How-to-Lists are extremely popular in all forms of modern day media from internet humor columns like this one to the blogosphere to popular home and gardening websites. Recently I searched for a list of, well, How-to-Lists and I was surprised by the results.

It seems to me like there is a How-to-List for just about everything you can imagine. But what about a How-to-List for life? Sure, some yokel can break down how to use “mind-control” in ten easy steps for you, but what about making it through middle school? Luckily for you, the Ass is here for you with the How-to-List of How-to-Lists. I present for your humble enjoyment the How-to-get-through-life-list-by-Marine-the-Ass [for guys (mostly)].

Stage One: Sperm

Swim like hell.

Stage Two: Pregnancy

Eat like a sonofabitch. Kick like hell and start tugging on shit like gangbusters if you come within five square miles of an abortion clinic.

Stage Three: Childbirth

Get out alive. Keep your eyes and ears closed so you don’t remember what your mothers vagina looks or smells like.

Stage Four: Infant

Look cute. Eat. Shit. Repeat.

Stage Five: Toddler

Things have been pretty chill up till now. Outside of the sprint towards your mothers ovaries you’ve mostly been maxing and relaxing having your every need attended to hand and foot. Unfortinately, now people are going to expect you to start doing shit. The first thing you need to learn is to behave. This can most easily be achieved by doing whatever your mother or father tells you to do, which on a side note usually tends to totally suck.

On top of that, the rents are going to count on you to at some point learn to use the toilet. Daunting I know, but for the better in the long run for all of us, trust me. Also, we’re getting to the point where you have to learn to walk. It kinda sucks because once you start you’ll be expected to use this new found skill basically all of the time, for the rest of your life, but it’s not all beer and skittles kiddo. Revel in your lack of responsibility by watching copious amounts of cartoons and learning to masturbate.

Stage Six: Childhood

Learn to draw a turkey using the outline of your hand.

Stage Seven: Adolescence

Unless you’re the girl who got her boobs early or your parents are really fucking rich and you have every video game on earth this is no doubt going to be a pretty tough time for you. Simply put, it’s an awkward stage in life what with puberty setting in and all that. One of the things you have to keep in mind during this period is; it sucks for everyone. I don’t if that really helps you, but it sure makes me feel better!

On top of this, the one time homogenous structure of your social circle will begin to cleft off. Allegances will be made, trysts formed, and cliques initiated. Choose your alliances carefully. You should also try and carve out a niche for yourself; jock, skater, burnout. It doesn’t even really matter what you choose because in a couple of years you’ll regret it no matter what anyway. On top of this I would suggest using what little you have of new found freedom to accrue some porn to fuel your masturbation habit.

Stage Eight: Teenager

Don’t die.

The best way for me to sum up being a teenager for you is to tell you that you’re going to think you know everything, but in reality you are a fucking idiot and you know nothing. What’s funny is that everyone from parents to guidance counselors to D.A.R.E officers are going to attempt to relate this to you in a much subtler fashion over and over and over again.

You can trust me when I tell you it will fall on deaf ears, because like I said earlier to be a teenager is to be a fucking idiot. So with that in mind, your one and only goal during this time should be to not fuck up to the point that you die or seriously debilitate yourself. Cheers!

Stage Nine: College

It brings a tear to my eye to think about a young Marine heading off to college for the first time so many, many years ago. That or I just coughed exceptionally hard off my last bong hit. Thinking back about that young, robust, virile man-child headed into his freshman year of college a couple of things come to mind when I think about what I would pass along to him.

1.) Fuck as much as possible. Once you get out of college casual sex is going to be harder to get your hands on than scandium alloy. Even if you’re not in the mood, don’t like the girl, or are too drunk to make rational decisions, this is THE TIME to get this sort of thing out of your system so please for gawds sake have at it.

Eventually, many years from now hopefully you’re going to find a girl you love and maybe, just maybe if you’re religious or a complete fucking idiot (same thing) you will want to settle down and be with her and her alone for the rest of your life (read: insane). The last thing you want is to be stuck with one woman forEVER without having sewn your wild oats.

