Chuck Klosterman and his 23 questions

Chuck Klosterman's "23 Questions I Ask Everybody I Meet In Order To Decide If I Can Really Love Them"

Chuck Klosterman is great. Read him sometime, well, not him, but stuff he's written. Moving on, in between essays in his book "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" he has the following questions, it's titled, well, the title is right above this, read. I will now answer them for myself, and give a brief explanation. Enjoy. By the way, I copied the questions from another blog, they appear to be verbatim, but if not....damn.How would you feel about this?

1. Let us assume you met a rudimentary magician. Let us assume he can do five simple tricks--he can pull a rabbit out of his hat, he can make a coin disappear, he can turn the ace of spades into the Joker card, and two others in a similar vein. These are his only tricks and he can't learn any more; he can only do these five. HOWEVER, it turns out he's doing these five tricks with real magic. It's not an illusion; he can actually conjure the bunny out of the ether and he can move the coin through space. He's legitimately magical, but extremely limited in scope and influence.

Would this person be more impressive than Albert Einstein?

Personally, I'd say yes. The man can conjure things out of air, that's freaking amazing. Other people have done things similar to Einstein, I have never seen anyone actually manipulate time and space.

2. Let us assume a fully grown, completely healthy Clydesdale horse has his hooves shackled to the ground while his head is held in place with thick rope. He is conscious and standing upright, but completely immobile. And let us assume that--for some reason--every political prisoner on earth (as cited by Amnesty International) will be released from captivity if you can kick this horse to death in less than twenty minutes. You are allowed to wear steel-toed boots.

Would you attempt to do this?

Yes, yes I most certainly would. Not only do I feel that most if not all political prisoners should be set free, but I think this would be a great way to get rid of some rage. I might even beat the horse more after it were dead, because everyone knows I love to beat a dead horse. Cliche, Zing.

3. Let us assume there are two boxes on a table. In one box, there is a relatively normal turtle; in the other, Adolf Hitler's skull. You have to select one of these items for your home. If you select the turtle, you can't give it away and you have to keep it alive for two years; if either of these parameters are not met, you will be fined $999 by the state. If you select Hitler's skull, you are required to display it in a semi-prominent location in your living room for the same amount of time, although you will be paid a stipend of $120 per month for doing so. Display of the skull must be apolitical.

Which option do you select?

Heil Fuhrer. I totally pick Hitler one this one, not only do I get money, but I freaking have Hitler's skull. Plus it can't be political, the instructions say so, maybe I'd just put a sign with it "The existence of this skull means I made $120 this month. Cha-Ching. (By the way, it's Hitler's skull) "

4. Genetic engineers at Johns Hopkins University announce that they have developed a so-called "super gorilla." Though the animal cannot speak, it has a sign language lexicon of over twelve thousand words, an I.Q. of almost 85, and--most notably--a vague sense of self-awareness. Oddly, the creature (who weighs seven hundred pounds) becomes fascinated by football. The gorilla aspires to play the game at its highest level and quickly develops the rudimentary skills of a defensive end. ESPN analyst Tom Jackson speculates that this gorilla would be "borderline unblockable" and would likely average six sacks a game (although Jackson concedes the beast might be susceptible to counters and misdirection plays). Meanwhile, the gorilla has made it clear he would never intentionally injure any opponent.

You are commissioner of the NFL: Would you allow this gorilla to sign with the Oakland Raiders?

Al Davis is exactly the kind of guy who would sign this gorilla. I'd leave it up to the player's union honestly, for one, it means I don't have to make a decision, and secondly they'd have their say whether I wanted them to or not.

5. You meet your soul mate. However, there is a catch: Every three years, someone will break both of your soul mate's collarbones with a Crescent wrench, and there is only one way you can stop this from happening: You must swallow a pill that will make every song you hear--for the rest of your life--sound as if it's being performed by the band Alice in Chains. When you hear Creedence Clearwater Revival on the radio, it will sound (to your ears) like it's being played by Alice in Chains. If you see Radiohead live, every one of their tunes will sound like it's being covered by Alice in Chains. When you hear a commercial jingle on TV, it will sound like Alice in Chains; if you sing to yourself in the shower, your voice will sound like deceased Alice vocalist Layne Staley performing a capella (but it will only sound this way to you).

