FCN BC08 - N: "i like you"

I received a text message from an anonymous sender. It made it's point simply:

"i like you"

An acute sense of joy swept through my gizzard. Yes sir, somewhere out there in the big, cellular world, someone, who hopefully was a girl, liked me.

So I quickly replied with an equally short message:

"thanks who is this"

I figure I'll do the whole "I-am-too-cool-to-care-what-anyone-thinks-so-will-just-nod-in-your-general-direction-to-let-you-know-I-have-noticed-you" thing. That's what tough guys do, isn't it? You care by not caring. Yeah.

After a few minutes I received a reply:

"haha this is michelle jk itz a jok"

Oh.

But at least Michelle cared enough to play a prank on me. She must like me a tiny bit. Maybe a tad? Who is Michelle? And what's with the z anyway?

And frankly, I can't afford to let something like this bother me. It takes a lot to get girls to like you. Yes sir, good ol' fashioned work. True, I don't get why she thinks tricking me is funny. Maybe if I pretend like I don't care, she will like me more. So I'll do the whole "I-am-too-jock-to-care-what-anyone-thinks-so-will-just-nod-in-your-general-direction-to-let-you-know-I-have-noticed-you" thing. I can be a good sport. Literally.

"lol np"

Sent. So I sit and wait. I'm not sure what I hope she will say. But maybe it will make me feel better. Besides, if she actually replies, that means she actually cares enough to send me three messages out of her 850 texts a day. Not including replies.

So eventually my phone buzzes.

"ya my friendz took my phn"

My phone buzzes again. Apparently it's the second half of the message.

"they sent you that msg srry ttyl"

It's bad to find out a love text is actually a joke on you. It's even worse to realize the wasted minute count paid by yours truly is a prank on someone else. Yes sir, life is tough.

Seriously, I should feel sorry for myself. Besides, doing the whole "I-am-too-emo-to-care-what-anyone-thinks-so-will-just-nod-in-your-general-direction-to-let-you-know-I-have-noticed-you" thing is amazingly self-gratifying. Self-pity is all the rage. And everyone knows chicks dig emo guys.

Fashion #2: Tigers Are Cool

Funny Class Notes has a new guest contributor! A longtime reader and member of the faithful few has been accepted into the ranks of the writers who call this site their online home. Chip has been reading since August of 2007 and here is how we introduced him back then:

Reader number ten is an exceptionally overweight individual named Chip. Chip's main reason for coming to our page was to find solidarity. That's right, our tenth reader came to FCN because he wanted to find dumb people with whom to associate. Chip has, according to his G-Talk picture, an affinity for tight white undershirts and the style he chooses does little to hide his bulky middle or hairy back. He sent us a long email full of lovingly misspelled words in which he poured out his life's wish to work as a corporate executive at a Fortune 500 company. We assured him in our reply that white collar work isn't all it's cracked up to be and that he would be much happier working graveyard at Taco Bell while supporting eight kids and his own beer belly. We also advised that one major prerequisite to the Chief Executive's chair is teeth brushing and that he might want to consider other personal hygiene innovations as well. Yeah, we really hit it off.

In order to accept Chip as a contributor, we required he wait outside the door of our house for three days without food, shelter or encouragement and endure our verbal abuse without giving up. Chip succeeded and was invited into our ranks. Below is his first post as a guest contributor.

If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring? That's right, a new spring wardrobe! And if you're looking for the hottest trends, you will find no better role model than the perennial tiger, who burns bright in his jungle home. Tigers are slim, sleek, powerful, and always ready to kill. Here are ten eleven reasons that tigers are the greatest fashion and lifestyle freaks around:

1. Tigers have stripes.
I know what you're thinking. So do wasps, zebras, and "construction zone" signs, all three of which are not likely to appear in the latest issue of... whatever you read to keep up with style. But hear me out. You are forgetting that stripes are an old staple when it comes to pajama pants, which, in a glorious merging of hip culture and pariah college derelict culture, have become quite a hit for Spring of this year. So, stripes it is!

