Just Off Center

Guys, you remember back in sixth grade when you and your few good friends would do basically anything they could to disgust each other? Those were the times! It was a magical era when a well timed fart and the odd snot-rocket were all the comical prowess one needed to become the alpha male. While the farts are still a classic, especially in an office environment, there's no doubt that the purity and sheer joy of the gross-out has fallen to the monotony and abasement of begging for sex.

Fortunately for me, Nina hasn't realized that the hypnotist never did remove the "drop trou and bend over when I say Crenshaw crackhead" command, so I'm up to my neck in trim. But it wasn't always so. There was once a time when I longed for nothing more than to meet up in the woods so that my boys and I could look at the dead frog. The nostalgia is getting me misty.

You see, these days the friends of this kind are harder to come by. Most guys in their late twenties are married, and those that aren't, while still good for the fart gag, are working their hardest to become married. Ladies, you heard right. Men do want desparately to get married. They just don't want to marry you. Now stop crying and leave my blog.

With the shortage of gross-out pals I've been forced to resort to fanning the flames alone. But since I can feel basically every disgusting bodily noise or gas release coming on none of it yields the true vomitous glory of those days past. Hard times. Definitely hard times. So what does one do to disgust oneself when one is left without others to disgust? Ah, of course:

BECOME A BUSINESSMAN!

Holy shit, this has got to be the most ingenious idea I've had since the cotton gin. I'll become a grounded, jargon spewing, wheeling and dealing, palm pressing, soulless contributor to the industry of business. And as each year passes I look in the mirror and feel true horror. It's disgust in its purest form to see a reflection of myself and say "Let me take that action item and contact you by C.O.B. tomorrow." Twelve-year-old Mike would be thrilled to see this level of wretchedness.

And as I pass my brethren of fellow deal-makers in the halls of whatever building I'm in every day I can spot that glint in the eye of the living. It's the acknowledgement that we are all just little kids waiting for our opportunity to be welcomed into the circle of gross-out legend. Hasn't anyone ever wondered why Donald Trump's hair looks like it's ripped off the corpse of an Elvis impersonator? It's because it's ripped off the corpse of an Elvis impersonator! He gets it, and we're not alone. With every meeting and each business card slipped in a handshake the nausea grows. And one day when the comedic gross-outometer is pegged to the red, we will all look up, puke ourselves into coronaries and choke to death on the laughter of having lived out the truest abomination ever created.