Time Well Spent!

I have fallen off the radar for a bit.  My apologies to all nine of you.  I think you'll agree though that it was time well spent:

Also if you've never see this before, you're truly missing out.

Reading that comic is like getting a rare glimpse into my everyday life.  And if like me you think that the traditional Garfield comic has gotten painfully unfunny over the years, you should also give this a try.  You're welcome.

Which leads me to another reason for blog neglect besides wasting time on the internet: Unexpected Sudden Social Life, or USSL as it's often referred to.  Symptoms include a week or so of doing nothing, followed by BAM-everyone-wants-a-piece-of-you!  Planning to go away for a couple of days?  That's usually when the USSL hits.  Pretty soon you'll be getting asked to parties, sporting events, and trips to the moon, all of which just happen to be taking place on those two particular days.

Things seem to have settled down somewhat now so I should be hitting the blogosphere on a semi-regular basis once more, ever ready to entertain.

Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend

Despite having enjoyed many good times together, we both knew that they couldn't last.  Still, I secretly wished we could've found a way to be together forever.  However I reluctantly came to accept that there really wasn't any alternative.

Thus, with a heavy heart, I walked up to another friend of mine who was particularly eager to see this relationship end.  I knew that she would want nothing more than for things to go back to the way there were before.  I could not end this alone and was certain that she would provide the needed help to break free.

Me:  "So you know that friend I have that you keep begging me to get rid of?"

Friend:  "Yes!"

Me:  "Well... I've decided that the day to do so has finally come."

Friend:  "YES!"

Me:  "I remembered how you said you always wanted to be there when that day came."

Friend:  "Yes!"

Me:  "So... can you help me?"

Friend:  "I sure can.  When do we get rid of it?"

Me:  "I was thinking of shaving off my mustache in about a week from now."

Friend:  "I'm so there!"

Yes, the time had finally come to shave off my mustache.  I had grown my new friend about halfway into my 9 week Mexico trip.  It was the first time I had ever truly grown one and I was quite pleased with the results.  I got many compliments upon returning to Canada, including one I won't soon forget.

"I'm not hitting on you or anything Rick, but man I have to say you look fantastic with that mustache!" --Male coworker

However we all know that for every supporter there's bound to be a hater as well.  I had a few, including the friend to whom I was now turning for assistance.  I had also been thinking of cutting my hair around the same time so as to transform my look completely.  I had considered going to a barber at first, but I made the mistake of having the following conversation:

Me: "I'm also thinking of getting a haircut at the same time.  Do you cut hair at all?"

Friend:  "Of course.  I cut people's hair all the time."

Me:  "Are you sure?"

Friend:  "Absolutely!  I have all the stuff for it."

Me (Trustingly):  "Oh cool... okay bring your stuff and we'll do it up."

The day came and we got ready.  We took a few before shots.

(I look so calm, cool, and collected)

The Barber and I.

Enjoying my last few moments with my mustache to the full.

The closest approximation I could find to one of those barber capes were my shower curtains.  So I tied them around me, sat down on a chair in my kitchen, and prepared for the worst.

Things started off well enough.  My friend began buzzing the sides of my hair and trimming some of the unruly bits that the buzzer missed.  Another friend who was also there stopped us every so often to take pictures along the way.

In retrospect I probably should have had a mirror at the ready, as these photos clearly demonstrate.  My slow descent down the rabbit hole though had only begun.

*My friends, laughing*

Me (becoming slightly alarmed):  "What's so funny guys?"

Friend:  "Oh um, nothing... nothing at all."

Me:  "There's obviously something going on, what's up?"

Friend:  "Nothing, don't worry about it.  I can fix it."

Me:  "Fix it?  Fix what??"

Friend:  "Relax I know what I'm doing."

So I sat back and tried to calm down a little.  I was growing more and more nervous by the minute, but I trusted my friends to do the right thing.  How misplaced that trust was.

*Buzzing sounds*

Me:  "So... how's it going up there."

Friend:  "Um... fine?"

Me:  "Are you asking me or telling me?"

Friend:  "No no it's going great, trust me."

