An Open Letter to the Cockroach I Saw in the Laundry Room

Dear Tiny Manifestation of Evil,

So, we finally meet.  You: the first naturally occuring cockroach I have ever seen.  Me: mild-mannered student teacher by day, part-time super hero by night.  There was a definite moment as I entered the laundry room and you paused in your scurry across the floor that our eyes locked.

We stared at one another, sizing each other up for a good few seconds.  Then, as we nonchalantly went our seperate ways, we continuously turned around to monitor each other's paths.  No doubt, you were considering the brute strength that must lie within each of my disproportionately toned arms (Hey, I'm working on the shoulders, alright?  Lay off.  LOOK AT YOUR LEGS, SHRIMP!).

Listen, let me lay this out for you in a language that you can understand.  I have no quarrel.  I do not bite my thumb at you, sir.  You pose no threat to me as you scamper across the floor, looking for God knows what (as it was past midnight, I'm forced to assume you were out looking for a lady friend).  I live on a much higher floor, whereas you live in the basement, or you were just visiting.  So long as you remain below ground level, in the land of dryer lint and the occasional pipe leak, we have no beef.

But I swear to Eric Clapton, if you so much as stick one little antennae into our hallway, I will sick the baby panther on you and she will rip you into a dozen nuclear-radiation-resistant pieces.  Sure, you might have the upper hand when it comes to longevity, but who is more likely to survive the swift justice of the bottom of my sneaker?  Me, that's who.  Don't ask questions.

Listen, bug, I've wasted enough of my time writing this patient, heartfelt letter that you can't read cause yous straight ignant.  You've probably already been smashed by someone since I started this tome, so I will wrap it up and wish you a good night far below my apartment, stuck to the squeaky wheel of a laundry cart.

Wednesday Morning

Editor's Note:  There used to be an entry here about the taxi cab that struck me on the sidewalk one morning. There are currently several legal cases pending, so I decided it was best to take this post down given my involvement in these cases.

An Open Letter to the Nigerian Email Scam Artist Posing as a Reputable NYC Landlord Who Woke Up This Morning To Find His Inbox Swamped with Dozens of Hilariously Annoying Email Subscriptions and Text Message Alerts, All Addressed to a Certain "Dr. Fake McScammypants"

You're welcome.
Love, Dan

Adventures in Education, Chapter 16

The administration at my student teaching site asked us to create a homework packet or research project assignment for our students for the public school spring break last week.  As a part of our unit on Night by Elie Wiesel, I asked students to select one of four project options for their research on Holocaust history.

Option #3 was a series of creative writing journals detailing, with some historical accuracy, daily life in the ghetto for an "undesirable".  I apparently did not specify that I meant the Warsaw ghetto, and I am currently reading through journal entries describing life in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and Hunts Point in the Bronx.

Tomorrow's class will be featuring a "teachable moment".  I'm still learning things, too.

A Very Recentist List of One English Ed Grad Student's Fears (but not mine, certainly).

Level 1
- Being late for class
- Teaching the day after a Boston team bites it against an NYC team.
- Running out of Clif Bars
- Houston Street bicyclists

Level 2
- Forgetting to set the alarm
- Showing up to class unprepared
- Crossing the street the day after the Yankees win the World Series
- Not having a devastatingly witty response for Nigerian email scammers

Level 3
- Not being able to shake the feeling that I forgot to set the alarm
- The Lincoln Tunnel
- Taking the Ashmont Red Line instead of the Braintree Red Line, only to wake up and find out it was all a dream... as I miss the late night 1 train at 116th Street.
- Being called a phony as I teach The Catcher in the Rye

Level 4
- Being called a phony as I teach The Very Hungry Caterpillar
- Being placed at a Staten Island student teaching site
- Nigerian email scammers riding bicycles on Houston Street
- Whales

Level 5
- Men's rooms in Brooklyn
- The subway level of the Port Authority Bus Terminal
- The G train
- Dying alone

Level 6
- Having to drive through Connecticut even one more time.

Help Me Get Lunch, Friends

There is a restaurant nearby called Project Sandwich, and they are asking for sandwich submissions. You can see the list and vote or die here.

Naturally I am hungry and anticipate getting free food so please consider the issues, place a sign in your front lawn, and go vote for "The Upper-Middle Class Pilgrim"--the sandwich that is about to take Manhattan by storm, kind of like the rain just did.

"The Upper-Middle Class Pilgrim" Sandwich

1 Serving of Smoked Turkey

A Few Slices of Ham

Two Strips of Bacon

Cranberry Mustard

Served on Potato Bread

w/Cape Cod Potato Chips

Feel free to submit your own recipe as well, if you are looking to snag second place.  I really think that having my own sandwich will be the difference maker and I will finally have lots of friends.

A Call to the Bullpen

Fantasy sports are exciting.  Despite the fact that most of us got made fun of in gym class (but not me, certainly), playing fantasy sports allows many of us to get the competitive juices flowing without any of the detracting risks that come along with being an athlete, like pulled hamstrings, road trips to Milwaulkee, and cheating on your spouse.

One of the highest orders of business in fantasy sports actually has nothing to do with the sport at all.  Picking a tremendously hilarious team name will earn you the admiration of your peers and make you seem like an awesome human being--even though, by all accounts, you are not.

I joined a fantasy baseball league where I will need to come up with a baseball related pun on a popular book title (examples that are already taken: "Catchers in the Rye", "David Copper Fielders", "A Midsummer Night's Team", and "The Great Batsby"). Although I am quite aware that I am the funniest person I know (and smartest and best looking and most modest), I thought I would take it to the Internets and solicit votes from the peanut gallery, as well as potential submissions, before I finally select a team name.