2.) Drink as much as possible. Here’s a sad fact they don’t tell you about during freshman orientation; eventually you’re not going to want to drink yourself retarded anymore. Ridiciolous I know! But it’s true. Eventually you’re going to be old, and when that happens the thought of drinking till you pass out and more importantly waking up the next day just aren’t going to be worth it anymore. So with that in mind ravage your fucking liver while it still has some vitality left.

Stage 10: Adulthood

Holy. Fucking. Shit. The party is over. You thought things were rough when I told you that you had to learn to poop? This is where the going really gets tough. In essence what you have to figure out at this point is just YOUR WHOLE FUCKING LIFE. You see, they lied when they told you that you had important decisions to make about your future when you were in highschool. Then they lied to you again about it when you got to college. None of that shit matters now for the most part.

What the fuck do you want to be when you grow up? That question used to contain within it such a compendium of ceaseless opportunity thinking about it was an adventure in it’s own right. The problem is, there are only a few answers you can actually give to this question, and they all suck.

On top of that let me add that you’re now going to have to be responsible for yourself. This means two things; pay your bills and don’t get arrested. If you can mange those two items you’re pretty much straight until you hit middle age.

 

 TO BE CONTINUED . . .

I am a passionate Celtics and Red Sox fan. This is mostly because of the fact I grew up in New England as did my father before me, and rooting for New England sports is just a way of life up there. Oddly enough, I hate the Patriots though. Don’t ask me why I ended up a Dolphins fan (Dan Marino), the story is long, tedious, and borderline homoerotic. That said, I generally feel reluctant to write about sports for a couple of reasons.

The first reason is that I have recently come to realize that the vast majority of my fan base is female. I’d like to think this is related to the fact that I and I alone preach the truth about the female sex day in and day out, and this endears them in droves to my prose, but I reluctantly chide myself into admitting that it’s probably because I’m extremely good looking.

The second reason is that I feel like it’s an exercise in vanity to take up 800-1000 words bitching about or praising your favorite sports team on a college humor site. But the third and most important reason is Bill Simmons. The Sports Guy is just way better at writing the definitive New England sports blog-style commentary than I ever will be.

All in all, I feel like there are some observations that I have drawn from closely watching the 2008 NBA playoffs that I’d like to share with you. Oh, and ladies in case you’re wondering I’ll try and pepper my commentary with some pop-culture references to keep you entertained while you daydream about me taking you from behind.

#1 – Kobe is NOT Michael Jordan

When Shaq and Kobe were squabbling with each other after the failed attempt to win the finals a fourth time with a veritable All-Star team that included veterans Karl Malone and Gary Payton in the lineup, I made up my mind then and there that Kobe was a deusche-bag.

Anyone who watched them play during the early part of this century knows that there is no fucking way; let me say that again for effect, no-fucking-way they could have won without Shaq. Kobe, simply put, is not a transcendent player. He’s not Michael Jordan, and let me point out the often neglected fact that Jordan didn’t even win by himself. He had Scottie Pippin, by all accounts one of the fifty greatest players of all time.

For Kobe to let his ego get in the way of understanding that having the most dominant center in the game (at that time) was integral to winning championships is hubris in excess.

I’ll admit Kobe is the best player in the game right now, I’ll even go as far as to admit that in an updated 50 Greatest Players list he would invariably merit inclusion, but even with all that in mind he can’t win a championship all by himself. Period. And the finals this year helped prove that beyond all doubt.

On top of that, as documented by the expert Bill Simmons, Kobe was a complete asshole to all of his teammates throughout the series, on the court. I’ll let you read for yourself if you so choose, what The Sports Guy observed courtside at the Celts-Lakers game as it pertains to Kobe’s behavior here.

