Jump to answer by: E. Mike Tuckerson, Simonne Cullen, Nathan DeGraaf, Chris Phelan, Court Sullivan, Dan Opp, Jonathan Marine, Roxanne Hamm, Mike Faerber,
Xavier Holland, David Nelson, Harold Longfellow, Michael Curtiss
People who will read my column, people who don’t read my column but like the pretty pictures, people with low hopes, people with high hopes, people who don’t know that an ant can’t move a rubber tree plant, Bob Hope, that stripper from “Café Risque” named “Hope” and her twiggy dancer friend Anthony, Pierce Bronson, Bronson Pinchot, Charles Bronson, and any pedestrians without a death wish in the way of my new car… And possibly Jesus if he’s early.
“Charmaine,” monkeys on my back, children on my back, children carrying monkeys not necessarily on their backs, people who click my column while searching for Inuit furniture porn, Jehovah and all his witnesses, short ones, tall ones, ones that climb on rocks, fat ones, skinny ones, a jury of my peers, a jury of my grandmother’s peers, Piers
My longtime beer pong partner is going to have to find a replacement. For I am hanging up my patented wrist flick on the wall of fame. (Includes my college diploma, a finger painting self portrait from when I was eight, and a taped up picture of me shooting a ping pong ball from across the room displaying my signature beer
pong move.)
While I have spent the past four years enjoying this game, I am going to bow out early because this isn't the Bozo show—I am not winning the grand prize game. I don't want to drink only when a pong ball lands in a cup. I want to drink continuously, throughout the night, uninterrupted by balls falling in my drink
after having been rolled across the floor into the dust pile under the funky smelling sofa your buddies found in the alley. I'd like my beer bacteria free please.
This summer, I will let down a few 18-year-old girls by convincing them that the only way they can experience orgasm is by performing fellatio on me while listening to David Allan Coe. Then I will tell them that I don't date girls who aren't old enough to drink unless they like anal. Gotta have rules.
When “Full” Court Sullivan (I will let him down in the nickname area) asked me to contribute to this article, at first I was eggstatic (sp? I will let down the 2007 Spelling Bee champion, who I have already tried in vain to become Facebook friends with). But then I really sat down and thought about it. What a terrible idea. (I will let down the optimistic side of me.) I don't let anybody down, ever. I am on time for every dinner reservation. I hit open jumpers 100% of the time. My back always hurts during beer pong because I'm routinely carrying my team. I've had the same girlfriend for 10 years. My creditors send me birthday cards.
Actually, none of what I just wrote is true. I do have faults.
I walk into restaurants with the management furious at me because I think showing up “fashionably late” is appropriate. I'm not really a spot-up jump shooter, I prefer to shoot pulling up off the dribble. And it doesn't help that I take most of the shots of my team. People always wonder out loud how a guy who went to the University of Connecticut has such a questionable beer pong game. All my ex-girlfriends hate me. I'm terrified of opening the front door of my house when the doorbell rings because I'm pretty sure 50% of the time it's a student loan collector wanting to break my legs.
So when I really sat down a second time and thought about this article, I realized who I will let down: you, the reader. I'm letting you know right now: I'm spent. There will be no column I write that will be half as funny as “Insert Restaurant Name Here,” as savvy as “Welcome to the the MTV Renaissance,” or as poignant as the “Ode to the Office” column. I'm just letting everyone know now. By the end of the summer, once I've bombarded you with
drunken story after drunken story of living down here in Ocean City, MD… you will hate me.
Just giving you a heads up. There will be a postage stamp on the upper right hand corner of my columns for the rest of the summer.
But it will still be better than whatever Gaudio churns out. I mean, come on.
To the guy standing in the way of my Roman candle on July 4th: Dude, what were you thinking? Safety glasses ARE cool.
To the beer in my trunk from a month ago: Sorry I had to sell my car, but I think you were skunked anyway.
To my next door neighbor: It's summer, they're called “anthems.” Deal with it.
To my priest: Sorry, I gave up on religion when dinosaurs hatched.
To my sister: My bad, I tend to get real drunk at weddings. You don't like cake anyway, right?
To that bar over by that place: What can I say, I was running out of glasses at home.
To the guy who used the gas station bathroom after me on that road trip: You know the feeling, now deal with the smell.
To that guy who couldn't swim at the lake: If I had a place to put either of my beers down, maybe things would have been different. Hey, at least
it's open casket, right?
This summer, I will let down my parents. However, it's different from what you're thinking. I don't live at home; I have a job; and I'm not gay. In addition, I haven't won a Darwin Award; my gender has been remarkably consistent; and I've never been duped into meeting a 40 year-old cop that I thought was a 12 year-old girl. Hell, I even close the screen door when I come in the house, turn off the lights when I leave, and brush my teeth twice a day. And I plan on maintaining all these qualities
throughout the summer.
Then how exactly am I letting down my parents? Well, Mom and Dad better cuddle up with some old photo albums, because that's all they're gonna see of my shiny, happy face this summer. I'm sorry, but catching up with the Old Man does not beat catching rays on a New Jersey beach; homemade waffles from Mom do not surmount a wiffleball tournament in Vermont; and watching a movie with the X and the Y does not compare to doing X at the Y. (The exercise ball may feel like a giant ribbed condom, but
don't try to put your dick in it.)
