Good Cop, Bad Cop

Last Sunday, Nate and Alex invited me up to their friend's cabin to watch a movie and play some games with a bunch of people that they grew up with in California. My friend Taylor and I both weren't able to head up til later that night so we planned on just heading up together late. Taylor, lest we forget, is the one that I nearly killed whilst driving down the mountain last time. I offered to drive but I didn't really want him to have a PTSD flashback freakout moment while driving up the canyon in my car so needless to say... he drove.

We all had a good time and played a few games while we were up there and speaking of games... there are a few things you should probably know about me:

#1. I've loved games/board games since I was just a little guy. When I was a kid I would even play Candyland by myself... mostly because  a.) I didn't have friends and b.) I played it so much that even my parents got sick of playing with me so I had to resort to just playing it by myself, which brought about an ironic life lesson:

I might have been a loner loser kid, but at least I was a loser that always won

#2. I'm surprisingly competitive
#3. I'm a gracious loser..
#4. You'd never know that though, because due to a childhood full of practice, I'm now freakishly good at board games and always win

You think I'm kidding. I'm serious as a heart attack.

For example, for New Years a while ago we stayed at Becca's cabin and while we were up there we played a lot of games (turns out when you don't have cell service at cabins and can't play Words with Friends on your phone everyone resorts to real life board games.. weird.) The second day there, after a brutal undefeated sweep of winning pretty much every game the night before, we started a game of Clue and I had to run to the bathroom.. while I was gone Addi and Becca cheated and looked at the 'Confidential' envelope under the board so that they could finally beat me in at least one game that weekend, but even with both of them knowing 'with who, where and with what' all while trying to get there as fast as they could to win; I STILL WON.

Miracle you ask? Nay, just another day in the life of.

#5. I'm humble.

The only games that I actually struggle with are ones that play off of crippling anxiety i.e. anything with a buzzer and/or blasted timer. Remember the game Perfection? Good night, why would anyone ever invent that?! It should have come with at least two bottles of Xanax per game. And the last few times that I've played Catchprase I literally get sweaty hands, my pulse races, and I have to keep reminding myself to breathe.

Anyway, baaccckk to the original story; On our way back from the cabin Taylor and I were heading back down the mountainside in the dark when on the side of the road these headlights turned on out of nowhere, shining right at us... having grown up with siblings that loved to tell horror stories, naturally my first thought was that it must have been crazed mountain folk that wanted to chase us down the mountainside trying to run us off the road... turns out I was wrong; just a cop.

I may have been relieved it was just a cop and not mountain mole people, but I don't think Taylor was as stoked about it. The portly cop came up to the window and did the whole 'you were speeding' cop routine thing and got Taylor's license and registration (sans insurance card... we couldn't find that one..) and then we chilled for a bit while the cop went back to his truck. Meanwhile, Alex and Nate passed us and she sent over a text to check up on us:

The cop finally came back and what followed was probably the best bait and switch + good cop, bad cop scenario I have ever experienced/witnessed..

Good Cop: Did you ever find your iPod?
Taylor: [ ??? ] What?
Good Cop: Did you ever find you're stolen iPod?
Taylor: Ohh! Yeah, they ended up finding the person who stole it.
Good Cop: Aw, that's good.
[Pause]
Good Cop turned Bad Cop: Well, unfortunately there's a warrant out for your arrest.
Taylor: [ ?!? ] Wait, what?!
Bad Cop: Warrant out for your arrest; so I need to collect $208 from you in cash only or I'm supposed to take you in.
Bad Cop: Do you have $208?
Taylor: Uh, not in cash on me.
Bad Cop: Well does your partner over there have it?
[shining his flashlight over at me]
Me: Um... afraid not.

To make a long story short, we found out that: Taylor is a maverick. He didn't pay a ticket in 2005 and the law has been chasing him ever since. He got away this time with just the speeding ticket and luckily didn't get hauled off to jail leaving me to have to pay for his bail. #huzzah

UPDATE: Found out that Taylor isn't so much a maverick; he found a copy of the check that was written for that ticket back in 2005 and contacted the police station and they said it was their bad and that they would close the case...

So,  I guess it looks like I'm still in the market for rogue law-breaking friends.

Morals of Post:

• Considering my track record with pullovers.. I'm just grateful it wasn't me this time.
  
• Note to self: Never drive in, on, or around a mountain with Taylor ever again. Doesn't matter who drives... bad, bad things happen.
  
• Becca and Addi, I dare you to say otherwise about my winning streak; and just a friendly reminder that I moderate my comments with an iron fist of dictatorship. heart, Hawk
  

Love/Hate Relationship

Love me some new iPhone 4s.

