Fucking Bitter, Angry Guy

Fucking Brothel Experience

Even the best game theory doesn’t matter in a brothel.

Those of you familiar with the Russell Crowe movie “A Beautiful Mind” might remember the scene where his character, the brilliant mathematician John Nash, has that breakthrough moment at a bar when he realizes that he and his buddies would have a better chance of getting laid if they all went after the less-hot brunettes in a crowd of women rather than if they all made a move for the one extremely hot blonde.

This was more an addendum than a contradiction to economist Adam Smith’s long-standing economic theory that “in competition, individual ambition serves the common good.”

For those of you who didn’t see the movie, Crowe (as Nash) points out that the “economic goal” of each individual was to fuck the hot blonde. But the odds that he or any one of his buddies would actually achieve this goal were estimated at somewhere between slim and none.

Worse, he theorized, was the certain contamination of the remaining pool of less-hot women. As each guy made their move (and failed) to land the hot blonde, all of her friends would then be out of reach to any of the guys because no woman wants to be the “second choice.”

The almost certain net result in this scenario was that all the guys would go home empty handed.

However, if all the men agree to completely ignore the hot blonde and only go after the less-attractive brunettes, the odds of at least one or two of them getting laid increased substantially. Moreover, the fact that the men completely ignored the hot blonde bolstered their chances even more because each of the less-attractive women naturally felt more “coveted” and more inclined to reciprocate their interest.

Makes sense, right?

Therefore, Nash concluded that “the best result will come from everybody in the group doing what’s best for himself AND the group” rather than simply pursuing their own individual ambitions without considering the ramifications of their failed efforts on the other “competitors.”

It’s no surprise to me that such an important mathematic/economic theory was conceived in a bar and inspired by a group of horny, drunk guys. This is where true genius is often found. That’s where we got the idea for elephant polo.

Watching this movie the other night, I had a flashback to several years ago when I and about a dozen other really drunk guys packed into a couple of cabs in Vegas to make the hour drive outside of the county to a brothel. Apparently, calling an escort service or just hanging out at the video poker bar in any major casino wasn’t glamorous enough for us.

None (I’m pretty sure) of us had ever been to a brothel before which I guess explains why we were there. Every guy has to do the brothel “experience” at least once in his life. It’s something you never forget.

I guess I was expecting a glorious Victorian estate with one of those huge fucking patios and a bunch of lingerie-clad whores wandering to and fro with cocktails in hand, maybe some brassy band playing in the background. Or at least a midget playing the piano. Not the case.

What you had was basically 10 or 12 fucking trailer homes that had somehow been connected to each other behind what looked like a standard, 1950s ranch-style home. Picture an intersection in the middle of nowhere with two or three of these exact same compounds resting just off the interstate. That’s what it looked like. There was an ominous wrought-iron fence surrounding the compound with something of a call box affixed to the main entry gate with a buzzer.

Anyway, we all piled out of the cabs (or maybe it was a couple of rental cars or some combination) and went to what the whorehouse called its bar.

I think the bar was almost as interesting as the whorehouse itself. It was by far and away the worst fucking “bar” I have ever been to in my life.

First of all, it was fucking bright in there. It was probably two or three in the morning and it felt exactly like walking into the lobby at my dentist’s office. It felt like an operating room.

The bartender weighed at least 500 pounds. And I’m not exaggerating. His fucking gut hung so far over the ice cube troth that he had to position his hips at a 45 degree angle to scoop ice into our drinks. He wasn’t very friendly either as I recall.

But the worst part about this “bar” was that it was furnished and arranged just like a fucking greasy spoon diner. There were no stools. There were no benches or booths. There were maybe a dozen standard restaurant-issue tables surrounded by a bunch of banquet-style, high-backed chairs. Just about every fucking chair was in serious disrepair. Huge chunks of plastic and foam just fucking missing from the seats and backs of these chairs.