2. Tigers work out.
Tigers don't sit around in classes doodling and writing funny class notes, although that is a pretty snazzy thing to do. Nor do tigers pant on the treadmill. No—tigers run 50 miles per hour through snow and consequently they are pretty ripped.

3. Girls like tigers.
Don't believe me? Well, think back to the last time you saw a girl wearing a shirt that said something like "I heart Tigger." Actually, it's more likely to have mentioned Pooh, but that's a different story. Let's just say that A.A. Milne was pretty with it.

4. Tigers are tech-savvy.
Yes, I'm talking about Mac OS 10.4, "OS X Tiger." Since Apple chose a tiger as the mascot for its operating system, tigers must be cool. For one thing, Macs don't run Windows. For another, Macs are chic and youthful, just like Obama.

5. Tigers are down-to-earth.
Every lion claims to be king of the beasts, but have you ever heard of a tiger putting on airs? In fact, the tiger is so humble that it occasionally deigns to breed with a snobby lion and has a liger baby. That's a good thing, because ligers are seriously the greatest animal, and they have skills in magic.

6. Tigers are rich and famous.
At least the Asian Tigers are. Check out your T-shirt: it was probably made in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, or South Korea. Or if it wasn't, it will be as soon as McCain abolishes trade quotas.

7. Tigers are into sports.
The Detroit Tigers started their season by losing to the White Sox and beating the Red Sox, which shows that they're into clothes (i.e. socks), if not fashion. It also shows that tigers like sports, which is a plus when it comes to trendiness.

8. Tigers kill animals.
Killing animals is a valiant thing to do and, if you're of the male persuasion, you can always count on a good kill to show how macho you really are. Consider that day last Fall when you sauntered into the house of your old family friend, and found yourself staring into the glassy eyes of a giant buck, whose head had been impressively mounted on the wall. Chances are, your friend noticed your glance and offered some welcome explanation:

"Like it? Just had the thing mounted. We'd walked for ten miles, me n' Jim, and our water was running out. Then Jim put his hand on me and pointed. The wind was in our direction, so we knew it was gonna sniff us out fast. I leveled my sight on 'im and Bang! But the durn thing jumped up just then and set off running, so my shot got 'im in the left thigh, and he disappeared into the leaves, so we had to track him. We followed the trail of blood for five miles and found the thing curled up by a stream, with the buzzards circling overhead and the wolves howling in the distance. So we gutted it there and hoisted the meat up our shoulders..." Etc. Then your friend probably showed you the buck's hide, with two bullet holes in it, and told you that the taxonomist had said it was a first-rate piece of skin, et cetera.

9. Tigers kill people.
Have you noticed how popular the Bourne movies are? We're not talking about geek-popular, or even man-popular. Even your glitter-clad, texting teenage teenybopperette has seen them. What's the attraction? Having breathlessly watched all three installments, I can see only one reason for their popularity: the amount of people killed. Deadly is the new sexy. In California, they even made an "exterminator" their governor. Go figure.

10. Tigers procrastinate.
Have you ever been to the tiger cage at the zoo? Those lazy things lie around all day in the sun, their bellies full of free fresh meat and their tails too sleepy to bat a fly off their magnificent fur coats. If you're an average cubicle slave you probably grit your teeth at the sight and wish the government would support you instead of those feline dukes and duchesses. If, on the other hand, you're a college derelict, you probably don't even look twice. Those tigers know the secret of a happy life, just like you.

11. Tigers are carnivores
A tiger is one of the few fell creatures besides a human that would enjoy an animal-style feast from In-N-Out. Tigers don't eat sissy greens or wimpy fruits. If they went to Subway, they'd pass on the peppers and have a sandwich, not a salad. They gorge themselves on bleeding red flesh with the gusto of an obese American.

Homies, Day 5: Cleanup.

