Law and Order: Spebector Unit

*DUN DUN*

My House,
Uptown Minneapolis,
10:24 PM
So there I was last night, minding my own business, watching a little Law & Order in my kitchen while drinking some chocolate milk. It was a pretty stupid episode, something about a porn star getting killed over a book deal. I don't know if this makes me a huge nerd or what, but I was more interested in the fact that it dealt with book deals than that it was about a murdered porn star. But before they even made the arrest, I heard a noise coming from my back yard out by the garage.

*DUN DUN*

My Backyard,
Uptown Minneapolis,
10:25 PM
I went outside to spebect the sound. It was a lot of loud rustling that I was hearing, and my first guess was that it was a raccoon going through the trash in the alley. Then I saw an unfamiliar bicycle laying in the middle of the yard. I realized the sounds were coming from inside the garage, and were being made by a person. A nefarious person.

A little history on my garage: It's been broken into before. Many times. Countless bikes have been taken, many of them mine. I had a bike stolen out of the garage when I was 14 that was later recovered in a drug bust in Powderhorn Park. It was a really sweet bike, so I was super happy to get it back. A couple years later it was stolen again. It's weird, because I live in a pretty luxe neighborhood, but for some reason my garage is like a magnet for petty burglary. This particular burglar, however, was incredibly stupid. Here is why:

• Most of the time when things are stolen from my garage, it's because it has been left open for one reason or another. The thieves just walk in and take what they want (my bike) and then walk (ride) away. This time the guy went in the side door, which barely even opens because there's so much junk in the way. It's next to impossible to navigate said junk in the daytime, much less at night when it's pitch black inside. He probably should have recognized this immediately and left to find an easier garage to get into, but he instead chose to push his way in and make a lot of noise.
• He decided to steal from the garage of a house that obviously had people inside. My mom and I were both home at the time, and there were several lights on in the house as well as the flood light illuminating the garage/driveway. Who did he think he was, some sort of ninja cat burglar who could break in right under our noses? Gimme a break, buddy.
• He left his bike right in the middle of the yard. I mean come on buddy, use your noodle. Put it around the side of the garage or something. Leave it in the alley. Just get it out of plain sight so I can't just look at it and immediately recognize that there's a person trying to hamburgle my bike for the thousandth time.

*DUN DUN*

My Backyard,
Uptown Minneapolis,
10:27 PM
After I saw the bike, I went back inside and told my mom to call the cops. Then I did what anybody would do, I grabbed my broomball stick for to defend myself and went back outside to capture the thief's bike. Looking back, it probably would have been smarter to just stay inside and wait for the police to show up rather than risk getting into a confrontation and/or stabbed. But I wasn't about to let him make a clean getaway either. And besides, I had my trusty broomball stick! I took his bike and rolled it into my front yard. As I was walking back, the door opened and the guy poked his head out. He looked right at me, which was a little weird, and I sort of waggled the broomball stick at him. He shut the door, and I went back inside.

*DUN DUN*

My Backyard
Uptown, Minneapolis
10:30 PM
The cops showed up incredibly fast. They said that the guy had locked the door, and asked for permission to kick it in. Permission granted! They kicked it in, and made a big show of yelling "Police!" and "Stay where you are!" and whatnot, but the dude wasn't inside. Apparently he had been so intimidated by the vague waggling of my broomball stick that he sneaked away while I was going back inside. Then for some reason a whole bunch more cops showed up. Seriously, there were like seven cops. I don't think the situation really warranted so many of Minneapolis' Finest, but I wasn't going to tell them that. They milled around for a while, shined their flashlights, asked some questions, then took the bike I had captured as evidence. Of course I wasn't surprised that they took it, but secretly I was a little disappointed. It was a very nice bike, a hell of a lot nicer than mine. It had a sweet basket in front. It was undoubtedly stolen, probably from one of my neighbors, but as they were leaving one of the cops joked that it would be the new precinct bicycle. All I could think was "thank god I still have my bike."

Created by Dick Wolf

On Octavius and Constance, part III

You are probably wondering why I haven't posted anything for the past week. Well, truth be told, I spent a lot of time on the phone trying to coax interviews out of Constance and Octavius. I finally got them to agree to talk with me, on the condition that they be interviewed separately.

I met with Constance first, in their living room:

Hi, Constance. Thanks for meeting with me.

This better be fast. I don't like answering questions. Don't make me answer too many questions!

Okay, I'll make it fast. So, um, my first question is about the incident with the GPS, when-

Who the hell said that your life flashes before your eyes before you die? Who came up with that?

I'm sorry, I don't know. I think it's just an expression, it just means that in disaster situations time seems to-

I want to know. Tell me who came up with it!

