1/8/98 - Many Thanks

You probably weren't aware of this, but last weekend, the eyes of the entire journalistic community were keenly focused on the First Annual PWC World-Wide Meeting, which ended up occurring largely in my living room. The attendees were to be myself, Clash, and Elizabeth White. Unfortunately, Liz cancelled shortly after being informed of the meeting, because she's a very busy woman, what with stockpiling weaponry all day, preparing for the revolution or whatever.

Anyway, I made sure to take detailed minutes of the meeting, which ended up being an action-packed, all-day affair:

Orientation
6:00 AM - Woke up, because I forgot that it was the weekend, and left my alarm clock on.
6:01 AM - Ripped alarm clock from wall.
11:23 AM - Woke up again, got up, took shower, made coffee, prepared for rest of meeting.

Open Discussion
12:42 PM - Discussed with myself why Clash, who had spent actual money on an actual plane ticket to actually fly out to the east coast, and who had been talking for weeks about getting together with me, hadn't called yet to get directions to my place so we could go party. I mean, meet.

Football/Beer
1:05 PM - Watched football, drank beer.

Wrap-up
11:50 PM - Congratulated myself in my own special way, went to sleep.

This procession of events of course led to the First Annual PWC Yelling At Clash To Find Out Why The Hell He Didn't Show Up a few days later. Well, he told me.

You would think that someone who had lived in the very close vicinity of Maryland for most of his life, and whom I had very specifically told my phone number, and who can see that I even wrote my actual area code in one of the previous introductions, wouldn't spend all day dialing my phone number with two numbers of my area code transposed, so that someone in Wyoming had to listen to a phone ring all day, while I had nothing to do but watch football and drink beer, wouldn't you? So would I. But obviously (as evidenced by the frightfully bad grammar of this paragraph), you don't need to be a rocket surgeon to be involved with PWC.

I didn't tell that story just to embarrass Clash. The real reason was to...well, I wanted to show...that is, it's a good example of...oh, alright, I did just do it to embarrass Clash. I normally wouldn't do something that mean and nasty and thoughtless, but I'm in a rather poor humor today, because I am weak and achy. I don't know if you've ever been both weak and achy, but it's about as much fun as sitting around waiting for a phone call all day (see above.)

I'll start with why I'm weak, then we can move on to why I'm achy.

As you all know by this point, I am leaving on a cross-country trip to Las Vegas in a couple of weeks. Well, I'm a little above my "fighting weight" right now, so I decided that before I left, I'd try to get in a little better shape. I'm doing this because, as you know, Vegas is the land of cute cocktail waitresses in skimpy outfits, and also showgirls. As I'm sure most guys would tend to do, I am assuming that most of them are single, available, and just waiting for someone to come along and rescue them from their high-paying jobs, preferably someone with no money, two pairs of pants, and a weekly humor column which not just one, but both of his parents read occasionally. Well, just in case that impressive resume isn't enough to make them swoon, I want to put forth a better physical appearance.

According to the latest studies, there are two main ways of losing weight. The first way is to maintain a healthy diet, while sticking to a strict regimen of cardiovascular exercise, and playing the "Rocky" theme all day on a portable stereo which you carry around with you wherever you go. The second is to not eat hardly anything at all, sit there like a lump all day, and play the "Godfather" theme over and over again in your head.

I opted for the second method, because the first requires one to actually exert physical energy, which is a practice I'm not a big fan of. So now I only eat one thing all day, which is my own personal recipe that I came up with, which I call "Pinback's Tuna & Pea Surprise". The following is the actual recipe (people who know me have in fact seen and can verify this):
Pinback's Tuna & Pea Surprise
Ingredients:
1 large can of chunk light tuna
1 can of no-salt sweet peas
1/2 large white onion, chopped
1/2 jar of hot pepper slices

Directions: Empty all ingredients into a big plastic bowl, then mix up and eat with a fork.
The "surprise" is that I can actually eat an entire bowl of this crap and not barf up an internal organ afterwards.

This diet keeps me alive (barely), but it also makes me very weak due to the fact that it has relatively little nutritional value. I'm actually trying to write longer sentences now, so I don't have to endure the strain of pressing the <SHIFT> key as often.

Alright, now, onto achy. I'm achy because of the fact that I'm trying to dump all of my belongings before I leave on the big trip. All I want to have to pile into the car is one suitcase, this laptop, one can of tuna, one can of peas, one half large white onion, chopped, and one half jar of hot pepper slices. And a plastic bowl. (I can buy the fork when I get there.)

So to all of my friends and family who gave me lovely Christmas gifts over the holidays, I just want to say that I really appreciate all of the nice stuff you gave me, but unfortunately, I've had to throw it all in the dumpster. I'd feel worse about it, except that you all got your "thank you" notes in the mail already, so we both fulfilled our obligations. I never understood the idea of sending "thank you" notes to people who you just got finished saying "thank you" to in person, as if to say, "Hi, I didn't really mean it when I said it to your face, but now I've had time to think about it, and while I still don't mean it, hopefully this piece of paper will make the lie more convincing." When I was growing up, though, my mother (who reads this column, ladies) was able to instill in me the need to go through this ridiculous exercise every year.

Back to achy, though. Anxious to rid myself of all my worldly possessions, I sold my bed last week. I soon realized what an impressive feat of bad planning this was. To make a painful story short, I've been sleeping on the floor for the last several days. The good part about this is that it strengthens my resolve to embark on my dream journey across this great land. The bad part is that I can't turn my neck anymore.

Yes, I'm ready to get outta here. Well, I really have no choice in the matter anymore, because I already sent in my "Notice to Vacate" letter to my landlord. I suppose I could stay after the date I told them I would be out, but if new tenants moved in, it could be a rather uncomfortable situation, and we'd just end up arguing all the time about what channel to watch.

I did have a bit of a problem writing the letter, though. I think I've just been doing this column so long, I've lost the ability to sound all serious and business-like, to the point where it's become extremely difficult (especially in my weakened condition) to write more than a paragraph or two without mentioning cats or chinese food.

That was when I got my brilliant idea. Like everyone who was forced by their mothers to write "thank you" notes after Christmas, I've perfected the technique of using a Thank You Note Template. This is sort of like playing Mad-Libs, but motivated primarily by guilt, and not nearly as funny. All you do is just replace specific words and phrases (like, the name of the gift-giver, and the description of what they gave you), and you can basically use the exact same letter to send to everyone. This works especially well in highly dysfunctional families where nobody talks to each other.

I figured, hey, it worked so well for that, maybe I can use the same letter to tell my landlord that I'm skipping town. I mean, it's almost like saying "thank you" for a gift, except the gift they're giving me is freedom from paying them rent.

Now, to bring this weak, achy column to a conclusion, I'll show you the text of the letter that I sent. So you can compare and contrast, I will put the original words (from the last "thank you" note I wrote) in brackets, [like this]. Enjoy, and see you next week!
Dear [Grandma] Building Management,

This note is just to say [thank you for] that I will be leaving [the sweater] apartment 13. It is very [comfortable] nicely maintained. I will be sure to [wear it a lot] recommend it to others.

It was very nice [seeing you again] living in this community. The [green bean thing] exercise facilities that you [cooked] provided [was] were [yummy] appreciated.

I look forward to [seeing you] renting from you [on Thanksgiving] if I return to the area.

[Love,] Sincerely, [Your loving Grandson] Resident of Apartment 13

[P.S. Next year, please just send me some cash.]
P.S. Next year, please just send me some cash.


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That was in case any of you devious types were thinking of stealing all my cool stuff. So there.
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