For the last full day of our housesitting, we decided to do the responsible thing: to cover up as many of our errors as possible. This is not as easy as it sounds. The house had been practically emptied of anything sellable and had sustained significant structural damage around the front door (from careless moving of large furniture), the plants we were supposed to water were dead, and all but one of the animals were missing, eaten, or wumped. The house had seen better days. We knew that our friendship with the family was pretty much terminated, but we wanted at least to keep them from hiring a hitman. So we set about patching the place up as best we could off of a very tight budget.

We started with the obvious stuff. First came a thorough mopping of the floors and walls. Then we bought three full sets of wicker furniture and spread them around the house, then blew fifty bucks at a garage sale for broken kitchen appliances and plugged them into various outlets. We pasted duct tape over the cracks in the bathroom mirror and put used gum over the holes in the pipes. We glued cardboard across the holes in the front wall, dug up the neighbor's lawn and spread it in ours (by which I mean Theirs), and "borrowed" produce from a road-side stand to stuff the "fridge." Then came the really tricky business: replacing the animals.

I had spoken via phone with one of the members of the household. She had told me what made Jake (the cat) distinctive and irreplaceable:

- 15 pounds
- Parentheses markings on side
- Responds to "Jake"
- Bites people on ankle when they don't feed him

This seemed doable. Off we went to the animal shelter to find Jake's body double. After several hours of shopping, we found the dream cat. He was eighteen pounds - a little on the heavy side - but he had those distinctive parentheses markings and bit people on the ankle all the time, including when they didn't feed him. He also bit them other places. And he scratched. And he hissed. And he hated people. And he drew plans for his doomsday machine when he thought no one was looking. His name was Osiris. We told him to answer to Jake or we'd take away his paper and crayons. He said he'd behave, then issued an evil buahahahahaha and bit my homie on the ankle.

Next came replacing Coco (the mangy mutt). We shopped for a long time, but couldn't find a dog that would really suit our needs. We decided to revisit that problem and moved on to find Snickers II. Once again, we had no luck.

In anticipation of the day's dinner, we bought a black guinea pig named Mortimer who's fur seemed a bit like Charlie's. If our benefactors didn't get within forty feet or so, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

We eventually gave up on replacing Coco and Snickers. Instead, we took a mottled brown-and-white Shetland pony named Applejacks. He looked a little scrunched when we hobbled him in the suburban backyard, but we were sure our benefactors would appreciate the gesture, so we rolled with it.

After a long day's work, we were ready for something tasty. Charlie Pot Pie seemed like just the thing. Lacking pots, utensils, and a working stovee, my homie got a fire started on the kitchen counter. I went over to Charlie's cage, opened it, and reached in to wring his neck. Something black and sharp attached itself to my beautiful face and started biting and scratching. My homie came by with a hatchet and "helped out." I have an appointment with the plastic surgeon next Wednesday.

Anyway, we gave up on the pot pie and settled for sitting on the wicket couch sucking our thumbs. We don't call him Charlie anymore. Now, we call him PKB - the Purple Killer Bunny.

Homies, Day 4: "You can crash at their place."

Sometimes it's the little things about house sitting that get you. Eating the refrigerator empty. Breaking the foosball table. Clogging the shower. Running out of bunny food because you were fattening them up. Bursting the bean bag. Trying to get the smell of marinated bunny out of the kitchen.

Then, sometimes it's the big things.

I had just sat down in my first class of the day when one of my fellow classmates leaned over and started telling me all his problems. He said his wife had left him, he'd been evicted, and he was penniless and would probably freeze to death that evening.

"You think that's bad?" I asked. "We broke the foosball table earlier today."

Well, what could I do? We had been given specific instructions not to let anyone into the house besides immediate family members. I had only one option. I reinterpreted this rule in the broadest and most metaphorical of senses, and then rejected it because it was too nebulous. Then I inviting the homeless guy to crash at our place. Note that when I say our place, I mean their place.