Would you swallow the pill?

No offense to my wife, but I hope she gets used to the pain. I listen to way too much music, and dislike Alice in Chains too much to swallow the pill. I'll drown out the once every tree years bitching with some great non-Alice in Chains.

6. At long last, someone invents "the dream VCR." This machine allows you to tape an entire evening's worth of your own dreams, which you can then watch at your leisure. However, the inventor of the dream VCR will only allow you to use this device of you agree to a strange caveat: When you watch your dreams, you must do so with your family and your closest friends in the same room. They get to watch your dreams along with you. And if you don't agree to this, you can't use the dream VCR.

Would you still do this?

Holy hell, no. One, I don't remember most of my dreams, maybe I constantly dream about killing my entire family and all my friends, I don't really need them to know that if I don't even know that. I also don't see the benefit, if I can dream it, and thus subconsciously think about it, I can think of it on my own and probably have, without thinking something may have just happened that didn't, immediately after it's over.

7. Defying all expectation, a group of Scottish marine biologists capture a live Loch Ness Monster. In an almost unbelievable coincidence, a bear hunter in the Pacific Northwest shoots a Sasquatch in the thigh, thereby allowing zoologists to take the furry monster into captivity. These events happen on the same afternoon. That evening, the president announces he may have thyroid cancer and will undergo a biopsy later that week.

You are the front page editor of The New York Times: What do you play as the biggest story?

The Loch Ness Monster and Sasquatch get the lead on my paper, for multiple reasons. First, the President most likely announced this in some sort of Press Conference, that by 6 AM the next day a good amount of people will have seen. Second, he just suspects he may have thyroid cancer, no one really knows until later that week, the results of the biopsy is what will be my lead that day, but for now, answers to decades worth of conspiracy theories will be on the front page for purely fiscal reasons.

8. You meet the perfect person. Romantically, this person is ideal: You find them physically attractive, intellectually stimulating, consistently funny, and deeply compassionate. However, they have one quirk: This individual is obsessed with Jim Henson's gothic puppet fantasy The Dark Crystal. Beyond watching it on DVD at least once a month, he/she peppers casual conversation with Dark Crystal references, uses Dark Crystal analogies to explain everyday events, and occasionally likes to talk intensely about the film's "deeper philosophy."

Would this be enough to stop you from marrying this individual?

This is a tricky one. I constantly pepper conversations with weird references...but not just from one movie that is average at best. I love Jim Henson and all, but it's not that great. Chances are that it would be impossible for me to fall in love with this person, I'd go insane long before it happened. But then again, the question stipulates that I find them intellectually stimulating and consisten

9. A novel titled Interior Mirror is released to mammoth commerical success (despite middling reviews). However, a curious social trend emerges: Though no one can prove a direct scientific link, it appears that almost 30 percent of the people who read this book immediately become homosexual. Many of these newfound homosexuals credit the book for helping them reach this conclusion about their orientation, despite the fact that Interior Mirror is ostensibly a crime novel with no homoerotic content (and was written by a straight man).

Would this phenomenon increase (or decrease) the likliehood of you reading this book?

Probably neither. It wouldn't decrease it because, well, if I'm gay then it'd be nice to find out, regardless of the reason. And it wouldn't increase because I don't really read novels anymore, so I can't see a reason why this would change.

10. This is the opening line of Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City: "You are not the kind of guy who would be in a place like this at this time of the morning." Think about that line in the context of the novel (assuming you've read it). Now go to your CD collection and find Heart's Little Queen album (assuming you own it). Listen to the opening riff to "Barracuda."

Which of these two introductions is a higher form of art?