For entertainment, as you drank up the courage to head over to the actual brothel, was a fucking 12-inch black-and-white TV up in the far corner of the diner/bar that was tuned to Channel Snow. And the volume was about halfway up. Thank God I wasn’t on acid.

It was the kind of place where if you ordered a Jack and Coke, you got a juice glass filled halfway with Jack and the fat guy handed you a room-temperature RC Cola. I think one of the less observant and most intoxicated members of the party actually ordered a fucking margarita. The bartender just laughed.

Despite the accommodations, spirits were high. It was a bachelor party weekend. The brothel menu was reviewed. Options were mulled. The proverbial hat was passed to finance the bachelor’s entertainment.

After contributing to the fund, I only had about $80 on me. A rough run at the craps table was to blame. She didn’t know it but my then-girlfriend can thank that bad run of luck for maintaining some semblance of fidelity. Regardless, I was at a whorehouse and I was determined to milk this situation for all its worth. I fancied myself something of an anthropologist, I guess.

I wanted to experience the lineup.

Ah, the lineup.

After pushing the buzzer, the iron gate swung open and the bachelor and I and a couple other guys made our way up the stairs into the main house. The madam was middle-aged and nondescript. But after welcoming us to the establishment, she rang a bell and within 30 seconds about eight whores materialized in front of us from out of nowhere.

Maybe we came too late. Maybe this particular night was the night that all the hot whores took off to go work the video poker bars in town. More likely, this motley group of eight women represented the pick of the liter.

In retrospect, the lineup was one of the best and one of the worst experiences of my life.

The girls are just standing there in panties and bras or corsets or whatever facing four young guys who are loaded to the gills. Down the line they went, introducing themselves, smiling and making brief eye contact. Had someone offered me a million dollars to remember any one of their names, I couldn’t have done it. Not even five seconds after the last girl said her name.

It was fucking surreal and uncomfortable.

Obviously, the bachelor had the first pick of the draft as it were. And I knew instantly which girl he was picking. So did the other two guys in the room. It was a no-brainer. She was the only one within 10 years of our age, weighed less than any one of us, still had most of her teeth and no visible track marks.

He made his selection. He didn’t give a fuck about what was good for the group. He pursued his individual ambition. They disappeared.

This is when it got really awkward. Nash’s game theory was out the fucking window. Actually, it was working against the rest of us now. The tables had turned. We were the “economic goal” now and all the fancy calculators and slide rules in the world weren’t going to save us.

A good 10 to 15 seconds of complete fucking silence ensued as the remaining seven or eight women just stood there. The only thing slim left in the room were the pickings.

All three of us took turns eyeballing each other and giving the shoulder jerk, you know, the “go ahead, you’re up” body language. So sad and pathetic. I mean I guess we could have turned tail and left but that would have looked really bad. Plus, I’m sure it would have required the madam to work that fucking buzzer again. There we’d be, three-deep, scratching at the fucking door waiting for her to release us.

It was grade-school kickball all over again. The worst part was that all of those girls had to have sensed it. There’s no question. And they probably suffer through that fucking mortifying humiliation several times a night. There really are no words. Whatever goes on inside the head of a whore who is passed over time after time after time is something I never want to know.

I’m no Brad Pitt but I’m telling you that I honestly felt sorry for the remaining whores. One gal had to be 55. Another looked like this was her last shift before going on maternity leave. For all I know, it was. There was one girl who had a plump but fairly fuckable body but was a hopeless snaggletooth. There was a black girl who scared the shit out of me. At least 6’4” in her heels, all ass and thighs.

The only thing missing was Rudolph the Fucking Red-Nosed Reindeer. We’d stumbled into the land of misfit whores.

Finally, finally one of the other guys pointed at a girl. They disappeared.

Just as I was going to pick a girl, the last guy made a pick and they disappeared. He picked poorly.