Here is my preliminary brainstorming list:
Jane Error
Slaughterhouse Nine
Lord of the Flyouts
Angels & Dodgers
The Pinchrunner's Guide to the Galaxy
Perks of Being a Wallballer
Catch-27
Homers for Algernon

Fahrenheit 6-4-3
Dante's Infieldo
Clubhouse Chatterly's Glover
Artemis Foul
Comedy of Errors
Taming of the Screwball
The Bunt for Red October
For Whom The Ball Rolls
Number the All-Stars (I'm going to hell)
Fight in August
A Pitcher of the Artist as a Young Man
Silas Mariner
Homer's Epic Cycle

Please overlook some of the lamer choices in there; I was tired.  My friends also came up with lists, among them these choice choices:

Excerpts from JM's (probably superior) List:
Atlanta Braves New World
The Base Runner
Of Dice-K and Men
The Full Count of Monte Cristo
The Pitcher of Dorian Gray
Atlas Slugged
One Flew Over the Green Monster
The Outfielders
A New York Yankee on King Arthur's Wall
Jackie Robinson Crusoe
Journey to the Center Field of the Earth
[and my personal favorite]
The Tragedy of King Richard at Third

Excerpts from DL's List:
Glove in a Time of Cholera
Balk Two Moons
Animal Farm League
A World Series of Unfortunate Events
Around the Bases in 80 Days
Charlotte's Web Gems

Have you got anything, Internets?  I'm picking my team name by this time tomorrow.  Feedback/suggestions/hate mail appreciated.

An Attempt to Single Out My Huge Fan from Mountain View, California

Hello, Mountain View, California!!!!!

Many of you will wonder why I'm offering this salute to this quaint little village of 70,780.  As it turns out (and yes, I get statistics on such things), I've received quite a few hits from this town, which perhaps not coincidentally is where Google is based.  In an effort to find out if I have a stalker (and find out if said stalker is a gorgeous, 22-year-old brunette with brown eyes standing about 5'5"), I am reaching out to said creepshow who seems to be stalking my blog.

At any rate, hi.  My name is Dan.  I am impressed by your taste in comedic blog writing, since you've come to the greatest source for blog-o-comedy on the Internets.  For those of you who fall into a category I just created called "Not my stalker from Mountain View, California", you might be thinking: "Hey, this entry is irrelevant to me!!".  And you'd be right, except for the fact that this stalker that I may or may not have might in fact be my future wife, and thus an integral part of my blogging experience from 2013 onward.  I'm just saying.  If she is, I'd like to give her enough time to break into the world of hiLARious comedic blogging so she can be up to snuff when I have to introduce her to my mom.

And so, dear future wife from MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA, I am very happy to have artificially met you.  Please get in touch with me soon.  I'd be more than happy to leave my current girlfriend, "Beer".

The Unexpected Case for "Y'all"

I'm a man with facts.  While some people have opinions, my "opinions" are really just facts that I label as opinions so that other people don't feel insecure around me.  Trust me, it's hard work being right all of the time.  People start to resent you.

That said, I never change my mind about anything, because to do so would be to change facts, and to change facts is un-American (or standard practice, if you're Rush Limbaugh). I have to make an announcement, however: I have, in fact, changed my mind on one very important point.

After much malignment from myself and other intelligent, great looking people, I think it's time we embrace the word "y'all".

Now step down from that window ledge, Grandpa; I know what you're thinking. "Y'all" is a grammatically suspect folksism from the backwoods of all the states that we should have just let secede. You'd be right. However, at the moment, we have a need, and necessity is the mother of invention. And your mother was a duplicitous tramp, but we don't have time for that right now.

You see, there currently exists no good option for replacing "guys" in the vernacular.  Sure, everyone uses it, but those with too much time on their hands are quick to mention that "guys" is sexist (even if you were just addressing four men whose names were all, literally, "Guy").  I have several professors that have gone out of their way to deliver a ten-minute tangent on why America needs to stop referring to groups of people as "you guys".

Sure, my other professors think those guys need to just chill out, but they may have a point.  Who knows?  Somewhere there could be a girl that actually gets offended when she's directly or indirectly referenced as a part of the "you guys" collective.  No, I wouldn't want to hang out with her either, but I think I have to at least pretend to care about her life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

"Oh Rhode Island, you so silly!"

Therefore, I ask you to indulge me and reconsider "y'all".  It's hard to get the attention of a group of people if, say, you're a student teacher and you need to bring a room with 33 students to order.  I mean this is strictly hypothetical, of course.  "Ladies and gentlemen" sounds a bit stuffy.  "Boys and girls" is patronizing.  "You folks" sounds like something my grandma would say.  "Fellas" isn't going to do it, either--you'll have the "You Guys" KGB knocking on your door in no time.  Yet, a well placed "Hey, y'all need to shut the hell up!" could get the trick done without offending anyone at all!*

* based on gender

So, dear friends, hear my plea!  Given that there is no more edumacated synonym for "y'all", I suggest we try it out. We have nothing to lose, and so much community to gain. Whaddaya say, y'all??

ADDENDUM (6:58pm):  Forget it, you guys.  I can't do it.

I'll Be Honest; I Don't Fully Understand Where This Leaves Us

Okay, so... usually I like to post my own stuff, because I think that I'm hilarious and awesome and head and shoulders above the rest of the world... and, well, I am. Sometimes, however, I like to throw the spotlight to those who are less talented than I am. Enjoy this clip that I cannot get enough of: