World Darts Championship

A placid sun sets over the tranquil mountains of south central Kansas as a six pack of Harley Davidsons pull up to the Main Street Tavern, the finest establishment in Willishaven. Willishaven cannot only claim to be the birthplace of the largest slice of pumpkin pie this side of the Tallahatchie, well shoot if it ain't home to the finest one pump gas station in North Southern County than the Willishaven Wombats high school FOOTBALL team ain't the best this side of the gosh dang Tallahatchie! Once you boot open the old western movie style doors to the Main Street Tavern with your boots you are generously showered with the afterwash of a thousand NASCAR Monster Energy Series pit stops worth of four dollar pitchers of Bud Lights. The air of the bar is draped with the aroma of freshly shorn handlebar mustaches, A1 steak sauce and conversations about last night's big ball game. A bartender with an eye patch, a black Ron Jon t shirt and a brown faded Life Is Good ball cap with a picture of a sprightly couple of Baby Boomers playing a spirited head to head in pickleball ambles over to greet you but not before spitting on the counter and wiping it with a yellow dish towel, thus successfully counterbalancing the activity and perfecting the art of busy work. The bartender asks you if you would like Bud Light, Budweiser or a spritz of water from the garden hose out back. You opt for Bud Light as you are on a 30 day instant beach body diet and also allergic to the cultivation of plants. The bartender asks you what you are doing in town and you tell him that you are visiting to report on the World Darts Championship for a print newspaper from London. He says what's that. You say print newspapers or London and look around for a mirrored chortle from one of your newest chaps. You are met with a slate of faces blanker than an Etch A Sketch that you accidentally left in the back pocket of your jeans and sent through the washer and dryer. Several watchers-on go so far as to raise an eyebrow while others venture farther into the center of the dangling lamp in the middle of a cold, dark room (you know, the one that indicates that an intense interrogation either just happened, is currently happening or is about to go down) by asking you why you got that dumb smile on your face. The weird thing is that you don't even realize that you got that dumb smile on your face because your body is pretty much paralyzed with fear but it might have a lil something to do with that Jumbotron Bacon Cheeseburger with extra mushroom chile barbecue sauce that you just polished off in the last commercial break. The World Darts Championship is about to toss off at the Willishaven Convention Center which houses 3,000 eager spectators, nearly leaping clear out of their New Balance sneakers (the official sneaker of the World Darts Championship and a proud sponsor of Wendy's, the most mouth watering burger in Willishaven other than the Jumbotron Bacon Cheeseburger with extra mushroom chile barbecue sauce down at the Main Street Tavern which is kitty corner to Second and Puma Meat. You slap down one of your Capital One credit cards on the bar which reminds you of Jennifer Garner and how you want to marry her and move to a cabin on the shores of Lake Erie and raise a family of Black Labs and walk a couple miles into a little downtown area to get ice cream cones and stop by Starbucks to read the Wall Street Journal (even though you don't even care about what is going on in the Dow Jones or the NASDAQ or NASA or even NASCAR for that matter even though that is probably not something that would be reported on in the Wall Street Journal) and go to a petting farm at noon on a random Tuesday to feed all the meme worthy goaties lil pebbles of sand from an hourglass and go to a drive in movie with your Bird Scooters just to mess with the staff and ride your Bird Scooters on the bike path on the shores of Lake Erie just to mess with all the angry bike riders and mob on your Bird Scooters in the town's lil downtown area while you do some crazy parkour style pranks just to mess with all the cute old ladies who are walking around the downtown area with their dogs who should be in their purses also they should probably be walking around and doing laps in a mall somewhere with their dope neon fanny packs and turquoise jumpsuits that look like something the Fresh Prince would say was a little too Hilary Swanky, yeah that would definitely be a safer environment and a win-win for everyone involved especially the dozens of hot cocoa vendors aimlessly wandering around local malls at 8:45 in the morning (their has been a crippling scourge of hot cocoa vendors aimlessly wandering around local malls of late...which local malls? If you are reading this, then they may not be far away, perhaps closer than you ever could have possibly fathomed, maybe even just a handful of mere moments off the path that you just beatened - if you're up to it and feeling properly paranoid (Properly Paranoid is my favorite steampunk ska band - I saw them open up for a flock of pigeons (not the English new wave band A Flock of Seagulls, I'm talking about literally a bunch of flying rats) on a stump by the E Train.) about the whole situation, go ahead and very cautiously toss a doggy bag of baby marshmallows on the ground and if someone wearing a blue apron, a New York Yankees ball cap and a dirty stache comes a scramblin', you best get to splambiblin'.) (Also Parkour'd is my favorite Ashton Kutcher reboot other than when he single handedly made the atmosphere and general vibes of the Two and a Half Men set do the first ever 900 on a half pipe for a sitcom set.) AND (we're still doin' the Jennifer Garner cabin on the shores of Lake Erie thing, get with it, snap into it, let's get with the five dollar program here (bitter rival of Subway), folks, get on board the ferry that Jennifer Garner and you no doubt have caught a million times to Canada in your sugar high induced daydreams because Jennifer Garner can legally only go on ferries that are going to Canada, it's a fact, you can look it up on Google or Bing it or Ask Jeeves, I don't care - dude hasn't worked a day in his life as far as I'm concerned since he made out with that big internet search engine windfall, you're tellin' me that finding out what the tallest mountain in Costa Rica is is more difficult than getting a coffee stain out of a three piece suit before Tide To Go was invented? Fuggedaboutit ya goofys) drive a few miles out of town to catch the first pitch of a minor league baseball game and spontaneously decide to go volunteer to help out with the in between inning promotions so you get to try to catch giant trout in a sombrero to raise money for some kid to learn how to play the French horn (which is a totally awesome cause even though it would be even more totally awesome if it was to raise money for some kid to learn how to play an American horn...U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! Where my American horn tooters at?) Anyway, you go check out the World Darts Championship at the Willishaven Convention Center and it's packed to the brim with 3,000 strong, you want to call it Willishaven Strong and splash it across the front page of your fancy British newspaper sandwiched in between a story about an adorable old lady who's obsession with tea has become the newest and steamiest fad in town and a brawny young man who recently migrated north to the wild forests of Scotland to find his true self and returned with nothing more than a loin cloth (the same one that looks like something Fred Flintstone would throw on after a heavy night of drinking river water) and a knapsack that is packed full of brilliant memories that will last him a lifetime (or at least for the duration of several marathons of Christmas movies on Lifetime) as well as a bunch of weird Mario Kartish mushroom caps that he's most likely gonna try at home while zonking out, gorging on Flamin Hot Cheetos and feverishly playing...everyone, let's do it together now...MAR-I-O KART! Y'all just won a free go kart, please send by snail mail to your local barista a fifty dollar Starbucks gift card to redeem your reward.   

