The Big House

Since Jay has been dating Jessica for ~5 months I haven't heard of any AIDS scares. Instead he seems to have developed a new concern: going to jail.

"I downloaded Children of Men off bittorrent ..." - Jay
"And ..."
"You don't think I could get in trouble for that do you?"
"Not likely. The odds are really low so don't worry about it."
"Even if they did catch me what do you think is the worst that could happen?"
"Uhhh... I think the hand full of people from the RIAA lawsuits are getting fines around $5,000. But getting busted is so incredibly unlikely you shouldn't worry about it."
"So there's no way I could go to jail for this right?"
"Jail?! No, that's not really a possibility."
"O.K. Good ..... So, you're saying it's impossible for me to go to jail over this?"
"Dude, no you're not going to jail."
"Cool. .... You're really sure it's impossible then?"
"..."

The List

It's been an interesting few weeks in Jay land. Unfortunately I need to wait for him to break up with his current girlfriend before I can tell you about any of the current drama. This may take a few days / weeks / months it's hard to tell, but man will it be worth the wait. In the mean time I give you the long promised List:

I've talked before about Jay's inability to get things done. About four years ago I wanted to play "Sam & Max" (a great game by the way). Now, Jay is friends with one of the "Sam & Max" developers and he promised to get me a copy. A full year later I still didn't have a copy. 52 weeks of "Sorry man, I forgot. I'll see him next week", and "Man I'm going to see that guy tomorrow I'll get it then don't worry". So a year later I give him a call:

"Don't worry about it Jay, I'll just get a copy off e-bay"
"No, listen I'm really going to get it. It's on the list. Really."
"List? What list? The list of shit you're not going to do?"

Not long after that incident Jay and Tara broke up. I was talking to him shortly thereafter about how crazy Tara was and I was privy to this gem:
"Jay, really I'm amazed that you guys lasted this long. She was controlling and obsessively task oriented. Your inability to get things done must have driven her crazy."
"Yeah, it really did. Did I tell you about the time she tried to bribe me with sex?"
"What!?"
"A few months ago we stopped having sex because she decided premarital sex was a sin. After a couple of weeks I'm dying for sex, and I literally resort to begging. Now get this, she agrees to have sex with me if I finish a list of chores."
"You've got to be kidding me!"
"No, she literally gave me a list of chores and told me 'Jay I'll straight up have sex with you if you get this done.'"
"Dude, what was on this list?"
"Simple stuff: I needed to get an oil change and pay some bills. Stuff like that. It was all stuff that I needed to do anyway."
"Did you do it?"
"No. I never did. I started some of them, but I never did them all."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. But seriously, it was a list of things a normal person could get done in a productive afternoon."

Not Getting Things Done

Jay is generally hardworking, and spends really long hours at work. However, outside the realm of work the guy just can not get things done. It's not that he's lazy, it's just that he will not spend time on anything that he doesn't enjoy. Unless it's directly involved with his work it's just not getting done. If my life depended on Jay taking a bullet for me I wouldn't worry. If my life depended on Jay running five small errands during the next month, I'm fucked.

Some of my favorite examples of Jay's ability to not get things done:

1) The phone. Jay was without a cell phone for a while then one day he proudly called me up and told me he'd gotten a new phone. I was impressed. I assumed this meant he'd actually gone to a store and purchased a phone. I was less impressed when a few days later I got his voice mail. The first part of the voice mail message was a standard pre-recorded greeting of "The person you have called is unavailable. Please leave a message for:" The next part was in the shaky voice of an old woman "Jaaay Haaalking". When I called him up the next day: "Jay, your grandmother got that phone for you, didn't she?" "Man, ... how did you know?".

2) The car. Around six years ago Jay was thinking about getting a new car. At the time he was thinking about a mini cooper. A few weeks later I was on the phone with him. Jay: "Man, I got my new car!" "Awesome, what did you end up getting, the mini-cooper?" "No, I ended up getting a Buick." "A Buick?!? Dude, did you let your grandparents pick out your car?" "Well ..."