Um... well-

Fine. Don't tell me. I don't care. But whoever it was, they were wrong. I knew I was going to die when we veered off that cliff, and all that passed before my eyes was my idiot husband's fat face.

How exactly did you even survive that fall?

I don't know how. I don't care. I wish we hadn't. No, actually, I wish he hadn't. Then I wouldn't be stuck with him. I could just crawl into a tiny hole and never see the outside world ever again.

At this point, Constance grabs my voice recorder and crawls underneath a heavy blanket on the floor. Rather than force her to respond to my questions, I let her continue her rant in privacy. I show myself out of the room and pick up the tape later.

How many trips to the hospital is it going to take for that doofus to realize that he doesn't know anything about anything? I mean, I pick him up from Regions General where he was in that stupid coma, and then we don't even get home before he drives off a cliff and gets us both sent to St. Joseph's. Of course after we were released he goes and buys yet another car! Another God forsaken car, and God only knows how he's going to blow this one up. I'm going to show him true darkness when he does. I'm going to show him the darkest night.

At this point her voice becomes a whisper, and she is no longer speaking into the microphone:

There is always safety in darkness, that's what I've learned. That's what I've learned. There is safety in darkness. I know what I've seen. I've seen too much to [inaudible] and there is safety in darkness. I've spent so long [inaudible] when the dark is [inaudible] there is always a way out, a way into the other world. The shadows are [inaudible] but blood and wings, but there is safety in darkness. There is safety in darkness.

She stops talking at this point, and the only sound is her breathing heavily until the tape runs out.

After I retrieved my tape recorder from Constance, I put in a fresh tape and met with Octavius at a nearby coffee shop:

So, Octavius, how are you?

What? What the hell are you talking about? HOW DO YOU THINK I AM? I JUST WANT TO LEAD A NORMAL LIFE!

What exactly do you mean?

A life free from endless physical and mental anguish. I feel like Job sometimes, like I was put on this earth so that God could make an example out of me. IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE DOING GOD? MAKING AN EXAMPLE OUT OF ME? TRYING TO SEE HOW MUCH I'LL PUT UP WITH? WELL?

At this point our waitress asks us to leave as Octavius' yelling has disturbed the other customers. The rest of the interview is conducted on a nearby park bench:

Is life really that bad? You honestly feel that God is punishing you?

Well I can't think of any other explanations for why SIMPLE THINGS LIKE MY WIFE AND MY CAR ARE ALWAYS CONSPIRING TO RUIN MY LIFE! ALL SHE EVER DOES IS COMPLAIN ABOUT ME AND LOCK HERSELF IN STRANGE DARK PLACES LIKE SOME KIND OF MOLE RAT! SOMEDAY SHE'S GOING TO BURY HERSELF SO DEEP THAT I'LL NEED A GPS TO FIND HER, WHICH BY THE WAY DOESN'T EVEN WORK! HOW THE HELL DOES A SIMPLE THING LIKE A GPS DEVICE SCREW UP AND NEARLY KILL US?

Constance says you have something of a tragic history with automobiles.

I swear to God. I SWEAR TO GOD! If Constance makes ONE MORE comment about the cars I buy I'm going to GO OUTSIDE AND SCREAM AT THE SKY UNTIL MY THROAT IS BLOODY AND RAW! WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME GOD? I JUST WANT A CAR WITH A REMOTE STARTER AND A GPS DEVICE AND A WIFE WHO DOESN'T SHUT HERSELF IN THE CLOTHES DRYER WHEN SHE GETS UPSET! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH HER? IS SHE ANOTHER ONE OF YOUR TESTS, GOD?

At this point Octavius grabs my voice recorder and hurls it to the ground. Luckily the tape bounces out before he runs over and stomps on it. As he is stomping on the device, it somehow explodes. I wait with him for the ambulance to show up, but he refuses to answer any more questions.

When I got home and listened to the two tapes, I couldn't believe how dire things were between them. They seemed to have crossed a new threshold of marital discontent. Octavius' anger problems were even more terrifying in person, and Constance's bizarre behaviour even more disturbing. I turned on the TV as I pondered their situation, and was utterly shocked to see that things had actually taken a remarkable turn!

I'm still not entirely sure what to make of this new development. How did they make up so fast after their differences had seemed irreconcilable? What is the meaning behind their perverse "high school prom" fantasy scenario? Will their relationship survive yet another gruesome explosion?

Tune in later to find out.

On Octavius and Constance, part II

And I'm back, with more adventures in advertising!