I haven't read the book, but I find that opening riff to be pure amazing. So, I default to "Barracuda" by Heart. It really is amazing.

11. You are watching a movie in a crowded theater. Though the plot is mediocre, you find yourself dazzled by the special effects. But with twenty minutes left in the film, you are struck with an undeniable feeling of doom: You are suddenly certain your mother has just died. There is no logical reason for this to be true, but you are certain of it. You are overtaken with the irrational metaphysical sense that--somewhere--your mom has just perished. But this is only an intuitive, amorphous feeling; there is no evidence for this, and your mother has not been ill.

Would you immediately exit the theater, or would you finish watching the movie?

I can't see why me calling her, or someone else for that matter would change whether she died or not. I'd stay in the theater, the only way I would leave is if I decided the movie was awful.

12. You meet a wizard in downtown Chicago. The wizard tells you he can make you more attractive if you pay him money. When you ask how this process works, the wizard points to a random person on the street. You look at this random stranger. The wizard says, "I will now make them a dollar more attractive." He waves his magic wand. Ostensibly, this person does not change at all; as far as you can tell, nothing is different. But--somehow--this person is suddenly a little more appealing. The tangible difference is invisible to the naked eye, but you can't deny that this person is vaguely sexier. This wizard has a weird rule, though--you can only pay him once. You can't keep giving him money until you're satisfied. You can only pay him one lump sum up front.

How much cash do you give the wizard?

Whatever amount I determine I have to be expendable. If I'm near an ATM and have what I decide to be $500 that doesn't need to go to bills, then $500 it is. The wizard proved he could do it, and if I have expendable money, then what's the issue here?

13. Every person you have ever slept with is invited to a banquet where you are the guest of honor. No one will be in attendance except you, the collection of your former lovers, and the catering service. After the meal, you are asked to give a fifteen-minute speech to the assembly.

What do you talk about?

That'd be quite the small banquet, and with a somewhat diverse set of interests. As such, I'd probably just talk about random things that didn't matter, baseball, my times in the Cambodian Ghetto, the usual.

14. For reasons that cannot be explained, cats can suddenly read at a twelfth-grade level. They can't talk and they can't write, but they can read silently and understand the text. Many cats love this new skill, because they now have something to do all day while they lay around the house; however, a few cats become depressed, because reading forces them to realize the limitations of their existence (not to mention the utter frustration of being unable to express themselves).

This being the case, do you think the average cat would enjoy Garfield, or would cats find this cartoon to be an insulting caricature?

Well, if I were a cat, I'd be jealous as all hell of Garfield. He does whatever he wants, pushes his dog pal Odie around, eats what he wants, sleeps when he wants, mocks his owner Jon with Jon somehow knowing it. Garfield has this weird telepathy thing, even cats who read wouldn't have that. So, strong level of contempt felt towards Garfield.

15. You have a brain tumor. Though there is no discomfort at the moment, this tumor would unquestionably kill you in six months. However, your life can (and will) be saved by an operation; the only downside is that there will be a brutal incision to your frontal lobe. After the surgery, you will be significantly less intelligent. You will still be a fully functioning adult, but you will be less logical, you will have a terrible memory, and you will have little ability to understand complex concepts or difficult ideas. The surgery is in two weeks.

How do you spend the next fourteen days?

I can't imagine why I'd want that surgery. I'd take the death 6 months later. But since the question just assumes that I get the surgery, I'd spend fourteen days trying to warn everyone I know that I will soon be an idiot, like them. As for the people I know that aren't idiots, well, I'd beg them to kill me within a month after having the operation, because clearly post-Surgery Sam will not be able to clearly articulate why he should die.

