Tobacco is Whacko!!!

Post #52 Topic: Sorry Steve

Time to take a dip into DC’s well of incredible yet true tales of sport and/or leisure. Actually, this particular story is one that I myself had entirely forgotten about until the other day. Luckily, with the help of one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen in law school and a subsequent trip to Shea Stadium, the story I’m about to tell is nearly as fresh as if it happened yesterday, and I had nothing to drink yesterday night.

It was last Wednesday and I was making my 1^st 2008 season journey to the house that Seaver built. But as it always does, school got in the way of me waking up and having nothing to think about other than what LIRR train to take out of Penn Station. With class starting at 11:00 A.M., which if I might add is a cruel and unusual time to begin anything, especially when I live 20 minutes away from the Doze and have to factor that great distance into my wake-up time… I digress. With class starting at 11:00 AM I arose at the ungodly hour of 10 AM, showered, did my crunches (I can do 1000 now), made some fresh squeezed orange juice, meditated, read the wall street journal, and yelled at the illegal immigrants doing construction outside my bedroom window for throwing a helmet through my open window onto my bed. At 10:10 I headed out the door.

When I got to class, I assumed my usual seat between the girl that can’t stand me and the other girl that falls under the “sorry I have a boyfriend” category. I guess both are the result of my unbridled boisterousness (and devilish good looks). I usually get to class about 7 minutes early so I can rock out to “That Smell” or “Tuesday’s Gone” or another Skynyrd classic. Usually someone tries to talk to me in this 7 minutes, not knowing that I am entirely off limits. But this day something was different, it wasn’t me being spoken to, but rather my overhearing of another conversation that distracted me from my Grade A air guitar performance. The guy in front of me, whom I’d spoken to before, sounded like he got punched in the face. I tried to get a look at his jaw but noticed nothing strange. With my interest quickly feigning, I returned to my music just in time to hear Lynyrd croon “one more drink, fool, would drown you…yeah you”.

An hour elapsed and the class ended. Rushing out of the room to get to my locker and eventually back to my abode, I noticed the guy sitting in front of me did in fact have a fat lip… sort of. See it wasn’t quite his lip that was fat. It was the little sac of skin under his chin. Even though this guy was from boston and grotesque displays of human nature from Bostonians never shock me, I couldn’t believe it – this tea partier sat through the entire class WITH A LIP PACKED (skoal peppermint upon further inquiry). Talk about needing a fix.

Later that day I was at shea stadium. There were a group of 4 Staten Islanders (see my new haircut) sitting next to me. I’m the type of fan who sits quietly, analyzing each play in depth, contemplating what my next move would be if I were the Coach, player or GM. But these “bad-guys-from-Mario-Brothers-1” were fulfilling their stereotype generously, shouting at the bradgiole, drinkin beeas, heckling the umpiya, so on and so forth. One of the guys had a broken arm, with which he was grasping a beer bottle. The other arm was likewise grasping a beer bottle, but, going with the days theme, this other bottle was being used as a dip spit receptacle.

This guy, moreso than his friends, was disgusting. After every sip of beer, he would spit a little into his other bottle. Because the bottle had a narrow mouth, each spit would leave a little dribble which Joey budafuicco would then WIPE OFF ON HIS CAST. Wow! Casts already smell like shit. They certainly don’t need an emulsification of beer and dip spit on top of the natural human stench. But this guy’s cast was nearly dyed brown from the beer and the spit, and therefore was more entertaining to watch than even the mets 1^st offensive explosion of the young season. What a moron; but fuggedhaboudit.

With two dip incidents in one day, my mind began jogging. Where else had I had a funny dip incident? OH YES… back in freshman year of college. Here goes:

In the business school at cuse, you started your freshman year with a big group project, which divided the already small classes even further. In my group was a Brooklyn native by the name of Steve Gregory. Steve could run a 40 yard dash in under 4.4 seconds. How did I know? Well during ice-breaker games (I know…) steve felt that this was the best piece of information he had to share about himself. That and, of course, that he would be in the NFL one day. In our Junior year Steve was named the big east defensive player of the month for a miserable orange squad, and eventually, after moving around a few times, did find a home with the San Diego Chargers which does nothing but to make my story better.