#2 – I’m happy women don’t watch sports

Once upon a time I would have included in my description of the perfect woman an advocacy for modern sports. However, after spending some time around women while watching the NBA playoffs this year, I have come to rue my words and wishes. From what I’ve observed, women tend to root for a team based on three distinct factors, 1- how much they like the teams jersey, 2- how attractive they find the players on the team, and 3- how much celebrity gossip surrounds the players on that team.

One girl I was watching a Lakers game with told me that she was rooting for the Lakers because, and I quote; “Kobe is hot, and a rapist, which oddly enough makes him even hotter . . . in a weird way.” Cue the straightjackets and padded walls people; are you fucking kidding me? A degree in psychology hasn’t outfitted me with anything close to the capability necessary to break down all the levels that this comment is fucked up on.

Another girl made the comment while watching part of the Spurs-Lakers series that she was rooting for the Spurs because she loves Desperate Housewives and Eva Longoria is married to Tony Parker.

Rooting for the Spurs cause you like Desperate Housewives is like going on vacation in Hawaii because you like coconuts. It doesn’t make any fucking sense and even if it did it doesn’t explain in the least why you feel the way you do. To of her own free will give this as an answer is to essentially say “I have no fucking idea what I’m talking about but I’d like to give the impression that I’m somewhat informed so that I don’t feel like a complete dumbass”. Unfortunately, you’re plan failed hunny, and if you had just admitted that it in the first place I would have a lot more respect for you . . . after you give me head.

#3 – L.A. Sucks

During the games in LA during the finals you could see celebrities in the seats wherever you looked. However, this did nothing to help the ambiance of the Coliseum during one of the most historic comebacks in basketball history during game four. Contrast this to the uber-loud and frenzied fans in the Garden, who cheered and rooted for the Celtics with an unmatched fervor. I think this sums up the differences between these two teams and their fans very aptly.

The Celtics have been a group of hard working individuals who predicated their play on strong team defense. Their fans cheered for them unceasingly and were rewarded generously for it. LA on the other hand, based their play on the prowess of their crybaby superstar. Their fans came to the games to be seen on TV during timeouts rather than to cheer.

Boston fans represent everything modern sports fans should be; informed, enthusiastic, and cognizant of the rich history that adorns their franchise. LA on the other hand represents everything that is wrong with modern sport; their fans are unenthusiastic and more concerned with exposure than athletic accolades.

As a member of the New England faithful (minus the Patriots) I’m not always proud to bear allegiance to the craziness that comes with fans of my own ilk. Sometimes they can be brash, egotistical, and biased beyond all belief. But after seeing the lackadaisical nature of LA fans while the privileged and overexposed Kobe Bryant got destroyed I’m glad for the unceasing fervor that we bring to the table.

Chapter Two

Not that all my dealings with Kurt were negative, and as the year progressed, Kurt and I came to a pseudo-understanding: he wouldn’t call out threats of gangbanging, and I would treat his other “outbursts” as though a light spring breeze had softly floated into the room. He was, after all, only staying in school until his 16^th birthday, as he reminded me every day. “Yo, then I’m droppin’ out son.” I still had hope…

Kurt’s skills were not necessarily in the “academic” realm persay, but Kurt did have an affinity for artistic expression, particularly in drawing olives. Yes, olives.

He personified their lives and gave them back stories and scenarios to deal with in their olive world. There was the olive mafia, which kept tabs on the olive gamblers and drug dealers. There were olive whores, olive rappers, olive potheads, olives yelling “ballllllllllin’,” olive teachers (getting punched by olive students). There were olive strippers dancing around a martini glass calling out “let’s get high” as an olive drowned drunk at the bottom of what must have been some really good gin.

The olive people were most popular on unit test essay questions. The question was something like, “Explain who was the tragic hero of whateverthefuckweread, and why?” His answer was usually a huge smiling olive with a dialogue bubble yelling, “420!” or, “Smokinnnn da treeeeees.”

One Friday close to the end of the year, I noticed Kurt talking animatedly with his friends during a group activity. He looked up and surprisingly addressed me directly:

“Yo, do you even understand what this weekend is,” he said, with absolute desperation. “Seriously son, do you comp-re-hend what is happening?” His eyes were bulging, and his hair flip was nearing catastrophic intensity as he awaited my response. This was serious. April 20^th had long since passed, so it couldn’t be that…May 25^th? What could it be?