Me:  "You know you keep saying that but so far you've given me no basis for such faith."

Other Friend:  "Uh guys?  I think I can see a bald spot."

Me:  "A bald spot!  What are you talking about??"

Friend:  "I can fix it relax."

Me:  "Relax?  How can I relax when I'm being shaved bald by own friends???

Other Friend:  "What do I have to do with this?"

Me:  "You're allowing it to happen!"

At this point, the situation was looking pretty grim.

Finally I decided I had enough!  The time had come to take matters into my own hands.  Friend tried to stop me but I ended up throwing a hair filled towel at her to stun her as I made my escape.

Me:  "Eat barber hair and fury!"

Friend:  "AAACK!" *spitting* "I can taste your hair, it's all in my mouth!  THBT THBT THBT" (Spitting noises)

Me:  "Bwa ha ha haaaaa!"

Revenge is sweet.

Me after escaping to my bathroom.

Unfortunately though it turned out that I was just as useless at cutting hair as my friend was.  Finally the cameraman, aka. Other Friend spoke up.

Other Friend:  "Rick... sit back down and I'll finish cutting your hair."

Rick:  "How do I know I can trust you not to screw things up further?"

Other Friend:  "Well I can't do any worse than she did."

For some reason this seemed to make logical sense at the time.  I sat down and allowed Other Friend to work his magic.

My other friend actually managed to fix the mess caused by my initial friend.

In the end I had lost far more hair than I had initially hoped to.  But I knew that my hair grows quicker than mold in my basement apartment.  Also, not bald!  I decided to count my blessings.

I had survived the blade, vanquished the Barber, and came out relatively unscathed.  My Herculean-style labours however were not quite over.

Friend:  "Ok we're finally ready to shave the stache."

Me:  "I think you lost that privilege when you nearly shaved my head!"

Friend:  "No no this is simple.  This time if I shave it all off it's ok."

Me:  "What if you take my upper lip with it in the process?"

Friend:  "Well then you'll be glad you grew a mustache while you had the chance."

Me:  "I think I'll just shave it mysel--"

Before I could complete that sentence my friend practically lunged at me with the buzzer.  I let out a muffled scream as she held my head back and tore into my mustache with furious abandon.  I managed to escape her once again though.  I stumbled into the bathroom and tried to reach for the razor.  My friend beat me to it though.

Friend:  "Here you big baby!  I'll do it for you"

Me:  *Sigh* "Fine go ahead."

Friend:  "I just have one quick question first."

Me:  "What is it?"

Friend:  "Are you supposed to go up or down when you shave?"

I snatched the razor out of her hand in horror.  The time had come to take matters into my own hands.  Again.

And so, with a few swift final strokes, it was finally over.  I looked down at the masacre that lay before me.

I miss my mustache already.

Mexico!!! ...and other stuff

Mexico :D

Press play to be taken on a whirlwind journey through the nine and a half weeks I spent in Playa Del Carmen (and Chiapas) Mexico in just five minutes and nine seconds.  I had an absolute blast, and plan on sharing some of the experiences I had down there in the coming weeks.

In other news, I was doing a couple of google searches under "dish battling fortress" and "taking one for the tim".  This is what came up:

So I'm essentially beating the internet by 2 points right now.  Plus every follower on my blog and on twitter is a point so that's another... 14 points.  Oh and also:

So another point for me.  I mean yes, there are other results for sffs, but I'm first!  So I think I actually get bonus points for this one.  5 seems fair.  So I'm up 22 points on the internet right now.

Well... I guess that's not entirely true.  There were those times I forgot various passwords and had to reset them... not to mention a few times when the internet managed to sneak in a few unwanted toolbar installations when I've downloaded programs over the years.  Alright fine!  That's what... 8 points to the internet?  I'm still winning by 12!

While this is a fairly solid lead I still need your help in beating the internet.  Join me.  Together, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy!

Peace :)

*UPDATE: Well it has very quickly been pointed out to me that a search for my blog name does NOT in fact put me at the number one spot.  Looking back I realize that this is true, and that I am in fact in the number 2 spot.  So, I lose my six bonus points, bringing me down to 16 total.  Well played internet... well played.

