Saturday, November 15, 2008

Sandwiches

I was talking to Jay recently about his OCD:

"Dude, do you remember when you thought your boss was using your laptop to spy on you?"
"Yeah, man I remember that. That was hilarious."
"What do you think about that now?"
"It's crazy. It makes absolutely no sense, but at the time it seemed reasonable. I don't know man, my OCD seems to come and go. Earlier this year was really bad, but now I'm not having any problems."
"Well, that kind of makes sense. You moved and started a new job, so I imagine the stress had something to do with it."
"Yeah man, but it was bad. Did I ever tell you about the trip I took with Jessica to LA?"
"No, what's this?"
"Well, I started getting really paranoid about the silverware at the restaurants we would go to. I was worried about catching AIDS or Hep C or something. I was thinking that there was something on the knives and forks and since my gums were bleeding I could catch it."
"Dude ..."
"I know it doesn't make any sense, but my strategy for avoiding the silverware was just to order sandwiches. Everywhere we went I would just get a sandwich. We were going to nice restaurants but it didn't matter, I would scour the menu for a sandwich."
"And did that work for you?"
"Well Jessica noticed and she got soooo pissed. She said 'I know why you're getting sandwiches Jay. It's your OCD isn't it? I can't deal with this', and I'm like 'No, come on; I've just been in the mood for sandwiches. It's no big deal.' and she's like 'Now you're lying to me too. I know you're lying about the sandwiches.'"
"What happened?"
"It basically ruined our trip. She was pissed the whole time. I even stopped getting the sandwiches. I just made sure we went to really high end places that I knew were clean, but it didn't help. At the end of the trip I was like 'Come on, that was a fun trip' and she just said 'Jay, if I'd known you were going to be this way I never would have taken time off work for this. I would have rather been at work than come on this trip with you.'"
"Harsh man. But I love that line: Jay, I know about the sandwiches. Don't lie to me about the goddamn sandwiches!!"

They're listening

Not long after Jay started a new job at a large tech company I got a call from him:

"Hey man, do you know how to uninstall the microphone device driver on a laptop?"
"Uhhh.... Is the microphone giving you problems? What kind of errors are you seeing?"
"No, I just want to disable it permanently."
"... Well, I'm sure you can mess with the driver in the Device Manager, but if you just want the mic off go into your sound settings. If it's not causing you problems why do you want it off anyway? You're better off not messing with it."
"Well ... I'm worried that my boss may have installed some spy software on here that would record my conversations. Like with the mic; some kind of spyware or something."
"Dude, do you remember when you asked me to tell you when you're acting crazy? You are acting crazy man."
"Nah man, it's possible. I just don't want to have to worry about it."
"Jay, first of all you work at a big company now. People could get fired for that kind of thing. Secondly, who exactly do you think is listening to hours of your random conversations on the off chance you might say something interesting? That doesn't make any god damn sense."
"I don't know, but you were right it's here in the device manager. Thanks for your help man."
"Uhhh.... You're welcome I guess."

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Can't Stop Crying

Jay has really bad luck with women. Well, really he probably has the same luck as anyone else it's just that he will never leave them no matter how crazy things get. I've already talked about Tara, and his current girlfriend Jessica is no exception.

Here's a normal conversation about her:

"Man, I think my relationship with Jessica is over."
"What happened?"
"She's been freaking out about my OCD. She keeps saying 'Jay, you're always going to be like this. What happens if we have kids? How could we have kids if you keep acting this way'"
"Then she said 'Jay, I think I love you less now.'"
"WTF? She loves you less? What did you say?"
"Yeah, I was like, what do you mean? You don't love me anymore? And she said 'No, I just love you less'. I'm like, what do you mean less? How much less? And she says 'Well, maybe 10% less'"
"Dude, she gave you an exact percentage!? Are you fucking serious?"
"Yeah man, she said she loves me 10% less."
"Jay, this chick is psycho man. Who says something like that?"
"Things went downhill from there. She started crying and kicked me out of the car."
"Dude, where did this happen?"
"We were driving around downtown. I got out of the car and she drove off, and I had no idea where I was. I was walking for two hours trying to find out where I was. I kept calling her and she just told me 'good, I'm glad you're lost. I hate you.'"
"Dude, you have to get rid of that chick."

Sure enough though two weeks later they're still together:
"Jay, I thought you guys were breaking up?"
"Nah, man she's a great girl. You don't understand; she's a great girl."
"Dude, she told you she loves you 10% less"
"No man, she's a great girl."

A few months later I'm talking to Jay's brother John:
"Dude, Jay is having problems with Jessica again."
"You're kidding me. Again?"
"Yeah, it's hilarious. He just texted her 'I love you' and she texted him back 'Can't stop crying'"

The Dog

Before I start posting about Jay's current girlfriend Jessica I want to give you some more insight into his personality. To do that I need to tell you about my parent's old dog Bark. I'm a huge animal lover; I love dogs and have three cats. That said I still hate that dog. My parents got him from a shelter after I left for college. He was always hyper, loved to jump on people and was just generally disagreeable. However, if you were willing to show the slightest bit of dominance the dog would eventually calm down.

One day I'm home from college and Jay and his brother John came over to visit. The dog starts barking and jumping up on them, but I get him in order and we head inside. However, the dog doesn't want to leave Jay alone. Every couple of minutes he saddles up to Jay and starts trying to hump his leg.

"Jay, just push him off and yell 'NO!' when he does that. He'll stop if you just yell at him."
"OK"

However, Jay just will not yell at the dog. The dog keeps coming over, and I keep having to push him off Jay. This goes on for a while.

"Jay, seriously just yell at the dog. I'm getting tired of coming over here and pushing him off you. If you just show some aggression he won't come back"
"Yeah, man"

Sure enough he doesn't yell at the dog and continues to let the dog basically molest him.

"Dude, I'm serious just yell at the damn dog. He's not going away until you show some dominance."
"Ahhh... what the hell. It's easier to just give him what he wants"

At which point Jay just sticks out his leg and lets the dog furiously hump away. For two full minutes. At which point I've had enough and give the dog a time out in the garage.

Now you may think that Jay was just making a joke. Really though if you knew him well you'd know that he was serious. In his head he did the math of putting forth some small amount of effort to deal with the dog vs. letting the dog hump his leg. The humping just won that calculation. This is how incapable of action Jay sometimes is.

In his head it's:
"My girlfriend is crazy, but it would be a lot of work to date. I'll just stay with her"
"My job really sucks, but it would take effort to find something else. I'll just stay here"
"My gums have been bleeding, but I don't want to find a dentist. I'll just put up with it" (true story by the way)

Jay could so easily make positive changes in his life, but he always chooses to let those problems keep humping away.


Bonus story: while I was in college Jay and John were house sitting for my parents. Bored, they dug into my dad's monstrous collection of VHS porn. Sure enough, not long after popping in a tape the VCR broke down trapping the pornographic evidence. They decided to leave my parents a note which read:
"I'm sorry. This broke when I was watching a tape.
- Bark the Dog"