So there I am with maybe five or six whores staring me down and I’m all alone. Remember, I have fucking $80 in my wallet. We knew that roughly anything we’d want to get done there was going to run at least $150. That was pretty much the minimum.

I know I’m not going to be doing anything with any of these girls. So I pick the black girl, the fucking Amazon, because I know she’s not going to put up with any of my bullshit. As soon as she finds out I only have four 20s in my wallet, she’s going to run my ass out of there as fast as she can drag me. And that’s exactly what I’m praying for at this point.

Down the hall through the labyrinth of trailers we go. Small talk. Where you from? What’s your name? What are you looking to do?

We get to her “office” which is basically a small mobile home bedroom with an enormous fucking bed that takes up a good 92 percent of the space. I remember tons of pillows, a shitload of vibrators and lube and condoms all over the place.

She asked me how much I wanted to spend and I actually lied and said $100. If she had taken me up on the deal, I would have had a real problem.

This news irked her considerably. She said she couldn’t help me for $100 and I told her that was all I had.

She got up, grabbed my wrist and walked me back down the same hallway we had traversed just 3 minutes early, yelling “I don’t know anyone in this house that’s going to fuck for $100.”

It’s hard to say whether she was screaming this LOUDLY to protest the insulting offer I had submitted or to advertise a potential opportunity for the fucking half woman-half goat prostitute they had hidden away in some back room.

Either way, I was walked to the front door and buzzed the fuck out of there. I was the lucky one.

Fucking Packaged Goods

This morning I lost my shit while attempting to open a little container of yogurt.

I grabbed the little tab thing and gave it a tug and the fucking thing splintered and ripped and by the time I concluded the “attempt” there was still a good 60 percent of the foil and paper covering the top of the fucking yogurt. You couldn’t fit a spoon into it in this condition.

So then I had to dig my fucking fingers into the half-ripped part and, piece by fucking piece, peel off the remaining foil/paper. Then I had to wash my fingertips because I got yogurt all over them.

Total time to open yogurt container enough to eat it: roughly 30 seconds. That’s fucking unacceptable.

I screamed “fuck” at the top of my lungs and, after washing off my fingertips, wadded up the used paper towels in a menacing fashion and SLAMMED them into the fucking garbage can.

I want fucking names and numbers of the people responsible for designing and manufacturing the packaging used for most consumer goods. I especially want to get my hands on the asshole(s) responsible for all the Goddamn inter-twisting wires that accompany any kind of fucking child’s toy.

Buy a fucking doll or a Teddy Bear and it’s attached by at least a dozen wire ties that are all knotted the fuck up in the back of the cardboard package it comes in.

It takes longer to open and untangle the fucking toy than it does for the kid to get tired of playing with it. What the fuck is going on here?

How about cereal? Yeah, cereal. Women seem to be able to open those fucking boxes just fine, leaving the tab undamaged and the top slats of the box more or less intact. When I open a box of cereal, it looks like it was done by chainsaw.

Don’t even get me started on the plastic bag inside the box. I fuck that up too, either ripping it in such a fashion that it all has to be put in a fucking Ziploc bag or just barely opening it enough for one or two Golden Grahams to pass through the opening. There’s no middle ground.

Dry cleaning is another nightmare. The long plastic bags and the fucking paper things that are on the hanger give me fits. I reach up into the closet, yank on the plastic and paper and then have to struggle with a couple shirts as if I were reeling in a fucking 1,200-pound Marlin.

How about condiments? Yeah, the fucking annoying plastic coverings on mustard and ketchup bottles. You know? The part that has to be opened underneath the part you screw off. Yeah, every time I tear one of those fucking things off, I get mustard all over me or the fucking counter. Mayonnaise. Why the plastic thing along the rim? I have to use a fucking steak knife to cut off the plastic in order to open the fucking jar.

Peanut butter is another real debacle. That aluminum fucking covering, they give you like a centimeter of pull tab for a piece of foil that’s five inches in diameter. Of course the fucking thing tears in mid-pull, requiring multiple yanks. Then, you have to do real tedious, fine-motor work to get that annoying strip of aluminum off the edge around the top of the peanut butter.