The Night I Survived Explosions, Dodged Velociraptors, Fought A Machine, and Escaped A Labyrinth to Cheat Death

Once upon a time it was Sunday at midnight, and I had to get the frack home because I had to start work in about 11 hours.  The trouble was that "home" was about three hours away for me.  My options were limited:

1. Crash on a friend's couch and head out early in the morning.
2. Miss work, get fired, and become a hobo.
3. Head out now, drive really fast, and keep myself awake through rigorous slapping of the face.

Option one probably would have been best, however I'm what you would describe as a nervous sleeper.  Strange sounds and unfamiliar environments tend to very much keep me awake, as does the thought that I'll potentially be kept awake by my strange and unfamiliar environment and not get any sleep whatsoever and so end up staying up all night and having to leave early in the morning on no sleep whatsoever.  Living like a hobo seemed glamorous on the outside, but I've grown accustomed to eating pizza pockets and buying seasons of The Big Bang Theory on DVD over the years, so I had to abandon my hobo-ish dreams.  I had no choice but to go with option 3.

My plan was to make it to the first checkpoint, aka the toll booth with the big honking parking lot, so that I could take a nap.  I figured I'd be too tired at that point to care what my surroundings were like.  My friends, under the guise of "concern for my well-being", tried to thwart this well conceived plan by brewing me coffee so that I would be unable to nap at all.  Perhaps they wanted to see me end up as a hobo so that I would have more time to spend on them.  But I saw through their selfish motives!

So off I went, slapping my face every five seconds or so to get the rush I needed to stay awake.  The problem was that this quickly wore off.  I considered pulling over on the shoulder to sleep, but everytime I did I kept getting visions of a huge Superstore truck throwing a tire just as it was coming upon me and sending me screaming to a painful fiery death.  No thank you.  I had collected had too many unspent PC Points to allow that to happen.

At last I had made it to the toll booth.  I pulled over into the parking lot and tried to sleep.  For some reason I only managed to nap for about 15 minutes and could not get back to sleep afterwards.  I figured that all my body must have needed was a quick power nap and that I was fine to drive the last two hour stretch of my journey home.

After about 10 minutes though I found myself resorting to self-inflicted beatings just to stay awake.

I knew it was only a matter of time before fell asleep at the wheel and died a fiery explody death.  So after having driven for another hour I pulled into a gas station off the highway, put my seat back, and took another nap.  This second nap went much better, and I ended up sleeping for nearly three hours.

In fact, I probably would have slept straight on thru until morning had it not been for a knocking sound I was hearing.  I awoke to some dude at my window.  I was so groggy that I mistook him for a worker from the gas station.  I thought I was being asked to leave.

Me: "Mmm wha..?  Oh... um... I'm sorry, I was only taking a quick nap.  Yeah I'll just be heading out now."

Dude: "Hey man you need to give me a ride, it's an emergency!"

Me: (Still massively confused) "A ride... what?  How'd you get here?"

Dude: "My friends dropped me off brooo-wah."

Me: "Well... can't they pick you up, brooo-wah?"

Dude: "Naw man they like, just left me here after we went to the bar."

Me: "Why would you go out and get drunk right before your shift?"

Dude: "My shift?  What're you talking about dude?"

It was at this point that it slowly began to dawn on me that this guy didn't work at the aforementioned gas station.  Cautiously stepping out of my vehicle, I encountered a young chap that smelled of liquor, cigarettes, and failure.  Perhaps it was the sleep deprivation, or maybe it was the eloquence of his words that won me over, but somehow I ended up agreeing to drive this upstanding young drunk to his home about 45 minutes away.

Dude: "Yo bro I really appreciate this man.  This is so great of you.  You have no idea how screwed I am right now."

Me: "Not nearly as screwed as I'll be if you go into an alcoholic rage-blackout during the trip and decide to shank me."

Dude: "What'd you say dude?"

Me: "I said I have to go pump some gas."

Dude: "Oh hey man let me get that for you it's the least I could do."

Me: "Oh that's quite alright I..."

