Socially Acceptable

Everything in your life and pre-life happened for a specific reason, for whatever reason it may be. The smallest little details of life, make up the larger picture of existence. It’s determined by something as simple as, which of your father’s sperm cells successfully penetrated your mother’s ovum and turned into the embryo which would make you the one-of-a-kind person that you are. The sperm cells, caught in a chaotic and hectic race to the finish line, contesting for that little spot to become something of much greater importance. They would do anything to be the victor, for a chance at a once in a lifetime opportunity to contribute to the wonderful process of human reproduction. Some may say it’s all pre-determined by our Almighty Father, but the cell isn’t going to let it bother him. He’s going to determine his own destiny. If it were my decision, I would have been the sperm cell with the chiseled facial features, intelligence, charisma, and a fine taste for Brazilian women. I’m not upset with the sperm cell that produced me, because he had to work his small, little sperm heart out to prevail above all others. I wish I had the same motivation; the same drive and initiative.
The last time I ever remember being motivated; not by power or wealth, but by hopes and goals, was my freshman year of high school. About the same time as the factory fiascoes. In fact, it was the last time I felt motivated to feel. Freshman year was the threshold of Hell; the beginning of a wonderful relationship with despair. I was still contesting for my spot at the top of the social hierarchy of high school; striving for social acceptance. A sperm cell. Anybody who wanted to be the epitome of the misconstrued meaning of popular, knew they needed to be involved with extra-curricular activities, not wasting away Sundays sitting on gas pumps. They needed to define themselves; they needed to meet social standards set by their peers, and maintain their position, no matter how ruthless they needed to be. At a young age, popularity seemed very appealing. I wanted to become a powerful emperor of my own socially acceptable populous, even if it meant destroying other world powers that threatened my stability.
The politics of popularity.
I was so determined to become the standard. It was the last time I felt hope, and set real goals for myself. It was for all the wrong reasons, though. Nothing could help me escape the truth. The truth became destructive. Destruction became the only truth.
I missed the whole ‘discovering yourself’ period of youth.

Tonight is left-overs. It’s time to destroy all that I worked to build just hours before at the gym. Time to sustain what that sperm cell worked so hard to produce. Cold pizza, lumpy casserole, or beef with stone-like qualities. Gray and hard, with traces of mold growing to the north. A mold compass. The pizza looks most edible and least life-threatening. Maybe a microwave could solve my problem. To think I spent so many hours laboring over training equipment, tightening my muscles and burning the calorie creeps. It’s a lost cause. The pizza is greasy. The feeling of greasiness you get after suffocating your hair with large amounts of hair gel and then neglecting it for weeks, depriving it of shampoo and cleanliness. The pizza is crunchy. Crunchy like the rock-hard beef that contested with the cold pizza and lumpy casserole for my approval.
I flop down on the floor. My house is still not furnished, so the floor makes a good couch. The only thing worse than eating cold pizza, sprawled out on the floor, staring blankly into space thinking ‘my life had so much wasted opportunity,’ is knowing that it’ll be the same setting for tomorrow night. The next night, also. And most likely the night after that. A reoccurring cycle of cold pizza and self-pity. It’s starting to take it’s toll on me.
My life now reminds me a lot of how I used to live, back with my parents. It was the same, dull dishwasher spin cycle process day and night. Wash, rinse, and dry. Wash, rinse, and dry. I was so eager to break the standard routine. Dry, rinse, than wash just for the hell of it. Breaking the mold threatened my family’s safety and security. It was my obligation to make my parents human again. Thrill-seeking, mistake-proned humans, with real life issues. Capable of reckless endangerment and neglect. People with a history, not just a past.
Sleeping has become more of task than a habit. Normal people sleep just cozy in their little beds. They use it as a great opportunity to refresh and energize their body. I will avoid sleep at all costs. I’m frightened that if I go to sleep, I will have nightmares. Nightmares of nightmares. This is quite an unreasonable issue. If I corrupt my mind with sadistic thoughts all through out the day, it’s bound to seek vengeance on me during my most vulnerable period of sleep. Sleeping pills can only help me through the early stages, but they can’t guide me through, delivering me from evil. I’m only an insomniac in my mind though. Self-diagnosis is very empowering.