Let me take you through my personal packaging hell.

The goal, the fucking point of this particular exercise, was to barbeque (briquette) cheeseburgers, cook some tater tots in a conventional oven, mix a simple tossed salad and heat up some baked beans on the same oven.

OK. Problem #1 was the charcoal bag. I have held off on investing in a gas grill because I think food tastes better from briquettes. That and I’m deathly afraid of blowing up myself or my home fucking around with propane tanks. I’ve heard and seen various degrees of bullshit that can ensue from (mis)using the propane grill. I know it’s simple and safe but given my track record, I’d find a way to fuck it up.

Well, this briquette bag comes with one of those paper-thin pull string-type things that always break halfway across the top of the bag. Of course it fucking snaps. That means I have to dig into the thick part of the bag to rip it open. I pretty much always have chewed-down stumps for nails so this task is harder than it seems. I contemplate getting a fucking paring knife and stabbing into the bag to start a “tearable” opening but decide to just man up and muscle my fingers into the perforation to get it started.

Now that the briquettes have been freed from their bag and alit in the grill, I have to start doing the prep work. That means getting the fucking plastic “safety” coverings off the mustard, the ketchup, the fucking mayonnaise. This results in several splatters, particularly the mustard because the opening is so small that you have to give a disproportionate amount of force to the yank to get the fucking thing off.

One time, I pulled so hard, the plastic piece that you grab that should normally then tug the rest of the cover off was completely detached. That meant sticking the knife into the foil and then reverse-engineering the fucking thing off. That must have taken 5 minutes.

Anyway, the condiments are ready. Almost. Don’t forget about shaking up the ketchup and the mustard and then squirting a good spray or two directly into the sink. Am I the only one who does this? Ever gone to use the mustard and squirted that condensed water onto the bun of your hot dog or hamburger or sandwich bread? Fuck that sucks! I hate that. I will abort the whole fucking thing, toss the food in the garbage, reshake the mustard, squirt it into the sink and then start over.

Time to open the can of baked beans. Standard manual can opener. No problem. Until it comes time to take the severed metal lid off. It kind of sinks onto the top of the beans, right? I can’t just stick my finger into the side because I’m afraid of getting a horrendous cut from the jagged metal edge.

This fear, I’m sure, comes directly from an episode of “Schoolhouse Rock.” In one of the scenes, one of the characters cuts his hand opening a tennis ball can. The fucking blood comes spurting out and it made a HUGE impression on me that remains to this day.

Anyway, the baked bean lid is resting atop the beans and now I have to decide if I’m going to use a spoon or a butter knife to prop it up enough to grab it. I opt for the spoon and then I carefully remove the lid, throw it in the garbage and wash my fingertips. The beans are then poured into the cooking pot. But the beans never all come out in one dump, do they? Fuck no. So I have to use the fucking spoon to dig into the bottom of the can to get all the beans out. Invariably, this gets bean residue on the back of my fingers and hand, resulting in another wash and paper toweling.

The salad presents a whole other universe of problems. I usually go for the pre-packaged lettuce, health concerns be damned. But those bags are tricky. Pull too hard and the whole fucking plastic infrastructure breaks down, sending lettuce and radish and carrot shards spilling out onto the floor and counter.

The tomato has to be rinsed and dried with a paper towel. Then, the real problem. How the fuck do you properly cut a tomato anyway? The slices for the burgers are easy enough. But the dicing of the tomato for the salad confounds me. That middle part that’s not really liquid and not really solid fucking throws me. In the end, the tomato pieces that end up in the salad are essentially the rind of the fucking tomato.

The cucumber, after washing and drying by paper towel, has to be cut thin but not too thin. It’s an art. Too thick and people don’t like to eat them. Too thin and they have no substance or flavor to them.