Here in the Northeast, we only have a couple months of outside fun time and I'm damn sure gonna spend it having fun outside.So Mom, spare the waffle batter. And Dad, put the stories on layaway. I'll see you in September, weather permitting.
This summer, I plan on letting my plants down. That's right, my plants. Ever since I got my own apartment five years ago I have tried to grow a wide variety of common house plants… initially with the thought it would help me score some girls. Every single one has died a voracious death since then.
With that in mind, in recent attempts, things have turned more into a battle of wills than an attempt to solicit the punanny. I recently purchased some chives (for baked potato's) basil (for spaghetti sauce), and daylilies (because we all have a little Chris Phelan in us). It's been two weeks and things aren't looking good. I have been watering those fuckers daily, using Miracle-Gro®, and even soliciting my mother (who was a sharecropper early on in life) for advice. I
estimate that within the month they will be dead.
As I write this it is June 6th – if anyone wants to pick a date they think the plants will be dead on, I will write an article on a topic of their choice if they get it right.
Any takers? Email me at [email protected]
I will be letting down all of my former, current, and future English teachers and Editors as I continue to kill the language softly with my horrible excuse for grammar, and Miss Spullings.
I well let down you, dear reader.
For once upon a time, when the rivers of humor flowed freely, I was a writer. Then when the rivers slowed to a trinkle. I was a blogger. Now the river is pretty much dried up, except for a few last dribbles that soak through and make you feel ridiculous because you're 21 years old, and supposed to have more cont- you didn't even drink that much okay, it was like 3 cups of keg beer, and you passed out at like 10:30 what is happening to you? The other day you were checking out this hot chick, when her husband walked up and handed over the crying toddler to her.
Oh come now, you still feel young… girls up when they've had too much to drink. Party Animal. Awesome. Wild and Crazy guy.
Honestly… I need a job.
I will be letting down you this summer. And I don't mean you in the vague, “this could be anybody” sense. I mean you personally. I swear to God I will find you, find out what you want, and almost give it to you. I will find you that hot chick who was born a man. I will mail you a kitten but will forget to send it as live
cargo. I will send you a link to what you think is one of my articles, and it will actually be a Gaudio poem.
I will sleep with you.
As God (the Queen of Letdowns) is my witness, I will find a way. Unless I get lazy, or the Yankees start winning, or I forget.
And wouldn't that be a letdown?
As luck would have it, I've become involved with someone just in time for summer. This will mean a noticeable dent in my porn/tissue paper consumption, as well as a whole lot of disappointment. To all the eligible ladies in my hometown, now that I'm off the market: The disillusionment in the air is palpable, but you gals have accomplished so much in this day and age. Try not to let this setback affect your self-esteem. Also, you're all looking kind of fat.
My parents are going to be let down as well. Let's just say I'm pretty sure my new girlfriend never had a bat mitzvah. I know from experience that dating within my religion means trading oral sex and not being nagged to death for parental approval. It's an equation from hell, but I know my priorities. So, happy belated Easter, Mom and Dad!
Finally, I guess this girl is going to be let down eventually in some
way. Sure, those internet penis-enlargement pills are working right now, but my prescription will run out eventually, and then I'll have to resort to foreplay and/or jewelry. Thank you so much, invigorex.com.
Sometimes, I think my life can’t sink any lower—I write for this site between bottles of Brandy and Percoset and seem doomed to remain doing so for the rest of my tenure on this earth. Then, as I break from my writing to search for professional grade cyanide pills online, I am punished further. We call those times “staff collaborations,” when Mr. Sullivan forces me to write about some ignominious, meaningless topic that lacks even the scintilla of thoughtfulness I manage to retain in my column.
So, Sullivan – you want to know who I plan to let down this summer? Personally, I couldn’t care less who I let down. If anyone out there is let down by me, your standards are unreasonably high or you have no taste. I’d hypothesize the latter, since I doubt any of your mongrels have standards for anything. Besides, if I do let any of you down, at least I might derive an ounce of pleasure from knowing that I made you feel a fraction of the misery this job drives me to every day.
Let’s talk about something that actually matters: how all of you are going to let me down this summer. I’ll give you a clue; it’s the same way as usual. You’ll read my column and be wholly unable to appreciate it, you’ll go about your life engaging in the sort of meaningless frivolity and debauchery that are constantly detract from our society (my society really—you are permitted to reside in it only because I’m currently unable to force you out), and just generally fritter away opportunities you never deserved anyway.
Happy now, Sullivan?
This summer I will let down God.
Just kidding, there is no God. Is there? Who fucking knows anymore. Let’s assume there is, because, why the fuck not? Sorry God for masturbating to Asian lady-boy porn, I swear, she(he?) looked just like a hot chick and then BOOM, that penis took me by surprise.
Also God, I didn’t mean to take your name in vain. It’s just, I farted too hard if you know what I mean and sorta squirted into the pants a little bit. You understand right?
Lastly, I apologize in advance for the orphan punting competition I plan on winning on July 21st. If it makes you feel any better, they are Chinese orphans, and everyone knows that the Chinese don’t have souls. Sorry for letting you down God. Tell Tupac I said hi!
Previous articles by The PIC Staff:
Our Ideal Summers
Things We Won't Get for Christmas