Tonight is especially struggling. All the objects in my room start to take shape, mutating into my worst nightmares. Maybe a night light to help ease the pain, and ward off the evil spirits. My body gleams with sweat, but it doesn’t have quite the same sparkling brilliance as exercise sweat. It’s much dingier. The wings from the fan spinning quickly around their core. Around and around and around, it makes me dizzy. The cool air created by the fan seeks cover underneath my sheets, as it leaks its way through each crack. Trying to think of warm sunny days, prancing through the grassy red meadows, without a care in the world, is never very effective at provoking sleep. My mind always figures out a way to spoil my bliss. The sun goes through an eclipse, the meadows suffer a drought, and it seems like the weight of the world is now on my shoulders. My pillow will decide to suffocate me one night, or I will roll my head the wrong way sometime and snap my neck. Not even a home invader could strike such fear into me. I would probably neglect to be scared if someone were rummaging through my things, threatening me at gun point. I would probably enjoy his company. ‘Hey, if you come back tomorrow night I might have something you want. Just don’t leave. Tell me everything will be all right,’ I may say to him. A loaded pistol underneath the mattress could at least subdue the burglar if he ever got really hostile. Nothing is protecting me from my mind, nothing can suppress it’s anger.

Another new day, and I have to wonder if last night was even worth the struggle. Time for the morning routine. Dishwasher spin cycle. Wash, rinse, and dry. I tried spicing it up one time, just to destroy the safety and security for myself. Rinse, dry, and wash just for the hell of it. Get dressed, bathe, brush the teeth, then eat breakfast. It has some kinks to be worked out. Getting out of bed is the hardest part of the procedure. Rolling out of bed always makes it easier. I could start a bond fire with my morning wood. It subsides after I let the lizard spit. The morning routine is almost like a machine-operated factory process. Going through each stage of inspection, on a conveyor belt. I often find myself chasing after the little marshmallow pieces of cereal with my spoon, but it proves well worth the effort when I finally slip it down my throat. I decide to throw my dishes away now, because they are all too grime-infested to keep. The dish washing cycle makes cleaning dishes a pain in my ass. Wash, rinse, and dry and there is no way of changing it, just for the hell of it.
I will always forget something I need to do in the morning. Maybe a checklist of the morning routine could solve my problem. And today I’m forgetting to put on deodorant, which could’ve proved disastrous if I met a nice, young lady. I think the inspection is complete. I’m now ready for distribution.
I want to accomplish so many new things today. I’ve only got a few more years left to establish myself before I’m gone. You wake up in the morning and you plan out in your mind all the things that you need to do before you die. A checklist almost. Something that you can write down your goals on so you don’t mistakenly forget what you were going to experience. Record a song, paint a picture, jump out of a plane, have a huge orgy, be a contestant on jeopardy. Those are the goals you set for yourself. Nothing very productive, but in your mind they will be the things you remember on your dying bed. Nobody is ever proactive enough to actually write it all down, checking off as they complete. We all lose sight of our goals, and none if it really happens for us. Every day I’m coming up with ridiculous new things that weigh down the real important goals. I’ve already decided today that I need to write a book before I die, while I should really be thinking about new job opportunities. I think it’s only necessary that I go visit Amsterdam before my life is through, when I should be looking for a wife. It seems that I’ve had so much ambition to live, so much willingness to experience, but in reality I haven’t really accomplished anything worthwhile. What am I going to remember when I die? What’s keeping me here, pulling me back from the edge?
I have a lot of work to do if I’m going to get a book written and published, a lot of things to think about. Where do you start? It can be an autobiography that highlights the most significant moments in my life. Nobody wants to read about that. How about I write it on somebody famous. Who do I know enough about to write a life story on? Maybe that’s not a good plan. My best bet would be to write a riveting story of one ordinary man’s search for love and happiness, where he learns to cope with every day scenarios while finding inner peace and beauty in his surroundings. It’s been done before, with more creativity, and better sentence structure. It’s already three o’ clock in the afternoon and already my dream of becoming a published author has been crushed.
It’s not too late to get a flight to Amsterdam before rush hour hits. I could be slipping on clogs and site-seeing at windmills in just a few hours if I call the airline right now. The only problem with it is that I haven’t had enough ambition to work and earn money so I can’t afford a trip to Amsterdam. The one thing I needed to do before I died, and it has to be put on hold for a while. I better write it down if I’m going to remember to save for the trip. A checklist might solve my problem.
Well, today has pretty much slipped through my fingers and everything I wanted to achieve hasn’t been.
Wishing is only wasting time. Dreaming is just delaying death. Hoping is just halting the inevitable.
If my destiny is already pre-determined and Gods already got a plan for me, I might as well just stop fighting the currents, because their only drowning me. I have to flow with the river.
Let fate take it’s course.