I like to toss some black olives into my salad. Same problem as the baked beans. Metal lid opened by can opener. Dangerous edge! And you have to strain the olive juice. So I gingerly hold the metal lid and pour out the juice. Fortunately, the olive people have their shit together because those lids basically fall off by themselves.

Oh fuck, the tater tots! The package is frozen and the bag NEVER opens in a clean and even fashion. It’s another fucking ragged, half-assed job that looks like a third-grade art project by the time I’m done.

Let’s talk about the salad dressing. When did the salad dressing companies get together and decide they needed the thick-as-fuck protective seal around the edge of the bottle? If I had a thumbnail, I’d puncture the skin and then sort of work my thumb around the edge of that fucking barrier. But I don’t. So I have to grab a steak knife and do a little impromptu surgery to get that fucking thing open.

OK, now there’s the cheese for the fucking cheeseburgers. The Kraft singles require a modicum of dexterity, too. Ever rip one of those fuckers open and still have a corner or a whole edge still covered in the plastic wrapping? I do every time.

Last stop: Pickles. The sliced dill, hamburger-style variety. When was the last time you opened a pickle jar? Call me a pussy, but I struggle with those fuckers. I get it, usually on the first twist, but then the interior of my palm is throbbing for a good 20 seconds. More of a burn than a pull if you know what I mean.

Then I get to sit down and eat my fucking dinner. Which takes all of what, eight minutes?

It took me that long just to get the fucking baked beans opened.

Fucking Football Matters

In the past month or so, I’ve read a lot of blogs (most written by women) and heard much complaining (always from women) about how football season destroys their social lives, monopolizes their weekend activities (and televisions) and serves as the single-largest source of domestic discord from Labor Day right through the Super Bowl.

I could spend the next 5,000 or 6,000 words explaining in excruciating detail why football is so important to us men but I’m not even going to waste my time. For most men, football is the only thing that gets us through the work week in the fall. Nothing is more depressing than the conclusion of the Super Bowl. It’s no coincidence that more men commit suicide in February than any other month of the year.

There’s simply nothing else to live for until the draft rolls around again in April.

Whether it’s gambling on the games, fantasy football teams, the local team, the team of your childhood or your alma mater, there’s always a reason to watch each and every professional and college game broadcast. That’s just the way it is.

Baseball might be our pastime but football is its all-consuming passion. It’s practically a religion. Any priest or rabbi will tell you that attendance plummets every fall. That’s no joke.

In recent years, either by force or choice, more and more women have discovered why football is so important and entertaining.

While still in the clear minority, these women recognize the value of spending a solid nine hours each Saturday and Sunday and another three hours on Monday night (oh and Thursday nights, too) with their man glued to the television screen, breaking only to have sex (during halftime or that frustrating one-hour void between the conclusion of the late afternoon game and the start of the Sunday night game), get food or use the restroom.

These women are highly evolved creatures. They have their priorities straight. Whether they like it or not, they realize and accept that the success of their relationship hangs in the balance. To sacrifice autumnal weekends and the odd weekday night in exchange for, roughly, 8 months of normality and relative social balance is a deal they happily make.

They’re the winners, the women who have happy marriages and long-term relationships.

But, like I said before, they’re in the minority.

The rest of you are a real fucking problem.

I’ve known and mated with your type, the selfish bitch who wants to actually leave the home for an undetermined period of time at some point during the football weekend. What the fuck are you thinking? What could possibly be going on out in the world that’s more important than the second half of the Jets-Chargers game? Nothing, I tell you. Nothing at all.

I’ve been to the mall, the fucking beach, the local fucking coffee shop. Been there a million fucking times. It ain’t that great. I’ve visited with your friends, my friends, your relatives, my relatives a zillion times. Unless the game(s) is going to be on wherever the fuck you’re proposing we go, I want none of it.

