Stand Up Act 10

Stand Up Act 9

Don't be a quitter.  You can say you're not funny, but you are a little funny.  Everyone's a little funny in the head.  Knee slapping toe tapping funny?  Yeah.  I was just thinking about my very confused moment when I thought it was raining while pumping gas because it was overcast and I wasn't paying attention and it's pretty funny.  Imagining the view of someone waiting in line inside the mini mart and the line is eight, maybe nine, people long and it was a pain in the ass to find parking and when you did you still had to watch one of the fueling stalls with a hawk's eye until you realized the car you were watching had someone in the front passenger seat, but not the driver's seat and you knew you may as well go and pay at the register instead of at the pump because chances were good they were in there anyway, it's pretty funny.  Standing in the mini mart, eight bodies deep, and the person you're waiting for four feet in front of you and instead of staring flaming arrows into the back of their head you glance to your left out of the mart front's windows and see me whistling away the afternoon and nodding my head to a killer soundtrack entirely between my ears while gasoline pours all over the ground and my shoes instead of into my car's tank... kind of hilarious.  Until you ask yourself "is he about to commit suicide?  Am I about to witness an act of terror/protest?  Immolation?  Is that the word?  Buddhists aren't violent!  What is going on???"  That's when it becomes semi-not funny.  Still funny though.  Don't be a quitter.  Quitters cannot be relied on for shit.

Quitters tend to be non-showerers.  Soap dodgers.  "Why should I take a shower?  I'm only going to get dirty later."  Yes!  That's it!  That's exactly the point!  You're going to get dirty later, so take a shower!  What is so difficult to comprehend about that?  Why should I change my tires?  They're only going to wear out later.  No!  Terrible logic, sir or madame!  The entire point of changing your tires is so that you can still get to where you need to go without driving on the inside parts of your wheels after your rims melt into white hot vapor and you destroy the infrastructure of society by going to get a loaf of bread.  That's the entire point of changing your tires.

Do you really want to be that person that provokes violent and sudden and detrimental change to the fabric of citizenry itself with the funk emanating from inside your clothing?  That makes you a disease to the American body.  You, person skipping bathing, are literally a disease and what you have made airborne is going to get into someone else's nose and push them right over the edge on what was probably a sub-par day of the office.  That person is going to go home with a little extra essence of pure rage from having to deal with your soap dodging ass and sit and fume for hours, perhaps days.  That rage is going to fester and grow and fall out of that persons brain like lightning bolts while you sit at home and think about not taking a shower while you eat some microwave heated shit dinner that comes in three different flavors, and have you tried the one with the pudding square?

That person is going to slowly fume and every time they smell anything normal, but slightly off, they will squeeze their mental stress ball until it can't be squished any smaller and they will find a board with a nail in it while they're at work and just start cracking peoples brains open.   All over the place.  Brains everywhere.  That person's kids will grow up in a single parent home and become a serial killer.  Not that your spouse didn't try, but fucked up is fucked up, let's be honest.  That serial killer will shut down your cities night life and going to the bar will be a fucking shit show because no one will be there.  You'll have extra time to think about not bathing yourself and I hope you feel terrible because you'll have ruined it for everyone else who does take showers, created a psychopath, and ruined a marriage, and quite possible a necklace of future children who will never have a normal childhood.  All because you didn't take a shower.  Be better than that.

Showering is important.  There's a shower graph.  It's the graph of inward and outward perception.  At the bottom of the graph is zero.  As the "Y" axis goes up, it heads towards an actual physical intervention.  As the "X" axis goes across, it heads toward infinity number of days without washing your body.  The green line is the array of points indicating what people feel about the condition of your dirt suit.  The red line is the array of points indicating what you feel about the of your dirt suit.  Day 1 through 2, depending on your deodorant situation, even at zero.

Day three the green line starts to inch upward.  The red line is still zero.  Day four, you're at "maybe shower, but my clothes are still clean so whatever", the green line is at "I'm pretty sure he's stopped showering."  Day five, the green line is at "does he wipe after number 2?"  The red line is at "I can still tie my shoes without being able to smell my own groin.  We're good."  Day 6, they're asking you if you are okay and if someone has died in your family or has your heart been broken recently.  Day 6, you are realizing your skin has been chipping off pretty easily and no matter what you wear it feels kind of itchy.  On day 7 people are beginning to actively avoid standing near you and it's great because you can't hear their bullshit conversations or are obligated to make conversation because they're out of the range of politeness.

