05/28/2005 - 12:48 p.m. | its currency is the giant stone disc

I think I have a parasite. The last few days I've been been hungry all the time, even when I'm completely stuffed (and often ill) from just having eaten too much already. Fucking tapeworm. Oh well, better adapt. I think I just woke him up with the super mediocre boxed Thai kit Michelle made because I'm all hungry again. Damn it, Tapey, now we have to get some real food. Hope you like chicken tenders, bitch.

In case you were wondering, my kryptonite turns out to be orange Gatorade. I know, I would have thought it was love, too, but what do you know? I was at Schnucks the other day and wanted a cold bottle of something, so I went to the Snapple machine. Unfortunately, they were out of everything (even diet peach iced tea) except orange Gatorade and would not return my dollar, so I was fucked. I'd been trying to choke it down over a period of a few days, but I could just not stomach more than a sip or two before I wanted to chuck it out my car window. Finally, I grew enraged and decided to just finish the whole damn thing. Big mistake. Within the next few hours, the Gatorade had already managed to eat away at my gums completely, such that now I spit blood every time I brush my teeth. And I'm not talking about a little drop of it here and there amidst the toothpaste. I'm like a boxer in between rounds here. And one can only imagine what havoc this shit is bringing to my innards.

I was going to watch some so-so movie on demand and eat the pig heart Michelle had prepared earlier, but they had a preview beforehand highlighting their special "Only Here" movies, the main idea being that these movies were so overtly shitty that I, Nathan Walsh specifically, could not help but watch them. So I did just that, opting for Scarecrow Gone Wild, as the title suggested the greatest number of gratuitous boobies displayed. Then, not really willing to learn key plot points (e.g. A scarecrow comes alive and does not like college students particularly, thus "goes wild") and incredibly willing to see only the aforementioned boobies, we just fast-forwarded through pretty much the whole thing, right up until the end where the Scarecrow (in the nerdy guy's body) suddenly could make shitty CG purple lightning attacks. Future thespians, here is a good test of your acting prowness: Try to deliver the following lines as fast as possible. Give me "frantic speculation."

"I dunno, maybe when he was on that cross and he died and the scarecrow merged with him but then when we killed the created his murderous soul merged back, I dunno?"

Cinematic history! The only positive result from this came the next day when Kyle and I were sitting in Spritz's car, waiting for the battery to charge, and he started to sing a song about the movie while I used a crayon tube of pennies to provide percussion. "Scarecrow gone wild / scarecrow gone, gone wild / Scarecrow gone wild / scarecrow gone, gone wild / 2 different JCP, bitch / 2 different JCP, yeah / 2 different JCP, bitch / 2 different JCP, yeah" And repeat. The JCP line refers to Kyle's plan to help Shelly return this awful, awful barslut shirt she tried to buy from JC Penney. You know the maternity ones, with the tight boobs and flowing bottom? Yeah, what were you thinking, Shelly?

Work related adventures (Not really all that interesting): One delivery on Wednesday night took me over an hour, which is just absolutely ridiculous. It was a place I'd never heard of, true, but never before had it been such a problem. I did the usual thing and looked it up on Mapquest, and the directions looked pretty straightforward, but weeks of faithful service had lulled me into thinking that Mapquest was a faithful bit of software, not intent on delivering me to Minnesota every single time. But fine, it looked OK to me, so I went out. Turned in all the right places (except, you know, when it advised I should go the wrong way down one way streets, but whatevs) and all I had to do was find Frontage Rd. Except there was no Frontage Road there. Or any real roads at all. Well, shit. So I start calling my sources, finally getting ahold of Yousaf and asking him to look up the lost road and find it for me. As lost roads tend to be, however, it was lost, and he could not find it. So I asked him to find directions from where I was. Same damn thing. Well, fuck. So I drove up and down the same street some more, making sure I wasn't just blind.

Damn it, by the way, Thursday night I was brushing my teeth, and I noticed that my left eye is noticeably higher up than my right eye. Kyle, Jevon, and Michelle later confirmed. What the fuck, genetics? Maybe you should give me a claw for a hand, too, you cunt.