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

Jim Harbaugh Post-Game Press Conference

Q: How does it feel to get handed a beat down by your arch rival?

A: It feels great, Ted, I haven't felt this good since my morning Frosted Flakes and Honey Nut Cheerios graveyard mix topped with tap water, none of that Fiji baloney for this guy, no siree bob...No, I don't want you to play Bob Dylan's greatest hits but I appreciate you going the extra mile, Siri, thanks for the A plus effort, you just earned a leaf of gage on your helmet. 

Q: What did you tell the fellas at the half that inspired them to come out and get outscored by the Buckeyes 17 to nothing in the third quarter? 

A: Well, first we all gathered 'round and joined hands while we watched Kurt Russell's incredibly motivational pregame speech from the movie Miracle on one of those old school projector dealies from a drive in movie theater then we all sat down criss cross applesauce in a crescent moon configuration and knocked out a few intense minutes of hot yoga while listening to Shpongle on my Alexa and my graduate assistants solemnly romped around with some nice platters of steaming hot chamomile herbal tea and freshly made modified s'mores (with cookies and cream Hershey's bars instead of the traditional chocolate flavor, yeah it's in my fab five of desserts for sure, we like to get pretty freaky up there in the Oven Mitt State!) while they intermittently casually flung handfuls of freshly plucked sage leaves from my garden (my thumb is greener than our third string quarterback who is not only red but also blue, orange and yellow shirted) on the sorest of players's shoulders and handed out only the most rallying and rousing of the fortune cookie fortunes that they had to devoutly devour several hundreds of dollars worth of Chinese food while binge watching only the most highly recommended of the Netflix shows in their treasure hunt for a way to give this squad a coffin corner punt in the gut...Yeah sure that's exactly what I did, Sally, ya silly goon, I slapped 'em in the butt and told 'em to give 'em heck.

Q: Where do you go from here?

A: Well, first, straight from here I'm probably gonna hit up the Buffalo Wild Wings down the street and grab some sixty cent wings, maybe play some giant Fruit Ninja, pound down some pitchers of Bud Light with my assistant coaches while we talk smack about our ex wives and hit on the bartenders, really just get back to the basics that make this country the greatest one in the world, am I right or am I Ohio? 

Q: U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! 

A: Now, if you'll excuse me, my bat signal just went off, the WiFi is terrible in this godforsaken town, I think the dang thing has been dinging since the opening kickoff, you're my boy, Bluetooth! *Hurls a black cape in the air in an extravagant manner but not before slapping on a Pulp Fiction gimp mask and peering out from behind the cape to make sure that all the reporters are recording the dramatic series of events on their iPhones so they can post it on Snapchat and their other various social media platforms then throwing a handful of chalk in the air in an anti homage to Ohio's most famous descendant and disappearing into the night sky on a mad witch hunt for honey Dijon glazed chicken wings flanked by celery sticks*

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

Black Friday 2 Remember

This is a tale of consumerism gone wrong, good turned to evil and BOGO flipped into OHNO. Have you ever strived mightily to purchase an item that is half off only to find that your ring finger had been nearly torn half off in the battle for the BattleBots? What about that winter coat that you have been dreaming about - what if you found out that you had to throw a mean forearm shiver at a nice old lady in her church clothes? What if the nice old lady in her church clothes that you had to throw that mean forearm shiver at was your own mother or grandmother? Would you still be singing the sweet harmonies of the many benefits of North Face's new products or would you grab that nice old lady, toss out your best Heisman pose and sprint through the Walmart like your life depended on it or at least the fate of the Apple Cup? You are Allen Iverson to Reverend Pat's Tyronn Lue as you step over the poor sonofapun to scoop up the newest version of the RoboTraumatic 3000 to take it to the house as the house band plays. In case you haven't participated in the Black Friday festivities in the past few years, they have expanded to quite to carnival type of event as Walmart now plays host to a series of local house bands whose soft melodies are intended to ease the bloodthirsty shoppers into a more NPR kind of mindset. Right when you are about to get your dirty paws on the sweet new robot presented by Apple's emerging rival company, Papayasonic, that will not only clean your toilet but amazingly let you know when you have to go to the bathroom before you even know that you have to go to the bathroom, you are thrown into a tizzy by a polite looking Walmart sales associate named Lizzy. Lizzy is here to be the bearer of bad news. It is at this moment that you realize that Bad News Bears is just this phrase but jumbled up and slightly modified to more cohesively fit a movie baseball team name. You like movie baseball more than real baseball - the action is much more palatable for your short attention span and brief interlude into cinephilia. Lizzy looks at you like she is about to tell you that she has to be the one who will put your brand new Golden Retriever puppy down from a case of Love Overload. Lizzy tells you that that is the last RoboTraumatic 3000 in stock and it has been strictly reserved by a local Scrooge luminary who likes to ruin the holidays of the common folk by doing these dastardly types of deeds. You are nearing the end of your rope, however, as you are at the point of no return, similar to everyone in the bloody store. You deke left before pump faking the package to an unaware store associate who is stocking the shelves with items (more like having items ripped out of her hands by ravenous shoppers who would still tell her that they were "just looking" if she ventured such a query.) You catch a glimpse of daylight as you sprint for the exit of the store, declining the idea of paying for the RoboTraumatic 3000 and opting for the ever growing free route that the majority of the other Black Friday spenders have hastily chosen. *BOOM* You are blindsided by a former high school linebacker, or at least he hits like one. The last thing you see as you crack an eye open to peer at the carnage is the ogre revving up his peach tinted Hummer's Hemi with his key fob and escaping the UFC cage match of a store with nary a rug burned funny bone.      