I gave him the key and the address and said I'd be back later that afternoon. When my homie and I showed up, we found not only the homeless guy, but about a dozen of his buddies. They had pitched camp all over the downstairs and were now pillaging the pantry for vittles.

"Hey guys," I said. "I'm not comfortable with this."

"Coming through," Said a homeless guy, brushing past me with a chandelier under one arm and a glass rooster in the other.

"Hey, where's all this stuff going?"

"Garage sale," Said the homeless guy. I couldn't think of an easy way to get these guys out, so I wandered upstairs and watched a movie. When the credits rolled, I muted the sound and listened to the ruckus downstairs: rushing water, breaking glass, shouts.

Before proceeding, it's important to note that FCN is not against homeless people. We don't think they're any less honest than the rest of us and we generally feel charitable and generous toward those without four walls, a roof and a central heating and air. Anyway if our life trajectories reach their logical conclusion, we'll probably be homeless someday, so we wouldn't dream of knocking bums. It's just that, apparently, we got a bad batch.

The steam bath had gotten out of hand, and the downstairs living room, eating area, and laundry room, and bedroom were flooded. The homeless guys were plopped in front of the downstairs TV watching a pay-per-view. Everything besides the TV and couches that could be moved (and a few things that couldn't) had been hauled forcefully out into the front lawn, and signs had been erected all over the neighborhood advertising a garage sale the next morning.

I rolled my eyes and went back upstairs, where I was confronted with bad news and good news.

Bad: I would be sleeping on the floor because the bed was being peddled away.
Good: The Pooh-bears were also being peddled.

Sleep came slowly thanks to the partying downstairs. This morning at six, I came down and negotiated a 5% commission on the day's sales, because after all, it had been our stuff in an obscure, incoherent metaphysical sense for about four days.

The selling was brisk and lively. Goods flew off the lot: tables, chairs, pillows, china, shampoo, beds, pens, kitchen appliances, mousepads, a litterbox, you name it. An hour later, we were standing in a nearly empty front lawn. There was only one box left. It was full of Pooh-bears. I could have cried.

"So we sold away a five-person family's possessions, minus one entertainment set," I said. "What'd we make?"

The head homeless guy tallied it up. "Looks like almost four hundred and fifty dollars," He said, grinning toothlessly.

"What! Only four fifty for all that?"

There was an awkward silence. Somewhere in the distance, the long-last cat screeched. Then, as one, the homeless guys scattered in all directions, laughing like hyenas.

"Hey!" I shouted. "Come back! I want my twenty-two dollars and fifty cents!"

It was too late. They were gone. I wish I could say I was outraged by the systematic robbery, but I can only say I was mildly embarrassed. After all, it wasn't my stuff.

I went into the backyard, pulled up several handfuls of grass, and stuffed them through the wire into the cage of the last bunny, a slightly-neurotic but very cute black critter named Charlie. "There's no more food in the house," I told him. "I think you know what's coming."

Homies, Day 2: "I Thought He was with You."

You know it's a bad sign when, by Tuesday, you're wandering around yawning and scratching and bumping into things. We stayed up way too late and woke up much too early, and the time in between can hardly be classified as sleeping. We held a vote and decided to wait until evening to deal with the animals. When we got home about thirteen hours later, we fed the silently beleagured bunnies and the hyper-active dog, then trudged upstairs to absorb another flick.

Halfway through, during a lull in the action, we heard a scratching sound coming from downstairs. Naturally, we finished the movie, and then went downstairs with a significant measure of trepidation to see what was going on.

We stopped short at the door to the laundry room.

"Say, wasn't there something about a cat?" I wondered.

"Sounds familiar."

"He hasn't been fed in ... what ... almost three days?"

"Don't worry. Cats are fairly docile creatures."

My homie had obviously forgotten the one part about cats being the kings of the serengetti. When we opened the door, there was a flash of orange fur and a freakishly expressive: "Reeeeer!"