When we last saw Octavius and Constance, they had just witnessed the fiery destruction of their beloved vehicle on a brutally cold winter day/night. Things had gotten much worse between them. Rather than their customary shouting matches, they stopped talking altogether after Octavius blew up their car. Constance retreated to the bedroom and locked herself in. Octavius knew when he married her that Constance had seasonal affective disorder as well as a few agoraphobic tendencies, but she had never taken it to such an extreme. Realizing that his wife would actually let herself starve rather than leave the bedroom, Octavius went to his upstairs neighbor's apartment and used a rope to lower a baskets of food and water out the window for Constance to reel in.

Two weeks passed in this way before Octavius decided he had had enough. He had stopped showing up for work, and his office called to tell him that he no longer had a position there. He was running out of money to buy food to lower to Constance. He took his cordless drill and began dismantling the bedroom door from its frame. He had removed two screws before the drill exploded in his hand, sending him to the emergency room. The ambulance exploded on the way to the hospital.

Two months later, Constance emerged from the bedroom. Without the food that Octavius had been lowering to her, she had resorted to eating the leather from Octavius' expansive collection of loafers and drinking water that leaked from a broken pipe in the ceiling. She took a shower, ate some real food, drank a bottle of vodka, and went out to figure out where her husband had gone.

Constance knew that Octavius was too big of a loser to have met someone else or moved on in any way. She looked for him at the homeless shelter, the morgue, and finally the hospital. She found him at the hospital, having awoken from his coma that very morning. They said nothing to each other as Octavius checked himself out. They walked directly from the hospital to a nearby used car dealership and purchased a car, complete with a GPS system. On the way home, THIS AMAZING THING HAPPENED!

Part III coming soon!

(You may have noticed that I did not do a Memory Day post this week. It's because I'm bored of it. I might bring it back later, but for now, eh.)

On Octavius and Constance

Oh, hello there. Thank you for visiting. I'd like to take a moment of your time to talk about TV commercials. Specifically, my very favorite commercial, one made by the local Saturn dealers of Minneapolis. Before reading any further, please take the time to click these words right here (yes, these ones!!!!) and watch it. I wish I could embed it here, but I can't figure out how to do that since it's only available on the stupid Saturn dealer's website.

Okay, now that you've seen the commercial, your mind is probably blown. I'll give you a moment to collect yourself.

Okay, now that you've collected yourself, you're probably wondering why on earth that is my favorite commercial. I think it's flippin' genius, and here is why:

• First of all, I am delighted by the bizarre inconsistencies of the little domestic scene they have set up. I mean, exactly what time of day is it even supposed to be? As the unnamed couple (I like to call them Octavius and Constance) discuss going out at night, one naturally assumes that it takes place in the evening and most likely around dinner time. If that is true, then why is Constance brushing her teeth? In preparation for going out? I thought she didn't want to? And why is Octavius dressed in a bathrobe? Since we can plainly see daylight streaming through the window, we can logically conclude that it is in fact morning. That would explain the teeth brushing and robe wearing. But if it's only morning, then why is Constance already complaining about going outside at night? Does she seriously plan on staying inside the whole entire day? If she is indeed that lazy, then why does she even bother brushing her teeth?
  
• Second, the actors just nail it. Honestly, I have never seen such raw emotion in an advertisement before. It's quite breathtaking. Constance is so perversely whiny and irritating that you practically need earplugs to watch. And Octavius' anger is just indescribable! He literally vibrates with sheer impotent rage as he barks at Constance. He is so absolutely livid that every time I watch it I half expect steam to start shooting out of his ears. It's probably somewhat unwholesome for me to marvel at this poor couple's misery the way I do. But I'm not laughing at them, and it's not like it's a shadenfreude thing. I'm simply in awe of their unyielding hatred for one another.
• Then there is the explosion. I mean really, where the fun did that come from? Awesome! And it's a legitimately huge explosion, which is really baffling. How did a low budget production like this manage to afford blowing up a car like that? Did they blow up the car just for this commercial, or did they just steal an explosion clip from a random movie? Either way, it doesn't really matter. That was one bitchin' explosion.
• But the real pièce de résistance has got to be the little coconut sound effect as Constance bonks Octavius at the very end. It cracks me up every time. Shame on the producers for this bit of forced absurdity juxtaposed directly against the shocking violence of the explosion. Double shame on me for finding it so hilarious.

So there you have it, my very favorite commercial. The best part is that it's only the first commercial in an ongoing campaign, and the others are just as good. I will most likely follow up this post with more in-depth analysis of the next two spots, because they are just as good if not better.

On Baby Beluga

I present to you the song Baby Beluga, sung by Raffi.