16. Someone builds and optical portal that allows you to see a vision of your own life in the future (it’s essentially a crystal ball that shows a randomly selected image of what your life will be like in twenty years). You can only see into this portal for thirty seconds. When you finally peer into the crystal, you see yourself in a living room, two decades older than you are today. You are watching a Canadian football game, and you are extremely happy. You are wearing a CFL jersey. Your chair is surrounded by books and magazines that promote the Canadian Football League, and there are CFL pennants covering your walls. You are alone in the room, but you are gleefully muttering about historical moments in Canadian football history. It becomes clear that—for some unknown reason—you have become obsessed with Canadian football. And this future is static and absolute; no matter what you do, this future will happen. The optical portal is never wrong. This destiny cannot be changed.

The next day, you are flipping through television channels and randomly come across a pre-season CFL game between the Toronto Argonauts and the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Knowing your inevitable future, do you now watch it?

Only if I determine it to be the best thing on, the future is apparently going to happen regardless of what I do. But if it were the best option of everything to do, then why not.

17. You are sitting in an empty bar (in a town you’ve never before visited), drinking Bacardi with a soft-spoken acquaintance you barely know. After an hour, a third individual walks into the tavern and sits by himself, and you ask your acquaintance who the new man is. “Be careful of that guy,” you are told. “He is a man with a past.” A few minutes later, a fourth person enters the bar; he also sits alone. You ask your acquaintance who this new individual is. “Be careful of that guy, too,” he says. “He is a man with no past.”

Which of these two people do you trust less?

The man with no past. Everyone has a past of some kind, and if this guy doesn't, then he's probably a serial killer. Then again, I have no reason to distrust a serial killer, I'm an average white male, not exactly the kind of person killed by serial killers, and the other guy has a past of some kind, maybe riddled with bank robberies and lying to hookers. I change my answer, I trust the man with a past less.

18. You have won a prize. The prize has two options, and you can choose either (but not both). The first option is a year in Europe with a monthly stipend of $2,000. The second option is ten minutes on the moon.

Which option do you select?

$2,000 dollars a month in Europe wouldn't be that great. With the book I could write, after having an adventure on the moon, I could easily fund a year long trip to Europe.

19. Your best friend is taking a nap on the floor of your living room. Suddenly, you are faced with a bizarre existential problem: This friend is going to die unless you kick them (as hard as you can) in the rib cage. If you don’t kick them while they slumber, they will never wake up. However, you can never explain this to your friend; if you later inform them that you did this to save their life, they will also die from that. So you have to kick a sleeping friend in the ribs, and you can’t tell them why.

Since you cannot tell your friend the truth, what excuse will you fabricate to explain this (seemingly inexplicable) attack?

"Wake the fuck up, dickbag! I'm sick of you sleeping on my floor."

20. For whatever the reason, two unauthorized movies are made about your life. The first is an independently released documentary, primarily comprised of interviews with people who know you and bootleg footage from your actual life. Critics are describing the documentary as “brutally honest and relentlessly fair.” Meanwhile, Columbia Tri-Star has produced a big-budget biopic of your life, casting major Hollywood stars as you and all your acquaintances; though the movie is based on actual events, screenwriters have taken some liberties with the facts. Critics are split on the artistic merits of this fictionalized account, but audiences love it.

Which film would you be most interested in seeing?

Meh, I don't care what my friends think of me that much, if they hate me, they wouldn't be my friends, if they don't hate me, well, one would assume I already know that. I want to see who Hollywood casts as my friends and I.

21. Imagine you could go back to the age of five and relive the rest of your life, knowing everything that you know now. You will reexperience your entire adolescence with both the cognitive ability of an adult and the memories of everything you’ve learned form having lived your life previously.

Would you lose your virginity earlier or later than you did the first time around (and by how many years)?

Hmm, in all honestly, probably earlier by a year, maybe two.

22. You work in an office. Generally, you are popular with your coworkers. However, you discover that there are currently two rumors circulating the office gossip mill, and both involve you. The first rumor is that you got drunk at the office holiday party and had sex with one of your married coworkers. This rumor is completely true, but most people don’t believe it. The second rumor is that you have been stealing hundreds of dollars of office supplies (and then selling them to cover a gambling debt). This rumor is completely false, but virtually everyone assumes it is factual.

