Urinal Etiquette

So, I’m sitting here at work a short while ago, when suddenly I felt the need to go make pee-pee.

Anyway, off to the Men’s room I went.

Upon entering the bathroom, what did I spy with my little eye, but yet another dude already in there who just did NOT understand the “RULES OF THE GUY’S BATHROOM”!

You chicks may not know this, but there are a whole SLEW of rules, passed down through the ages, of what protocols guys are supposed to follow in the Men’s room.

Much like a dog inherently knowing how to swim, or a bat knowing how to hang upside down (or whatever the fuck else bats do), a “normal” dude just KNOWS how to act in the bathroom.

The guy I just shared my latest “bathroom experience” with obviously marches to the beat of his own drum.

For starters, there are 3 urinals in our bathroom here at work, and this guy was peeing IN THE CENTER URINAL!

You never EVER never EVER pee in the center urinal unless it’s the only one unoccupied, and even then it’s a judgment call.

On the contrary, when you walk into a bathroom with multiple urinals all in a row, you are supposed to pick one all the way on either end.

Why, you might ask?

Obviously so when I walk into the bathroom a second later, I can now pick the urinal on the OPPOSITE end from you, ensuring that there is zero chance of any homo-erotic hyjinx breaking out. That way, our wee-wee’s are as far apart as humanly possible.

But now, with this ass-hat taking care of business in the MIDDLE urinal, he forced my hand.

I HAD to take one of the urinals next to him.

So, there I was, hosing down the urinal while trying to remember the phone number to the National Urinal Tinkle Society (N.U.T.S.) so I can have this guy’s membership card revoked, when I saw him break RULE # 2!!!!

He turned his head and LOOKED AT ME!

YOU NEVER LOOK AT THE GUY NEXT TO YOU WHILE YOU ARE PEEING.

Never. Not ever. Not even if you think his hair might be on fire. You just don’t.

Staring straight ahead at the tiles and graffiti is standard protocol. Some prefer to stare into the urinal. Some rebels prefer to look up at the ceiling. All of these are acceptable.

However, looking at ME while we both have our Willies out is certainly NOT acceptable.

Anyway, I finished up as soon as I could, and high-tailed it out of there.

All in all, it was a truly harrowing experience.

I might require grief counseling.

I’m No Michael Phelps

For starters, I’m much better looking.

But while I far surpass him in the looks department, Phelps would admittedly edge me out with his knowledge of pools.

Case in point:

Since the weather has warmed up this week, most of the snow we have suffered these past few weeks has melted.

The other day, noticing that there was an assload of water on the cover of my pool, I thought it was high time for me to turn the water pump on to get some of it off my cover before it rips from the weight.

The only problem is, having an above-ground pool, gravity eventually takes over and the damn hose, over time, always slowly slides out of the pool. Then I come outside the next day to find the hose on the floor, and none of the water has yet to be siphoned.

Luckily for me, I’m as smart as I am hot. So I came up with an INGENIOUS plan to keep the hose from sliding out of the pool.

I put a brick on it.

It was FOOLPROOF. The brick would keep the hose from sliding, and the water would be pumped off my cover.

I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for those meddlesome kids!

Wait, what?

Sorry, I accidently channeled Scooby Doo. I’m back now.

Anyway, the ONE thing that my genius intellect didn’t account for, was the wind.

Apparently, during the night, the wind (or a squirrel, or rat, or camel, or a Mexican, or SOMETHING) blew the brick into the pool, onto the cover.

With the weight of the brick pushing the cover ever lower into the pool, my trusty little pump kept pumping…

And pumping, and pumping, and pumping.

Cut to the next day, when I cheerily went outside to check on how my pump was doing…..

…Only to find out that my pump had gone above and beyond the fucking call of duty, apparently.

So, now my pool has about 15 inches of water in it, my backyard looks like i should have a fucking Gondola floating across it, and I’m none too happy about the whole mess.