3) The wallet. Now I'll admit I'm a little uptight about wallets. I like to keep my wallet fairly empty with as few cards as possible. So, a few years ago Jay is up visiting and he pulls out a bloated, overflowing Castanza Wallet. This thing barely qualified as a wallet; it was really more of a decaying leather wrapping around a giant pile of frequent shopper cards, business cards, and receipts.
"Dude, WTF is that thing?"
"What, it's my wallet."
"That thing is not a wallet. What the hell is in here?"
I start going through the wallet
"Why do you have all these receipts in here?"
"I don't want people to get my credit card number."
"Jay, your credit card number isn't even on these receipts"
I spend the next 20 min or so sorting out the wallet and getting everything organized. 90% of it was pure trash.
"Dude Jay, you see this business card you had in here"
"Yeah, I know that guy"
"Is there any reason you had two copies of his business card in different places in your wallet?"
"Well... I met him twice."

Next up is "The List". And just as a reminder to myself I need to tell you about "Direct Deposit" and "The Frenchman's Shower".

Paperus

Many of the stories Jay and I joke about intertwined. So, in order to tell you one of my favorite Jay stories, "The List", I need to tell a few background stories including "Paperus". About three years ago Jay was dating a girl named Tara. Now, let me just say up front that I really didn't like her. She was immature, controlling, and she had a compulsive need to be right. She could never loose an argument or admit that she was wrong and she would frequently interrupt and correct people in the middle of a conversation. She was also constantly on the go and couldn't tolerate down time, or just hanging out.

Jay and Tara flew in to visit and we took them to a local museum. We walk around for a few hours and then take a break in the museum cafeteria. Now, Jay, my wife, and I were exhausted and just happy to be sitting down and chatting. Tara ignores the conversation and pulls out an address book and a pen and paper and starts writing a letter to a pen pal. I have no idea why a 27 year old woman has a pen pal, but ignore that for a minute. Tara finishes her two page letter and then busts out an envelope and stamps. Yes, not content to just carry letter writing supplies she walks around with a post office in her purse in case her day has a spare five minutes.

Later that day we spent some time in a local mall that had a Papyrus store, it's a chain that sells paper products. Now, for those not familiar with the word Papyrus think of it as an old form of paper. The word is pronounced [puh-pahy-ruhs]. I was standing with Jay in a bookstore when Tara walked up with a bag:

"Hey, what do you have there Tara?" - Jay
"I just bought something from Paperus." Tara pronouncing it "Paper Us"
"Uhhh, Tara I think it's pronounced Papyrus"
Now imagine the most condescending tone possible:
"Sigh, no Jay; no. It's Paperus, because they sell paper. Paperus"
"... OK Tara"

Loving AdSense

I threw up some ads to play with AdSense, and wow those are some ads. Not sure what I was really expecting Google to show, but as it stands it reads like Jay's worst nightmare.

Disease Control

I've talked about Jay's fear of infection, and the lengths he'd go to in order to disinfect himself. In his quest to convince himself that he didn't have "the hiv" or any other STDs he would frequently go to the doctor for a full checkup even if he just touched something unclean or got coughed on in a bar. I was used to hearing about these doctor visits, so when Jay called I asked about them:

"Hey Jay, you been to the doctor lately?"
"No, I've been calling a nurse hotline whenever I get freaked out"
"Hey, that's great. That should be a good option for you. No more crazy trips to the doctor"

Now, some good health care plans will give you 24/7 access to a registered nurse, so I'm assuming that this is a feature of his health plan. Of course this is Jay, so nothing is that simple. About six months later I finally get to the bottom of this:

"Jay, are you still calling that nurse hotline?"
"No, it's junk now. The CDC got rid of the nurses."
"The CDC!? Jay, are you trying to tell me you've been calling the Center for Disease Control?"
"Yeah man. They used to have real nurses who would tell me for sure that I didn't have the hiv."
"Dude, isn't the CDC for ebola outbreaks? What the hell have you been asking them about?"
"Well, today I called them because Claire left a toothbrush at my apartment and I touched it to throw it away, and then I touched my eye before I washed my hands. You don't think I could get AIDS from that do you?"
"Well, first of all Claire didn't have AIDS so I find that kind of unlikely. Secondly, didn't you break up with her like three months ago?"
"Yeah, it was five months ago but still. You know hiv is found in saliva."
"Dude, you're crazy. What did the CDC say?"
"Well, like I said, before it would have been a nurse who would have told me 'you're fine'. Now it's just some dude who searches their database. He said 'I'll search hiv saliva', then he said 'well based on what I'm reading hiv doesn't survive outside the body for more than 20 minutes so it's highly unlikely you're infected'."
"Well, there you go, you're fine."
"Yeah, but he didn't say it was impossible; just that it was highly unlikely. I'm worried man."

