Friday, August 29, 2008

Dispatches From America's Wang: The Vomitus Vietnamitus Edition

Because you asked for it (alright, technically, you didn’t ask for it, but Rickey’s inspiration tank is running precipitously low today) here’s the second installation of “Dispatches from America’s Wang” And yes, while recounting the stories of others is extremely lazy blogging, we’d be absolutely remiss in not discussing some of Young Henderson’s more entertaining tales from the wayward state of Florida. Rickey’s younger brother is a great many things: a comedian, a tinkerer, a go-getter, but for the purpose of today’s post, we’ll be focusing on his uncanny knack for causing mayhem and disaster. A man with the anti-Midas touch, if you will. Today, Young Henderson writes in to recount the story of his bold, daring, and ultimately tragic attempt to prepare Vietnamese cuisine. Take it away, Aesop:

“So on a random Sunday night I made Vietnamese food for dinner from all this Vietnamese food that my parents bought me when they visited Orlando.”
[Editor’s Note #1: This is the first fatal flaw in Young Henderson’s plan: he totally overreached. Last time Rickey checked, the guy considered the preparation of dishes like tuna melts and breakfast burritos to be feats of culinary prowess. And now he’s trying to cook pho? Yeah, good luck with this one, Kid Icarus.]
“So I make some beef and noodle dish, and sure enough I pretty much food poison myself and felt like crap the next day. I had a serious case of the runs ALL day during work. It got so bad, that I had to leave work early and seek the sanctuary that is my home’s bathroom.”
[Editor’s Note #2: Excellent call on returning home to base. Rickey doesn’t care how nice one’s office bathroom is or how badly one has to go, the fact remains: one absolutely must return home to base in a drastic situation like this. Take heed, Young Henderson, even the proudest of men one day find themselves bowing down before the porcelain throne.]
“So I went home early to recover, slept for an hour, and then hopped in my car to meet up with some classmates from school (we often study as a group). I’m driving along the road when I realize that the car’s empty on gas. So I stop for gas and pull into the station behind a beat up compact car. The thing is, this guy’s car is kinda taking up two pump spots. It’s a weird situation. I wait for five minutes or so, but then get impatient. So I maneuver my car around his and arrange it so that my car can get gas and his cannot. I figure this isn’t a big deal and that the car belongs to someone that won’t mind. But just as I start filling my car up, the dude comes out and starts giving me a hard time about stealing the pump. I apologize and offer to move my car. But this apparently isn’t enough for the guy and he proceeds to lecture me that he parked in front of the pump and is entitled to stay there as long as he wants. And so I get into a passive aggressive argument with him, during which my nerves get riled up.”
[Editor’s Note #3: The Henderson boys are not fighters. When approached by jabbering lunatics furious about having their spots at the gas pump stolen, we tend to freeze up and hope for the best. True story: Rickey was riding the Metro North out of Grand Central two weekends ago when a drunken lunatic broke a glass bottle of Snapple on the floor near Rickey. Rickey foolishly decided to mouth off to the guy (Rickey was fairly drunk too) and a full fledged confrontation occurred consisting of Rickey passively aggressively listening to the guy threaten him while simultaneously waiting for the police officer on the train to intervene (which he thankfully did). Now, you may feel that there’s not use crying over spilt Mango Madness, but frankly, Rickey disagrees--he just won’t back it up or anything. Bottom line: The Henderson boys talk a big game, but aren’t especially fond of physical altercations. Anyhow, back to the story…]
“And I feel myself getting even sicker than I was earlier in the day. All of a sudden the feeling becomes uncontrollable and I vomit two gallons of Vietnamese food in a light green mess right between me and the guy. The puke was coming out of my nose and it stung and I got it on my shoes. It was horrible. The guy says in a southern accent "boy, what the fuck is wrong with you!?" and gets in his car and drives away. So I got to use the pump. Moral of the story: Vietnamese food has super powers and can get you out of a jam.”
[Editor’s Note #4: Honestly, we’re thinking that this vomiting approach to conflict resolution could work well in a variety of tense situations. With one simple act, you go from being a target of someone’s anger to a leper that they cannot get away from quickly enough. It’s the ultimate buffer. The best way to diffuse an altercation. Sure, Young Henderson could’ve dropped his pants and pooped on the ground to drive away his harasser, but that would’ve been more alarming than anything else and he would’ve run the risk of incarceration or at the very least, a citation of some sort. No, the vomiting strategy is absolutely the way to go if you’re a misanthrope like Rickey who just wants a quick and easy resolution to a difficult situation. We’re totally trying this when Rickey gets pulled over for a speeding ticket, whenever someone cuts him in line at the bank, or the next time Young Henderson offers to cook him a meal.]

And this concludes this week's thrilling installation. Our hearty apologies* to Young Henderson, who stated that Rickey's copious editorial notation "overpowers the original story and is like if a football announcer were to mute the actual sounds of a football game and just talk about it." Yeah, Rickey's bad dude... but it needed additional flavor. A few more dashes of spices from the Orient, if you will.

[It's all bile and gastric secretions over at Humor Blogs. Go there and vote for Rickey's posts.]

*Apology null & void schmohawk. Rickey's not even remotely sorry. Don't make Rickey fly down there and administer a beating. How's that model railroad set working out for you?

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4 comments:

weesle909 said...

I've seen Rickey's often humorous comments on other blogs, but somehow only came here for the first time yesterday. How is that possible?

And why do I feel oddly compelled to refer to Rickey in the third person?

Rickey said...

...because it's totally contagious? Welcome aboard, we'll have you talking solely in the third person plural in no time at all.

HC said...

Eureka! Your high tech blog shenanigans have stopped crashing my computer. Well done, man.

Mini-Rickey sure has some unusual notions of self defense...

Rickey said...

Hm, it works now? Rickey hadn't even done anything. Weird. Rickey has long believed that this blog is haunted by a dibbuk...