Dude: "Naw naw man you sit there I'm getting out to pump the gas man don't worry about it!"

It's at this point that Dude walked out of the car and grabed the gas nozzle.  Amazingly he managed to pry it away from the gas pump, and then somehow managed to unscrew my gas tank cover.  He was 2 for 2.  Sadly, he couldn't quite pull off a perfect game.

*Clang clang clang... clang clang CLANG*

Me:  "What's going on out there?"

Dude:  "Duuuuuuuuude! The pump won't fit in this gas tank.  I don't think your tank's big enough!"

Me: "Well have you tried..."

*Clang clang CLANG*

Me: "Perhaps you should stop for a moment and let me-"

*CLANG CLANG CLANG*

I started to become alarmed that Dude was going to blow up my car any second.  I quickly sprinted out of the car to see what was going on.  Turns out he was trying to pump diesel fuel into my gas tank. 

(On a side note I'd like to take a moment and thank whomever it was that decided that color-coding the diesel pumps in bright fluorescent green was simply not enough and that the diesel pumps and tanks needed to be shaped differently from the regular pumps, just in case.  Thank you so... so much.  You quite possibly saved me from exploding to death.)

Oddly enough, after all of that I allowed Dude back into my car.  I ended up pumping the gas myself.  Now I should note at this point that my gas tank had a hole in it and so could only be filled about a third of the way.  This becomes important later on in the story.

The trip to Dude's place went rather well.  I classify this as such because I wound up not getting carjacked or shanked during the entire way there.  Instead, he simply regaled me with many a tale of screwed-overness, how his cousins were jerks for stranding him, and how thankful he was and how he was "totally going to pay me back for this".  He asked me for my phone number and address so that he could "thank me properly".  As tempting as the offer was, I had to decline.  I ended up saying something like "the satisfaction of helping my fellowman was payment enough".  That seemed to quell his need to find out where I lived.

Eventually I dropped him in a little town off the main highway. It was a charming place with architecture based loosely on labyrinth-era Greece.  After dropping him off I came to realize that I was now thoroughly lost.  That's when I decided to play what I thought was my trump card for these situations.  I grabbed the GPS out of the glove compartment

It started off by telling me to turn right onto the road, the complete opposite direction of where we had just come from.  I figured that my GPS knew best though so I followed it's advice.  I mean, it's connected to satellites right?  And satellites can see the whole world from outer space and whatnot.  It must know a better way out of this place.

After a few minutes of driving I was told to take just enough turns to get me lost from the point at which I had first become lost.  I was now double lost.  It then told me to turn onto a road which I drove down for about 10 minutes until it took me to a very ominous dead-end filled with dumpsters and black garbage bags.  I believe the sole purpose of this place was to dispose of the unfortunate visitors who failed to find their way out.  What's worse is that my GPS had achieved sentience and was now working with the town's central computer to try and kill me! (I didn't know that for a fact, but it seemed the only logical explanation for what had just occurred).

In horror, I unplugged my GPS to deprive it of it's power source.  I knew I hadn't killed it and that it was only sleeping, but I would deal with that later.  Right now, I had to escape!  I turned my car around as fast as I could and sped back up the road.  I took another left, a few rights, and possibly another left.  The houses started to get fewer and fewer at this point, replaced by trees and terror.  Desperate, I activated my GPS once again in the hopes that I had purged the evil program that had taken it over and that it would now faithfully lead me out of this death hole.  It mapped out a path that was supposed to take me back on the highway for real this time.

However, it was not going to make things that easy for me.

The "road" it took me to barely qualified as such.  On top of that it didn't seem as though anyone had bothered to plow it since the beginning of winter, and I mean the very first winter to ever hit this particular piece of land.  I'm also pretty certain that the road was originally built on top of a mountain, as it was more bumpy and twisted than Charlie Sheen's logic (Buh-dum pish!).  The moment my tires touched down on this gravelly death path I knew it was a bad idea.

The telephone poles were the first thing to disappear, followed swiftly by my cell service.  Next to go were the remaining houses and with them any trace of civilization as I knew it.  It was at this point that the needle on my gas gauge edged toward the empty mark (remember the hole in the gas tank from earlier?).  I willed my car to go forward as it slowly bobbed up and down across this uncharted area of Canadian wilderness. 