I realize that many of you aren’t anywhere NEAR as smart as me, and might have had trouble visualizing the sequence of events as I described it.

In light of this, I decided to help any of you who couldn’t visualize this whole mess with a handy diagram.



While it’s a very technical diagram, I hope you can read through the scientific jargon and begin to understand the sequence of events that led to my current situation.

Does it all make sense now? Hopefully, that didn’t go over your heads and did the trick.

And yes ladies, that self-portrait is 100 percent anatomically correct.

You know what drives me crazy?

Of course you don’t… I haven’t told you yet.

Well here it comes…..

Will you fellow bloggers out there, please, PLEASE, for the love of all that’s Holy STOP HAVING MUSIC PLAY WHEN I GO TO YOUR SITE?

Don’t you realize that I, like 90 percent of the rest of you, do our blog reading DURING WORK HOURS?

Nothing puts a good buzzkill on my lazy, leisurely afternoon of catching up on your blogs when I SHOULD be working, than when I click on a site and suddenly hear MY HUMPS blasting over my pc speakers.

Seriously, everyone within earshot hears it. And if by chance it happens as the boss is walking by, I am basically down to three options:

1) Admit that I was fucking around on company time.
2) Pretend that listening to Gloria Gainer’s "I Will Survive" really revs me up and motivates me to finish those quarterly TPS reports!
3) Before he can ask me about it, take the offensive and stab him in the heart with my “#1 Dad” pen.

Those are three pretty shitty options. One of them will get me fired, another will make me look like a tool, and the last one gets me 10-20 at Ryker’s Island.

If pressed, I’d probably have to be forced to go with option 3. I NEED my job, and while killing my boss would undoubtably get me banned from the company Christmas party, I’d be given a clean slate after I got out of prison in 20 years, but if I admitted to listening to some of the ridiculously effeminate crap some of you guys have playing on your sites, I’d NEVER be able to live that shit down.

Cashiers Are Idiots

One of the greatest things about being such a good looking man is that other people do things for me. Things that I don’t want to do.

Things like going grocery shopping.

Seriously, I can’t stand that shit. I hate every part of it: The slow shamble down the aisles, one after the other like a Lemming. The creaky shopping carts with one busted wheel defiantly rolling the wrong way. The old lady in front of me at the checkout who decides at the last minute she wants to pay by check, or Japanese Yen, or Moon rocks or some similar shit. The whole ordeal just grates on me.

So, like I said, I don’t shop for myself. I sit home and people shop for me. I highly recommend this.

In fact, if it wasn’t for my cat, I would never set one foot in a supermarket, ever.

You see, unfortunately for me, Friz has drawn the line on buying cat food. She is more than happy to take care of all the grocery-buying for House Slyde, but, as she puts it, “That damn cat is your responsibility. You found him, so you can feed him.”

So, what is a stud like myself, who hates supermarkets, to do?

I’ll tell ya what. Every two months, I go to the supermarket late at night (when its less crowded), and I buy a huge bag of kitty litter, and SIXTY cans of Fancy Feast cat food. Yeah, I said sixty. Then I haul ass to the checkout aisle, pay (in cash!), and high-tail it home, where I don’t have to think about making another supermarket trip for another 2 months.

I’ve been doing this for about 15 years now. EVERY 2 months like clockwork, I make ONE lightning-quick kamikaze run to the supermarket.

For such a quick trip, you might think that I couldn’t POSSIBLY get TOO annoyed by the experience, but you’d be dead fucking wrong.

How could such a seemingly innocuous trip still get my goat?

Well, there’s TWO reasons.

1) Without fail, the ancient old mummy behind the checkout will look at my mountain of cat food on the conveyor belt and inevitably warble out:

“Wow, that’s A LOT of cat food! How many cats do you have?”

Then I feel obligated to explain that no, I only have ONE cat, but I just don’t get to the supermarket too often, yadda yadda yadda. Then two minutes of aimless small talk ensues.