Does it kill AIDS?

This is a quick follow up to the incident Jay had with his office mate. Jay had a really nice female coworker Jen, who was concerned with Jay's Lysol spraying. One day she knocked on Jay's (now single occupancy) office door after some friendly small talk offered him an alternative:

"Jay, I got you a bottle of anti-bacterial gel. You just put some on your hands and it's like washing without water. You don't need to spray anything"
"Thanks Jen, but .... does it kill AIDS?"

You're killing us Jay

I mentioned earlier that Jay had huge fear of infection and specifically "the hiv". He eventually got a little better, but about three years ago Jay's OCD was so bad he was spraying Lysol on his hands. Yes, he would carry around a can of Lysol and spray it directly on his hands when he started getting freaked out. He was fixated on Lysol because he'd heard it killed the AIDS virus.

Now, Lysol may be a great disinfectant but it's meant to be used sparingly in a well ventilated area, and not sprayed directly on someone's skin. Read the warning label, or read the Wikipedia page before you start using it.

Now Jay wasn't just spraying Lysol at home, he was spraying at work as well. In large quantities. In a small poorly ventilated office. That he shared with a coworker. This coworker was very understanding, but was justifiably concerned about breathing in Lysol every time Jay would spray down his hands or keyboard. They talked about it and Jay agreed to try to spray less often. Jay tried to resist as long as he could but soon enough there was a soft SHHH as Jay tried to quietly spritz his hands. The coworker's defeated comment:

"Sigh.... you're killing us Jay. You're killing us."

Shortly thereafter Jay's office mate got himself transferred to a cubicle and Jay ended up with an office all to himself.

It's Rico!

Jay's dad, Mr H., is also an interesting character. He's mormon, a lawyer, and a little crazy. He's a really nice guy, but strange. One of our favorite stories involving Mr H is when our friend Wes called Jay's house and was mistaken for another friend of ours:

"Hello, is Jay there" - Wes
"Hey, Rico it's good to hear from you" - Mr H
"Mr H, this is Wes"
"Well, he's not here right now Rico I'll tell him you called"
"Mr. H, this isn't Rico it's Wes"
"Allright, I'll see you later Rico"
"Wait Mr. H This is ..."
CLICK

Ocular Herpes

For the last few years Jay has had strong fears about getting sick / infected. Usually he's afraid of HIV / AIDS (or as he calls it "the hiv"), but he's also afraid of most other STD's. It's not that Jay is really at risk for anything. He practices safe sex (or so I'm told), doesn't do drugs, and has only had a handful of partners. It's just that Jay is convinced he can catch serious STD's through casual contact. I can't tell you the number of times I've gotten a call along these lines of:

"Dude, it's over. I was at a bar and this guy next to me kept coughing, and he kind of bumped into me a couple of times. I've got the hiv man, I'm done."

That said, imagine how freaked out Jay was when he started dating a girl named Clair who had herpes. Despite sleeping with her only a few times, and always with protection he soon became certain that he had genital herpes even though he had no symptoms. He also soon became convinced that he had spread the herpes to his eyes and that he now had ocular herpes.

Certain that he was going to go blind Jay heads to the doctor:
"Son, you seem fine. Have you used saliva to clean your contacts?"
"No." - Jay
"Have you been washing your hands regularly?"
"Yes."
"Then why do you think you could have caught ocular herpes?"
"Well, what if I accidently touched my penis then touched my eyes?"
"Son, if you're touching your penis then touching your eyes you have bigger problems than ocular herpes."

The Jay Project

This blog is a collection of funny stories featuring my friend Jay and his family. Jay is a funny and talented guy with a touch of OCD who routinely gets himself in extremely unusual situations. The purpose of this blog is twofold:

• Document these stories for posterity. Well maybe not for posterity, but I at least want to be able to reread some of these stores in ten or twenty years.
• Share these stories with anyone who cares to read them. The stories should be funny and easy to read.

This blog will not reveal any identities. Many of these stories are very personal and this blog is intended to be purely anonymous. I'll try to add a story or so a week. Given the number of stories we already joke about and the rate of new incidents this should last till at least 2010.