I Hate the Cubs and Stale Donuts

Last night Jester and I had the pleasure of hanging out with former two-time IU campus bench press competition champ and everybody's favorite superhero Spawn and his wife Autumne. They were in town for a convention of some sort for Spawn's job. So we had the bright idea that we should all go to the Cubs game last night (we had made these plans last week, before knowing that Satan was going to open up hell to give everyone in the Midwest a taste).

It was still 90+ degrees and 60-70% humidity when the game started at 7. The air was suffocating at best. It was the kind of weather that separates the strong from the elderly, morbidly obese, and poverty stricken. Beer did little to cool us down because, after a decent-sized meal, we couldn't drink it fast enough to prevent it from getting warm. If you've ever had warm Old Style, you know that it lacks many of the features you look for in a beer, most notably a cold, soothing temperature and a taste that doesn't invoke your gag reflex. Plus, we might as well have just poured it all over ourselves, since I'm positive it was going straight from our esophagi to our sweat glands and out our pores with little chance of bestowing intoxicating effects. When the sun went down, I swear to God it somehow got hotter or more humid, or a combination of the two. All four of us were just sitting there roasting. My half-Italian skin was emitting its usual glisten of olive oil and sexual vigor.

On a bright note, we did get to see a middle-aged beer vendor hitting on a thirtysomething MILF two rows in front of us (with her two grade-school-aged daughters sitting right next to her). When her husband came back, apparently the beer vendor told him -- and not in a joking manner at all -- that "she's too good for you." While I have personally been told that hundreds of times, it's pretty odd and funny when it comes, unprovoked, from a fiftysomething beer guy with a sweet gut and no chance in hell to bag this MILF without the help of roofies. Then the beer guy just stood there talking shit to the husband for a couple minutes. It all seemed very unnecessary, but at least it temporarily took our minds off the heat. I would have liked to see a beer vendor get beaten to a pulp by a yuppie husband, though.

Despite the fact that the A/C was on full blast, the L ride to work this morning was crowded and hot, slightly more bearable than a prostate exam (or so I would assume). Unhealthy thoughts kept creeping into my head, such as "I wouldn't have to be on this damn train if I would just quit my job" and "Maybe Jim Jones had the right idea after all." By the time I got to work, I had calmed down only slightly, still a bit on edge from the ride downtown and the cocaine I had for breakfast.

When I first walked into the kitchen at work this morning, there was a fleeting moment of reprieve from my otherwise destructive and self-loathing thoughts. All it took was a box of Dunkin Donuts resting innocently on the counter next to the sink. The joy of unexpected donuts at work can only be matched by the joy of tendering your resignation. My seemingly unwarranted exuberance was dashed as soon as I opened the box. It was the sorriest compilation of 12 donuts I've ever seen. They looked like they may have been sitting on the racks since the Clinton Administration (ahh, the Clinton Administration -- take me back), or at least that was my theory. Here's a word to the wise for any of you out there who want to "treat" your co-workers to baked goods or pastries: make sure said baked goods or pastries have been made within the most recent two weeks, and preferably within the most recent day. Of course, the dilapidated state of the donuts was not enough to dissuade me from testing my theory. I had what I'm praying was a strawberry glazed donut. It was serviceable, and may in fact have been made after January 20, 2001. Only time or dysentery can truly predict whether another test will be necessary.