More to the point, I promise you I don’t and won’t like anyone who wouldn’t be watching the game right now anyway. Go hang out with Jenny and her fag husband at the art and wine festival without me. I’m going to spend the next three hours watching fit young men in tight uniforms jump on top of each other. Are we clear? I’m out.

The only thing worse than a woman who doesn’t understand and appreciate the life-and-death importance of football is a man (loosely defined) who doesn’t schedule his entire life around football games. These mother fuckers are the worst. Completely unaware of the standings, the statistics, the point spread, the importance of the “Tuck Rule.”

And why is it that these guys always have facial hair? Is that the artsy, non-conformist thing to do? Grow a fucking goatee and swear off football. Yeah, that’s intriguing. I’d ask you how that’s working out but I already know because you’re the guy aimlessly wandering the aisles of Target or Bed, Bath and Beyond every Sunday, pushing your little shopping cart a good five feet behind your bitch wife and constantly adjusting your Baby Bjorn.

Don’t tell me there’s more to life than football. That’s a fucking lie. Other things might be going on but nothing that really matters. You know what matters? This field goal matters. If it’s good, I’ll be cashing a four-team parlay which means next weekend you can blow right past Old Navy on your way to Nordstrom’s. You follow?

As for the TV issue, how many people only have one TV in their home? If that’s you, go out today and buy another. They’re fucking cheap and might save your life. You go into that room and watch fucking “While You Were Out” and “Rachael Ray” and I’ll be out here monitoring our investments.

Whenever I hear a woman say “well, you could TIVO the game,” I have to fight back an overwhelming urge to snap her neck. The thing about football is that you have to watch it live for it to be entertaining. Even if you don’t know the result, you know that everyone else does. It makes it impossible to enjoy. You just end up fast-forwarding to the scores and never get to savor all those penalties or incomplete passes.

Plus, the world doesn’t let you not know the score. Scores are fucking everywhere. On the radio. On electronic billboards. Wherever you go on a Saturday or Sunday, grown men are talking about the scores of football games. If you happen to change the TV to a channel with those ubiquitous scrolls at the bottom, you’re sure to see all the scores whether you want to or not. You can’t escape it.

TIVOing a game and watching it later is akin to asking a woman to read the newspaper to find out who won all the Oscars at the Academy Awards show. It’s the same thing, right? Why do you need to see what so-and-so was wearing or hear so-and-so’s speech? Just read the results. Because it sucks, that’s why.

Bottom line: If you can’t handle or accept that every fall weekend for the rest of your life will be consumed by football, move along.

It’s not like guys keep this shit a secret and then spring it on you two or three years into the relationship. We might fake it for one weekend early in the relationship to get laid. But once that door’s been kicked open, there’s no turning back.

As we men get older and have more responsibilities and less free time, football becomes even more important. It’s the one thing we can count on for distraction and enjoyment. Sometimes it’s the only thing.

Hey, no one’s holding a gun to your head. There are plenty of goateed or bearded guys out there just waiting to spend their Sunday afternoon at an antique sale.

Knock yourself out.

 

Fucking New Hampshire Boy

I’m sitting at an airport bar the other day and some fucking Howdy Doody mother fucker pulls up a stool next to me.

This little cocksucker went about 5’ 3”, 135 lbs. tops and was all teeth and hair and had a 70s gay-porn style moustache. He was wearing a black-and-white checked sweater with a white collared shirt poking out the top and some kind of black slacks.

He wanted to be my friend.

He ordered a beer and I had a hard time placing his accent. At first I immediately pegged him as Bostonian but it was distorted and sort of hillbillyish.

Turns out he’s from NH.

That figured.

So he starts with his small talk. Where you from? Where you going? What are you doing here? I answer. He’s not really interested in my answers. He’s out of town and has an agenda to tell the world how great he has it.

He starts by telling me about all the incredible virtues of The Granite State. How nice it is this time of year. What a great spread he has there and blah, blah, blah.