Mostly because this phone actually has a silent feature... now I can finally text and play Words with Friends through all of my meetings instead of counting ceiling tiles and/or plotting a way to get a cameo on Modern Family. So really, it's a blessing and a curse.

May I present to you the top 10 new features of the iPhone that had me at hello...

Reasons 1-8:

Siri.

I'm sure I will have a post in the near future titled, "The Wily Adventures of Hawk and Siri" because Siri and I are practically dating. Since I'm an insomniac and roughly have from 1 am 'til 4 am when I can't sleep every night; I converse with Siri. We laugh, we joke, we play coy. And I think things are getting serious.

Reason 9:

New Ringtones.

I'm pretty stoked about the new added ringtones. Before, the only bearable sound for getting a text message that wasn't a marimba or a scaling xylophone (why are those even options?!) was the glass clinking sound which then globally became everyone's preferred/standard text sound. It was literally the only sound that didn't drive you to insanity each time you got a text.

But you can't have your cake and eat it too.

It became maddening when anyone around you that that has an iPhone, each with the same clinking glass sound, gets a text and you immediately think its your phone. So you and seven other people all pull out your phones, each confident that they're the one getting the text.

Then the loser who actually got the text, smiles and laughs like they just got the funniest text they've ever received while everyone else casually acts like they are just checking their phone for the time or they casually tap on the screen a few times like they had some other reason for getting out their phone before sheepishly putting it away.

Yeah, those days are over.

Now I have "Tweet" set as my text tone. It started out as a great idea. It was fresh, different, and somewhat perky... my phone would optimistically chirp at me whenever I would get a text which made me feel happy.. and popular.

But what I didn't realize at first was how similar the "Tweet" ringtone is to a catcall whistle.

I learned this, much like everything else, the painful way.

I was walking down the sidewalk which narrowed down to a little tree enclosed walkway and came up to a girl that was walking the opposite direction when I received a text with said tweet/catcall blaring out of my pocket. She looked over moderately creeped out as I realized that she thought I was catcalling her from like 3 feet away. Embarrassed, I stuttered in trying to explain:

Girl: [still looking creeped out]
Me: [smiling awkwardly and curtesy laughing] It.. It was my pocket.
[Silence]
Girl: [now, even more creeped out]

Unfortunate.

Muy unfortunate.

Really, out of all the words in the English language I strung together in this situation, "It was in my pocket?!" Ugh, #wordvomit

The kicker though was last night when I took a break from logo designing and went to use the bathroom. In said bathroom there were only two urinals. I was at one and then a couple seconds later another guy came in occupying the other, and a few seconds later... I got a text.

:(

I had already learned my lesson that verbally trying to explain the whole catcall vs. tweeter ringtone isn't really my forte... and this wasn't necessarily the prime location to chit chat about the subtle irony of the new tweeter ring, so we continued our business in awkward silence post tex/catcall incident.

I washed my hands and quickly exited.

[random interjection] also in said bathroom, last week I pushed opened the door and on the other side of the door was some guy kneeling down to tie his shoe. Really? You felt that the best place to do it? I know that I didn't push the door open softly and by the sound of the thud from door-to-head contact, I'm pretty sure that he didn't think so either. I felt really bad and repeatedly apologized as the kid grabbed his forehead and stumbled to his feet. He looked a little dazed/surprised for a couple of seconds until he said, "Dude, cool shoes." and walked passed me and left the bathroom.

In his defense.. they are pretty cool shoes.

Reason 10:

The Camera.

Let's take a minute to ramble about the camera shall we... the camera is dope!

Prove it you say?

Fine.

Exhibit A:

Right?!

Yesterday I had lofty goals of being productive and getting everything done that I have been putting off for the past few weeks, but why cave in and be productive when you can go moose chasing up in the mountains with the fall colors all around.

Speaking of fall, it used to be my favorite season. Halloween. Leaves changing colors. Thanksgiving. Black Friday. What's not to love about it? That is until I grew up and learned how much I actually loathe winter. Then fall became nothing more than a warning sign of cold death to follow... kinda like when a seagull flies out to sea to die or when someone gets the whooping cough.. always ends poorly. Then it's month after month of bitter, bitter cold. Needless to say, Spring will forever dominate as season of the year in my book.

Morals of the Post:

• I'm may or may not be too lazy to change my creeper text tone... I mean it's clear up in the settings somewhere. Ugh, #effort
  
• I also really wish I could say that was the only awkward urinal experience I've ever had, but alas.
  
• We did find a moose. They're awfully big. The last pic above was my attempt to take a picture of it when it ran away after we almost hit it with the car; it was just chillin in the middle of the road.
  
