One Charmed Motherfucker

She Sets 'Em Up, I Knocks 'Em Down.

My aunt tried to set me up with a girl during our Fun, Old-Fashioned Family Fireworks Extravaganza. I have yet to figure out why people so frequently try to set me up on dates. It's a futile endeavor from the get-go, mostly because I'm the kind of guy who enjoys the thrill of the chase. But aside from that, I don't necessarily need some girl I just met running back to our mutual friend and telling them that I get hard while watching The Gilmore Girls, or that I came in her mouth without any verbal warning. My friends and family don't need to know these things about me. These are secrets that I save for you, the Internet. (Shhhh!)

The pitch always starts the same: "I work with a girl that I think you would really hit it off with." No, you don't. You work with a girl that Tivos Dr. Phil. Unless this girl you work with is an agnostic bisexual nymphomaniac lingerie model, we can end this conversation right now.

The problem with a set-up is that the two people having their futures arranged are seldom "matches." And I can see how that could easily happen, because why would anyone waste a third-party endorsement on someone they could bag on their own? As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to set me up, don't bother setting me up with the really sweet, shy, 350-pound mother of three. I have no problem attracting those gals. Use the set-up to my advantage. Talk me up to the smoking hot bartender with the Betty Paige tattoos. Tell your tanned, toned personal trainer about your oh-so-charming nephew who just happens to be single this week. "What's that? Your wealthy husband just died and left you enough money to buy a small island and bigger boobs? How awful for you. You should meet my cousin - he's a great listener." The downfall of the arrangement is that if you're being bumped up to First-Class, the company you keep will still consider you steerage.

To further sabotage the set-up, people often TELL ME that they're going to try to set me up with someone. This will bite you in the ass every. single. time. If you really want your set-up to work, don't say a word. Just peddle your friend's flesh before my eyes and if she gets my motor running, believe me, we'll go a few laps. But broadcasting that I'm about to be introduced to someone because you think we'll be a cute couple is the single best way for me to loathe your friend and even resent you just a little bit. First of all, it implies that you think I need your help. Need I remind you that I am One Charmed Motherfucker, and fresh, moist pussy flows freely from a spigot above my bed? Secondly, it means that if this woman has a trait, mannerism or physical quality that offends me, then you obviously see that same characteristic in me. "She has buck teeth so you must think I have buck teeth. Gads, what our children would look like!" And finally, if I'm aware that you're expecting me to fall in love with your friend, then not only do I have to reject HER, but I have to reject YOU as well. "Yes, she was very sweet and her toddler was adorable. But do you realize that right now I could be in a room full of mattresses videotaping the Sigma Kappa Bikini Team sharing a strap-on and a bottle of Redi-Whip? What the fuck were you thinking?"

This isn't to say that if you did happen to set me up with a modern-day goddess that you'd achieve a successful match. When I lived in Texas, my roommate thought that one of her co-workers and I would hit it off over our love of music. We exchanged a few e-mails and I found her to be funny, intelligent and articulate. And yeah, we both liked music and concerts a lot. I enjoyed her e-mails immensely, but funny and intelligent in cyberspace can physically translate in real-life into a drab little bookworm in an apartment full of cats. She had already seen a picture of me, courtesy of my roommate, but I was going into this date completely blind.

"So, is she hot," I asked my roomate.

(shrugs) "Meh...yeah, I guess she's hot."

"How hot?"

"I dunno. She's, umm...pretty hot?"

"Do you have a picture of her?"

"What do you need a picture of her for?"

"Great, she's a bookworm. With cats."

I went to this girl's apartment expecting to find Velma the Frump-Girl, and opened the door instead to find one of the single hottest women I've ever encountered. Physically fit with flawless, olive skin and long, straight, black hair, she was wearing a red top that barely concealed the most perfect breasts I've ever pretended not to notice. She was still getting ready for our date, and her stereo was playing some incredible band that I'd never heard before or since. Her entire apartment was decorated for sex, with expensive candles everywhere and giant posters of naked women hanging above her satin sheets. And the come-fuck-me shoes she was strapping onto her feet were a clear sign that there was only one thing in her world with a feline descriptor, and if I called to her nicely, I'd be petting her pussy before the night was over.

I was...grossly...under-prepared for that.

"Hi, I'm One Drab Little Motherfucker, and these little guys are my hideous love handles. I think I'm supposed to be in Steerage. Can you just point to where that is, and I'll be on my way? Thank you."

I was so stunned by her entire package that I couldn't form a complete sentence the entire evening. I was goofy and awkward and totally off my game. All the while she's telling me how her military father HATES artsy guys, so fucking a designer/drummer like me would definitely piss him right the fuck off, so why don't we go to my car and get naked right now? But I didn't hear any of that. All I heard was my roommate saying "Yeah, I guess she's hot. She's kind of hot. I think she's sort'a hot." A girl like this does not merit any hemming and hawing about her hotness, okay? She's FUCKING HOT! And why didn't you tell me she was so fucking hot!? Jesus!

I was so uncomfortable in my own skin that when the date was over, I dropped her off at her spanish villa apartment and sped out of the parking lot during our goodbyes. Her fingers were still loosely grasping the car door when I punched the accelerator and hauled ass outta there. I didn't even stick around to see if she made it through the barrio to her front door alive. There was no time - I had to race home, take a cold shower, bitch-slap my roommate, and begin an intense regimen of stomach crunches and squat-thrusts.

A Fun Old-Fashioned Family Fireworks Extravaganza

Just as I live 364 days a year to see Christmas morning, my little brother tolerates the rest of the calendar just to blow shit up on the 4th of July. He's been a card-carrying pyromaniac since he was a latchkey kid, left home alone to explore all the possible consequences of pairing an open flame with an aerosol can. He then parlayed that into having firework fights with his friends, shooting roman candles and bottle rockets at each other, citing as his safety precaution "always wearing long-pants instead of shorts." I guess that way instead of singeing the hair on his legs, he has twice as much flammable material covering his lower extremities than his targets. You'd think being hit in they eye with a roman candle at the age of 8 would have cured him of any pyromania, but the opposite is true. It only served to teach him that fireworks are harmless noiosemakers, and the worst that could happen is that you'd lose an eyelash or two and smell like a charburger without cheese.

Normally an intelligent man, at dusk on July 4th my brother transmogrifies into a blithering idiot, bouncing off the walls and drooling with a lit punk in one hand and his teeny little hardon in the other. He has a seven-year-old son who is growing up to believe that the safest place to put your face when lighting an explosive cannon is RIGHT OVER THE BARREL. And lighting firecrackers from your hands is harmless. Holding roman candles while they spit tiny balls of fire into the air? WAY safer than securing them between concrete blocks. In fact, I'm pretty sure that my brother and his friends directed, produced and starred in this video.

Over the years I've become more and more edgy around the 4th of July, but this year I was actually able to ease up a bit and enjoy myself. I think the difference was that I didn't actually light any fireworks this year. Usually when I light fireworks, my brother is behind me, setting off illegal out-of-state fireworks in a bone-dry hayfield. This year I learned that giant explosions aren't nearly as nerve-wracking if you don't already have a firecracker in your hands. I also learned that this is truly my brother's holiday, and the best way to enjoy it is to watch him enjoy it. Beacause he's not going to let a little thing like "common sense" or "city ordinances" spoil his good time. So I won't let him spoil mine. Kaboom.