My friend Geoffy is going to be over to my house to pick me up in twenty, thirty, fifty minutes. I don’t have a car yet, so I have to get pity rides from Geoffy. He loves knowing that I count on him. It makes him feel important. But the only problem with counting on Geoffy for transportation is that you can’t count on him. Sometimes he’ll decide to show up twenty, thirty, fifty minutes late, and that’s if he decides he’s even going to come at all. ‘He operates on his own time. He does what’s convenient for himself. He’s only got time to think about Geoffy,’ is his mentality. Replace the he’s and the him’s with I’s and myself’s and you get the idea. We’re all pawns in a game of chess, and Geoffy is the king. He deploys a strategy known as gambit, where he sacrifices weaker playing pieces in order to gain an advantage later in the game. It’s called gambit, and to him, we are his little pawns. I’m not exactly sure what type of advantage Geoffy is going to gain later, but he has a plan of attack. He isn’t going to let life catch him off guard. He’s going to determine his own destiny. A sperm cell.
Here Geoffy is, right on time, his time. His car reeks of reefer. Geoffy’s car is a permanent hot box. Even touching the fabric on the seats gives your finger that authentic residue smell you get from holding a blunt.
We head straight for the gym, blaring ‘beat it’ by Michael Jackson, making rude gestures at all the pedestrians, and stuffing our faces with dollar tequitoes from 7-11. All your problems seem to fade away when you hear a great Michael Jackson hit.
My abdominal muscles rippling, and my pectorals bulging. The condensation from my brows slowly making their way down to my bellybutton, making a pit stop to refuel, as they venture into the uncharted territory of my pelvic region. My face muscles distorted as I strive for that last rep, before I’m too exhausted to continue. The equipment works so mechanically and smoothly, as it is powered by human exertion. But I don’t trust machinery, even the type that I control.
Exercising is an interesting process. The cooperative effort of your body parts moving and contorting to produce strength and agility. Each roughly choreographed movement of bone and muscle contributes to a healthier immune system and desirable physique. The body is most beautiful during this process, as the sweat gleams with sparkling brilliance and the muscles, under their tight net of skin, swells to their maximum ability. Exercising is also the most pointless effort, because after my adrenaline slows down and my muscles return to their natural position, I’m still a fat slob. Sex is a lot like exercising. You go through arduous laboring, your body parts contorting and swelling, in order to reach the climax. But when all is said and done, your pelvic muscles returned to their normal position and your hormones have stopped their rampant movement, you’re both still fat slobs.
I bend over to start my abdominal crunches, when I take a quick glance at Geoffy. He’s over at the smoothie bar making small talk with the smoothie lady. I guess that’s what you call her. I wonder how it feels to be known as ‘the smoothie lady.’ Not much of a title. I wonder if Geoffy will bother to learn her actual name before he….. touches her.
See Geoffy is the perfect example of an American-grown, ethnocentric, chauvinistic, arrogant male. A man’s man. Geoffy once stumbled across a recipe for home-made bombs online one day. You would’ve thought he found the cure to cancer on a slip of paper in the men’s bathroom, the way he got worked up when he found the ingredients. Enriched uranium, the main ingredient for almost all destructive bombs, was the only thing stopping Geoffy from actually creating his little ball of death and destruction. I told him that uranium was the rarest element known to mankind, and that it would be quite impossible for him to ever find it. I thought it safer if he didn’t know the truth.
So as he stands over there next to the smoothie bar, sucking down skittles, and trying to seduce the smoothie girl, he may also be devising a plan to find and use the fatal element. The densest individual I have ever met has the technique and interest for creating one of man’s deadliest weapons, if only he knew that uranium wasn’t as rare as I had originally led him to believe. It’s almost like a butterfly effect, where one flap of the wing from one seemingly inconsequential, unimportant specimen could lead to a massive earthquake halfway across the world. Who the fuck posts bomb formulas online for Geoffy to find?
If the female population was an endangered species and Geoffy no longer had access to his clinically-suggested daily helping of vagina, he may decide to kill us all. I’m not very worried that Geoffy will uncover the truth, and decide to usher in the apocalypse. Call me insane, but Geoffy isn’t going to do it. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. I mean, he shouldn’t.
He doesn’t have deep emotions, interesting thoughts, or unique beliefs. He’s got a penis. One of God’s only gifts to mankind.
The only problem with ‘making love’ with the smoothie lady, if that’s what you want to call her, is that she’s a married woman. Mrs. Smoothie lady. This may seem like a predicament for Geoffy, but it’s just a speed bump. Soon enough he’ll have her pinned against the blender mixing in his own juice. She’ll probably cry for days afterwards because she feels so guilty. So soiled. So used.
Geoffy will laugh about it for days.
They disappear into the back room, smiling on the way in, crying on the way out. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I could paint a pretty accurate picture. It’s like a Shakespeare play, where all the gritty stuff, like sex and war, occurs off scene. The audience is just expected to make their own assumptions, let their imagination create a mental enactment.
I’ve burned my fare share of calorie creeps for today. I’m supposed to feel accomplished, but I’m too exhausted to congratulate myself.