Anyway, finally deciding I truly was fucked, I call the number of the girl I was delivering the cookies to. I know, perhaps I should have done this sooner, but then again, maybe not, because this girl was an absolute tard. Every time I called I would be able to get one more crucial piece of information out of her. Like, first she told me which road I should turn on instead of Frontage Road, so I do that, thinking I'll be able to follow the steps from there, but no. So more useless driving up and down until I call her back. "Oh, I guess I should have told you... You need to turn on this street." Which would be fine, except she didn't really know street names, and in the middle of the trailer park / housing development / project shithole maze I was weaving my way through, there is a very big difference between Willow View and Willow Springs, etc., etc. So I finally found at least the start of the road I know this cretin's apartment building to be on. Unfortunately, the place is set up like a barracks, none of the buildings are numbered or connected, and they seem to progress in a random order. As such, I couldn't drive between buildings, instead sprinting here and there with the box of cookies, stopping at every building, running up their apartment 5, ringing the bell, and asking them if this was the right place. If not, I'd ask them for their best guess as to where building 1905 actually was, they'd point vaguely, and I would run back out. I even called the girl for help. "Yeah, it is a little hard to find..." Thanks a ton, you idiot. Well, I finally got the cookies to her, an hour and nine minutes after I'd started, all sweaty and gross, another delivery waiting in the car and my boss phoning me to ask where the hell I was. Fuck you guys. Your homes should all be torched.

The next night, meanwhile, was the exact opposite, completely dead. It was me and this new guy, Sid, and we sat there for 2 and a half hours with absolute shit to do. The second I stop reading and suggest we watch a movie, shit springs to life! The printer suddenly fires off 10 orders all at once, and suddenly we are both overwhelmed - me because I'm going to have to find all these places in some sort of order, and him because he now has roughly 85 cookies and brownies that have to be prepared. Luckily, while he was calling to manager to cry for help, I noticed that the date on most of these orders was 5/2/05, over three weeks from the current date. I seriously doubt those people were waiting for their orders still. Once we got that cleared up, it was actually a slow night. I did deliver two huge orders to the same house, though. Could that be the smell of marijuana I noticed? No, perish the thought! That is an illegal substance! I thought I saw Sage in there, though, so I was like, "Sage? What's up, man?" And he goes, "Dude, I'm not Sage." "Well, you look like him." AMUSING ANECDOTE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY

Thursday night, the big plan was that everyone was going to get drunk and fucked up on Redline, stay up all night, and then arrive at this crazy rummage sale all bombed out of our minds when it opened at 5:30 the next morning. This did not last, as Yousaf was the only one who drank (whiskey sour on top of whiskey sour), Kyle and Tebben passed out for most of the evening, Shelly threw up from the Redline, and I went to bed as soon as they stopped showing episodes of "The Inferno II" on MTV. Here is why advertising works, though: I saw this ad for Dannon's Frusion Smoothie, and I kept singing their fake Wayne Brady's little song again and again until I pretty much had to buy a bottle of it when I went to Schnucks with Yousaf. I ain't drank the shit yet, but they got my dollar fifty.

I've been trying very hard to answer the phone whenever Missy calls, as it seems to piss her off a great deal when I do not, but the only real difference I've noticed is that she now calls even more than she did before. This is not the series of mutual benefits I had been promised!

Spritz was again MIA for a long time, but at least we knew why this time. He got a spinal tap the other day, which is apparently a horrible experience all around, and has more or less left him immobile ever since. See, I guess they pull out some of your spinal fluid, but then it leaks out for a while afterwards, so that everytime he stands up for too long, his brain starts to sing into the base of his head, which gives him awful headaches and forces his collapse again. Yeah, mark that off of my to-do list. Anyway, that left Amber to do most of the getting around and - she being Amber - she had left the lights on to Spritz's SUV and left it dead in the middle of Champaign. As such, Kyle and I were sent there (after Wonderdogs!) to try and jumpstart the fucker. It being us, it took one hell of a long time, as first we didn't think the jumper cables were in my car (they were), so a wasted trip home, only to discover that cretin Michelle had left the stove on all night, so the house was filled with deadly explosive gas. Thank you for nearly murdering us all, Shelly. Called the gas people, then got the fuck out. The horrible process of moving an SUV in neutral, then it appeared my new battery is specifically designed only to be jump-started and never to jump start (no terminals on the top), then to run into Presidential Tower because we both had to take monster shits from the Wonderdogs at the same time, then waiting for Jevon to walk back to PT so he could get his car, then finally the jumping. Afterwards, we went to White Ho (we went to White Ho?!) to get these Atomic Wedges Shelly and Jevon would not shut up about. Honestly, potato skins covered in Taco Bell Medium are not all that impressive. We sang some songs, got some glares from the Champaign people for singing some songs, and kept talking about the waitress and how we would do her if she lost the tummy (and got major facial reconstructive surgery, I kept mentally adding).

Our exciting Friday evening concluded with a showing of Independence Day, which Shelly kept storming into and asking questions so that Kyle and I both wanted to physically harm her. She also set off the smoke alarm again and again and again. I think I have decided that my new thing will be calling Michelle "Shelly" only when she acts like a retard. As such, you will probably not notice the difference. Much love.