He was doing all the talking. Telling me about how great it is to live out in the country and what a wonderful place it is to raise kids. He’s basically selling me on his life. He’s 34 and has five kids ages whatever to whatever and his wife LOVES being a stay-at-home mom. He commutes into the city, “only” an hour and half each way.

I nod my head, the whole time thinking that this stupid fuck is clueless that at this very minute his wife is on all fours taking it in the poop chute from Rusty the fucking local handyman. Of course she’s happy.

While you’re out “busting your ass” selling straws and napkins and other small-margin restaurant supplies, she’s fucking anything that wanders onto the Back 40. Hell, even your five kids are in on the joke.

And what’s he going to do about it? She’s got at least 50 pounds and a half foot on him.

That’s why she lets you leave the house with that fucking ridiculous moustache. She doesn’t give a fuck. She and half the county are laughing at your ass. You’re her cute little businessman boy, all dressed up for a big day of cold calling Taco Bells and diners in the big city.

Anyway, he volunteers the dimensions of his “estate” and, with great emphasis, tells me it’s on three-and-a-half acres of land.

Let me say it straight: There’s no bigger red flag in the realm of small talk among men than when a guy tells you how much land he owns. If you have to mention the size of the lot of land your home sits on, you’re a fucking small-time piker. End of discussion.

But I pretended to be impressed and asked him what his sprawling compound looked like.

“Oh it’s beautiful. Most of it is trees and grass. Great for the kids to just go out and run around.”

“Yeah, but who maintains it? Do you have a staff? A gardening service?”

“Oh no. I do it all myself. I have one of those sitting lawn mowers. It takes me about four hours to mow all the grass. I mow it every other weekend from May to September.”

“What happens in the fall?”

“Oh, the fall’s the worst. I have to go out with rakes and a blower and get all the leaves. We’re talking dozens of those 30-gallon Hefty bags. I do that four or five times. Takes the better part of a weekend each time.”

“And the winter?”

“In the winter I don’t have to do anything. It’s just covered in snow. No one even goes out there.”

“What’s winter like in your neck of the woods? How long?”

“Oh we start getting snow sometime in late October and it will snow pretty much all the way through April. Sometimes into May.”

“So you’re telling me you really only use the land from sometime in May to sometime in October?”

“Pretty much.”

“And you spend most of your non-winter weekends out mowing the grass and raking the leaves.”

“Yep.”

“Sounds like a big pain in the ass.”

That was the end of our conversation. We sat there next to each other for the next 20 minutes in complete silence until he got up to, I presume, catch his flight back to heaven.

Fucking idiot.

Fucking Horizontal Stabilizers

I don’t know what it says about me or my character but I find myself speculating about the final minutes and seconds of peoples’ lives just before they’re killed in some sort of horrifying accident. Am I the only one?

Take a plane crash.

Some of you might remember an Alaska Airlines flight in January 2000 that crashed into the ocean near LA. Something like 90 people died in the tragedy and the fucked up thing about it was the pilots knew they had a SERIOUS problem when they discovered the horizontal stabilizer had jammed shortly after takeoff.

I’m no aviator but apparently the horizontal stabilizer is very important because it keeps the plane stable in flight. Nothing worse than being horizontally unstable at 25,000 feet.

Well, while the pilots were fucking with the controls trying to keep the plane in the sky, they were also talking to mechanics and other experts on the ground in the hopes of figuring out some way to either unstick the stabilizer or use other means to stabilize this fucking MD-83 on the fly. Literally.

At one point, the stabilizer got jammed in such a way that the plane suddenly went into a nose-first dive for several thousand feet before the pilots were able to correct the problem (somehow) and level the plane off. Temporarily…

OK. So there you are in seat 22A and all the sudden the fucking plane goes into a dive straight fucking down for 10 or 15 seconds. Do you have any idea how long 10 or 15 seconds really is when you’re inside an airplane hauling ass at about 500 mph straight down? Count it yourself. A thousand and one, a thousand and two…

Holy Shit! That would have been enough for me. I would have been dead from a heart attack on the spot. At least, as we soon found out, I would have hoped to have died from a heart attack at that point. It only got worse.