“I really don’t know, Kurt,” I said, frustrated. “Enlighten me.”

“What? This is the most important weekend of all of our lives! This weekend my life with be changed for-ev-er.” He paused.

“Tonight. Tonight, I will go see Pirates of the Caribbean III.”

I choked.

“Yeah, son. I’m going to come back Monday a changed man. You don’t even know. It’s a life-changing experience.”

Holy fucking shit. He explained that he too had a dream to sail the open seas, and knew, just knew that Captain Jack Sparrow would be able to help him do that. This also prompted him to ask:

“Like, how long do you think it would take for us to swim to Japan from here?” Apparently, he and his other pot-head friend had concocted a scheme of world-domination, and they were going to begin on a remote, yet to be discovered island in Japan (because, clearly, we haven’t been able to get the far ends of that world yet), and grow acres upon acres of marijuana. They would then “smoke up everyone in the world because who would stop them when they’re high, man?”

“Kurt…” I said, “Japan is thousands of miles away. You can’t swim there.”

“Oh, well, what about a fishing boat? I’m commandeering one I saw on the side of my street in someone’s yard; like, it’s got a shit load of bullet holes in the bottom, but we can patch that shit with gum. So like, how long would that shit take, ya know, to row there?”

Now, I realize that for many of you potheads out there, this outline for world domination seems like just any other conversation one devises when smoking the sweet cheeba, but I implore you to reexamine this situation for one moment: Kurt was telling his plan to his teacher, not a pothead cohort, a teacher, an adult, one who in any other situation could have turned his ass in on a number of occasions. However, at this school, and especially with Kurt, it’s just another day in the life.

My last major experience with Kurt occurred in the Persuasive Speech unit. I’m sure you can guess what Kurt’s topic was going to be, but in case you are fucking retarded, he picked the legalization of marijauna.

In the media center, I spent the bulk of my time trying to explain to Kurt why “High Times” was NOT an appropriate source, and he should probably stop showing me his copy in school. More importantly, I had to explain to him that the purpose of his speech was to make marijuana legal, NOT to persuade the class to become pot heads and smoke up with him at 4:20 that afternoon. Every time we spoke, he said, “Marijuana should be legal because it’s awesome and gets you high. What more do you want?”

When I would say that is inappropriate to say, and then try to outline some viable arguments (because hell, it should be legal), he would go into a tourette’s tantrum, throwing his hair back and slamming his fist on the desk while screaming, “WHY?”

Just thinking about the liability of letting this child speak in front of class was terrifying, but what the hell, its not like he would actually give the speech anyway.

On speech day, however, damned if he didn’t fucking volunteer to go first. His walk to the front of the room was in slow motion to me; it was my dead man’s walk. Holy shit, what is he going to say? Why can’t the kids stop laughing already? Why can’t I stop laughing?

He paused at the front of the room and jostled his speech papers. I gasped as I realized he had four full length pages in his hands. This child hadn’t written a coherent sentence for me the entire year, and now, here he was, treating it like it all rested on his shoulders. He cleared his throat, and began.

[ Disclaimer: Though I won’t share his entire speech, what you are about to read are his real words. Direct quotes from this child. Not a fabrication.]

“Marijuana.

Marijuana is illegal. That…is WHACK!

Most people don’t’ understand the beautiful things about marijuana. People say it’s a drug. But there is NO CHEMICAL ADDICTION (he yelled this if you didn’t get that) to tetrahy…rod…cann…THC. So, it is not a drug. Also, lets say you were gonna go out and drink or just kick it chill out and smoke. After a lot of drinking people get sick, start to fight, or pass out. BUT after a night of smoking, you just wanna watch TV, chill, eat, or just do some thing. WHAT is up with THAT?

