The Friday Fives

1. What is your weirdest addiction?

Softcore North Korean porn.

2. What’s your go-to when you run out of toilet paper?

It generally never happens, but if the spare roll is in the closet in the other room, I also have a roll of paper towels to clean the bathroom on hand, and I will tear off a small square and go to town.

3. What do you say to an unwanted door-to-door salesperson?

True story. Unfortunately. There are no witnesses. When I was living in Gunnison, a few Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on my door. I was working from home at the time, writing up a newspaper column and finishing up some desktop publishing of that week’s issue on the good old trusty Macintosh SE, which I used to produce the local newspaper. I heard some clatter in the quad of my apartment complex. So when the Witnesses came to my door, I answered the door naked and invited them in. They passed on the invite. There may or may not have been some weed and booze involved.

4. What was the scariest “We need to leave… now” gut feeling that you’ve ever experienced?

There was this tiny little bar near my apartment in Denver called the Lil Taz. My friends and I were “collecting” Denver dive bars at the time. We strolled in and ordered some beers, hoping to get some tacos, but the kitchen was closed. We ordered some beers, and I excused myself to the bathroom after some time. While “resting” in the restroom, a group of guys came in and began to snort some lines up their noses with some powdery substance from the tank of the toilet. I quietly went to the sink, washed my hands, and walked out, returning to the table of my friends and telling them to drink up; we were leaving and explained what I had just seen and that it was about to get really weird here soon. We were just three white folks in a bar frequented by a number of Latinos, and it was obvious we weren’t necessarily welcome there, so the anticipated coke/meth-infused atmosphere was more than troubling. I am not sure that there was any coke/meth or that we were unwelcome, but between the vibe and the beers we were drinking and the fact that it was a very, very small bar was unnerving, and we left immediately. Had we stayed, it might have been a great party.

5. What’s the most unusual thing you’ve found on the street?

I am always fascinated by that one glove found on the side of the road. Over on the Twitter machine, if you search for Hanx (Tom Hanks’ Twitter account), he frequently posts a random picture of just one glove found on the sidewalk, gutter, or road, and that Twitter feed always gives me a nice warm glow.

2 Replies to “The Friday Fives”

  1. 1) Oral fixation and chewing on all sorts of things, straws, disposable coffee cup lids, etc. Clearly didn’t get enough of the nip when breastfeeding.

    2) Pack it up and move on to another stall, go get a new roll from storage or try to find another bathroom.

    3) Just a simple No and then stand firm that they need to move on. I am not rude or agressive, but very clear I am not buyinga damn thing.

    4) So, back in the day there wass an old 3.2 bar called Pogos in Boulder. As it was on it’s way out I wnt back to remember the old fun days and it was shoulder to shoulder people. As I was trying to muscle my way to the bathroom I pushed by a couple guys who were none to happy of my forceful push through. Well, once back at the table I could tell there was this table of what was clearly a few skinheads and the 2 guys I pushed by eying our table with clear malfeasance. I went to the bar to get a drink and the bartender said that the police were coming to excort us out of the bar. Confused, I asked why? He said the table of skin heads and 2 guys was acutally the head dude of the Aryan brotherhood in Denver and Boulder and it was clear we were on their radar to mess with. So we kindly took our leave with the Boulder police, never to return to that establishment again.

    5) I wish I could post the pic, but last year when chaperoning my kids at the high school theatercon at the convention center, I walked out of our hotel to the parking lot across the street to check on my car and such, next to the lot was a auto repair place and in the alley by the dumpster were to mannequin heads lying by the street drain next to the dumpster. Slightly disturbing, but I was more interested in how they came to be there, since the night before they were not there.

  2. 1) Picking scabs. If I have one I literally can not leave it alone I will pick it at least once.

    2) At home? I’m a big fan of the whole body upright bidet that most bathrooms have. In public I always check first. Fool me once…

    3) A firm but polite fuck off seems to work more often than not.

    4) While in college I was down in Denver for a concert and a party was going on at a “friends” house, people were way to drunk, some yelling started so I decided I’m out. Started walking ended up staying in my car that night. Saw the next day on the news that a fight & fire happened at that house and several people were arrested.

    5) Safeway bag of homemade voodoo dolls. About 15 of them.

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