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

Honest Peleton Commercial

The camera fades in from a red and green checkerboard design to reveal the butt crack cleavage of a middle aged man that makes Gordon from Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story look like Gordon Gekko. (You want to call him Gordon Gecko and imagine that he is the basis of the Geico Gecko but you stave off the urge.) This dude looks like he starred in the picture Dodgeball: A True Underwhelming Story. This dude looks like he wears a headband to bed. This dude looks like he hasn't taken a shower since the shower was invented. This dude looks like he takes baths while smoking cigarettes, watching the evening news and yelling at his cats to listen because his bathtub is miraculously in his living room in an oddly designed and furnished, Idiocracy inspired blue print for his one bedroom apartment. The walls of his one bedroom apartment are covered with pennants of fake sports teams including the Gotham Knights, the Bayside Breakers and the Springfield Smitherses. He is huffing and puffing like he is trying to blow down his neighbors house or at least rouse them from their sheep tallying time. He is wearing a number double zero Seattle Mariners jersey with the Moose's name proudly scrawled across the back. He is sweating off forty years of heavy, regular alcohol consumption. He is shouting explicit words at the wall while he curses the creator of this godforsaken machine and his smarmy, suit of a lawyer brother in law who gifted him the stationery bike as a joke for last April Fool's Day. He hasn't worked out this hard since the war...the first time he watched World War Z, he went for a jog around the block while drawing inspiration from pretending to be chased by zombies who look like Brad Pitt. After seventeen death defying minutes that seemed like a seventeen day vacation in Hell, he collapses on his apartment's grody shag carpet that hasn't been vacuumed since his Roomba first went on the fritz a few years before the war (he also has a Fritz and the Tantrums pennant on his wall for some godforsaken reason) and questions the meaning of the life of Brian (his name is Brian). He serenely passes out, patches of sunlight spotlighting his drooling face, a scene that would normally make the limelight run for the hills, while binge watching a Storage Wars marathon (the only marathon that he has ever completed) and actually feeling a great deal of envy for the participants.  

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

Surviving Turkey Diary

PARENTAL ADVISORY: The events you are about to read about are some of the most horrific, mind bending, godawful things that have ever taken place in the history of birdkind. Please refrain from digesting this meal if you are a founding member of an aviary fan club, really love the movie The Big Year and/or are or have ever been Michael Keaton. 

     It was a fourth Thursday of November just like any other fourth Thursday of November or any Thursday at all for that matter. The little skies had transformed to big skies as they are wont to do this time of year, finally opening up and raining down Siamese kitties and Golden Retrievers, many of whom bickered with each other the whole way to the ground, a downpour of the most Hallmark order. Turkey Town was bustling with excitement for the upcoming winter, the animal's favorite season as they are able to show off their feathers proudly in the annual Turkey Trot Snowflake Ball that is hosted by the local Holiday Inn as many of the participants look forward all year to boasting about their wonderfully comfortable stay at the amazing, affordable chain hotel. A sudden change in the winds blew into town, however, when the Siamese kitties and Golden Retrievers turned into unlucky black cats and big ol' nasty Pit Bulls (and, also, in an incredible turning of the TMZ Thanksgiving dinner tables, the Latin entertainer Pit Bull was there too, juicing up the cats and dogs with his wise fist pump prowess, neck tie that has long been undone and jostled askew through a series of intense thrusting movements that would literally break that dancing Wii game and night club bottle service antics.) In a matter of Instagram stories, a bunch of peeps wearing hats like Pharrell wore at the Grammy's stormed into Turkey Town with menace on their mind, undying thirst in their gullet and a roaring fire in their pot bellies.

     A pile of burning tires, other automobile parts and innocent giblets was about to be set ablaze, the cold flame dancing and prancing through the big skies, carving, slicing and dicing (with more power than an electric knife that could delve through a turkey like a pinky finger ruining an unsuspecting stick of butter) its own path of destruction. The pile fire was started as a warning from the Pharrell Hatters to the honest, hard working turkeys of Turkey Town - Hell hast cometh in the form of a grand ol' feast as the miniature egg timer don bing-ethed and not a moment too tardy. Thousands upon thousands of feathered friends gobbled and gawked as they waddled and squawked towards the emergency exits of Turkey Town. However, in a terrible turning of the illustrious tide, the only bridge leading out of town had long since become fully jam packed in a handful of Twitter Moments as Toni the Turkey, the architect of Turkey Town, gradually realized her blue print for said town was gravely inefficient in all of its beautifully terrible design. The mob of Pharrell Hatters, both anger and hunger climbing the charts faster than Microsoft's stock in the 80s, took their pitchforks and torches in hand and drove them deep into the heart of the ever growing pyramid of poor turkeys who were trying with all their might, digging farther than a 5K Turkey Trot for charity into the depths of despair, to escape the place they had once loved to call home. A lone Pharrell Hatter, gasping for breath, emerged victoriously from the heap of bird brains, holding a gored and ravaged snood far above her head and presenting the foul, dismembered fowl body part as a token of gratitude to the gods of the avifauna to thank them for the bountiful farming season that they had gifted her peoples and all the other farming peoples and thus commenced the annual ceremony that we know today as Thanksgiving. 

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

Things I'm Thankful 4

Newspaper Word Searches

Newspapers

Football

Basketball

Iced Coffee

Summer

Entourage

My cat

The Animal Formerly Known As My Dog

Fireplaces

Words

Microsoft Word

Books - especially of the leather bound variety

Collectible coffee mugs - especially the city and state specific variety

My family

My friends

Friends

ABC Family

Podcasts - especially the ones that I listen to, those are the best ones

Writing

Reading

Listening

Seeing

Music

Comedy - especially of the stand up variety and exspecially of the live show variety, shout out to Doug Benson, the Sklar Brothers, Nate Bargatze, Brad Williams, Daniel Van Kirk and Jerry Seinfeld

The holidays

Hollandaise sauce 

Holland - I want to go there

Red Robin

Birds in general (especially turkey for Turkey Day - that's for all you turkeys out there...my junior high shop teacher used to call everyone turkeys so today must be the most confusing day of the year in his household) - they are pretty cool, especially if you are a bird watcher which seems like a fun hobby that I would love to pick up during my midlife crisis as I make the real life version of The Big Year II: Flipping the Bird

Bill Walton

Bill Walton's general sentiment

LeBron

LeBron's legacy *under construction*

The NBA

NBA Christmas Day

NFL Color Rush uniforms

Just hanging out

Shag carpet

White picket fences

Front porches

The Sun

Getting to watch the Warriors play for the past few years

The chip on Kevin Durant's shoulder

Steph Curry's dirty stache dedication

Klay Thompson's stability

Draymond Green's instability

Steve Kerr's surfer dudeness and chill vibes and also his obsession with kale smoothies, steaming hot yoga and mindfully drawing up blue prints for various sand castles that may appear on hit shows like TNT's hit true crime show Sand Castle, Sand Castle Away and Sand Castles: What's Really Inside Those Sand Castles? The Answer Will Blow Your Flip Flops Away And Into Your Beach Neighbor's Sand Castle and Destroy Their Sand Castle, Leaving Them Questioning Their Dedication To The Art Of Building Sand Castles And The Point Of Our Existence Itself

JaVale McGee's JaVale McGee-ness 

When the referee throws the opening tip off in the air

Referees for real life situations, for example, a five second violation in the frozen foods section of Whole Foods on Mrs. Simpsons because she held the door open for too long while trying to decide which gelato to invest in, Raspberry Regret, Mango Mishap or Grape Grave Mistake 

