowing the name Kristian Newkirk King on their unsuspecting newborn son. Were they planning on dressing me in a tiny sweater, teaching me to play polo with a tiny little pony, and enrolling me into a tiny little prep-school by the age of five, or were they simply feeling adventurous? In order to better understand what exactly this name of mine means to me I’ve decided to scrutinize it piece by piece.

Kristian. My mother’s almost cruel attempt at originality in the mid-eighties, but it’s certainly better than her second choice: Brad. Had she named me her second choice, I believe it would have solidified my fate as a football player who beats up ten-year-olds named Kris well into my thirties. So, if I had a choice between the two names, I suppose the nancy-boy name would have to suffice. It could be worse though, as many others in my family have met with much darker fates: my grandfather Elbert, Uncle Zenas, Uncle Tattnall, Aunt Hester, Uncle Heath, and, my personal favorite, Uncle Chunky.

I have mixed emotions when it comes to my first name. I’ve gone by the shortened name since infancy simply because my North Carolina-raised, paternal grandmother could not (and still cannot, for that matter) tell the difference between “Kristian” and “Kristin”—Damnit Grandma, I am not a girl! But my grandmother isn’t the only person who confused this. Throughout elementary schools I would regularly get mail from companies trying to sell me dolls and every once in a while the office at my school would try to convince my mother to sign me up for the girl scouts. I once futilely tried to switch back to “Kristian” in third grade, but in doing so my teacher counted me absent for over a week because I refused to acknowledge the name “Kris” when it was called during attendance. One parent/teacher conference later and I was back to being Kris. I’ve asked her recently what compelled her to rebel against the baby-name books and knock the Christ out of Kristian, and she simply answered: “Kristian is more English.” Fair enough. I’m not entirely sure that my family is English, but fair enough nonetheless.

Newkirk. Admittedly a fairly uncommon name that I didn’t learn to spell until I was eight, of course this was not so much because it’s a difficult name to spell but more because I found it incredibly strange as a child. My friends had middle names like Brian, and Steven. I had a name that involves a Star Trek character. Despite some reluctance, I came to accept my middle name as my favorite part of the trio, and for two reasons: the first simply being that I’ve come to embrace the somewhat off-beat yet regal allure it gives me, and also because it saves me from having the initials KKK.

After coming to accept the name, I consistently told others it was Dutch in origin until saying this in front of my grandmother several years ago. “Dutch!?” the word almost literally burst out of her chest. “Hell boy, there’s not a Dutch bone in your skeleton—my father hated the Dutch,” and she left it at that. I’m still not entirely sure what the origin of the name truly may be, but these days I just tell people that it’s English because it sounds right and nobody has yelled at me about it yet.

My grandmother’s father was an interesting guy, at least from what I’ve gathered beyond his apparent hatred for Holland. He apparently flew with Howard Hughes, was a traveling Vaudevillian violinist, and his mother-in-law (my great, great grandmother) thought he was a gypsy who was going to kidnap her daughter. In a family of plasterers, teachers, and servicemen, this stands out a bit. How can a family go from marauding pilot-musicians to football coaches in thirty years? My grandmother often speaks fondly of her father’s wit and intelligence along with his skill at violin, piano, and dance—he’s by far my favorite relative that I never met, he’s another reason why I have a sappy attachment to my middle name, and I can’t even think of his first name. I certainly hope it was more eloquent than Chunky.

King. I honestly would like to think that my last name is King because I belong to a lost line of despots and that there is an empty thrown awaiting me to take up my kingly duties. But it’s probably because I had an ancestor who made crowns in the middle-ages, or shoveled manure really well, earning him the title of “Manure King,” which, really, seems like the most likely origin. I’ve always been tempted to attack my last name for its simplicity or its shear commonness, but I think that it rounds off the pretentiousness of my name. Kristian Newkirk Leelander would probably be too much. One of my uncles claims that the last name King brings our family closer to our relatives “on the other side of the tracks.” I’m not entirely sure what he means by a statement such as this, but I imagine he is implying that I am part black. But judging by my red hair and ready-burn brand skin, I think he may be messing with me.

Despite some personal hang-ups with being named Kris in a world filled with Chris’s, I’m rather fond of my name. It’s easy to think that my name ultimately means nothing, but in trying to figure out what your name means one could figure out a lot about him or herself. Nevertheless, I think I’ll stick with the simple “Kris King,” it’s both catchy and charming in its alliteration and parallel construction. Keeping my real name hidden from the public also gives me an added layer of mystery that I can hold over the heads of new acquaintances as if it were some sort of hidden treasure. A pretentious concept, I admit, but I also spell my name with a “K” so what can you expect?

