When Jonno Met His Man Crush

Later this week I’m embarking on a trip to Disney World with the GF and her family. It’s been a while since I’ve been to Mickey’s crib and I couldn’t help but think back to my first visit where I met my non-sexual man crush.

I was in 2nd grade and waiting in line with my dad for Space Mountain. Behind us in line was this rocker dude with long hair, probably around 16-18 years old. He was with two girls and this other taller weird looking rocker gentleman.

While in line, the rocker dude with the long hair kept staring at me. Nowadays, I’m perfectly used to people staring at me and I totally understand why somebody would. Heck, I would also stare at “me” if I saw myself waddling down the street. But as a little kid, I found his excessive staring a bit troubling and it freaked little Jonno out. I also found it strange he wasn’t paying any attention to the ladies he was with and instead was fixated on me.   

He began talking to my dad and was asking questions about roller coasters. Apparently, this was his first roller coaster and he was surprised how calm I was given my young age. Little does he know at 30 years old, I still cover my eyes during scary movie trailers.


The rocker dude was overly nervous and heard rumors that roller coasters make you feel like your stomach drops. Surprisingly, my dad was able to somewhat calm him down and pretty much told him in so many words to pipe down and grow a pair. 

Now, I’ll be the first one to tell you that I don’t have many talents. One of the talents God did bless me with besides an ample bosom was a ridiculous memory. I can remember the most obscure details and I’m pretty good with faces. Although it gets kind of annoying that I can always remember meeting someone, but they don't remember meeting me. If you're hot chick I get it, but if you're ugly there's no excuse.  

So let’s cut to five or six years later and I'm starting to get into music. One of the bands I was into was Nirvana. When I began to see them on MTV, I thought to myself… “God that drummer looks familiar.”

I then put two and two together and realized the rocker dude with long hair staring at me was Dave Grohl! Plus, the taller rocker dude he was with kind of looked like the guitarist, Krist Novoselic.

No wonder he was staring at me and not the girls.

Mr. Grohl must have put some kind of spell on me during our encounter because I’m pretty obsessed with him. I’m not a big fan on going to concerts or music in general, but I’ve probably seen the Foo Fighters live at least five times. Not only is he an amazing performer, but the dude is hilarious! Plus, how cool is that he was this quiet drummer of this legendary band and then starts his own group and has these extraordinary talents that nobody knew of?   

Now I’m still not 100 percent sure that it was indeed Dave Grohl, but a 2007 interview he did with Time Out magazine helped make my theory a little more accurate. In the interview, they asked Mr. Grohl what's it like to be a father(his daughter had just been born) and what he enjoys doing with her. Mr. Grohl replied that one thing he won’t be doing with his daughter is taking her to Magic Mountain (an amusement park in California) because he’s afraid of roller coasters.

The only thing I forgot to mention is the restraining order he has against me. It's only 500 feet so it's not a big deal with binoculars.
  
How about some McNuggets? (What's the deal with the Chicken McBites? How dare they take attention away from my little babies!)


-Speaking of McNuggets... In recent news a woman was charged with offering sexual favors for McNuggets. Now if that's a crime, then I should be incarcerated for life.


-One of the many reasons I won't be getting laid tonight... I cut myself during shaving and left a piece of toilet paper hanging on my neck for the whole day at work.


-I'm very saddened by the death of Whitney Houston, but on the bright side it's finally socially acceptable for me to watch "The Bodyguard" alone and cry myself to sleep.


-I'm confused... When did the bad guy from "The Hangover" start playing for the Knicks and become good at basketball?

Linsanity!

-So get this... I went to see "The Artist" and the friggin sound didn't work! I could hear the music, but I couldn't hear the people speak. And the crazy ticket clerk wouldn't give me a refund. I'm seriously going to boycott any AMC theater for now on. Who's with me?


-Why is it that whenever acquaintances find out that I jog or go to the gym... I always get this pity response of "Good for you!" They almost make me feel that I've somehow been able to defy the odds despite my obesity.


-I went to a friend's one-woman show and it occurred to me that if I ever did a one-man show it would consist of me sitting on the toilet, while I checked my Facebook news feed.