Elon Musk's appearance on Joe Rogan

Elon Musk's cologne

Parades

Tailgating

Alumni clubs

College

Pullman

Gardner Minshew's mustache

Mike Leach's invisible parrot that is always resting on his shoulder

The Apple Cup

Emily Blunt, Rose Byrne, Rosamund Pike, Keira Knightley, Emilia Clarke

Game of Thrones - I don't watch it but I like the fact that people are obsessed with it as long as that obsession doesn't interfere with their real life mystical dragon training skills

How to Train Your Dragon and other instructional, infomercial style movies like Blended (which walks the audience through how to properly blend a margarita in a Margaritaville style blender that was signed by Jimmy Buffett on a random pontoon), The Waterboy (which teaches the audience to never stop blitzing for their dreams) and Grown Ups (which teaches the audience to never grow up, no matter how grown you may get) (Yeah sure, you might be yelling at your laptop or cell phone right now, "But Chad (my name is Chris, by the way, but I'll go by Chad for you, I like Chad, Chads know how to work it) those are all Adam Sandler pictures!" And to that, I will hold up my end of the screaming match by bellowing out, "That's because Adam Sandler is America's gym teacher and his movies know more about us than we know about us. Don't you go and blasphemy the good Adam Sandler, the good Adam Sandler is all that we have got these days!" Then I throw a cloud of chalk in the air like LeBron and disappear into Bolivia. 

Punkin pie 

Christmas

Google

Bing

Chandler Bing

Friends, again (I really like the show Friends)

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

True Cribs Episodes: Bill Walton

The camera fades in from tie dye to reveal a heated session of hot yoga taking place in a crowded studio with nice wood paneling and tons of smelly incense. A tall, shadowy figure stands even taller at the head of the class as he dons the head of a wolf on his head like he is about to audition for The Revenant II: Too Much To Bear. The tall, shadowy figure seems to be speaking Pig Latin or some other made up language that only he and his disciples can understand but you are OK with that fact because it gives the whole situation more gravitas for some unknown reason, sort of like when you watch a foreign film with subtitles and get real lazy about two thirds of the way through the thing so you just stop reading the subtitles and start using your imagination to pretend what the people are saying so like, for example, when the old lady pulls over at the gas station to ask for directions to her grandchildren's piano recital, you think that she is asking the cashier when the next Prince album is going to be released (unfortunately for the poor old lady, the news of the artist formerly known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince sailing off into the velvet sunset has yet to reach her serene retirement community in the French Alps). A beautiful instrumental, warmer and fuzzier than the inside of an Eddie Bauer fleece, rains down on the hot yoga studio with the gravity of a thousand space movies starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney or as I like to call them, the mayors of that town in The Truman Show. People are struggling mightily but the kind looking teacher refuses to relent, doubling down on his excitement as each exclamation rings as loud as a thousand text message *ding* alerts. Encouragement is an understatement as the tall, shadowy wolf man is literally (not literally) catching the group in the largest collective trust fall since that one time that Johnny Depp tried leaping into a pile of some of his scarves from atop a Whole Foods only to find out what the strongest fabric in the world really is: cashmere wool. The figurewolfhead is draped in a Mexican poncho that has a Rosetta Stone Brewing Co. logo scrawled across its chest to match perfectly with his whole mysteriously unintelligible gestalt. (Mysteriously Unintelligible Gestalt is my least favorite show about aliens on the History Channel - you can't make sense of a lick of the darn Tootsie Pop and I don't care if you ARE a woodland creature!...That's pretty cool if you ARE a woodland creature and reading this, though - what's the password for your tree stump's WiFi, by the way? How do you know which branches are hot spots? Do they have Starbuckses in nature?) All of a sudden, roll tide turns to stop, drop and roll tide as the real life Slender Man tumbles into a spider web of his own architecture (not Spider Man for once, the superhero that leaves the most traps for innocent people other than Venus Humantrap who is really more of a super villain if we are going to be completely fair and call a spade a super villain). His arms and legs become seemingly detached from reality as they begin flowing freer than the feathery waves of the Hawaiian archipelago that are pumped through his bloodstream. Flailing to and fro, the scene turns into the total eclipse of Chuck Norris as an audible gasp is reportedly recorded on the iPhones of the wokest participants in the previously zen yoga class, so zen that Phil Jackson is trying to sue the entire Walton family (including the fictional family from the 70s sitcom in a strange turn of events as Jackson uncharacteristically got his reality and pop culture wires crossed...Jackson hasn't gotten this confused since he sent his MRI results to a young Neil Patrick Harris and eagerly awaited his response with bated breath as he baited his fly fishing hook on his legend...wait for it...dary pontoon on the majestic Flathead Lake.), an abrupt U turn in the whole being zen and chill and letting everything flow off your back like hot water in a shower or the Golden State Warriors offense against the local chapter of the Elk's club's best starting five. His students stream out of the room, salmon swimming upstream in a river of madness, as Thrashes With Wolves continues to pitter patter back and afro. Trapped in a series of debilitating installments of acid flashbacks, the one show that you do NOT want to binge watch on Netflix or wherever you catch your visions of psychedelia, the grizzly bear of a man crumples to the nice wood paneling in a heap of tears (mostly for fears) but not before politely offering the camera operators a coconut with their name on it like how you would buy a little license plate with your name on it at a museum gift shop. They courteously decline the offer and slowly back away before finally turning and running a 40 yard dash faster than Rich Eisen in the general direction of the foothills of Baja California.