• Fact: I have listened to Baby Beluga at least 10 times in the past few days, including at my friend's house and in the car.
• Fact: I sing along to Baby Beluga every time.
• Fact: Baby Beluga is a cornerstone in the foundation upon which my life is built.
• Fact: listening to Baby Beluga makes me happier than anything else in the entire world.
• Fact: I am completely unashamed of any of this.
  

I posit that Baby Beluga is the greatest song ever written. Please discuss.

Memory Day: Restaurant etiquette edition

First of all, I hope you enjoyed the dumb thing I wrote on Monday. It probably could have used a few more edits, but I just wanted to get it out there quickly. It was fun to write, at least. The truth is that that little story tapped into a treasured memory of mine, from when I was somewhere between the ages of 7 and 9.

So you know already from the past Memory Day posts that I was really weird as a kid. I would go to restaurants and my imagination would run wild. Maybe it was because I was really a shy little guy who stayed quiet and reserved in public, but I imagined what it would be like if I were some sort of maniacal jackass who intentionally ruined everything for everybody. Specifically, I thought about what would happen if I just started throwing food everywhere. If I ran up to someone's table, grabbed their plate of food, and threw it in their face. If I grabbed a big bowl of salad and sprinted around the place, tossing it willy-nilly. I assumed that everybody would be so flabbergasted by my bizarre misbehavior as to be speechless. Then I would simply run out the door and off into the distance and nobody would ever hear from the mysterious food thrower ever again. I would be like some sort of food-fighting Zorro.

I really can't explain what made me keep imagining this scenario over and over again, or why I thought it was the funniest thing in the entire world. Again, maybe it's because I was shy and used my imagination as some sort of outlet. I don't know. I remember one time with my family at The Malt Shop (which was probably my very favorite restaurant growing up) when I just sat there and chuckled to myself about my little food throwing fantasy. My parents kept asking me why I was laughing, but I wouldn't tell them. I somehow knew that nobody else would find it funny, and so I kept it secret.

To be honest, I still think it would be a little funny if some kid just flipped out and threw food all over the place. Maybe I just think it's funny that I used to be so inexplicably enamored with the concept. Next time you're out at a restaurant and you see a kid sitting and laughing to himself, just know that he's probably thinking about throwing a piece of bread at you.

My Last Dinner With Molly

So last Saturday I went out to dinner with Molly. It was her parents' anniversary, and she said that we should get dressed up and go out to a fancy restaurant to honor them. I said okay and put on my good suit, but the whole thing sounded pretty stupid to me. I guess I could understand honoring them if they were dead or something, but they're not dead, they're just in Nevada.

We ended up going to her sister Melissa's restaurant because Molly forgot to make reservations anywhere. Like, she wants to do this whole big night and then doesn't make reservations? She said she wanted it to be spontaneous, that it was more romantic that way. We sat down at our table and Melissa came out of the kitchen to say hi. I tried to catch her eye, but she didn't even look in my direction. For some reason she has never really seemed comfortable around me. Molly told Melissa why we were there, that we were honoring their parents. She gave Molly a funny and cute "who cares?" look, wrinkling her nose and shrugging her shoulders a little bit, then walked back to the kitchen. Molly said that her sister didn't understand romance. I told Molly that her sister was right to give a "who cares?" look, and that her idea of romance was corny and stupid. I said that Melissa probably has been with a lot of guys, and that she probably knew more about romance than anyone else in the world. Molly got really mad.

Sometimes when I'm in a bad situation I stop thinking about myself and start thinking about other people. Instead of listening to Molly yelling at me, I started wondering about the people at the table next to us. It was an old lady and a little boy. The old lady was white, but the boy was darker. Not like he was black, but like he was mixed maybe. I guess he could have been Mexican or something, but my gut instinct was that he was mixed. I don't know, I'm not an expert. I tried to figure out what they were doing together on a Saturday night at a nice French restaurant. Like, was she his grandma? Did the old lady's daughter maybe have a kid with a black guy? Were they married, or was her daughter like Melissa, young and pretty and kind of slutty? And was the old lady old fashioned about it, or did she approve? She was spending time with the kid, so she obviously accepted him as part of the family. I bet she loved him. She was taking him out to dinner so that his parents could enjoy a nice quiet night at home.

Or maybe they weren't related at all. Maybe she didn't even know him. Like, maybe she was just driving down the road going to pick up her prescriptions at the drug store, and she saw this little boy walking in the street. And she stopped to see if he was okay, because he was crying, and she asked where his parents were, and he didn't say anything, he just pointed to where a car had smashed into a tree. She rushed over to the smashed car, but she couldn't see anybody inside because the car was on fire, maybe, and there was too much smoke. She heard sirens in the distance, but for some reason an old instinct kicked in and she ran back to the little crying boy and wrapped him in her arms and whisked him over to this French restaurant to buy him some chocolate cake and make him feel a little bit better before he began to understand what had happened.