"So this it it" I thought to myself.  "This is how I'm going to die".  I was alone, exhausted, and quickly spiraling into madness and paranoia.  Betrayed by my own GPS and feeling like I was about to run out of gas, I was certain I was going to either freeze to death, be attacked by a pack of velociraptors (which I was sure the town's central computer had sent after me by now), or be eaten by a were-bear ("Just do the were-bears countdown: 5-4-3-2-DEATH!!!").  Or possibly all of the above.

Just as I started to accept my fate and wonder which unholy terror would claim me first, I began hearing wooshing sounds.  Thinking it was the velociraptors, I pressed on the gas a little more.  These monsters weren't going to get me without a fight!  However as I continued on the sounds became more distinct.  I began to recognize them as the sound of other cars on the highway!  Still, I wasn't ready to rule out the possibility of were-bears or dinosaurs, so I continued to accelerate and inch closer and closer to the noises.  Finally I began to see lights in the distance.  I kept on driving.  Suddenly I felt the road  became a whole lot smoother as I hit actual pavement again!  I was back on the highway and headed home.

Rick - 1.  Crazy labyrinth computer-controlled were-bear town - 0.

Epilogue:  The GPS I borrowed is now safely in the custody of my parents.  I told them to make sure they sent it back to either the manufacturer or enlist the services of John Conner before using it again.  I managed to sleep a few more hours before the start of my shift at work.  And the young man who tried to lure me to my death under the guise of being drunk was never seen or heard from again.  The End...?

Taking One for the Tim

I told you guys I work in a call center right?

I should probably be wearing shoes.

That's better (even though it looks like I'm wearing wooden clogs).

Forget it, let's go back to the socks.  Just pretend I have shoes on.

I can remember when I first started working here.  I came to learn that if I could crush the competition (eg. my coworkers) in sales that I could win a cool five dollars in gift card money as a reward.  It's not much, but it sure beats, say, being set on fire.

Which is actually what they did to low performers in medievial call centers.  To answer your first question, yes there were call centers back in medievial times, and to answer your second question, I know they didn't have phones back then.  Two words:  Carrier pidgeons!  They tried voice recognition once using parrots but it didn't work out so great.

But I digress.

We took inbound calls and only had one product to sell.  Some of my coworkers struggled with the sales but I found they came pretty easy to me, at least at first.  It didn't take long for me to climb the ranks like Nelly to become number one.  Pretty soon I was winning gift cards all up in this place!

Things were going pretty smoothly until one day when I won a gift card for Tim Horton's*.  I naturally assumed that this would be five dollars as well, but not so!  I was told that these ones only had two dollars on them.  The reasoning was that this was enough to buy two small or one extra large coffee. 

Being the rebel that I am though I wanted medium coffee.  This however would leave me with about 43 cents left over on the card,  which would then quickly disappear into my wallet or pocket under many layers of point reward cards and never seen or heard from again.

To make this endeavour a little more worthwhile and reduce such frivolous waste, I decided to save up 4 or 5 Tim cards and buy some manner of lunch combo from them.  Over the next week or so I secured the necessary amount of cards needed to buy a proper lunch.  It was at this point that I began to think, "Wouldn't it be funny if I saved up seventy five of these bad boys and bought the actual Tim Horton's coffee machine instead?"

...

Initially I dismissed this thought as too insane to actually work, and I tried to reason myself down to a more reasonable course of action.  It didn't take.


To put the final rock on the gas pedal I decided to also send out a team-wide email to my coworkers, promising that I would win enough cards to buy the coffee maker and brew everyone coffee with it.

I sat down in my cube and readied myself for another day of work.  Nothing to do now except sit back and wait for the sales to come rolling in and, by way of extension, a copious shower of Tim Horton gift cards.

It was about this time though that I hit an inexplicable wall in my sales.  Suddenly I was starting to hear the word "no" a lot more than I had been accustomed to.  I even tried to spruce up my pitch a little but to no avail.