It was cute, oh, the first FOUR HUNDRED FUCKING TIMES it happened, but call me fickle, after that it started to get a tad old. As soon as I hear the old bat say “Wow..”, I just want to reach over the conveyer belt and punch her right in the bifocals before she can continue. One day, I will snap over it. Really.

2) Like I said, I buy 60 identical cans of the same food. That’s a lot of cans. So, to make things easier for the Good-Will-Hunting-Level intellect behind the counter, I stack the cans up into 12 identical stacks of 5 cans each.

12 stacks. 5 cans each stack. The same kind of can.

My third grade Math teacher taught me that I can figure out that the total number of cans is 12 times 5.

Maybe ONCE a year, I’m lucky enough to find an Einstein smart enough to swipe just ONE can, and then press a button on the register to multiply it by 60.

The REST of the year, I am forced to endure old crusty Mildred look at the stacks of cans, then at me, and frown at me like I just made her job harder. Then, she proceeds to take ONE CAN AT A TIME and swipe each one thru that fucking little laser scanner.

Each. Fucking. Can.

Seriously, it’s enough to make me just pop open a can right there and cram that mini-helping of beef giblets and gravy right down her dusty old throat.

A transaction that SHOULD take about 1 minute ends up taking closer to 10. I don’t think I’m asking a lot when I say that I prefer someone who can do elementary school math be my liason between myself and the establishment.

Sometimes it’s enough to make me weep on my short car ride home.




Am I just a hot tempered crazy Sicilian, or does shit like this drive anyone else to murder?

Are You Kidding Me?

So, apparently my wife thinks I’m a pedophile.

Let’s back up.

I’ve mentioned a few times how I am hooked on the reality show “High School Reunion”. They take a dozen people from a high school senior class from 20 years ago, throw them in a house in Hawaii for 3 weeks, and watch the drama ensue. Its true train-wreck TV, and I love it. I never miss an episode.

So 2 weeks ago, Friz and I were watching something on television when my DVR put up a pop-up message on the screen to announce that it was going to begin taping High School Reunion in 1 minute.

Friz looked at me, and said with a perplexed face:

“Why is THAT recording?”

“Why? Because I like it, that’s why.”

“You enjoy watching that?”

“Yes, I do. What’s the big deal?”

“Nothing, I guess. Watch whatever you want.”

I thought that the conversation was passing strange, but quickly forgot about it.

Cut to last week, when I’m laying on the couch watching the latest episode of HSR, when Friz came home from work.

“What are you watching?”

“High School Reunion”

“Again? Really?”

“Yeah, again, really. What’s your problem with this show?”

“ ‘I’ don’t have a problem.”

“Well, ‘I’ don’t either.”

“Whatever.”

Now, that conversation of course made me remember the previous week’s conversation. I sat there trying to figure out just that the Hell kind of problem Friz had with this damn show. It’s not like the show is all about setting homeless people on fire or anything (Note to self: pitch show to NBC called ‘Homeless BBQ’).

So, this past weekend, I was sitting down and enjoying the latest episode of High School Reunion, when Friz came home from wherever the Hell she goes to spend all my money.

“What are you watching?”

“High School Reunion”

“Again! What’s your problem?”

“My problem? What’s YOUR problem with this show?”

“My problem is that I don’t understand why you keep watching this show over and over again.”

“Over and over? What are you talking about? There’s a new episode every week.”

“New episode? No there’s not. It’s the same thing over and over again”.

“Over and over….?”

And that’s when it hit me.

She was confusing ‘High School Reunion’ with ‘High School Musical’.

My wife, who I’ve known for 15 years and is supposed to know me better than anyone else, ACTUALLY FUCKING BELIEVED that for the past month, I have been sitting home alone in the dark, watching a bunch of 13 year-old kids prance around singing the same stupid songs about high school, week after week. That I was just recording the same kiddie show, over and over again.

