Punishment

What you are looking at is a "Bark Collar". Every time this dog barks, the collar sprays citronella in their face... I guess, making the dog less likely to bark? Well, they say its citronella, but it's probably concentrated puppy poison. Yes, I suppose the dog will bark less... and wish you were dead more. Granted, the absurdity of this "invention"could be the subject of a post by itself, but that can wait for another time. See, I think I'm actually going to purchase a few of these and modify them. I'm going to place them around the necks of my friends, mainly the Koreans, and every time they say the phrase "let's have an adventure" the collar will spray BOD cologne (also see: concentrated puppy poison).

For some reason, this blog thinks I live in a magical timezone that's always a day behind and perpetually in the 5:00-6:00 PM hour. Every post thus far has ended up within those parameters. Taking that into consideration, the reason I didn't put anything up here yesterday (the 4th) is because of my ridiculous friends.

Yesterday, I went out for a run around 1:30 and upon my return I discovered that I had locked myself out of my house. It was now 3:15ish and another three hours until my folks came home, so I had a lot of time to kill. I started calling people to pass the time, and laid down on the back porch for an hour. Around 4:30 I peered over the fence and saw the purple PT Cruiser that belongs to Nick Ruscoe driving down my street. "I'm saved! Hooray!" I thought. We drove over to the movie theater to see what was playing (nothing) and then drove over to the new PETCO. Nick got crickets for his lizards and I thought about getting some fish, but then realized that was a dumb idea. Around 5:30 I was finally able to get into my house. I grabbed a quick shower and then Nick and I decided to meet Jordan for some Chinese take-out at his place. Keep in mind, I have not had ANY food since 6PM the previous night. After picking up some liquid refreshments we made our way to Jordan's house and waited another 20 minutes for his wife to get home so she could join us for the meal. Here's where it all goes to hell.... Nick says "do we want to have an adventure tonight?" Instead of getting the delicious take-out, renting a movie, and having an enjoyable evening as we had planned...... we argue for the next HOUR about what restaurant we will take our adventure to. After screaming approximately 16,000 swear words, I start to realize that I'm extremely hungry and my stomach is starting to make noises that resemble paper when it's being shredded. We get into Jordan's car and continue to argue and swear at each other. Jordan drives us around for another hour and a half. We drove to the doorstep of perfectly acceptable restaurants, and as I pleaded that we just go in and eat anything, Nick and Jordan mention restaurants at the other end of the state and we drive to the next place. Over and over. Lather, rinse, kill yourself. I'm so hungry, that if I opened my mouth you could actually hear orphans crying from my stomach.

At this point I just started hitting people, and as the insanity started to set in, someone mentioned a buffet. Everyone had pretty much had enough at this point because it was 9:30 and places were going to start closing, so I decided to throw up the game-breaker.... We had misbehaved and it was time for a "punishment dinner". Historians estimate that most punishment dinners took place in the early 2000's in establishments such as Old Country Buffet or Peking Buffet. No one is brave enough to oppose this long-standing tradition, so SOMEHOW we all agree to go to Palace Buffet. What a waste. Of all the hundreds of places we could have gone, we pick the equivalent of a culinary holocaust. This is supposed to be a Chinese buffet. There was no white rice! Walking up to the first two tables, I see chicken nuggets, fries, pizza, mozzarella sticks, fried chicken wings. fried shrimp, BBQ ribs, and garlic bread. You might think, "gee, well maybe they have a lot of variety there!" but that would make you a moron. That is HALF of the buffet. The remaining "Chinese" food is awful. Allow me take you through a quick exchange we had over the meal:

Question: How are the crab legs Jordan?

Reply: That one tasted like Ham.

I'm not too familiar with the North African Coastal Ham Crab, but I'm pretty sure it has no place at our table. And the worst part is that midway through this disaster we find out Kelsey hates buffet style restaurants. She was just kind enough to go through the motions because we had finally agreed on a place. She is a saint.

"So what did we learn today?", I asked myself as I laid in bed last night. I learned that my stomach was more upset after eating that garbage, than when it was tearing itself apart. I learned that punishment dinners are an important part of our history, but perhaps it's time we gave up this tradition. I learned that there hasn't been a good Chinese buffet since 2002. I learned that it's time to stop punishing myself and start punishing others. I think the collars will be a good start. But the most important lesson learned? I will never lock myself outside of my house again.