Day seven too, you realize when you dig in your pockets it pulls the waistband of your jeans far enough from your hips to release an ungodly plume of b.o. the world has known only in stories of lore.   It's not that your nose was close either.  The mushroom cloud of violently decaying nuclear fissionic waste rolled up your tummy and chest and hit you right in the chin from underneath your shirt and jacket like NES punch out Tyson.  At a grocery store.  And now that's on camera forever.  They'll be looking at their loss prevention footage and cue you up and point you out when you went to get your wallet out of your pocket and recoiled from yourself like a ghost held it's index finger up to your nose after finger banging someone and said "check this out!"

That's when the graph points match again.  Right at the top of the graph around day 7.  What's crazy is if you hit day 7 and that happens and you're completely unphased you just go back to day zero.  That red line falls straight back down the "Y" axis and the thought process changes from "why not take a bath" to "why take a bath, I'm good with this."

No, don't be good with that.  You're going to ruin someone's life with the way you smell.  Don't be good with that!  The truth is, when you get back to zero, that green line indicating how you are perceived by the world outside your skull goes to infinity.  People start to really consider if they should ask you some deep ass questions.  Maybe you're hiding some sort of extremely deep seated trauma or maybe you did something or something happened to you that you really need to talk about, but can't put the words together.  No.  None of that.  You've just accepted that being a dirty assed human being is acceptable enough to you.  Selfish prick.   Take fucking showers.  Don't be a life ruiner.

Also don't be that guy on public transportation that sits next to whomever to prove that they're fine with all walks of life.  You're not impressing anyone.  Anyone in their right mind knows the old man at the front of the bus in the handicap seat has shit his pants and was not wearing a diaper this afternoon.  Arm sleeve tattoos are not a nose clip.  Everyone on this box on wheels can smell the fact that he has shit his pants and is not at all concerned with the fact.  Join the rest of the green curb at the back of the bus.  It doesn't make you any less of a person.  I'm sure you're a really great person on the inside and a free spirit, but shitting next to.... sitting next to a steaming pile of happily oblivious is still sitting next to a steaming pile.  We live in America, people.  You have the option to object.  Trust us, we're not judging you from the back of the bus.  We are sometimes shaking our heads and wondering what the hell is wrong with your reasoning capabilities, but we are not judging you that harshly.  Come back here where the music is live on cellphone speakers and I am not acknowledging you because we have the same dealer and I remember you from two Saturdays ago, but did not realize we live close enough together to have gotten on the bus within a few stops of each other and you didn't call me back.  Asshole.

Clubs and bars are like giant sleepovers.  The only caveat is that everyone does have to go to sleep eventually, but everyone's sleeping bags are miles apart so that conversation you would normally have while falling asleep get's sent out through text messages and various post outlets instead of mouth to mouth to your friend.  The thing is it would be creepy to send them those messages directly, way too affectionate for society now.  Society is way too sexualized.  Way too sexually charged.  If I send you a text at 2 A.M. there's no sexual connotation to it.  It's just an extension of a conversation I wanted to have earlier, but it took me a while to put the thought together, just like at a slumber party when all you can think about is all the rest of the shit you did that day.  All you can think about is the cookies and the iced tea and the video games and playing tag and hitting that three on the backyard hoop they have and your friend's mom's tits and while you're trying to fall asleep you remember that thing that occurred to you that was kind of poignant and wanted to break it out for conversation and analysis before you forget that the thought ever occurred.  And now you're creepy trying to talk to your 32 year old friend about a ridiculous theory that, though apt given the days events, now sounds like Silence of the Lambs pillow talk.

Social media is a lot like a giant sleepover.  A giant massively multiplayer sleepover.  Think about it.  What did you want to do at every sleepover?  Stay up as late as possible.  Check.  You can stay up as late as you want to whenever you want to, every time.  What else did you want to do?  Drink as much soda as you wanted to?  Check.  Play whatever game you wanted to for as long as you wanted to and cut out the players you did not want to play with at will.  Check and check and check.  Watch movies and talk about them as much as you wanted to?  Check.   Talk about current events?  Check?  That kind of makes you an awful person to have at a sleepover, but whatever floats your boat.  Alright.  It's basically an enormous, wonderful, slumber party that you have to pretend to be asleep during parts to avoid the other people at the sleepover that are not your friends.  It's great!

The best thing is, if you want to get up for a glass of orange juice or something at 3 A.M. you don't have to sneak around.  You can get up like a boss, go get the quart of O.J. and chug that shit straight out of the bottle.