-Staying on the Facebook topic... I'm afraid the Facebook birthday wall epidemic is getting worse and worse. I've mentioned before how to put a stop to this and I'll mention it again... Before you write happy birthday on a friend's wall... Ask yourself, is this friend somebody I would normally call, e-mail or text happy birthday too if it wasn't for Facebook? (FYI, this does not apply to my own birthday on July 6th. Please feel free to give me the attention my ego desperately needs.)


-Another reason I won't be getting laid tonight.. I spent a few hours on this blog entry.


H.A.K.A.S


 

Locked Out

All righty folks, it’s time to take another trip to the awkward vaults… It was my junior year of college and my family decided to take a cruise for the winter break holiday.

Every morning my dad, mom and sister would wake up at seven in the morning to reserve a chair by the pool. When you’re in college and extremely hip like me, the last thing you want to do is wake up early. So I would usually waddle down to the pool at around 10 or 10:30am.

One day I woke up around my usual time and decided to take a shower. I’m not exactly sure why I took a shower if I was going to the pool, but let’s not focus on my strange idiosyncrasies. That’s for my psychiatrist to figure out and I’m still waiting for him to get back to me.

After I completed my shower I tried to open the bathroom door, but for some strange reason it wouldn’t open. I apparently locked the bathroom door before my shower because the rate of young, gawky, Jewish men getting attacked in cruise ship bathrooms was a serious issue in the early 2000’s. Fortunately, George W., was able to put a stop to it during his presidency and none of you youngsters have to worry about it.

So after I unlocked the door and it wouldn’t open, I tried to yank it open a bit more forcefully. Still nothing… I then got the bright idea to try to ram the door open with my shoulder. After a few attempts and remembering that I’m a wuss, it was time to think of a different strategy.  

If you have never been in a cruise ship bathroom, they are extremely small and probably just a little bit bigger than an airplane bathroom. In addition, the bathroom was heavily insulated so I could barely hear anything that was happening in the main room. So every 15 minutes or so, I would have to yell out to see if anybody was in the room. The one person who could be there was my sister, since we were sharing the room. 

During this time, my family was chill-laxing by the pool drinking some pina coladas. As 11am rolled around, my mom began to get suspicious.

“Should we check on Jon to see if he’s okay,” my mom said.

My dad never understood why I had to sleep in and thought I was wasting his money by doing so. So he responded angrily, “If he wants to sleep, let him sleep.”

Meanwhile, I’m now staring at myself in the bathroom mirror. It had been well over an hour and I began to lose it a little bit, like Tom Hanks in "Cast Away." I argued with myself and blamed Jonno in the mirror for getting me in this situation. I never have apologized to Jonno in the mirror, so now would probably be a good time to say I’m sorry for taking it out on you. It was horribly insensitive of me.

 

At least Tom Hanks had Wilson to make out with.

Another hour goes by of me just sitting on the toilet in my towel. I believe at this point I had been stuck in the bathroom for two and a half hours. I then hear a noise, so I yell out for help. 

“Kim, are you there?” I say desperately.

“Yeah, where are you?” she says.

“I’m stuck in the bathroom,” I reply. “The door won’t open.”   

Being the heroic and helpful person my sister is, she then proceeded to fall on the bed and laugh hysterically. I then realized she was the absolute worst person to save me in this situation.

After about five minutes of non-stop laughing, she tries to open the bathroom door and of course can’t get it open. She tracks down some housekeeping guy and he can’t get it open. I then begin to wonder if I’ll ever get out the bathroom and if I will ever see the light of day again. Fortunately, the housekeeping guy found a maintenance person and he was able to set me free.

As I walked out of the bathroom in my towel, I was expecting to see a great amount of support and sympathy for what I had just endured. I was hoping for a reaction similar to how a soldier gets freed by a terrorist or when baby Jessica was rescued from the well in the late 80's. I was also expecting to be swarmed by the media, with cameras flashing and reporters asking me questions. 

Instead... The housekeeping guy, maintenance person and my sister were chuckling at me. I was not shocked to see my sister laugh, but I was surprised to see the cruise ship staff enjoying my misery.

Apparently, no matter what language you speak, seeing a pasty, hairy male in a towel is universally funny for all cultures. Who knows? Maybe the sight of me in a towel is so powerful it can bring world peace.

H.A.K.A.S