Marijuana is the most beautifulest, wonderfulest, best plant in the world, and should be legal. And, anybody who doesn’t agree is not mellow and is probably a no good fucking cop and I’ll piss on them.”

That was one of the last days I saw him. This year, I was told he did indeed drop out to pursue the lucrative career of street thug. In my head, however, I like to imagine Kurt realizing one of his biggest dreams he had shared with me one sunny afternoon:

“Yo, dude, Miss ***,” he said, with a genuinely serious tone, and a strained look on his face that suggested a mixture of painful thought and constipation, “I was thinking…I wish I was a blunt. Then I could totally roll me up and smoke me whenever I wanted.”

Smoke on, little man, smoke on.

Chapter One

Hello Class!

Yes, I am a teacher. I’ll give you a few moments to take in that shocking revelation before I begin.

…

Now that you’ve recovered from the initial shock of my real-life occupation (two years in, I sometimes still find it a hard schlong to swallow myself), I’m here to offer you a first-hand look into our future leaders and car mechanics of America.

My first days of school, we all got our class lists, and I was showing them to the experienced teachers eager to gain any insight into what I was in for in my inaugural year of teaching. Every single teacher stopped when they got to a child named Kurt and started laughing. When I begged them to tell me what the fuck was so damn funny all they could say was, “Just wait,” with a sneer.

The first day of school was terrifying to say the least. I was completely unprepared for the reality that I would be on stage for six hours a day, trying to perform any circus trick I could to sell them the idea that Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men was a book they could relate to. My biggest anticipation surrounded meeting the school-renowned Kurt, yet he was nowhere to be found; in fact, his assigned desk remained empty for the first three days of school.

I surmised that he had simply withdrawn from school altogether and I just hadn’t received the memo yet; I mean, what kind of kid misses the first three days of school anyway?

The first Friday came and a five-foot-nothing stick of a child walked into my tenth grade classroom, flipped his greasy shoulder-length hair out of his face, and said, “Yo, I’m Kurt. Where do I sit?”

What? This little twerp, wearing a purple Dinosaur, Jr. t-shirt and wide-leg jeans is Kurt? This kid that I could throw over my shoulder like a Continental soldier is the kid that everyone couldn’t wait for me to meet? What a waste of anxiety. I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled, introduced myself, and then showed him to his seat. I realized very quickly the sigh of relief was premature and I was in for a long, long year.

My first indication was later in that same class, when, passing out papers, he looked up at me with a shit-eating grin on face, and said, “Yo, are you really gonna be my teacher this whole year?”

I just smiled naively in an attempt to dodge the comment and continued along my merry way, but I heard him turn to his friend and say, “Yo, she’s so fuckin’ hot.” You’ll quickly find that even though Kurt was clearly trapped in Seattle circa 1994, he had also immersed himself in the dichotomous ghetto culture of our school, so literally every sentence or interjection is prefaced with, “Yo.”

I’ll also take this time to explain to you the voice that you should be hearing in your head as you read his dialogue, because that is ultimately what creates such a fantastically ridiculous character, and makes the fact that he exists in reality even better.

Imagine in your mind the most stereotypical pot-head strung-out surfer-dude Spickoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High voice you can and then multiply that by about twelve. I know that you are used to writers hyperbolizing events and characters to get the point across, but this is no exaggeration, I assure you, so much so that this kid was repeatedly caught trying to order pizzas to my classroom.

You should also know that he had a steady rotation of about three shirts. Literally every day he either wore his introductory bright purple and green Dinosaur, Jr. t-shirt (height of success: 1994) or one of two Nirvana shirts: one with Kurt Cobain’s strung-out face plastered center stage, or more appropriately, a shirt displaying the cover of Nirvana “Nevermind.” Take a moment and recall your middle or high school years around 1993 when that album took off…do you remember the cover? Yes, that’s the one: a naked infant swimming in a pool, with his penis dangling for everyone to see. This is the shirt that was third in the rotation.