Which of these two rumors is most troubling to you?

How could the first one be more troubling to anybody. Whether you're upset by a rumor or not should be based on two things, and they go in order of importance: whether people believe it, and whether it's true.

23. Consider this possibility:

a. Think about deceased TV star John Ritter.

b. Now, pretend Ritter had never become famous. Pretend he was never affected by the trappings of fame, and try to imagine what his personality would have been like.

c. Now, imagine that this person—the unfamous John Ritter—is a character in a situation comedy.

d. Now, you are also a character in this sitcom, and the unfamous John Ritter character is your sitcom father.

e. However, this sitcom is actually your real life. In other words, you are living inside a sitcom: Everything about our life is a construction, featuring the unfamous John Ritter playing himself (in the role of your TV father).

But this is not a sitcom. This is your real life.

Umm, I'm not even too sure what this question is asking, like, how would I feel if John Ritter were my Dad in some sort of really predictable and mildly amusing life? Fine, I guess...would I know any differently?


In retrospect, my answers aren't all that interesting, or particularly witty, but I love the questions themselves, I'd like to know how Mr. Klosterman came to these questions as being the basis of knowing whether he could love someone or not, but they seem rational now that I know they exist.

Jobs!

So, a long time ago I did a blog about my top 5 desired jobs, this will be similar, but with no concept of time. I was sitting around at Shari's when one of my friends came up with this idea. Top jobs where time or qualifications is not an issue. So if I desired to be a professional dolphin rodeo rider from the 1850's, which of course was the height of the dolphin rodeo days, then that'd be okay. This is tentatively going to be a top 10 list, but it might change, I'm telling you now because I don't want to bother to edit this far back into the post. I'm a lazy ass. These are in absolutely no order, by the way, because it goes back to the lazy thing.

10. Soothsayer. Seriously, stand around and make up things to tell to a powerful guy. I don't really care who I would be a soothsayer for, just someone not too homicidal. "Well, your worship, I have looked into the stars, and it appears that you'll die if you attack the Persians, I think you should avoid it. Oh, you don't want to avoid it, hmm, let me look again.......oh, my bad, you're going to win, presuming you appoint me to take over for you if you die, but that's the only way. Seriously, I wish I could explain it, but you know how the stars are."

9. Pharaoh pre-Hebrew revolt. I don't think this requires much explanation. Being Pharaoh would be awesome, and if it were pre-Hebrew revolt, then wow. Pyramids and statues dedicated t my memory, all at the sweat of a people that my own populous doesn't respect. I could revolutionize the Egyptian job market, make actual Egyptians supervisors, or what have you. Not to mention the army I'd have. Africa would be mine, and Moses doesn't scare me with his damn magic.

8. Rapper's Entourage Person #2. I specifically pick #2 because #1 has way too much pressure. Think about it, person right next to rapper, you could be shot at any time, you want to be the person next to the person next to the rapper, way less likely to die there. And on top of that you don't have to manage the rest of the entourage, or have the rapper be as dependent on you. Now, on to the perks, a rich guy will pay for everything you could ever want to do. Everything. And all you have to do is tell him he's fucking great. Maybe be in the background on a few tracks, but that's easy, you just stand in the back, and when it seems appropriate go "Yeah......ha, tell it man." I specifically have Afroman in mind for my boss, his music is just funny, and no one wants to kill Afroman, he's too unknown but likable at the same time.

7. Cereal Mascot. This was in my other list, and I completely stand by it. The time could be now, whatever. Being a pitchman for a cereal seems really easy. And to make sure there aren't any Dutch Floozies reading this, I don't mean a guy in a costume. essentially since I exist, I imagine that this cereal would have to be based on me, which seems absurd. I need to find a cereal that has similar traits as me. Maybe No Life-O's. "No Life-O's, the cereal that steals your ambition and makes you a black hole of trivia!" Christ, I'd be the best spokesman ever for that.

