This story comes from college.

So, I had just started dating this guy Mark. We had a lot of mutual friends, he was really tall, cute and sarcastic, a little socially awkward, but basically perfect for me. Anyway, about two weeks into our relationship we had gone out with a big group for our friend Nick’s birthday. I had about 37 double long islands and ended up in Mark’s twin bed that night where we did unspeakable things to each other all night long. Anyway, the next morning my cell phone rang right next to my head from his bedside table.

“Turn it off.” Mark mumbled

“Hello?” I answered. “What? Hello?”

“Are you guys alive?” It was none other than the birthday boy himself.

“How are you calling me right now? Is it still the morning?” I asked, my voice filled with confusion.

“Yeah I know. I’m not even that hung over.” Nick replied.

“That is so not like you, did you have a fun birthday? Are you OK? Why are you calling me right now?” I asked, the concern beginning to mount.

“Well, after we left the bar Steve noticed he was missing his hat. You know, the wool one, with the flaps?” Nick explained.

“The Miller Genuine Draft one?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He answered.

“I fucking love that hat.” I replied to his answer of my question.

“Well, naturally he came to the conclusion that one of the guys back in the bar had stolen it.” Nick explained.

“That makes sense.” I stated.

“Totally. Well, as we were walking past the other side of the bar, Steve was certain he saw the guy who stole it through the windows.” Nick further explained.

“Did he happen to see said gentleman wearing the hat in question?” I assumptively asked.

“That is what one would think, isn’t it.” Nick responded, matter-of-factly.

“Oh this keeps getting better.” I stated.

“Tell Nick I said whattup.” Mark mumbled behind me.

“Hey, Mark says whattup.” I ablidged.

“Whattup Mark.” Nick responded to Mark through me.

“Nick says whattup.” I relayed to Mark.

“So anyway, you know how Steve gets when he’s wasted…” Nick implied.

“Go on.” I encouraged.

“Well, he fucking threw one of those Apartment Finder magazine holders that were out on the street through the God Damn window so he could get at the guy!” Nick exclaimed.

“Holy fucking shit!!” I cried out, incredulously.

“I know, right!? So anyway, I had to bail him out of fucking jail again. Totally killed my buzz.” Nick said, his voice dripping with sobriety.

“That completely blows.” I comforted.

“You know what the best part about the whole thing was?” Nick asked.

“What?” I also asked.

“Julie had his fucking hat in her purse the whole time! The guy Steve saw was wearing one of those table tents, like with the drink specials and shit on it! Not his hat!” Nick said, beginning to laugh.

“What!? Are you fucking joking!? That is Hilarious! God, Steve is such a moron!” I exclaimed.

Nick and I both settled into a hearty chuckle. I felt myself laughing harder and harder. And then it happened.

“Nick I gotta go.” I said as abruptly as I had just stopped laughing.

“Hey, wait! So then Sam was like…” Nick began, however I had already hung up the phone.

“Did that just happen?” I heard Mark ask from the other side of the pillow behind me.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, pretending to have no idea what he could be referring to.

“Do you need some toilet paper?” Mark asked, starting to laugh.

“That doesn’t even make any sense. Look, it’s already one o’ clock, I have a lot of stuff I gotta do today. I’ll call you later.” I stated.  I jumped up, threw my jeans and shirt on and grabbed my purse.

“The bathroom’s the last door on the left!” Mark yelled through laughter as I exited his apartment.

And that is the story of the first time I farted, not just in front of a boy, but on the bare leg of my boyfriend of just two weeks with my bare ass. I’m such a fucking lady.

Each week (unless I forget) I will be bringing you a list of the top 4 websites new to me that week that I found to be fucking hilarious or just an extreme God Damn waste of your time but who are we kidding it’s not like you’re working right now anyway, but hurry up just in case your boss comes around the corner.

#4. Cats In Sunglasses – http://catsinsunglasses.tumblr.com/

FINALLY.