His behavior and his hair (yes, his hair) even led me to think he had a quite severe case of Tourette’s syndrome. Kurt had a habit of violently catapulting his shoulder-length hair behind his ear, without using his hands, every time he spoke, just a jerked backwards motion of his head; the hair-flip never worked the first time, so it was a repeated convulsion until finally his hair would remain out of his face for a moment or two.

He had other ticks as well: sometimes instead of blinking he would squeeze his eyes shut as tight as he could and then shoot them back open and remain bug-eyed for a moment or two like he had just seen an unclaimed bag of schwag in the corner, and when this was combined with the hair-flip, and then a comment like, “yo, I called Jack last night and told him I was gonna RAPE him,” (Jack was his six-foot-three thug-life-Eminem-wannabe friend in my class; Jack will of course be given his own episode), I had no choice but to kick Kurt out of class.

His behavior was so out of control that I began to employ the idea of the baseball system: three strikes and you’re out! Of course the class liked getting their fucking names on the board and it turned into a game to see how quickly you could get three strikes. Kurt was one of the developers of this new strategy to completely fuck my world up.

During a particularly riveting lesson on scantron-bubbling techniques (yes, a required lesson in my state-approved curriculum, and sadly a necessary one), I looked up to see Kurt sprawled upside down across his desk so that his legs were dangling straight up in the air, his head resting on the floor and his arms waving wildly in the air. Apparently he was demonstrating an imaginary swimming technique to Jack. This was strike one.

I requested that he right himself, and continued on my lesson. Soon after, he yelled out to Jack, “Yo, you look like a penis with EARS.” That, needless to say, was strike two.

Strike three occurred moments later, when he said he had a question. Thrilled that perhaps I had finally reached him, and now he was paying attention, he said without even the hint of a smile on his face, “Yo, have you ever been tea-bagged?”

To Be Continued…

Ch. 2

A little over an hour later we were parked behind Best Buy smoking yet another fatty-fatty stiff-stiff, tingling with the anticipation of our impending mission. Our plan was to find a pair of the best fucking walkie-talkies money could buy, take them into the bathroom with us, cut them out of their plastic casing and ball the fuck out. The key aspect of this mission was the fact that I had a pair of Cutco Cutlery Scissors.

If you don’t know anything about Cutco or the Vector corporation, then consider yourself extremely lucky. All you need to know for the purposes of this story is that these were the finest scissors money could buy. They cut through pennies. Literally. The Rhino also outfitted himself with some razor blades and a pair of voluminous cargo shorts.

The plan wasn’t very complicated, as you may be able to tell from the synopsis I just gave, and it was really more predicated on the lack of security at our local Best Buy than anything. That one guy in the yellow shirt who stands at the door and has access to the all the cameras was really the only true threat to our ploy, and we both felt like if we just acted like we were shopping, all we really had to do was get into the bathroom and we were home free.

In an effort to perpetuate the façade of being regular law-abiding shoppers as opposed to . . . well intoxicated vandals, we walked around the store a little bit. Now I can’t really tell you how or why, again cause I was high off my ass, but the White Rhino got it in his head that he wanted a radar detector. So after picking up the most expensive radar detector in Best Buy we went to check out the walkie-talkies.

The finest pair they had were Cobra’s with a 7-mile radius and 15 channels that cost $150. Both of these items were in the sealed plastic that commonly adorn small electronic items. The kind you can’t really open with your bare hands unless you’re some sort of strong man. We sauntered over casually to the bathroom and made our move.

We quickly huddled into the large handicap stall at the end of the row and got to work. I tore through the radar detector with ease and I was soon onto the talkies. A problem occurred though: the scissors weren’t cutting through the packaging! I realized that I had a thick collection of instruction manuals just as someone walked into the bathroom.

Thinking fast I jumped up on the seat and balanced myself against the Rhino’s shoulder. The look’s we exchanged at this moment in time was indescribable. The tension in the bathroom at that moment seemed to bounce back and forth off the very tiles below us. For maybe thirty seconds we were absolutely quiet.