6. Jarrett Sacks' personal assistant. As near as I can tell, my interactions with Jarrett wouldn't change much, but I'd be paid for it. Sure, I'd talk to him in person instead of over a series of tubes and wires (interweb), maybe answer some calls, schedule a few things. Other than that it'd be the same. Make him laugh, make fun of his woman, propose absurd ideas, dance like a monkey, you know, the usual.

5. Movie Critic for guys like me. I don't want to be a real movie critic, then people would expect me to tell them some deep crap, like what I thought the symbolism of the director's use of the color blue was all about. Or why I think they chose to shoot with handcams, and shit. Fuck that. How about "the movie sucked and here's why, it starred Keanu Reeves, moving on."

4. Civil war solider. I've always been intrigued by war, and I think the US Civil War is the ideal time. I don't want to unsuspectingly be blown up by a bomb, or attacked by rebels in towns. I want the sophistication of the civil war. Union General and Confederate General meet up and decide they should fight the next morning, ten the next morning you stand a ways apart and see who can load and aim their gun the best. Civilized war, that's the way for me.

3. Hitman during the 40's. Great high power rifles, very little forensics evidence, huge mob payouts, both to me and to cops and witnesses alike. As morbid as this sounds, I've always felt I could be a great mob hitman. One would think I'd have morals and crap, but really, you piss the mob off, and you deserve to get nailed.

2. Bench coach for a major league team. As far as I can tell, the job consists of sitting around talking to your good friend the manager. You lean back, chew some gum or tobacco, spit, scratch yourself, talk, and rarely fill in for the manager when he gets tossed out of the game. "So, that Jeter is hitting well, huh? Hey, no, Joe, I think he was safe, too, but don't, ah, dammit, Joe you got thrown out, dammit.....umm, keep on playing well guys. Shit"

1. Movie writer. I'm not talking about real movies here, I'm talking Wayons Brothers type shit, and the crap they spawned. I can easily write crap like Epic Movie or Date Movie. A poorly trained Hamster can write that. What you need to ask yourself is, are you willing to sell out and be hated by smart people. Answer: probably, I like money. "You guys remember when Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah's couch? Why don't we have a Tom Cruise like character, maybe Tim Sail, he could jump on some couch while screaming about how Psychiatry is evil and how wrong it is. Man, that'd be so topical and funny."

(Special #1A: Turn real movies into 8 minute versions of themselves, I only add that because I can do it, and I do it on a regular basis anyway for debate, so, if anyone is looking to hire a guy that can take a script that already exists, and make it a somewhat coherent 8 minutes, call me.)

DRAGONS!

Interesting development at work today, I now have the pleasure of wearing a kevlar vest, just in case a crack head downtown tries to shoot me. I should have had one 6 months ago, but whatever, I don't really want to wear it anyway, not the most comfortable thing in the world. I wore it all afternoon to try and get used to it, which means if you saw me walking around Target today, I was wearing a bullet resistant vest, just in case those crazy middle aged women at Target tried to shoot me. I am not looking forward to wearing it for 8 hours tomorrow, we'll see how it goes.

In other news, while I was sitting at work staring at random people at a bus stop, something popped into my head. I have no idea where it came from. It also didn't develop slowly, it's not like it went "hey, I should think about this" and it slowly came along until I had the below, it all popped into my head verbatim. It was a movie trailer idea for a movie that doesn't exist, and would probably suck a lot if it did. But if anyone wants to make it a movie, I'll help you write it, or if you don't want my help, I'll just sue you for whatever money you get, which, given the nature of the movie idea, I can't imagine being more than a couple of dollars, but I'll fucking sue you anyway. I digress, it goes like this:
"In a time when Dragons are hunted for their skin and meat alike, not to mention the glory gained from bringing home a Dragon, they are near extinct. With the reported number being at 6, only one of which is male, due to the high price of male dragons, it is up to one dragon to help re-populate his species, in 'Chester: The Homosexual Dragon' "

VAGINAS!