As you can see I was clearly a victim of defective customers.  As I started to drown in my own sea of grandiose ideas and rash promises, panic began to set in.  Before this I had been at the top of my team in sales.  "What if this is it?"  I kept thinking.  "What if I've reached the pinnacle of my career and never sell another thing in my life?"  This nervousness only served to fuel further panic which led to an even sharper drop in my performance.

By this point, I wasn't winning squat.  I felt as though I had let down myself, my team, and most all, the Timster himself.

"This is it" I thought.  I was almost certain that I'd soon wind up an unemployed hobo living in the streets, surviving off the precious few gift cards I had won back in my glory days.

It was around that low point that an older gentlemen on our team came over to me and said: "So I hear you're saving to buy a Tim Horton's coffee machine with the cards you win from the sales incentives.  Well I think it's a great idea and I want to support it.  Here, take these cards.  They were sitting in my desk."

I managed a stunned thank you.  I couldn't believe someone else bought into my crazy dream!  This turned out to be the small boost that I needed to get back on track.

Suddenly the intense feelings of despair started to fade and the aroma of failure began to dissipate.  I was selling again!

Soon I had surpassed the 20 card mark.  And that's when the dam burst!  Soon everyone was pitching in to help make my dream a reality.  I was trading regular gift cards to coworkers for their Tim cards, and my boss would even slip me an extra Tim Horton's card here and there come prize time.  I was on a roll! 

At last the big day came.  After four months of saving, I finally had the seventy fifth card and the $150.00 worth of Tim's money that I needed!  Emails were sent, cards were gathered, and off I went.  I marched right out of work, went straight home, and... took a nap.

But right after that I found a friend who would be crazy enough to film the experience, and then very carefully selected my target: A Tim Horton's that was very much out of my way, thus ensuring that I would never be seen in there again.  Actually I was pretty certain that I wouldn't even be allowed back into that location after the stunt that I was about to pull.

I barged into the store, picked a Tim Horton's machine up off the shelf, went up to the counter, and waited for the cashier to ring it in. 

I then handed her about 5 Tim Horton's cards to start with.  She scanned them in efficiently and watched as two dollars came off the price for each one.  When the cashier had finished with that stack she announced the new total to me.  I noticed her beaming with pride at the quick work she had made of my tiny stack of cards.  She announced the new total to me, as if thinking I was out of cards and expecting me to be paying for the rest of the coffee maker by some other means.  How wrong she was!

I started to pull out more cards, and when she was done scanning those, more cards still.  I was pulling them out of pockets, my hat, and anywhere else I had hidden them on my person.  Pretty soon almost every worker in the store stopped what they were doing to come and watch as I made this poor girl scan card after card.

When the cashier was finally done scanning all the cards, she wearily asked me if I wanted my receipt.  I told her that I did.  She hit the print button and the receipt began to spew forth.  

It took almost a minute for the receipt to fully print.  It was massive!

Coffee machine in hand, I triumphantly marched into work the next day to fulfill my much anticipated promise.  I even had coworkers pitch in extra Tim's cards and money beforehand so that we could turn it into a full blown epic Tim Horton's day.  I blissfully spent that afternoon careening through on an out of control coffee-soaked sugar ride, brewing pot after pot of coffee for my happy coworkers as we gorged ourselves on donuts, muffins, and timbits.

I'd like to think that the Timster would have been proud!

*For all my foreign readers out there, be sure to check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Hortons

By the time all is said and done you will all be vomiting pure awesomeness!!!

I can be a bit of a perfectionist at times.

Compounding that little problem is that I can sometimes be attention span impaired.  That might be the reason why, in addition to the 4 posts I already have up (5 if you include this one, which I don't, because it's not up yet, but which you can include, because it will be up by the time you're reading it, whomever "you" might happen to be, then... wait what was I talking about?)...

Um...

Right, posting!  I've got about 6 other blog posts right now that are finished but not quite where I want them to be quality-wise, several that are half-complete because I either got bored with the subject or am suffering a little writer's block on those particular entries, and a few more than exist in the intangible dimension of the "idea".