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

TruTV Show - Automated Talking Machine

Have you ever gone to the ATM and forgotten why you needed money? When's the last time you forgot your pesky debit card in the machine, only to return mere minutes later to find it to be nothing more than dust in the wind? Are you sick and tired of punching in all those annoying digits for your Maddening PIN code that you always seem to be getting mixed up with your dog's birthday? What's the deal with service charges - wouldn't that be like requiring an admission fee to go to the beach? Would you pay to go to the beach? What if it was a beach that always had a sick volleyball match going on that the only requirement for competitors is that they wear jeans? How bout dem Red Deliciouses? Well, worry no more my anxious pen pal! My Anxious Pen Pal is my favorite Weezer album from the 90s, by the way, kind of like a Pinkerton but with more salad days angst. (More of a crouton medley, if you will...Wait nope? Well, good thing I checked in with ya.) (I think if you wear glasses without lenses, hang out with your friends's dogs more than your human friends and are an avid collector of both traditional and non-traditional cardigans, you should be required by Smooth Criminal Law to call your youthful years your kale days.) Coming this New Year, TruTV is presenting an even truer example of people getting super confused by stuff on hidden camera but you know they had to sign a release to be filmed so it is pretty much their best impression of Daniel Day Lewis method acting as Abe Lincoln in line for the buffet at crafts and services. (Fourscore and seven dishes of the E.P.'s Great Aunt Susan's industry-famous casserole ago (she is really just the E.P.'s regular aunt but they call her their great aunt because she always brings a fanny pack of her delicious casserole with her wherever she travels, even on planes, sometimes TSA gets hungry.)...) I would love to see a montage of Daniel Day Lewis method acting as Abe Lincoln and doing random everyday activities that we take for granted, like this is what would happen if Abe Lincoln got his order messed up at Starbucks; spoiler alert: there is a reason why they call him Honest Abe, perhaps a little too honest if you ask a tearful starting five of baristas at the brick and more-room-tar store just off the 101 outside of Sherman Oaks. Meet Automated Talking Machine, the wackiest device since Back to the Future's Grays Sports Almanac correctly predicted that Doc Brown would once again spend Valentine's Day alone with his brigade of robots, miniature scale version of important architectural structures and piles upon piles of piles of Monopoly money, a heinous investment that the good doctor made in the late 60s while snowshoeing through a thick fog of psychedelia, skeet shooting with the devil and buckling up for a roller coaster of good vibes. Don't let LeBron send you to Damon Jones's locker; check out the best new show on TV since Two and a Half Men reinvented itself when Charlie Sheen turned into the real life Doc Brown except without the knowledge about scientific theories but twice the sciencey bravado. Here is a brief commercial trailer for the newest season which you can search for wherever you find videos of cats playing with their shadow. 

0:00-0:04 - The first shot (from the point of view of the security camera on the Automated Talking Machine) is of an incredibly irritated middle-aged lady spiking her crocodile skin purse Gronk style on the pavement like she just caught a touchdown to win the Super Bowl of Reality TV. 

Lady: "Excuse me, what did you just say to me?"

Automated Talking Machine: "I said have you found love yet or did you forget that feeling too like your PIN number? Ah ha - ah ha - ah ha *Kawhi Leonard laugh but less robotic* 

0:04-0:09 - An elderly man wearing a New York Mets ball cap that looks like it just got ran over by a monorail in honor of Apu's departure from The Simpsons stares blankly at the machine with an utterly boggled mind; the left and right half of his brain are locked ankle deep in a heated game of Twister. He looks like he is trying to remember the last time he rode a bicycle. He looks like he is trying to remember the last time he signed up for a spin class and didn't go because he forgot his cycling sneakers. He looks like he is trying to remember who Lance Armstrong is and leaning towards astronaut.

Elderly man in a New York Mets ball cap that looks like it just got ran over by a monorail: Where am I?

Automated Talking Machine: Go home, Fred. These nice people have been patiently waiting in line and watching you try to jam that crinkled one dollar bill into my cash deposit slot like you are trying to cop the last two 100 Grand Bars in a broken vending machine for almost a whole episode of Adult Swim. 

Elderly man in a New York Mets ball cap that looks like it just got ran over by a monorail: What's the soup of the day? 

Automated Talking Machine: Cream of...wait a second, I'm not going to let you trick me again ya ol' fart now scram - get! 

Elderly man in a New York Mets ball cap that looks like it just got ran over by a monorail quickly gathers up his belongings and bolts for the exit which really means that he could just turn and run in any direction but he frantically knocks over a hot cocoa vendor in the process.

0:09-0:13 - A gang of teenage hooligans attempt to break the Automated Talking Machine with their longboards as the machine begs for mercy or a sooner singularity.

Automated Talking Machine: Why? Why? Whyyyyyyy? Aghhhhhhhhh! *Sparks fly as the machine goes back to December, when this exact scenario already happened except the gang of teenage hooligans were hitting it with their snowboards and bindings*

Teenage hooligan number one: Take that technology! 

Teenage hooligan number two: Yeah, try sending that to Mars, Elon Musk!  

Teenage hooligan number three: Eat my short stories, Feds!

Automated Talking Machine: Well...at...least*Final dying gasp* they aren't on their phones. Finally, some quality face...to...face...timeeeeeeeeeee....Gahhhhh! *Needs a reboot - please call 1-800-ATMChat*

0:13-0:17 - A woman in her 20s sips a seasonal Starbucks cappuccino as she walks her Shih Tzu and acts out a Gap commercial. She is singing the song, Bubbly, by Colbie Caillat to herself as she scrunches her little nose in confusion. The Automated Talking Machine is not impressed by her Sears Christmas catalog good looks but decides to pursue a relationship nevertheless because it wants to have something to talk about at the next Automated Talking Machine convention in Bakersfield because, you know, Bakersfield. 

Automated Talking Machine: Whatcha doin' later?

Colbie Caillat disciple: I'm going to an expensive dinner at a nice Italian restaurant with my fiance - why do you ask?

Automated Talking Machine: Uhh...guhhh...buhhh. No reason, I was just asking for a friend, the mailbox over there. *A waterfall of sweat cascades down the Automated Talking Machine, causing it to malfunction and once again sparks fly but not with the whole asking her out on a date thing* 

0:17-0:23 - A businessman in a fancy suit with gelled back hair and real sunglasses, like not from a Kwik-E-Mart, (shout out again, Apu) and with a specialized case and all the works, and two dualing Blackberry cell phones both strapped to his belt loop like the most wheelin' and dealin' fella in the old west. Everyone in the saloon would definitely do a double take when he ambled through the wooden doors. The man is a walking poster for the USA Network in all its pleated crispness glory.

Automated Talking Machine: How's the stock market doing this morning?

USA Network dude: It's a Bull market out there, baby, they should call me Heir Jordan! 

Automated Talking Machine: *All of a sudden embarrassed to be seen with the USA Network dude and looking around in a paranoid fashion to make sure no one sees them together* Uhh, sorry I asked.

0:23-0:30 - A wife and husband pay the Automated Talking Machine a visit to begin a college fund for their oldest daughter, Green Olive. 

Wife: Hello? We would like to start a college fund for our daughter.

Husband: Yes, hello Automated Talking Machine. We have heard great things about all the new advances in technology - it sure is crazy what those good folks in Silicon Valley can do with all this cool stuff these days! Am I right? I'm just a poor old farm boy from Iowa or Idaho or Indiana or one of those, I can't even remember myself - it's that boring of a story! You sir, are an example of the tremendous capabilities of our American democracy and all that it has to offer the world through the power of globalization.

Automated Talking Machine: *Cracks its knuckles* Do y'all know the TV show Wife Swap? Well, you see that mailbox over there?