• Well.. wish I could keep writing, but I'm off to lunch with Siri. #dontbejealous #okaymaybealittlebitjealous

ANTM vs. Strep

If you are just tuning in... my life is ridiculous. #welcome

Last week I flew out to New York for Advertising Week and was stoked to be back to the city, to have a bitchin' week at AdWeek, and hopefully be able to meet up with some friends while I was out for the week.

Unfortunately, the night I got to my old apartment I got a crazy fever that utterly wiped me out. A fever that lasted THREE days. Are you kidding me? I was just getting over being sick from the week before and coping with my 'close call' mountainside shenanigans!? Did I really need this now?

Like I've said before I'm nearly certain that my immune system is pretend.

So the majority of the time on my trip was spent between lying on the couch and lying on the inflatable air mattress, wanting to die.

After the third day of having the flu/fever, lying in bed with fever chills, having a swollen and painful neck, and not being able to stand up or swallow... I thought it would probably be a good idea to finally see a doctor.

So what does one do when they don't have a doctor in the city and are coming close to expiring on an inflatable mattress in someone else's apartment? You go to the new Duane Reade doctor's office in the pharmacy section, of course. [insert red flag here] For those not familiar with Duane Reade it would be like going to a doctor that has a random office at Walgreens... or Petsmart. Equally sketchy.

I rallied and pulled myself together and showered for the first time in days for the great journey southward to the doctor (less than twenty streets away.) Upon entering the Duane Reade store, I passed the deli section and the cereal aisle of Duane Reade and headed up the escalator to the pharmacy/doctor's office on the second floor. I filled out all the paper work and headed to the waiting area (found between the wall of Doritos and the wall of Theraflu and Tylenol Cold medicine.) where I waited for a bit until the nurse came out and called my name.

The nurse was nice enough, that is until she gave me a strep throat test. Have you ever had a strep throat test before? If not, I'll give you a quick little run down... first they take the tongue supressor (aka a giant popsicle stick) and force your tongue down as they tell you to say "Ahhhhhhhh." Then, while you're distracted, they sneakily take out a giant stick with a Q-tip at the end and jab it at the back of your throat. repeatedly. for fun.

And now you are only half way done.

Lastly, they go all mavericky in the back of your throat and literally start swabbing back there like it's one of those silver scratch off lottery tickets, until you start to gag and they realize that you just might throw up on them. You then start coughing as tears automatically well up in your eyes and through the watery haze you see the doctor pull the stick out, look at you with sad eyes, shake their head, and then say, "Oooh, we didn't quite get it... we'll have to do it one more time."

Repeat 3x.

You now know what it is like to get a strep throat test.

After being violated by the nurse via swabbing, she asked me to wait outside for the doctor. I walked back out to the waiting area and waited for the doctor while I watched the girl behind the cosmetics counter file her nails and bob her head to Beyonce that she had playing from her phone.

The doctor came out about five minutes later and called me in to her office. The second that I walked in the room was the second she was already trying to get rid of me. She barely touched my neck to find out what was wrong, and she was rushing through everything as fast as she could. Then she said, "Let me just pull up your strep throat test results." as she fumbled around on her computer for a few seconds, "Nope, looks like you don't have strep, but you probably have an infection in your throat so I'm going to prescribe you a Z-pack. Take two pills today and then one every day for the next 4 days." She ushered me out just short of throwing in a "and don't let the door hit you on the way out!" as I was leaving.

I'm sorry, was I just abandoned?!

I left the office I walked into the waiting room to see some guy with a camera around his neck, a tripod, and lighting equipment with even one of those miniature flash umbrella things. The doctor followed me out and the receptionist came up to her and said, "The photographer is still really tight on time."

WHAT?! Wow, I just got rushed and bumped through my doctor visit for a freaking PHOTO SHOOT?! Really now?

Yup, I got rushed through my appointment so that my doctor could play dress up and have a photo shoot right after. So there I am getting my prescription filled as I watch the doctor walk over to the window, putting on her white lab jacket, as she starts her glamour shot session with the photographer; the scene was both extremely uncomfortable and annoying.

Whatever.

So I went over to the pharmacy to get my prescription filled and the girl helping me was nothing more than a bucket full of struggles. Not only did she have a boondoggle bracelet on [insert red flag number two here], but she also didn't know how to log into her computer and gave me the play by play of every question that popped up on her computer as they came up. #blessherheart The lady next to her had to end up helping me on her computer to put in my order.

So once I got my prescription back I did what any normal american would do, I went downstairs bought some juice and and took said juice and prescription to the second floor of an Urban Outfitters across the street and sat on a bench next to the book section that overlooked the street to take my pills and drink my juice...