I decided to start titling after Jarrett, though he seems to have changed titling formats, I now intend to use one word, with an exclamation point. To get a little more business out of the way, I know, I know, two posts in two days, I've gone insane. Really, I just decided to bust out a classic story, and put it on the interweb. So here goes.

Several years ago, in the end of 2003 and the beginning of 2004 I lived with my good friend Dan. We lived in an area that isn't exactly the fillet of Spokane. It was a couple miles east of Gonzaga, pretty much due east from it, across the river, just a few blocks west of Napa, if you are familiar with Napa street, that might help you. Anyway, we lived in a Tri-plex, across some grass of another Tri-plex. We called it the Cambodian ghetto, Of our five possible neighbors in this set of two tri-plexes, four of them were of some south-east Asian descent. We never asked, but given what we knew, we were pretty sure they were all from a similar area, possibly even related, I'm not just being racists here. Anyway, from everything we could discern we were quite sure they weren't Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese. We decided Cambodian, in retrospect Thai would not surprise me. I'm not sure why I bothered to tell this, it's not too related to the remainder of the story, maybe I am doing it for the sake of future classic stories, just a little back story I can refer to, who knows.

On to the real story. 20 days after we moved in, a taxi driver got shot in the head 5 blocks away. it was about 2 blocks north and 3 blocks east of where we lived. Now, he didn't die, it just grazed his head or something. Rather brief aspect of the story, but it plays a major role.

20 days later. This is really late December now, Dan discovered a letter on the street around the corner from us. He found it in front of a house that we had long suspected of being the house of a dealer. Lots of traffic in and out, fence surrounding the yard with large vicious dogs in the yard. Kind of odd. Anyway, he finds this letter, and we read it. Turns out it was from a drug runner to the drug dealer. The drug runner, as we later determined to be female from a few clues, such as the mention of a husband and having a vagina, was writing to say she didn't want to run drugs for this guy anymore. She'd had enough. She didn't care what harm she came across, she even tried taking her story to the cops. As I remember it, she mentioned that she flagged a cop down and played some phone messages she had saved from the dealer. The cop told her he could do nothing unless she gave him her cell phone. This caused alarm in her, she could not go without her cell phone, and it led her to believe the cops were in on it. Not sure how, but regardless, she was convinced. She later describes her second encounter with trying to tell a cop, but he was off duty, so he couldn't do anything. This did nothing but further her suspicions that the cops were in on it.

She continued saying that without the cops she was still out. She and her husband had gotten guns, so this dealer best not try anything. On top of that she goes into detail about how she is sick of his abuse. Apparently whenever she fucked up, he made her pay for it, in ritual beatings of some kind, including vagina stabbing. She goes on to say how hard it has been for her, not because she was being stabbed in the vagina, but because she was finding it hard to explain vaginal bleeding away, you see she "had been fixed" and thus did not have periods anymore. Her words, not mine, I assume it means she had a hysterectomy or some such. Anyway, she couldn't explain it away anymore, and so her husband found out. By this point I'm no longer sure if her husband knew she was drug running and he didn't care until he found out about the stabbings of the holiest of holies, or if he never knew of drug running, no idea. Dan and response to the letter was to neatly fold it and put it in the desk our TV sat upon. We're good citizens.

So, to review, 20 days after moving in there's a head shooting 5 blocks away. 20 days later Dan finds a letter describing a Vagina stabbing a block away.