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Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

True Cribs Episodes: Nicolas Cage

The makeshift camera fades in to reveal a cold, sterile room that is covered in titanium with blood, sweat, tears and Disney movie-themed tongue depressors scattered about the floor like Walt just came storming through town on a flying carpet to lay down the genie law (This flying house ain't big enough for the two of us...In a serendipitous turning of the knights of the round table (which is actually just a fancy name for a bunch of dudes (they actually call Nights at the Round Table but one time Clay dressed up in a full suit of armor and scared the bejesus out of the nice folks waiting outside the mission to see the new Tom Cruise movie) who get together on Monday nights to watch football, pour back PBRs, play poker and eat pizza while they talk smack about their families, jobs and pizza places that aren't Round Table, especially Domino's because, as they have heard a million times by now, Dave has an unreasonable amount of potholes in the general vicinity of his homes and is wondering why Domino's hasn't gotten on topping of that yet...Ted likes to sprinkle in a joke that makes him a big enough hack to join the ranks of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour as he often ponders why Taco Bell hasn't fixed his plumbing.), this happens to be the tagline for Up in most theaters in Texas and fledgling parts of New Mexico.) An illegal, underground ring of dentists operate (if you could call it that, to be completely honest it looked a bit more like a tutorial for the game of Operation but that's neither here nor fair) with great haste and little concern for the common courtesy of the teeth people as sparks soar and tempers of the customers are ignited like M 80s; for example they just spray the little water hose into your mouth without even asking first, it's actually kind of intrusive. Another big thing is that they don't even ask the patient what flavor of fluoride they would like because everyone just gets the default by default; rusty nails with a hint of goat cheese. Why is it mostly rusty nails? Because that's what they mostly had on hand, they ran out of sparkling clean nails...Why do you ask so many questions? You shouldn't be tussling with these Dentists Without Borders...They are pretty irritable after not being able to go to their favorite bookstore since it closed down because Barnes and Noble is the choice of aristocratic people who also live in barns. (This would be a great reality TV show on VH1...Sort of like The Simple Life but with less mascara and more monocles. Although in a weird twist, the former would feature more people staring at their cell phones and taking selfies than the step latter (yeah, I don't like it when people use those terms either, it can be a wee bit confusing, don't ya think? Like why don't you just call the things what they really are, Former and Latter sound like the newest Power Rangers. Former and Latter is the worst 80s buddy cop show of all time...at one point, there is just a montage of Former waiting in line for coffee and it is probably the most exciting thing in the entire run of the show because Courteney Cox was a barista at the Coffee Bean (you know she's never had her name spelled correctly on a Starbucks cup, am I right dads? That dad joke was presented by Black and Decker: For when you want to impress the old lady while simultaneously scaring the bejesus out of the nice folks waiting outside the mission to see the new Tom Cruise movie. Black and Decker: Go hard at home. Black and Decker: Power tools that will make you power drool. Black and Decker: Keep your family together with these rusty nails. Black and Decker: Make people swan for your lawn. Black and Decker: The real drill team. Black and Decker: Builders of the finest latter in town. Black and Decker: Slide out from under your car and into our dreams...like, they filmed it at a real, legit Coffee Bean, it was a weird show, there's no wonder why it only ran twelve seasons and became a hit on syndication.) You could call it: The Royal Tenenbarns (I'm referring to the former, not the Former and Latter, sorry for the confusion. Sorry for the Confusion is going to be the name of the movie about my life that will hopefully star Nicolas Cage as my grandfather and uncle.) I'll take fifteen percent for forty five percent at the door, thank you Time Warner, 'twas a pleasure doin' business with ya, top of the mornin' to ya (whoops you're supposed to say that at the beginning, my bad - it's my first pitch meeting! You might say it was a wee Pitch Imperfect if you are wont to do and wont to do it.) The camera zooms in on a lonesome tongue depressor that is propped up against an exotic fish tank with a picture of Nemo on it, having finally found the little rascal (can aquatic life be a rascal? I always thought it was a requirement to carry a slingshot if you were a rascal so I don't know if a fish can carry one of those in their gills or something...Let's go to our lifeline! Terry? Did you know that nine out of ten lifelines are named Terry or a name that rhymes with Terry?). The exotic fish tank has several alligators, scuba divers and barnacles in it. One of the scuba divers looks a suspicious amount like Nicolas Cage. That's because one of the scuba divers is Nicolas Cage. He flashes a peace sign at the camera and the title credits of Cribs physically splash across the screen as a cold open of North Pole proportions comes to a precipitous standstill. Also, two dudes were having a dual with real lightsabers in the background (don't ask how Nicolas Cage got them, let's just say he got them from a galaxy far, far away: the Dick's Sporting Goods on the corner of Pico and Alderaan Avenue. A short aside: Am I the only one who thinks that Yoda is just who Yoga would be if it were a person? Like, I call the guy my downward dawg. He was born with a mat under his arm, a kale smoothie wave pool sloshing about his belly and the desert rose of a Lord Huron melody on his mind. I am the only person in the Milky Way who thinks that? OK good thank you, just wonted to gauge y'all's level of saneness - looks good! The numbers all check out!) for a little bit of that time...Neither won. One was a John Travolta lookalike and the other was a Nicolas Cage doppelganger. It was the worst episode of Face/Off ever. The John Travolta lookalike tried to Tower Heist Nicolas Cage's face but just ended up noshing on it like that Florida dude on bath salts, it was terrible, it was despicable (lucky it wasn't me), it was...bloody brilliant (literally). TruTV just picked it up for twelve seasons and it is bound to be a hit on syndication, airing before The Secret Life of Professional Chess Players and after the evening news.

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com

NFL Haikus

Dallas - Atlanta 

Cop shows versus Reality 

Both have sunglasses 

Spat up your cleats, Dak

Friday night lights on Sunday

Clear eyes, concussed hearts

Leighton Vander Esch

Wedding Crashers cameo 

Will invest your stocks 

Julio switched it

Went from offense to defense 

First transreceiver 

Denver in Sandi

Mile High plays at sea level
Gore, right all along 

Philly in Big Easy
Mardi McFly Gras is here
He seems hoverbored  

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com 

Weird Al Song: Dak and Jello

Yeah, uh huh, you know where the treat at
Everything I do, I do it snack sized
Yeah, uh huh, we gorgin' that's delicious
What I pulled off the buffet, that's the bomb
Reppin' my gelatin when you see me you know my favorite food
Dak and Jello
Dak and Jello
Dak and Jello
Dak and Jello
I put it down by the quart, my doctor gets angry and breaks her special clipboard for physician paperwork on her knee
Dak and Jello
Dak and Jello
Dak and Jello
Dak and Jello