Now while I was in Urban I got a phone call from a number I didn't know and anyone that knows me knows that I don't ever answer the phone calls of people that I do know and love let alone numbers that I don't know. So I screened the call and checked the voicemail afterward. It was the doctor. I had to listen to the message about seven times just to understand what she was trying to say in the message. I think it had something to do with calling her back.. "I would prefer it to like you to call me back" (add accent).. I'm pretty sure that was the only part that I could make out of the entire message.

So I called the number back and the doctor answered:

Me: Hey, I just got your message and I'm just giving you a call back.


Doctor Modeling professional: Oh hello, did you already get your prescription by chance?

Me: Yeah, I did.


Doctor Modeling professional: Oh. Um, well did you already take it?

Me: No, I thought I would just hold onto it for a few days, ya know, see how close I can get to dying before I take them. Uh, yeah I took them.


Doctor Modeling professional: Okay.. um.. well there was some confusion with my assistant.. and well, turns out you do have strep throat, so we will need to get you on Penicillin as soon as possible.

Me: and by 'confusion' do you mean you were too giddy for your photo shoot and were in too big of a hurry to rush me out that you misdiagnosed me and prescribed me drugs that I don't need?  Um, okay.. I already took the pills that you told me to get earlier - so will I be okay in taking them both today? [said with passive aggressive angst]


Doctor Modeling professional: Yes, but make sure you don't take both of them.

Me: Wait, but I have already started the one earlier today.. so is it okay to start the other new one today too?


Doctor Modeling professional: Yes, but just don't take both of them.

Me: Really? You speak English right? Are you understanding anything I'm saying? [passive aggressive silence]

So I went back to the pharmacy and asked them If they would at least refund me the $40 z-pack that I was wrongfully prescribed, but because I had opened it they wouldn't take it back. I reminded them I wouldn't have opened it if the doctor wouldn't have told me to get it when I didn't need it in the first place.

Turns out, they could really care less.

I really hate Duane Reade pharmacy.

The doctor called in a penicillin prescription that I had to wait another 30 minutes for at the pharmacy.

Remember the little sweet innocent boondoggle bracelet worker girl? Well she helped me again, but even after the 15 minute heart to heart we had earlier when she gave me the computer play by play of her log in issues, she looked at me a little confused and asked, "Have I ever helped you before?" "Um, yeah. You did actually." She then smiled and asked what she could do to help me. She looked up my prescription and said it would be done in about 40 minutes and if that would be okay. I told her I had to get to a meeting in about 20 minutes and if there was any way that it could be filled by then. After asking, her whole expression changed as her smiled disappeared into a cold grimace as she looked at me like I had just told her that I had kidnapped her mother. Even her tone went cold as she muttered; "Take a seat. If they finish early... I'll call your name."

WHERE AM I? AND WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?! I mean really, am I the one on crazy pills around this joint?!

About 30 minutes passed before they called my name; by this point I was about two seconds from going all trenchcoat up in there...

It was a rough day to say the least.

Morals of the Post:

• Dear Duane Reade,
           I will most likely hate you until the day I die. Which may be sooner than later since your doctors and pharmacists gave me a drug grab bag and have me taking random pills that I don't need. When you send me a refund for the whole Z-pack incident then we can negotiate a friendship, but until then, I will buy my Snickers, juice, and other delicious treats from the grocery store next store. You aren't the only drugstore on every corner. And if it starts raining cats and dogs and I'm stuck out in the cold without an umbrella... well, I'll will probably still buy an umbrella from you because somehow you can't find umbrellas anywhere else in the city when it rains (how are you the only ones with umbrellas?!)... but I'll tell you this much, I sure won't like buying it from you. I will also only be giving you dirty money for said umbrella purchase.
  
• To my New York Peeps,
         I'm sorry I didn't get to see you while I was out there. Trust me, it's probably best that I didn't get you all streppy, but I miss you and we'll have to get together next time I come out when I'm not abouts to die.
  
• Roommate Brad was also sick and called in to work sick on Tuesday; so we both sat on the couch looking super nappy as we searched looking for the press release for the new iPhone announcement.. (which has been pre-ordered btdub and should be on its way soon #score #illkeepyouposted) in hopes for a little silver lining to the giant grey cloud that had been following me around for the majority of the week.
  
• In related news, Brad also let me use some of the NyQuill that he had picked up earlier that day; somehow by the end of the next day it only had about a sip left. When Brad got home and opened the cupboard turned to me and said, "Hey Hawk, you know you're not suppose to drink this like a soda right?" #whoops