As soon as we heard the door close, I cut around the manuals and tore through the rest of the packaging. We haphazardly threw the remnants on the floor and balled the fuck out of the bathroom. The security guard didn’t even spare us a glance as we walked out and once in the parking lot we began to hoot and holler like drunken wino’s with a winning lottery ticket.

The accomplishment was euphoric. Walking amongst every day society, high off our asses, doing what we wished with little or no recourse; it simply catapulted our emotional state and concept of what was possible into another echelon. We felt untouchable.

Once back in the car however we both realized that there was a little bit of a problem. Our booty from the raid consisted of two equal prizes, and as the Rhino didn’t yet have his license yet, let alone a car, it seemed only natural (at the time) that he would have to keep the walkie-talkies.

With that thought in mind, we realized we needed to purloin ANOTHER set of talkies and as fate would have it right next door to Best Buy was a Wal-Mart! It had to be fate!

I burned a little rubber in the Celica turning into the parking lot and we both laughed like maniacal vandals as we parked in a close pull-through parking spot. We were living Bigelow style that day my friends, nothing could stop us.

Living Bigelow style was a term that had come from a birthday gift the Rhino had gotten me one year. He had bestowed upon me a gas card that was the property of one Laura Bigelow. At the time we both would have probably surmised it was worth a good two weeks worth of gas, however as it turns out, I proceeded to use that bad boy for well over two years. I handed it out casually to friends and foes alike in need of a fill up, I would barter with drug dealers and panhandlers using it as a crude form of currency in illicit transactions. It was probably the single best gift I’ve ever gotten and I milked it like a Himalayan sheep herder. That’s living Bigelow style my friends.

Once inside Wal-Mart a sense of pure youthful untouchable-ness washed over us. We decided to steal a few CD’s and computer games from the electronics section, batteries for our freshly keifed electronics, and I even stole a motion-sensor nightlight for my bathroom. It was absolute anarchy as we walked around Wal-Mart that day, stealing anything we wanted (that could fit in our pockets). Once we decided upon some walkie-talkies we made our way towards the bathroom and ended up just ripping the packaging open in the bedding section and chucking the packaging under a comforter. The sense of impenetrability had reached record heights and so we made our way towards the entrance.

As we approached the door however, an alarm went off. I can only imagine that the gigantic grouping of shit we were stealing created such a large magnetic field that those stupid sensors by the door picked up on it from a good twenty feet away. An employee yelled for us to hold on a minute as the alarm seemed to increase in volume. So, we did what anyone else would do in the same situation: we ran like Kenyans.

My heart began to race as we broke into the parking lot at full gate. Being a tad bit heavier (say maybe 260?) I was lagging behind the Rhino and I thought for sure a blue vested employee was going to tackle me at any minute. We ran past the car, past the parking lot altogether, and into an Arby’s across the street. Out of breathe I began to converse with the Rhino about what we should do.

Being so high and enjoying such a dramatic sense of euphoria, only to have it come crashing down in a chaotic sprint through the parking lot had frazzled me considerably. I ended up convincing the Rhino to change clothes with me before going back to retrieve the car, at which point our adventure was for the most part over.

The smoking fort was an amazing venue from that day forward however, and I ended up used it all the time. Everyone who saw it was completely amazed at not only the venue, but also the story that accompanied its origins. My sister proved a worthy sentry as well, and the walkie-worked like a charm.

Sadly, everything must come to an end, and one day after I had moved off to college my mother stumbled upon the fort, literally. Apparently she slipped while maneuvering through the shit-storm that was, well, all her shit and she fell through a part of the wall that made up the smoking fort. I wasn’t really too sad when I found out, considering I had moved on to bigger and better things being off at college n’ what all. Until I realized that she had found my FIRST bong, Mr. Pibb, which I had stored in one of the dresser drawers and she had thrown it away!

Mr. Pibb has his own story, and I may even one day share it with you, but for now all you need to know is he died defending the smoking fort that day, and it is upon the shoulders of courageous men like him that the luxury of smoking with leisure is predicated. That and a good set of a walkie-talkies.