Imagine what’s going on inside that jet during this abrupt descent. People not in their seats tossed around like rag dolls. Even those buckled into their seats are suddenly looking DOWN at the fucking cockpit door. Think about that for a second. The MD-83 is about 147 feet long.

If you’re in the last row and the plane suddenly goes into a complete nose dive, you’re looking down at the cockpit door from about at least 70 or 80 feet. That’s about 7 or 8 stories above the cockpit. And you’re fucking pinned to the back of your seat, assuming you haven’t fallen out of the fucking thing and bounced off the floor, ceiling, seats or other passengers all the way down until you slam into the cockpit door.

Who really tightens their seat belts to the proper tension on an airline flight? Everyone sort of half-asses it. I imagine a good five or six people, either up walking to the bathroom or sitting in their seats without their belts tightened, were immediately tossed around and ended up in a heap either at the foot of the cockpit door or the bulkheads in the front of first class. Just a pile of fucking injured bodies.

What else is going on? Well, the fucking oxygen masks have come fluttering down from the ceiling but chances are you can’t even fucking reach them because the force of the descent has you pinned to the back of your seat. Lights are flashing. Alarms are surely ringing. Shit is falling all over the place. With any luck, a fucking laptop or a heavy carry-on bag has clubbed you into unconsciousness in the melee.

Not a good time to have a window seat, by the way.

What else do you hear? Oh, only about 90 people screaming their fucking heads off. Panic doesn’t even come close to describing what’s going on in that airplane. You’re probably screaming so loud you don’t even notice how loud everyone else is screaming.

Again, this is going on for 10 to 15 seconds. No warning. No fucking explanation from the flight deck. Nothing. Just nose first.

So now that everyone has shit and pissed themselves or feinted or fucking been tossed around the fuselage, the pilots miraculously steady the plane, level it out and, I would assume, make some sort of announcement to the passengers. Maybe not. Come to think of it, the pilots know they’ve got such a serious problem, they probably figure it might be best to just say nothing at all at this point. They’re pretty fucking busy upfront anyway.

But at some point, the pilots did announce they would be making an “unscheduled” landing in LA and they proceed to try to dump fuel, reduce their altitude and get the fucking ground crew at LAX ready for what’s sure to be a messy landing.

It’s at this point, if you’re unfortunate enough to still be alive or conscious, that the real panic begins. I don’t know about you, but after a nose-first descent of that length and the subsequent announcement, I know this isn’t going to end well. No fucking way.

The plane continues to turn and descend, turn and descend and then all of the sudden, the final nose dive begins. This time it’s for roughly a minute and a half.

A minute and a half!

A pilot of another plane in the vicinity later told investigators that “the aircraft was twisting, flying erratically, nose rocking.” And then “tumbling, spinning, nose down, continuous roll, corkscrewing and inverted.”

It’s the “and inverted” part that really captures my imagination. Inverted means upside down.

That’s how you spent the last minute and a half of your life. Upside, nose first, corkscrewing into the ocean at several hundred miles an hour.

Now, I ask you, how many of those 90-odd people were still conscious at impact? This is what I need to know. Is it possible to survive the first nose dive for 10 to 15 seconds and then the minute and a half eternity of the second freefall? I hope not but something tells me the survival instinct would stubbornly kick in for a good number of the passengers.

I’d like to think the sheer terror of the situation combined with the rapid drop in altitude would render everyone onboard unconscious long before the impact. But maybe not.

And then at impact, what really happens? Is it just one big crushing explosion that just pulverizes all your body parts or does the bulk of the plane provide enough cushion that you actually survive the impact for a few seconds before the flames or the water or the twisted metal snuff you out?

These are the type of things that keep me up at night.