If true, that would make ME more than a little creepy. And quite frankly, NOW I’m more than a little creeped out thinking that SHE thought I’d be actually into watching that shit over and over.

It’s almost enough to make me want to throw out my Vanessa Hudgens lunchbox.

Almost.

On Being Prolific

Someone told me the other day that I should post here more often.

Sorry folks, I’d love to oblige, but that just ain’t gonna happen.

I long ago came to the conclusion that I was only ever going to post somthing on here only if it was something that I myself wouldn’t mind re-reading.

That pretty much means lots of stories about wee-wee’s and boobies, but hey, if you visit here more than once, then you already know what you’re getting yourself into.

Seriously, I can’t tell you guys how many posts I’ve written, and before I hit “Publish”, I took a look at what I’ve created and said to myself, “Sexy self, this is some boring shit. Who could possibly care enough to read through this drivel?”

When I write something about MYSELF, and re-reading it bores even ME to tears, then I like to think that in the past I have done the responsible thing and just scrapped the whole post.

Being a world-class cyber-celebrity like I am, I often just randomly jaunt through the blogosphere checking out new blogs that I stumble across.

You cannot freaking IMAGINE how many of them suck donkey bits.

Seriously… it’s pretty sad. Just because you OWN a blog, doesn’t mean you have to tell me every mundane part of your life. Too many people out there don’t understand the purpose of having a blog. They end up using it as their personal Twitter account, and it bores the rest of us to tears.

Here’s a good rule of thumb: If you just wrote a post about what you had for dinner, or how you discovered you were low on gas after taking little Cindy to daycare today, just save the world from reading your spam and hit “Delete”.

Let me say right now that I’m not speaking about any of the blogs on my blogroll to the right. I wouldn’t put them up there if I thought they sucked. On the contrary, each one of those puppies has gotten the “Slydesblog Seal of Approval”.

As for Slydesblog, through trial and error, I have discovered that I can usually spit out two articles a week. Three if I push it.

More than that and you’ll be forced to read about me re-arranging my underwear drawer. Who on Earth could possibly care about something like that?

(Thongs on the right, crotchless on the left, by the way).

What Every Father Wants To Hear

If you live anywhere near me right now, you are surrounded by snow.

A LOT of snow.

So much snow that most schools and offices got to shut down or have a delayed opening, at least ONE of the past two days.

My company apparently didn’t get the fucking memo.

Anyway, through my frustration with having to schlep my ass to work in this weather, I still managed to have some fun Wednesday night with Mini-Me, out in the snow.

He wanted to build a snowman. We built a kick-ass one. We even bought a snowman kit, complete with the buttons and eyeballs and fake carrot stick and all. He had a ball. I was going to take a picture of it, but as luck would have it, my digital camera died last night, so no pics for you until I get it charged.

After we build the best snowman ever, he wanted to have a snowball fight.

So there we were, throwing snowballs at each other, as the rest of my neighbors were out and about trying to shovel themselves out.

Everything was going swimmingly, until a badly lobbed throw by ME hit Mini-Me squarely in the Family Jewels.

My son, looked at his crotch, then looked at me. Then he did it again.

Crotch. Me. Crotch. Me.

Then, with tears in his eyes, he looked at me accusingly and SCREAMED…..

“YOU HURT MY PENIS!”

Before I could tell him to kindly lower his damn voice, he started running all over the lawn screaming his new mantra:

“YOU HURT MY PENIS! YOU HURT MY PENIS!”

I looked around to notice my entire neighborhood taking a break from their shoveling to watch the free entertainment unfolding on my lawn.

There really isn’t much else you can do at such a point, except to sit my ass down in the snow and wait for Child Protective Services to come along.

Thankfully, they haven’t showed up yet. Maybe they’re stuck in the blizzard.

Or maybe in their haste to get to my house, they drove too fast over a snowbank and hurt THEIR penises.