I walk outside to the car where Geoffy is, hiding under the seats. Trying to avoid his guilty pleasure.
“Thanks, man. I really appreciate the rides. How much gas money do you need?” I ask him as I step in the door.
“Don’t worry about it today, I am gonna’ let it slide. But I need a favor.”
Me, myself, and I. You get the idea.
“Yeah, what ya’ need?”
“I need you to tell the smoothie lady that I can’t possibly see her again. I am not emotionally capable of commitment at this point in my life. It’s me, not you.”
“Are you kidding me?” And I thought things between you and the cheating little wife whore were going so well. You seemed so committed to this relationship.
“No. It turns out she was …...,” and Geoffy takes a long pause, as if to cover up what horrible mistake he had just made.
Turns out she was……… Married? A mom? A daughter? Someone with a name, and not just a title.
“What? What was she?” I ask.
“It’s not a big deal. Can you just do me this favor? I would appreciate it.”
Me, myself, and I. Let me sacrifice myself for your advantage Geoffy.
“Don’t beat around the bush, Geoffy. Turns out she’s…….. What?”
“It’s complicated. Don’t fucking worry about it.”
“ She was married? WOW! Not a huge surprise, bro. This happens like every week.”
Marriage is only binding by papers and wedding vows. Harmless adulteration never hurt anyone, is Geoffy’s philosophy.
“ She’s a fucking hermaphrodite. I didn’t know. I thought she was only married, I had no idea. Who the fuck marries that shit these days?”
This is unbelievable.
Shocking.
Scandalous.
Un-fucking-believable.
It’s not like I take pleasure in someone else’s pain. I only laugh at their misfortune.
And Geoffy feels the wrathful vengeance of God. It’s his divine punishment. About fucking time. Life finally caught him off guard.
“Ha,” I try to contain an outburst of hysterical laughter.
“She didn’t even bother to tell me. What a bitch. I don’t deserve this shit.”
Yes you do.
Trying to contain my laughter any longer is impossible. “HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.” Tears run down my face I’m laughing so hard. This is probably the single greatest moment in my life, and probably the most humiliating moment in Geoffy’s life. Let me indulge in your despair. It’s about fucking time.
The whole car ride to work is deathly silent, besides the spontaneous chuckles that escape from my mouth. But I really am trying to contain myself. Geoffy sits with his hands tensely rapped around the steering wheel, restraining his tears of humiliation, aimlessly staring down the road as if he were locked in an intense staring contest with it. I’m surprised he hasn’t launched the car off of a freeway bridge into a gator-infested swamp, sacrificing his pawn. I’m relieved to know that Geoffy doesn’t have enriched uranium bombs just laying around at his house. If there was anything that made Geoffy snap, anything that could make him kill us all, this would surely be it.
I wait until we are safely parked in the parking lot, the handicap space, until I bring up the issue again. Even in his worse condition, Geoffy will still take advantage of a handicap space close to the door. He’s emotionally handicapped at this moment. His dignity has been crippled. All over the world there are people crying about their misfortunes. Real misfortunes. They may be crying because they have just found out that they have terminal cancer, or because they just found out that their children have been killed in a terrible bus accident. There are people hunched over in prayer, crying because they are starving to death or because they just lost their whole crop field in a blazing fire, leaving them shit out of luck and financially unstable. Geoffy is hunched over his steering wheel, with his hands clasped together, looking for guidance from the Father who has never done him wrong. It’s probably the first time in Geoffy’s entire life that he has ever prayed, I didn’t even know he knew the technique. But in these trying times, these times of great misfortune, Geoffy will look for pity and penance from his creator. As if one prayer, one marked by selfish motive, could make up for years of betrayal. Wasn’t Gods gift of a beautiful face not enough for you, that you betray him and then turn to him for guidance when the going gets tough? You fucked a hermaphrodite, deal with it. Your desire was your destruction.
For all the people in the world with real issues, I say, “So does that make you gay?”
“Fuck you! She had it cut off. There was only scars left. I thought it was from having her babies and shit,” he says, his eyes screaming for empathy and sorrow. Have a heart, bro, his eyes would say.
I open the car door, and jump out. The rancid smell of reefer escapes, intoxicating the surrounding atmosphere.
“I understand,” I whisper in through the door crack. I can’t be as sadistic as even God would like me to be. Or maybe it’s because I’m too asphyxiated from the all the smoke to even care.
It’s like leaving a baby locked in the car by itself, and not coming back for hours, allowing it to suffocate from lack of air and burn in the heat of the sun. Leaving Geoffy in the car alone is neglectful. There’s no telling what he might do at this point. He might suffocate from lack of oxygen, because he isn’t developed enough to know that opening the doors will let in fresh air. I’m being a reckless mother figure here.