#3. Relationshit - http://www.relationshit.com/

LOTTA reading, but quite insightful.

#2. Ask Social Media Chewbacca – http://socialmediachewbacca.tumblr.com/

I was up until 4am last night asking it questions.

#1. Jesus Is Love – http://jesusislove.tumblr.com/

I know for certain now that there is no God because if there was he would have shown me this site, like, way sooner.

YOU’RE WELCOME.

So I went to a reading at an underground dimly-lit lounge last week, because that is what writers do, we hang out at cool places, write shit, read to each other and get drunk. Well, one of the short stories that was read REALLY caught my attention, so towards the end of the evening I drunkenly went up to the author to introduce myself. Turns out I was meeting the Loft-McKnight Fellowship winning author John Jodzio (www.johnjodzio.net).  This guy has stories in One Story, Barrelhouse, Opium, The Florida Review, just to name a few.  He’s won a Minnesota Magazine fiction prize and both the Opium 500 Word Memoir competition and an Opium Fiction Prize.  A collection of his short stories, “If You Lived Here You’d Already Be Home” was recently published by Replacement Press. He’s like a FOR REAL writer.

Anyway, turns out he is a big fan of BTTV (who isn’t at this point) so he was gracious in sharing his story with me so I could share it with you guys. You’re welcome.

THE COMPOSERS

My best friend Joe looks like Handel and I look like Beethoven.  Ladies always ask us if we are them and we tell them hell yes.  Man, do we.  It is all about the ladies.

Tonight, Joe and I got invited to a hot tub party. 

Do Beethoven, the partiers said, do Handel. 

I sat in the hot water and pretended I was Beethoven.  I moved with my long hair out of my face and any time someone asked me something I said “What?” and pointed to my ears. One of the partiers was a blonde lady named Suzy. 

She tried to flirt with me by humming “Ode to Joy” but she’d taken too many quaaludes from the quaaludes bowl to really remember how it went. 

“I know I’m supposed to deaf, but can you shut the hell up anyway?” I asked.

Just like Beethoven, I don’t like blondes.

Joe has a bad drinking problem.  When I drink, I steal.  

We are not the best party guests, but we are not the worst either.  We always bring a bottle of red wine and if the fancy grocery store is open we bring the footiest smelling cheese they have. 

“Is he dead?” one of the people at the party asked me after Joe passed out.  “Did Handel just die in the hot tub?”

Sometimes when Joe passes out he looks like he’s totally dead, but then he will suddenly wake up and punch his hand through a bathroom door or a bay window.  He never remembers any of it. 

Tonight I’d stolen three wallets and a purse by the time Joe kicked a hole in the hot tub.   I was making out with this brunette named Jessica near the pool and I noticed bubbling water spilling out around my legs. 

“Uh-oh,” Jessica pointed.  “Here comes Tony.”

I saw a huge, shirtless man moving toward me.  I got up to run, but it was too late.  Tony grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground. 

“You and your friend have ten seconds to get your classical asses out of here,” he said. 

After Joe and I get kicked out of parties, we like to go downtown and sit in the park by the river.  It used to be a bad part of town, but then the mayor decided to pipe in classical music.  Now the drug dealers have moved on and the hookers are higher class.  Tonight, I buy us burgers and fries and slap Joe around until he can hold a decent conversation. 

“I am sorry about before,” he tells me.  “I am sorry about always.”

I stare out at the river water, the lights of the city skyline bleeding downstream in the current.

“There will be other parties,” I tell Joe. “And other ladies.”

This is what I always tell Joe when we get kicked out of parties, but lately I don’t know if I believe it.  There is a crash of cymbals and the swell of strings above our heads and I wonder how long we will look this fucking beautiful.

So a couple of years ago I dated this guy. I was really into him too. He was hilarious, cute, blah blah blah… there were a couple of red flags though. I’m not talking like he made me watch German porn or anything, but here, let me give you an example:

Me (sitting in my cubicle): “God today SUCKS. No one is answering their phone and the few businesses I’ve actually been able to reach just hang up on me.”