Even now I'm sitting at the keyboard currently contemplating whether or not to just hit the "Save" button and walk away, or maybe read some webcomics and then come back to this post.

I chose webcomics.  But only for five minutes.  I'm back now and still blogging away!

Only for another 4 minutes however, because my lunch break is almost up and I need to get back to work.

Not to worry though.  I got big plans for this site.  Huge plans.  Gargantuan plans!  Gonna have me a new banner up, upgrade the site design, and of course, more posts involving pictures and maybe even some video.  So nauseatingly cool you'll be vomiting pure awesomeness by the time I'm finished with things (hence the title)!

In other news, I am happy to say that the number of followers here on sffs has doubled in the past week.  On a related note, today's blog post is brought to you by the letter B* and by my 5th and latest follower.  Thank you very much for forcing me to post this hastily prepared entry today just to keep my ratio of blog posts to followers on a 1:1 basis!  I hope you are pleased with yourself sir.

Until next time, larga vida y prosperidad!

*The B stands for "Blogging".  I'm so witty!

Dish Battling

 

Hello fellow bachelors, this blog goes out to you!

(And to the rest of us too lazy or poor to buy a dishwasher)  

Are you currently staring down a horde of dirty dishes?

 

 

 Do you find yourself frequently eating your meals out of salad bowls, measuring cups, pots, pans, and just about whatever else you can find lying around to avoid having to face the mind-boggling amount brass, glass, and china piled high before you?

Are you desperately trying to reclaim your stovetop, countertop, fridgetop, or even floorspace?  Are you losing ground in your desperate kitchen guerrilla warfare?

If so, there is hope.  However you need to stop merely dishwashing and start dishbattling.

 

 To that end, I give you... 

The Dish Battling Fortress (Patent Pending...):

Granted, I suppose you could dry your dishes by hand.  But that's inconvenient, boring, and probably leads to erectile dysfunction.  So by now you might be wondering, "How can I construct my own Dish Battling Fortress and prevent the inevitable medical problems that arise from drying my dishes by hand?"

 I’ll tell you how.  You’re welcome.

Before you begin…

It may be necessary to free up some sink space:

Off to the side it goes!

Let’s get to it!

Number One:  Construct the Inner and Outer Wall

 The first things you wash need to be large and flat and arranged roughly like so: 

To reinforce your front wall, just add spatulas (and maybe some large spoons):

You are now ready to do battle and, to quote a famous cartoon character, shout your mighty war cry: "See you in hell, dinner-plate!"

Number B:  Start Washing Up, Buttercup!

Fill it in with plates and bowls first:

Then start cramming the cups in the middle:

 Actually just start piling stuff into your fortress at will:

Numbero Tres:  What to do When your Fortress Starts Getting Full

 It's time to reinforce and build up your structure.  A few frying pans will do the trick:

 You are now ready to start cramming in more dishes:

Got an empty bowl or pot facing up?

Perfect place for more dishes:

Time to corral and pick off the last of the survivors:

Congratulations!  You have won the battle without having to dry off a single dish by hand! 

The war however is not over.  Many casualties were inflicted on both sides.  Soon your dirty dishes will begin regrouping to plan another tactical assault on your very way of life!  How can you crush the rebellion and prevent full blown war in the future?

1.  Use paper/plastic dishes.

This option ensures you never have to do dishes again.

 

Unfortunately it will send your carbon footprint skyrocketing and isn't that on impressive on dates.  Ever try serving your girlfriend chicken cordon-bleu on a plastic plate?

2.  Anonymously donate your dirty dishes at a donation drop-off bin and buy new ones!

Before you judge me…

Do you go and dry clean and iron your clothes before dropping them off at goodwill?

I think not.  

They have to clean the dishes no matter what state you drop them off in.  

And hey, once they’re done you can buy them back all squeaky clean!  

Or try option one.  

3.  Do your dishes as you use them.  

 Right, like THAT’S ever going to happen!  

As you can see, the Dish Battling Fortress is an eco-friendly, low-cost solution for all your future dish washing needs.  

Once again, you are welcome.  

(And once again, here's a picture of me in dish-battling gear)