One day during that semester I was hanging out with my floormates, most of whom happened to be in my business school intro class, when Steve decided to come up and hang out. It was early enough in the school year (3^rd week) that no one was truly comfortable binge drinking in front of eachother, no one openly discussed the size and girth of their bongs, and no one had come clean about their childhood meth addictions – emotions were still being restrained. But not for Steve. Steve was the big division 1 football player on his way to a 7 figure payday, and gosh darn it he was gonna act like it. So when my country bumpkin roommate (who no joke had never seen a jew or a computer until the 1^st day of school – 2 birds with one stone for ya…) took out a can of dip, Steve had to earn his tough guy pedigree and willingly packed half of the unpacked dip into his lip.

The rest happened in stages. For the first couple minutes he was the life of the party, yelling, screaming, dancing, juking, roiding… you know, whatever it is that football players do. Then he went into the dipping stage where you’re not sure whats going on, your eyes struggle to keep up with your head, and you just want it to end. This stage typically lasts a minute or two, but for Steve it lasted 20. The next stage is the part where you come down and ask yourself why you took the dip in the 1^st place. For Steve, this stage was a much welcomed relief. Immediately he went back to his “star quarterback” behavior (although he was merely a DB), forgetting about just how sickly he looked only minutes prior.

Fortunately for the rest of us Steve never read “Dip for dummies”, and forgot to rinse the excess dip out of his mouth (especially important for a rookie). Having conquered the dip monster, steve went straight to a tall boy, and began pounding (for legal sakes lets say he was 26 not 18). After a big swig something happened; we could tell something was wrong. Steve made that motion you make when your stomach’s about to escape through your mouth, like he was trying to hold it back down. Instead, he projectile vomited allover one of the young American princesses sitting next to him on the bed – not so tough are you star player?

We all started laughing, and after he mopped his face off so did steve – unfortunately, mopping your face off is not the same as learning your lesson. With one girl hysterically crying, and the rest of us laughing, Steve took another sip. Again, as if it hadn’t happened just before, Steve projectile vomited directly onto the other half of the girl that had already been partially tainted. With that, Steve picked himself up, ran directly to the bathroom and continued to vomit for, and this is no exaggeration, 3 hours. Three hours of whimpering, crying, tearing, vomiting, moaning, toilet hugging and mercy begging, all from the guy who ran the infamous 4.4 40.

That’s it; the end of the story. Today Steve returns punts for the San Diego Chargers and I get to write about that time he vomited in the freshman dorms – he must be awfully jealous.

Other Notes

I understand how deep the Red Sox/Yankee rivalry flows, but seriously people… burying jerseys in new stadiums is just plain stupid. Get a life!

According to ESPN The Mag, fantasy bass fishing is the new rage in fantasy sports land. Here’s a tip for all you newcomers to the sport – PICK UP DC. It’s almost bass season out on the island and DC forecasts more than a 50 LB cows in his near future.

Some Subway employees really piss me off. When I say I want extra tuna no charge, I don’t mean it as a pleasantry. Its not an offer for you subway employees to voice your opinion on whether or not you think your manager would be ok with your acquiescence to my simple-minded demand. Just give me extra tuna, for no charge, and lets move on.

The food in my cafeteria is so bad that the lunch lady’s won’t even eat it. So much for “in lunch lady land your dreams come true, clouds made of carrots and peas, rivers made of shepphard’s pie, and mountains made of macaroni and cheese.” Oh, not to mention that my cafeteria charges 8 cents for butter packets. My displeasure for paying for butter packets is one thing, but come on, charge a freakin dime, don’t force me to carry two pennies around all day. You know those two pennies are going to fall out and you know I’m going to pick them up, and you know a non-jewish friend will be around when I do so. Come on cafeteria, have some sympathy.