A Prank Call From the Fates

Some guys have all the luck. Others just get a mouth full of boot heel and bloody tooth shards on a cold October morning. I heard a song about that once.

I'll give you three guesses which category Omar Bricks falls in this week, ladies and gentlemen. And the first two don't count since if you guess wrong I get to rap on your knuckles with a ruler. Something like that, it's an old saying from the bible.

But I'm not kidding, this has been a week for the record books. Assuming somebody somewhere keeps records on bad shit that happens to good people. And I think that's a fair assumption, since if there's some geek out there keeping a log of every time Spock scratches his ass on Star Trek, and I know there is because I lost a Frisbee in his yard one time, then anything's got to be fair game.

Make no mistake about it, this has been a four-alarm, hide the virgins, call out the National Guard variety of bad week. If two more things go wrong I'm going to hit up the president for some of that disaster relief cash you're always hearing about. It doesn't seem like there have been any massive floods or boat show fires lately, so I think he can spare the dough. Hell, if he could walk a few blocks in my Reeboks I think he'd fetch the big novelty check for me personally. If you've ever had your tits kicked in by the fates, you know what I'm talking about here.

Everybody knows about my well-publicized car troubles and my citywide taxi ban. For most people, the parade of tears would end there, but for Omar Bricks they're just getting the marching band and sweater-wearing elephants out of cold storage.

I come home Friday night to find out that Foghat got into a can of Cream of Broccoli soup that I didn't even know was still in the pantry. It must have been left over from when I was selling those bottles of Turd Bird Ale, my homebrew bathtub beer, at the Fair a few years ago. There was a food drive for the homeless going on across the street, and I admit that I got into some bartering with the hobos by the end of the night. I didn't want to have to carry any heavy shit back to my car when the Fair was over and I thought some of those canned goods might come in handy if we ever got around to nuking the Russians or whatever.

Little did I know that Foghat is part Cream of Broccoli hound, and he went straight-on ape when I brought that crap home. I gave him a bowl just to get him to stop bouncing off the furniture and peeing everywhere, and sweet flaming Christ was that a mistake. If you can't imagine what happened next, give your own dog some foul-smelling cream-based soup some time. Just make sure you've got the carpet-cleaning place on speed dial.

Well, it turns out that just not giving Foghat the soup again wasn't enough, because that idiot dog figured out how to work the can opener and it was like déjà vu all over again. After the second episode I thought I'd purged the house of any trace of Cream of Broccoli soup, but Friday night I was rudely educated otherwise. Let's just end that tangent by saying that if anybody wants a couch that can blister paint at a distance of ten yards, you're welcome to come drag it off my lawn.

You don't even want to know half the rest of the heinous shit I've got going on right now. Yet another ludicrous paternity suit (like I've ever even been to Canada), the mouse I've got living in my refrigerator, the little six-year-old kid who's stealing my mail, and the list goes on and on. I'm starting to think it's some kind of conspiracy, though I haven't had time yet to work out exactly what the logistics of the whole thing might be. I'm biking over to Red Bagel's place later in the week to try and figure the whole thing out over a few beers; we'll see what comes of that.

All I know is I get the feeling like somebody's fingering Omar Bricks' asshole, and it ain't Omar Bricks. Somebody's got some explaining to do.

Bricks Out.

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