But it's possible that the car crash wasn't an accident. For instance: why was the car on fire? Cars don't normally just burst into flames after they crash. She knew there had to have been some sort of accellerant. Before she retired, she worked as an investigator for the CIA with a specialty in domestic terrorism and high profile arson. As the old lady was thinking about it, consulting her extensive knowledge and experience, thinking that the facts didn't add up, she heard a massive "BOOM!" and she just knew that it was the car exploding. There had been a bomb in the car. That had been what made the car start on fire, some of the chemicals from the bomb had leaked a little bit and reacted and burned. But then the flames reached the main canisters and the car finally went up like some sort of novelty exploding birthday candle.

The next question was more difficult: was the bomb meant to kill the parents, or to kill the boy? As the old lady looked across the table at the boy sitting there happily eating his slice of cake, she felt a shiver run down her spine. How had he even survived the crash? There was not a scratch on him. And although she had thought he was crying when she found him in the street, looking back now she wasn't so sure. Had she just assumed he was crying? What kind of kid watches his parents die in a car crash and doesn't even cry? There had to be something else, something she wasn't seeing.

The old lady found her thoughts interrupted by a woman sitting at the table next to them. She realized that the woman had been staring at the boy for a long time now, and had finally spoken.
"Hello, Yancey," the woman had said. The boy looked up from his cake, startled.
"Molly," was all the boy said.
"Wait, Molly, you know this kid?" asked the man at Molly's table. The old woman noticed how handsome he was. She had once been quite attractive herself, and her mind raced with all of the things she would do with this handsome man if only she were twenty-five again. The man caught her eye and winked.
"I know him, yes," said Molly.
"I did not expect to see you here," said Yancey.
"That's funny, because I fully expected to see you here," said Molly. "Or rather, I expected to see you in a million little bits on the street."
"You should have known that something as simple as a carbomb couldn't kill me," said Yancey. The old lady noticed Molly's fingers slowly curling around the handle of a very sharp steak knife.
"When you get to heaven, say hi to your folks for me," shouted Molly. Very suddenly, she whipped her arm up and brought the steak knife right at Yancey's head. The small boy grabbed his fork and expertly deflected the blade, then whirled his legs in a sweeping kick that sent Molly flying. She was back up again in an instant, grabbing cutlery from her table and firing it towards Yancey as fast as she could. Yancey had somehow flipped a table on its side to shield himself, and the knives and forks which Molly had thrown were sticking from the wood like porcupine quills.
"Enough playing around," said Molly. She reached deep into her cleavage and came out with a hidden gun which she cocked loudly.
"A gun? How crude," said Yancey.
"I'm going to end this, once and for all," said Molly. She aimed the gun at the little boy. Just as her finger began to squeeze the trigger, the handsome man leapt into action. He grabbed his chair and brought it down upon Molly's head, knocking her unconscious.
"Yancey, run! Get to the safe house on 43rd Avenue!" shouted the handsome man. "Agents Gregg and Stevens are waiting to debrief you, and I'll be right behind you! Now go!"
As Yancey bolted to the door, the handsome man took out a pair of handcuffs and locked Molly's wrists together.
"You thought I didn't know who you were?" the handsome man asked his unconscious wife. "You thought I didn't know I was married to the most dangerous terrorist in the Western world?"
The handsome man looked up to see a beautiful woman filling his field of vision.
"Melissa," he breathed. She was wearing a big chef's apron, which she tore off to reveal sexy pink lingerie. She removed her chef's hat to reveal a beautiful head of long blond hair. The handsome man stood up slowly, grabbed her in his arms, and gave her the deepest, most passionate kiss of her whole entire-

I felt someone tapping me on the shoulder. It was Melissa. She told me that I had to get the hell out of there, that the cops were on the way. I looked around for Molly, but she wasn't there. The entire restaurant was empty. I looked at my watch, it was after 11. Melissa said that I was the weirdest son of a bitch in the entire world, and asked how I could just sit there in a daze for three hours muttering about some car crash. I asked why the cops were coming. She said it was partly because I had ignored everybody yelling at me to leave, and partly because an elderly lady had complained that I was a pervert and that I had been winking at her. She told me she would take care of the cops as long as I promised never to come back to her restaurant. She said that I would be lucky if Molly ever talked to me again, that I was an idiot and a loser, and that she hoped her sister knew better than to give me another chance. I asked her for a ride home. She said no.