Musings on Music T-Shirts and the People Who Wear Them

As an outspoken and, at times, abrasively critical fan of popular music (“music snob” being a title I accept only begrudgingly), observing the music oriented t-shirts of others occupies a good portion of my thoughts while I drift about my daily activities. Until recently, these musings rarely went further than simply judging the taste of those around me: “Hey, that guy likes The Who—nice.” Or “Uh oh, another Phish fan.” My judgments were quick, simple and, above all, pointless to anyone other than myself.

This mindset changed one evening when I sported a crisp, black Rolling Stones T-shirt featuring only the group’s iconic “lick” mascot. At the time I was going through a bit of a Rolling Stones phase, discovering that the classic rock radio favorites had more to offer than the singles played during football games and car commercials, so I took pride in the gaudy cartoon tongue I brandished on my chest that evening. Later, a young girl I had never seen before approached and enthusiastically commented, “I love that band, they’re one of my favorites!” I smiled and responded simply with something to the effect of: “Yeah, I’ve really been into the Stones lately.” With that, the girl seemed befuddled and her mouth contorted: “The Stones? You mean that’s not a Kiss shirt?” Kiss? I hate Kiss! Was this girl insane? Or worse yet, did people see me and think that I liked fake-blood-soaked, face-paint-clad arena rockers?

With this event my ideas about wearing band t-shirts changed. Others who wore them became immediate suspects for rock-and-roll poserdom. Could there be people out there who wear a Rolling Stones t-shirt thinking that it’s a Kiss shirt? Or someone wearing a Beatles shirt who doesn’t know that the band is English? Why would someone want to wear a band shirt in the first place? Of course, I’m not brash enough to say that if someone can’t name every member of Metallica then they shouldn’t be allowed to wear the band’s shirt, but basic recognition of the group’s work seems requisite. With my new outlook on band shirts I noticed that two major camps exist: the indie-rock/music nerds (which includes music ranging from metal to more obscure older music), and the classic rock crowd. Also, with each set of fans come different speculations behind wearing the shirt in the first place.

The indie-rock t-shirt appears often in college towns, and I imagine that those wearing them likely think of their choice of shirt as advertising for the band. From what I’ve noticed, those falling in the indie-rock crowd are overjoyed in enlightening others to their special world of under-the-radar music, bombarding their peers with burned copies of their favorite band’s album when they express even the slightest interest. But the concept that others will run home and check out your favorite band just because you wore the group’s shirt that day seems unlikely. In fact, a more likely reaction in seeing a t-shirt that features a large pair of garden shears with words like “Armor for Sleep” or “Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!” written above them would be to wonder what the hell a slogan like that even means.

My second theory for the indie-rock/music nerd sect of band t-shirt wearers seems more likely. The idea falls more in line with my initial pre-Kiss incident attitudes in that the shirts act as a form of self-advertisement. People wear these shirts hoping for a knowing nod, a wink, or some form of re-assurance that they do in fact have good taste in music. Of course, this rarely happens. In fact, in my experience with wearing obscure band t-shirts I can think of one instance when someone called me out for my choice of t-shirt, and that person simply walked up to me, shook my hand and said “Fantastic t-shirt.” He then walked off never to be seen again. The term “music nerd” does not come unwarranted when considering these categories.

The second major type of music t-shirts fall under the earlier discussed classic rock t-shirt wearers. My own crass nature insists that the people who sport these shirts only buy them to impress others and support an illusion of good taste. I feel that it’s likely that their “great” yet safe choices in music ultimately mean nothing to them. This attitude no doubt stems from that one clueless girl and I now mistrust anyone wearing anything that remotely resembles a Led Zeppelin t-shirt; but even I have difficulty choking down such a cynical generalization. The motive behind a person promoting a band that everyone already knows rules out the idea of wearing the shirt to garner more listeners simply because of the group’s cultural saturation. It’s safe to say that Bob Marley doesn’t need your help in getting his name out there; the same goes for modern bands as well, as I doubt the Red Hot Chili Peppers still need a street team. I suppose the motive behind wearing these shirts stems from a similar vein as the music nerds in that people are simply trying to passively express who they are by showing others what they enjoy in t-shirt form. After all, that’s why I wore my Rolling Stones shirt that one fateful evening—well, that and it was clean.

Ultimately I believe the reason behind someone wearing a band shirt isn’t so much to look cool or even to promote the band, but rather out of an attempt to share what one likes with others and maybe make a friend or two in the process. Or maybe you just really like Kiss and don’t know what you’re talking about.