Big Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa know that dessert menu
See in the cafeteria, the ladies call me the Jello King
Kinda like the Parking Lot King in Fargo season three, I'm the Stussy triplet
Kraft logo on the back of my hospital gown above my bare buttocks
We piggin' out, how bout dem Cowboys
Flubber to the face, Rest in peace Mork, no Mindy
Ask the nurse to bring some more six packs of the sauce
So much Dak and Jello you would think I was from Dallas
I'm actually from Des Moines, Iowa though and just randomly like the Cowboys cuz they were good when I was growing up so that's THAT

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com 

Carnies pt. 2

An air of calmness casually transmogrified into calamity and eventually rounded the final turn of Churchill Downs, miniature clods of dirt being sent airborne by miniature men wrestling leverage from giant steeds with Indiana Jones's weapon of choice as they equinely achieve equanimity (a pursuit of equanimity through a pursuit of equine prowess, if you will...Pursuit of Equanimity is my favorite Weird Al cover of a Kid Cudi song of all time...My favorite part is when he is like, "Take a nap, little nap/Roll over, check your phone/Feelin' chill, feelin' zen/Three p.m., spring afternoon, I don't care/Hand on the pillow/Dreaming dazed I'm doing my thang/Rolling on my other side now/Gettin' my sleep, havin' my dreams/People told me wake up/I'm screaming out aghhhhhhhhhhh *stretch*/Ima doze just when I want/Eyes closed on my back/If I hit the snooze button if I miss work/Know I got an amazing nap/If I hit the snooze button if I miss work/Know I napped it and missed some important phone calls that I was waiting for/I'm on the pursuit of equanimity and I know/Everything that's tired ain't always gonna get that beauty sleep/I'll be fine once I get it, get those Zs, I'll be gorgeous". Also, The Pursuit of Equanimity is my favorite inspirational Will Smith film except they spell equanimity wrong so it is actually The Pursuit of Equinimity and Will Smith is on the vanguard of the inner city, oversized jockey movement that has swept across America, leaving dozens of thousands of little people from South America to fend for themselves in the ruffian streets with many teaming up to create tandem rickshaw businesses and others banding together to helm competing Back to the Future III themed cycle saloons and a few intrepid free-minded thinkers becoming the master of a stray pack of Dobermans and coming up with an intricate, fool proof (or full proof if you're nasty or just a goofy) plan to infiltrate the mayor's water supply and fill the reservoir with Tang in a bizarre prank that not even TruTV could figure out where they were trying to go with that but they had hidden cameras on it the whole time because THAT'S WHAT TRUTV DOES, WE AIN'T AFRAID TO GET DOWN AND DIRTY WITH OUR NICE FILMING EQUIPMENT, OUR WHOLE CREW DOES CROSSFIT, BECAUSE WE ARE ON THE CUTTING EDGE OF Y'ALL'S MONOTONOUS, TEDIOUS USA NETWORK LIFESTYLES; YOUR SLOGAN SHOULD BE: CHARACTERS WELCOME, BUT SERIOUSLY THOUGH IF YOU KNOW ANY INTERESTING PEOPLE WHO'S DREAM IT IS TO BE ON TV THAT WOULD BE WONDERFUL, WE COULD REALLY USE SOME MORE INTERESTING CHARACTERS AROUND HERE...IT SHOULD SAY, CHARACTERS? WELL......PLEASE COME BE ON OUR CHANNEL! YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT TRUTV ALL DAY AND TWICE ON TOOZDEE), and came flying down the homestretch as it descended into complete and utter fully glass blown chaos in the Lost Falls Carny Barracks. The root of this sea change can be whittled down to two of the most dicey, controversial and crock-pot vegetables, meat and spices mixer-upper words in the English language, perhaps second only to, "Shut up", "You're out" and "Have you seen Breaking Bad?" These two words are words that should only be spoken if the speaker cannot help but say them, like how none of the characters in Harry Potter are allowed to say Voldemort or none of the characters in Parks and Recreation like Jerry or how you aren't supposed to say, "Fire!" in a crowded Amazon store unless you are willing to drop a few Benjamin Buttons (these are hundred dollar bills that will have diminished into Harriet Tubman twenty dollar bills by the time you get around to clearing out all those old episodes of Cribs that you have been meaning to watch on your TiVo...You can't wait to watch the one with Mike Tyson where they show that giant fish tank for his tiger that he had installed in his foyer which had a brief run of glowing success before the magnificent creature's audition for Life of Pi II: The Last Slice came to an abrupt and soggy halt) on a device that is capable with Amazon Fire. Those two words are Connect Four. Countless wars have been started and ended with the declaration of thems fightin' words, too many too even hypothetically tally up. Families have dissolved and sprung up over those brave words. Legacies have been created and reputations have had sand kicked on them all in the name of these two little words. When it comes to connecting, four is the magic number for which the victory ringtone tolls, which is without a doubt, your college's fight song, the theme song to Survivor or the classic T-Mobile jingle. 

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com  

Peyton and Eli

Another New York futbol Giants match is in the record books as Eli Manning has once again led them to an embarrassing defeat as this time they fell to the New Haven Regional Volunteer Fire Department 41-28 in front of a scattering of bundled up and some bespectacled spectators (it looked a little bit like a Brooklyn Dodgers World Series game in the 1950s at Ebbets Field except with less racism and more yoga pants, themed fanny packs and those hand warmers that you shake up for fifteen minutes and then they stay warm for maybe fifteen minutes if you didn't get a dud...by the way, excuse my digression (Excuse My Digression is going to be the title of my auto biography) but Milk Duds are without a sliver of a doubt the biggest margin of airballed three point shot by a candy marketing department...what's next, French Toast Faux Pas? Buttered Blunders? Goofstoppers? Whoops, Looks Like We Dropped the Gumball Again? Banana Blunders? Banana Blunders is actually the most viewed fail video on YouTube, consisting of an extensive montage of people slipping on bananas, choking and getting Heimlich'd in the midst of a head to head banana bread eating competition against Joey Banana Bread (you know, like Joey Chestnut...I shouldn't have to explain myself at this point in time, we've gone over this before...Banana Breads Roasting On an Open Fire is my favorite Nat King Cole song, though, and the proper way to prepare the delicacy according to the oracle of Guy Fieri's frosted tips who is also my favorite character in The Matrix and should be the name of the Golden State Warriors's home arena that would offer free haircuts like when Jay Buhner shaves people's heads at a Mariners game for charity or just because Jay Buhner has a weird hair follicle fetish) and Kobayashi's long lost twin who enjoys watching the Food Network, hosting an instructional cooking show on YouTube with a massive following and frequenting local farmers markets to scour for the finest banana bread recipe in the world which would actually be a great Food Network show too, Joey Banana Bread could be the co host and for some reason, I feel like Snooki should have her bejeweled hand in the making of The Finest Banana Bread Recipe in the World, even if it is just an E.P. credit...by the way, you know you have made it if you are an E.P. on E.T...you can probably retire and move to Bora Bora to pursue your lifetime passion of deep sea marlin fishing around the globe while listening to Jimmy Buffett's Christmas compilation albums and simultaneously being more of a Parrothead than the video game boss of Parrotheads, himself, Rummy Puff It.), a smattering dog walkers who are trying to work their way up the movable fence to keep the doggie out of the basement at Wag! and a spattering of spirited hot dog vendors in the heart of New York City's Central Park. 