Coworker in cube next to me: “Try calling your current customers, new business sucks this month for everyone.”

Me: “I am. Those are all my current customers that have been hanging up.”

Coworker: “Well, I don’t know what to tell you. You are terrible at your job. Want to go outside and smoke?”

Me: “Yes.”

***Beep Bow Bop Bweet Teep***

Me: “Oh look, someone is texting me.”

Coworker: “Is it John?”

Me: “Why yes it is. See? I’m having a shitty day and he just knows to text me. God I lo…”

Coworker: “What? What does it say?”

Me: “…”

Coworker: “What!? Is it dirty? Hahahah! Is it so naughty and you can’t even show me? You guys are so nasty!”

Me: “Um, you could say that…”

Coworker: “What? Just show me. Can you just show me?”

I hand over the phone.

Coworker: “Jesus Christ! I told you not to date a younger guy. Gross.”

John had sent me yet again a text message, actually a picture message of one of his latest creations. Some shit. Literally his shit, sitting in the toilet bowl.

Me: “I guess he knows I’m having a shitty day…”

Coworker: “You seriously need a life coach or something.”

Have you ever met my best friend, Ronnie? You’d probably remember if you had. Everyone likes him. He says he hasn’t met a person who hasn’t liked him. So, you’d probably know if you’ve met him.

He and I have known each other since kindergarten (Ronnie always pronounces it: kid-nerr-gar-den. I tried to correct him once, but he got really mad at me. He kept saying, “What are you? Some kind of fucking professor? Little Professor Homo. Is that you’re name? Have you figured out why you’re so gay, Professor Homo?” Sometimes he can get pretty mad. But if you meet him, don’t tell him I told you that about him. He’s always saying how “chilled out” he is and gets kind of angry if anyone says he’s not.). He was the first one at Pomona Middle School (that’s where we live, Pomona, Illinois) to grow a mustache. I don’t have a mustache. I tried to grow one once, but Ronnie told me I should stop copying him. (He said my mustache looked like a “diarrhea turd” on my “fat fucking turd of a face.”) My wife says she doesn’t like moustaches anymore, so that’s good.

But Ronnie’s a good guy though. He was the one who was actually responsible for me and my wife getting married. It’s not like he introduced us or anything—we’re all from Pomona—but it is on account of him that we’re married. When we were 18, we went up to Murphysboro and bought a few cases of Old Style even though we weren’t of age (Ronnie said it was because his mustache makes him look like a real workin’ man). We had a big party. Angie, my wife, who was them my girlfriend, got drunk and pretty frisky. I thought that it might be the big night for the two of us, but Ronnie said I should keep myself “pure.” He said he’d take her out for a drive so she could “cool off” and so she and I wouldn’t do anything we’d regret. Well, later that summer, Angie found out she was pregnant. Ronnie said I had better do the right thing and make an honest woman out of her. Angie and I got married and six months later she gave birth to our son, Jack.

Ronnie was nice enough to let us use his car for the wedding. Although he insisted that he drive, so I had to sit in the back, which is kind of difficult to do in a ’77 Trans Am. Actually the car was mine for a bit. My old man and I rebuilt it while I was high school, and he gave me the keys as a graduation present. We put it into the big Carbondale car show that summer. Ronnie suggested that he should enter it under his name because we’d have a better chance of winning if he were the front man. (He said, “Do you think they’re going to let some little, fat, homo-boy take first prize? No, they need to see a man in this car.”) The car ended up getting second runner up. Ronnie said that he should keep the car because he was basically responsible for the winning prize. I guess I agreed. He does look pretty cool in it. I sometimes think he feels a little bad about the whole thing because we only talk about the car every 6 months or so when he tells me when I have to pay the insurance policy or renew the license plates.

Hopefully you can meet him someday. As I mentioned before, Ronnie says that he makes a good impression on everyone he meets, so you’ll probably like him. I do. He is my best friend after all.