Last Call

Well, more proof that Milwaukee is crazy.

I’ve never understood the concept behind phone sex lines. It always seemed like the people who use those are the weirdos who are too scared to find a prostitute. Now I’ve also never given much thought to phone sex lines until I moved to Milwaukee. Now whenever I turn on the TV to watch Leno or Letterman I can’t go one commercial break without seeing at least two different phone sex ads. After awhile I started to notice a few things about these disturbing commercials.

First, the ladies on the commercials look like picking up the phone could be the most exciting thing that I could do. Forget about food, sleep, or anything else. All you need to do is touch that handset and bliss is yours (at $2.99 a minute). Sometimes they’ll be whole gaggles of ladies huddled around a phone having the times of their lives and that I should call too! Another thing is that there is more than one type of sex line. There are lines for guys calling for girls, girls calling for guys, guys calling for guys, and girls calling for girls. When the advertisements for different varieties it gets pretty confusing. I’ll go the bathroom and when I come back the lady in the lingerie has suddenly turned into a 250 lb shirtless man with a deep baritone voice. Now I’m not passing any moral judgments and I’m sure that all of these businesses make some people very happy. But for me I’ll take commercials advertising something that I might actually buy, like chocolate.

Time to Pack it on out of here

I already knew that most people in Milwaukee were crazy, but for proof I had to look no further than Sunday afternoon. You see, Sunday afternoon means that a Green Bay Packers game is on and that means people go insane.

My first clue was when I was at the gym during game time. I hopped on the treadmill and looked up at the bank of TVs above the bank of treadmills. Of the 8 TVs, 6 of them were set to the Packers game, 1 was set to the other football game, and the last was set to “Saving Private Ryan”. The other joggers were watching the Packers game with such intensity that they would swear with what spare breath they had. I swear that one guy almost fell off the damn treadmill when Brett Favre fumbled the ball. The guy recovered when the ref ruled it an incomplete pass.

On the way home the game ended and people began pilling out of bars and restaurants cheering like the Packers had won the Super Bowl. I get home looking for the next game to be covered on CBS but I was out of luck. The local stations had taken over and were going to give me 3 HOURS of post game coverage. How can post game coverage be longer than the actual game? However, the fans did look like they’re having a fun time rooting for their team. I don’t know whether to join them or filing a restraining order against everyone in the state.

Working Out Hard or Hardly Working Out

Today I made the dreaded trip that every male ends up taking at least once in his lifetime: I went to the gym. Now I’ve been to the gym many times, but that was at Gonzaga and always with friends. The comfort level of having someone else with me who had no idea what he was doing was absent here. But I have too much free time these days and I’ve given up drinking so I headed to out the great Land of Testosterone.

I arrived at the building and it looked like it was out of the 70s (it was) and the lady who swiped my card looked like she was in her 70s (I didn’t ask). Then I got to the locker room and I had to swipe my ID card again. Strange, but I guess they’re security conscious. Finally I get to the weight room …. and there’s a keypad. I was confused and resorted to punching random numbers until someone entered in the correct code. By now I was very excited. What could they be protecting? Would the weights be made of gold? Would the water fountains shoot out chocolate milk?

Alas, the gym was just a gym. So I got to work. There’s one thing that I’ve noticed about the gym: people working out are either total jerks or extraordinarily nice. Example: I was curling and feeling like a bad ass and that I was the strongest person in the world when a guy with forearms the size of my head walks up, snickers, and proceeds to curl twice what I’m curling. Ok, buddy that was unnecessary so I promptly kicked his ass. And by “kicked his ass” I mean “went to the treadmills”. The nice people (and thankfully their the vast majority) pretty much fall over themselves to accommodate everyone else when two people need the same machine. I’m not sure if this is because they’re searching for an excuse for a break or are secretly afraid that I’m some sort of kung fu master.

Now the final group of people at the gym are people who do not look like they belong at a gym. They’re could be wild eyed and don’t know where to start or are perhaps overweight and might feel out of place. These are my people and I respect them. We’re actual human beings trying to better ourselves, not gym junkies that have toes that can bench press my body weight. But if that gym doesn’t install the chocolate fountains, I’m so taking up beer again.

The Sober State of Things

It was shaping up to be a wonderful Thursday night. There was a small get together at a friend’s house. After a few hours of us having quite the pleasant time I noticed that my buzz was starting to wear off and I was out of beer. Knowing that there was a super market I let the group know that I was going to get some more beer and to see if anyone wanted to come along.

You know those moments in the movies where everyone stops talking at once and looks at the main character like he’s crazy? Well, that happened to me and it was about as embarrassing as it sounds. Finally someone broke the silence (and is also now the coolest person in the world) by saying that it was too late to buy beer. I glance at my cell and point out that it’s only 10:45. The silence returns and people are looking at me like I’m dumber than ever. That same person points out to me like I’m some sort of moron that beer and hard a stops being sold statewide at 9 p.m. Hearing this several thoughts quickly went through my head:

Ha ha, very funny. Nice joke
Wait, nobody’s laughing. Shouldn’t people be laughing at a joke?
Oh God, what if it’s not it a joke?
It’s not a joke, they really stop selling alcohol at 9!
If I get on a bus will I make it Washington before 2?
What’s the prison sentence for stealing a 12 pack from a convenience store?
Will a banana in my coat pocket look like good enough like a gun for the stick up?
Crap, I don’t have a banana. I’m gonna have to steal that too.

All of these thoughts made me a little faint and I had to sit down. I realized that in order to maintain my buzz I would have to go to the bars and drop 10 or 15 bucks. It was shaping up to be a crappy Thursday night.

The "Real World" ... or is it?

I haven’t spoken a single word today. My vocal chords are literally feeling stale. Why the sudden quietness? It’s simply because I’ve got nobody to talk to. I live alone and don’t know anybody beyond the first name. This is not to say that I sat around watching TV all day (that’s scheduled for tomorrow). No, today was filled with such excitement as laundry, going to the library for homework, and working out at the gym. Heck, I even read a book for fun. I feel that it was one of my more productive Saturdays, but it still feels like something’s missing.

I’ve never lived alone so that’s also an adjustment. But grad school certainly makes it tough to meet people. I only have class with history students and the bulk of them are in their late 20s or older and already have their own lives, friends and relationships. Getting buddy-buddy with undergrads that I’m teaching would just be plain weird. Bumping into them at the bars is out of the question, at least until I know their faces well enough to avoid them. That basically means that in the city of beer I have to avoid the bars. Life can suck.

Is this what the “real world" is like? Or am I somehow missing something? I certainly hope it’s the second option. If this is the “real world” I’m definitely inventing a time machine and going back to when I was 10. At least then my vocal chords would get some use.