20 days later, not about 20 days, but exactly 20 days, we did the math, I was sitting in our apartment. I had quit my job because it made me believe I that souls didn't exist, and I had to get out before it made me think further about such things. Dan, however, was still working for the same place. I was sitting at home, just chilling, and Dan comes in from walking home and immediately asks why there was a cop outside. I expressed a small bit of alarm and said I had no clue. I'm going to go into more back story now, before returning to this point. Dan and I had worked in medical records, filing crap, all day, it was a drag. Anyway, one night I hung out with friends and by the end of that all night session I had decided to quit. I called my boss up that night and left a message, I was done. Anyway, Dan's girlfriend at the time, whom we call Lie-bot, because she lies, a lot, much like a robot programmed to do nothing but lie, or a Lie-bot, if you will. Anyway, her sister worked at the same place, not in medical records but the same place none the less. Supposedly Lie-bot's sister had told Lie-bot that our employer thought I may have stolen medical records. i have no clue why they think I would have done such a thing, maybe they thought I was trying to infiltrate the system, steal records and sell them to insurance companies. Anyway, Lie-bot was positive that the cops were going to come shake Dan and I down. As laughable as we found it, we immediately set to work on a plan for if the cops did come. We made a legal pad of conversation, so we wouldn't actually have to talk to the cops if they came, it cited court cases and had fake maps of our apartment, including a legend where medical records would not be found, but where bombs and dead hooker bodies would be found. It was a great night.

Returning to the real story, our first real thought when Dan came home was "Was Lie-bot right?" Dan became more and more curious, as I grew more and more apathetic, eventually Dan went outside and asked the cop why he was sitting in his car out on the street. Turns out he was waiting for a search warrant for the apartment across from us. Our response was to sit out on our porch, literally sit, we took chairs out there. We sat there smoking, waiting to watch this shit happen. As we sat I regaled Dan with stories from my day, despite my unemployment, I had had a very busy day. By busy, I mean some stuff happened, but I didn't really do anything. You see, I had sat around watching TV all day, but during the Price is Right, which airs from 10 am to 11 am, I had heard some loud Cambodian yelling outside. It sounded intense. I turned the TV up, I didn't want to get involved, and at the time I did not speak Cambodian, so I could not understand(note: I still do not speak Cambodian.).

A few hours later I was watching some other crap, and I heard a loud pounding on the door of the apartment across from us and a male yelling "Let me in God Dammit!" I again turned the TV up, despite the fact that I could clearly understand that, and I earlier used the excuse of I could not understand it, I didn't care. So Dan and I began to surmise that maybe the yelling and this cop being here were related. Big leap, huh? We sat outside for three hours, just waiting. Slowly more and more cops showed up until there were six cars and more than six cops waiting around. Presumably the sixth car contained the search warrant. Because once it showed up, they talked for awhile, then went in. While they were inside a seventh car showed up. A cop got out, walked towards the apartments holding a black case, he then asked Dan and I which apartment they had gone into, at which point we told him. He then went in and a few minutes later we saw a series of flashes, that last cop had brought the camera.

After ten minutes or so they finished and came out, and we then saw the old Cambodian couple that lived there near the street. The old man was describing a knife, which was about 6-8 inches in length. Then the old woman bent forward to reveal a large gash on the top of her head, with these two things combined Dan and I just kind of looked at each other in shock. She had been stabbed in the fucking head! She had to have been 70, maybe older. Who stabs a 70 year old Cambodian woman in the head?!?! What the fuck!? While all the cops were gathered around Dan and I decided we should try to give that letter to one of them, remember the letter? Dan got it, and we stood behind the old couple politely while they were questioned by the cops, we stayed far enough back so we couldn't hear anything, we didn't want to be assholes, despite the fact that Dan and I are both assholes, we're not that kind of asshole. When they finished only two cops remained. We approached them and briefly described the letter and that we thought they should have it. They said they were now off duty and thus could not take it, furthering the woman's thoughts that the cops were involved in this drug ring, unfortunately she was not there to learn this new information.

So, 20 days after we move in there is a head shooting 5 blocks away. 20 days later a vagina stabbing a block away. 20 days later a head stabbing about 20 feet away. The only logical conclusion Dan and I could come to was that somebody was going to be shot in the vagina inside our apartment in a matter of 20 days. We could not have this. Just to be sure, we created a large buffer, and for two months anyone with a vagina was not allowed to come to our apartment.

That is the story of how Dan and I refused to let women in our apartment for two months.

The end.