Among the jacketed watchers-on was Eli's older brother, Peyton, who spent about half of the game mindlessly staring at his old school flip phone as he became further entangled in a messy spider web of an inspiring game of Snake. In addition to the former Indianapolis Colt and Denver Bronco's venture into the Happy Madison universe of Adam Sandler's Pixels (and ultimately his journey to facing the video game boss of Snake, Ginny Hot Stuff), he was also dedicating a great deal of his time and energy to securing a promotional spot with Airbnb through a series of messages on AOL's instant messenger application known as AIM (don't ask how Peyton has access to the now defunct, formerly groundbreaking messaging app; let's just say some things are better left up in the Airbnb. Also, if George Clooney doesn't come out with a sequel to Up in the Air called Up in the Airbnb where he rents a haunted condo on the banks of Lake Tahoe and has to figure out the true distance that he will travel for his love of speed boating, I am going to catapult myself through a beach chair from the top ropes of a wrestling ring while Vince McMahon watches on in horror and plots his revenge against the NFL in the form of the XFL 2.0, a league in which ATV's, golf carts and unicycles will not only be required but encouraged and even necessitated on the field of play, which will be generously and delicately (a direct quote from 31 Flavors's employee handbook when they are describing the proper ice cream scooping technique for a waffle cone...when it comes to sugar cones, employees are required to, "Handle the scoop with a great deal of love and caring like they are dropping it off at college in a car insurance commercial.") sprinkled with rattle snakes, snakes that are replica's from Peyton's favorite old school flip phone old school video game) in a last second attempt to blockade their microwaved pursuit of Drew Brees in respect to the New Orleans Saints's comparable commercial prowess (Comparable Commercial Prowess is my favorite clip show on the QVC channel and in a strange turning of the tiny pizza tables in the middle of your large pizza from Pizza Hut, also the name of the late Billy Mays's Broadway adjacent one act play... he hasn't passed away, but that dude is just never on time. Just kidding, Billy Mays passed away in 2009. I would like to extend a limited one time offer, with four easy installments of remorse and a down payment of my bad, of an olive branch with a written apology to the entire family and estate of Billy Mays in the form of a cleaning product that will keep your kitchen counter sparkling for weeks without an ounce of elbow grease on your part! You probably should stop getting elbow grease everywhere though if you are trying to keep your appliances and food prep areas clean though, that is just infomercial one on one...what if you thought that that was the name of introductory classes at universities, like instead of taking Accounting 101 with three hundred people, you think you are just going to a one on one tutoring session with the professor...That would be a great plot line for Jonah Hill in the sequel to Accepted. QVC also has the best deli counter, you can totally heist their roast beef sourdough sliders too if the security guard is busy talking to the lady selling bouquets of Guns N' Roses greatest hits albums on vinyl. I just realized this...is Axl Rose the same Axl Rose from Guns N' Roses? Does that make Slash the Guns part? If so, does he have a handgun in that top hat like a magician would store a rabbit? Is Russian Roulette one of the games the band is referring to in their hit jam, "Welcome to the Jungle"? So many questions and yet at the same time, so little amount of caring enough to Bing it.)

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com  

Carnies

The sunrise is nigh as a low murmur rattles about the Lost Falls Carny Barracks after yet another rambunctious night of after partying. You see, carnies don't just party; they after party which is an entirely different ball game (one that is impossible for a human being to beat if they are playing according to the Governing Body of Carnies or the GBC if you are in a hurry) and one that is not meant for the light of heart or lightweights. The best time of the night for carnies is when the final ring has been hurled towards the square peg that is too big for it to fit unless you get up in there and physically slam it down which would certainly be against the rules and regulations of Ring Toss (and in violation of GBC standards...see how much time we just saved? You gotta love acronyms), eliminating you from said competition and possibly barring you from competing in the prestigious sport ever again unless you bribe the ringleader (no pun intended, for once) with Krispy Kreme donuts which might be able to rival elephant ears when it comes to taste and definitely when it comes to the humane treatment of animals and not dismembering a poor lil' ol' elephant (this is an especially cruel act as the elephant will never be able to wipe the traumatic event from their memory for the rest of their illustrious life unless they stumble upon a neuralyzer from Men In Black IV: Browsing Safari). The best time of night for carnies is when the final water pistol has been discharged in the general direction of a Krusty the Clown lookalike but the GBC hasn't gathered the proper copyright paperwork so they just slap the title Kranky the Comic on it and call it a day. The best time of night for carnies is when the final oversized gorilla has been handed out to the cute old lady, dwarfing her entire body but leaving her with the biggest smile on her face since she discovered The Bouqs app when she was listening to the Adam Carolla Show and her rocking chair has been slat-deep in Poinsettias ever since. (Previously, the biggest smile on the cute old lady's face was donned when she discovered apps and I ain't talkin' Awesome Blossom Petals (flowers! See, you can't get away from them, not even with Southwest Airlines...That would be nice if the flight attendants gifted each passenger with a nice little bouquet of Chrysanthemums sprinkled atop their Fiesta Mix, though, you know, just to show that they truly care about the entirety of your flying experience.), I see you DVK with your fanny pack full of Plenti Points and belly full of the bevy of hidden treasures that Chili's has to offer, including the five dollar Margarita of the Month being served every happy hour (this all of a sudden just turns into an advertising spot for Chili's, the best long con since Con Air). Has there ever been a sadder slogan than, "I want my baby back"? I can just picture the CEO of Chili's in court, in the midst of a heated custody battle with the ex and forlornly serving up a thousand miles of onion rings death stare to the judge while solemnly pointing at the slogan which is tattooed on each of their forearms, naturally, as one does, you know like how Colonel Sanders has, "Finger lickin' good" tatted on his knuckles, Tony the Tiger has, "They're G-R-R-R-reat" plastered across his eyelids and the UPS CEO (try saying that quickly five times in a row while you are waiting for a package to be delivered in a timely fashion) has, "What can Brown do for you?" scrawled across their *REDACTED*.

Buy Chris's books SPONGE CAKE & WHAT'S IN THE FRIDGE? on Amazon 

Visit Chris's website christheauthor.com