The cat bounded up onto a couch and out an open window into the street. We watched for a few seconds, dumbfounded.

"Are you sure it's the same cat?" Asked my homie. "He's a lot thinner than I remember."

Then we frantically pulled on our shoes and followed.

We spent the evening and the early morning hours wandering around the neighborhood shouting: "Here kitty! Kitty! Come on out, we want to talk! Look, we're sorry about the litterbox. It won't happen again, we swear! Listen, I know you're angry, but if you just come out and hear us out ..."

The neighbors complained, punctuating their polite suggestions with assorted fruits and vegetables hurled in our general direction.

At sunup, we wandered wearily back home and took care of the bunnies and dog. We're still not sure what we're going to tell the cat's owner, but it'll take some serious creativity to get through this one.

Little people in fur coats

The lady from whom we adopted our cat looked devious enough to make David Copperfield look like honest Abe. She told us, "this little ball of fur is just one big bundle of fun. She'll be more fun when she gets fur." And the amazing part is that we believed her. Sure, a few weeks later, she had a little fuzz, but she wasn't any more fun. The only difference between then and now is the amount of destruction she causes. We still rue the day we adopted the little monster. As feline lovers say, cats are just little people in fur coats.

When we first brought her home, she was litter box trained. Sort of. After the first three accidents, we decided to lock her in the bathroom at night. Of course, SOMEONE had to leave the seat up. Apparently cats don't see as well in the dark as the experts claim. The next morning we had a very wet, stinky kitten. An easy explanation was immediately apparent, but an investigation is ongoing. Obviously even the fuzzy little people aren't always as observant as they need to be. As they say, cats are just little people in fur coats.

We named the cat "Tess" because Bessie is too traditional and Tessie sounds like a kind of axle grease. Anyway Tess loves to drink out of the faucet. She'll hop on the counter and meow and meow until someone comes and turns on the water. Even after we give her a drink, she will countinue to purr and rub against the faucet. A few months ago, after showing our off our cat's "drinking skills," a friend told us that letting cats drink out of the faucet allows them to get air bubbles in their stomach, which will eventually cause them to become sick. No worries we said. After all, she never gotten sick before. Apparently, my friend jinxed us. A few day later Tess left a gift for us at the top of the stairs. We haven't let her drink out of the faucet since. She didn't handle the withdrawal so well. Even now, she still sits on the counter staring at the silvery faucet. Apparently, even the fuzzy little people have trouble breaking addictions. As they say, cats are just little people in fur coats.

Although you wouldn't know from the outside of our house, our family is very big on Christmas decorating. We don't drown our yard in lights, but we do enjoy putting up our indoor decorating in celebration of Christ's birth. Apparently, Tess does not. On her first "decorating day" a few years ago, she watched in horror as we exchanged her soft couch blanket for a itchy Christmas quilt. We then moved her scratching post (which also happens to be our end table) and replaced it with our tree. On top of that, we took away her favorite blue food dish and put a snowman bowl in its place. Happy with our work, (and completely oblivious to our cat's malcontent) we high-fived one another and went to bed. That night we awoke to the crash of a falling Christmas tree. After turning on the lights, we realized how unhappy our kitty was with the new house arrangments. After much careful cleaning up of the broken ornaments, torn garland and chewed snowmen, we went back to bed. We decided to give kitty her way, and we did not replace any of the Christmas decorations that year (with the exception, of course, of the tree).

Yesterday was "decorating day." Last night the Tess confusion returned to our otherwise peaceful household. You can fill in the blanks. After much careful cleaning up of the broken glass balls, torn tree beads, and chewed angels, we realized that tolerance, would not come with our cat's maturity. Tomorrow we plan to replace the broken Christmas decorations, although we will probably keep the three wise men high on the mantel, and the snowmen and angels out of her reach. Even the fuzzy little people need to learn to accept change. As they say, cats are just little people in fur coats.

My family has learned a lot from Tess's mistakes. Even the fuzzy little people aren't perfect.