True story, swear to gawd... (prose and cons)

[doclinkin]

I hate laundromats.

So I'm running a row of rooftops, row houses, DC NorfWest, there's a carjacker took off with a Nissan Sentra, and the lady who owns the car has her HIV medicine in the front seat. I know this because it's my business, I'm tracking her on a different deal. Now row houses are great, peak roof or flat you can cross a whole block and cut the corner without touching the ground. Problem is someone built an alley driveway here halfway across to get to the backstreet garages and I'm distracted, don't see it 'til it's too late, so I make the jump.

I can do fifteen feet easy at speed, but I've got a dufflebag today, long story, and it throws off my balance, so the second I jump I know I'm not gonna make it. I'm slow-motion, doing the running man mid-air seeing that roof-edge dip below my event horizon, and I know maybe I'll catch it, or maybe I can flip my grapnel out in time, either one. I choose wrong, try the first one-- not a frickin' chance.

Hands slap wall, and here's where time gets all Matrix on you, adrenaline is a hellofa drug: spiderman-plant and kick off the wall -- my tech guy got his engineering degree from Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh, I met him over there tracking down this **** who was doing some ugly stuff with genetics on homeless people, using HIV variants to suppress immune system to allow like toothbud implants from dobermann pinschers and shxt, genetic collage he called it, like it was art or something. But that's a different story. Anyway my guy, the Chemix-- he wanted a codename too-- the guy is batchit crazy when he isn't brewing toxins to huff, but dude's a complete and total genius: my gloves and shoes have what we call drag rubber: sticky like and it's got a gel-like viscosity property that absorbs impact like you wouldn't believe (got some under my tac vest too, when I remember to wear it, but it sorta slows me down, so I dunno, I always have that argument with myself when I gear up for the night) so anyway I have a half second to stick to the wall pivot and pick where I'm gonna land. Push kick, dive and angle towards a heap of recycling, begging and praying I make it, got to be 30 feet? And midair I'm thinking: if this was the Bronx like back in the day, there would be a clothes line out here. I have time to flash back to see five, ten clotheslines that have saved my ass over the years of grafitti running as a bad boy of my youth. Each one like I could feel them in my memory virtually snap under m weight and twang twang twang slow me down. But nowadays? Here? In DC? Hell no, no clotheslines, people have dryers, drycleaners or laundromats and anyways who wants all that pollution staining their tidy whities? Point being: WHAM! That's me in a stack of cardboard boxes, tuck roll in a breakfall, try to spin velocity into intentional momentum, but hit hard plastic buckets of water bottles in fourty different directions and separate my shoulder anyway, tumble roll thud stop.

As for the a-hole in the Sentra. He turns the corner and drives right down my alley. Pure luck. I ain't getting up but from ten feet away through the open window I brain him with a pickle-jar, perfect spiral. Knocks him concussed instantly, easy to drag out, duct tape and spread him with Pecan Butter which you can get from any Varmint control wholesaler. It's meant to bait traps for squirrels but their urban cousins love it just as much and I figure the DC rodents can teach this dckwad a lesson in the boomerang effect of karma.

On the other hand, I get to lose a good weeks work on the rooftops, even with the quickfix cocktails from my new pals in the medical underground. That's the flipside of Karma, you do good it comes back. Still though, I miss clotheslines. And pretty much hate laundromats. They're bad for the environment. far as I'm concerned.

[doclinkin]

Look we got time to kill while we collect pingpong balls. Feel free to post your true stories and other lies on here if you got nothing better to do. Feel free to add your chronicles of your adventures in this here East Coast secret vigilante forum that like nobody in the world actually knows about. Or whatever.
Faux pas. Medical horror stories. Drunken debauchery. True life tales of parenting your rugrats. Etc. It all belongs in here... so long as it's 100% actually true -- or the internet equivalent.

-doc.

[yungal07]

hold up spiderman...wtf are you doing on row house rooftops? u tar'in those badboys? i don't get it...

[go'stags]

If you dont mind me asking, what is it that you do?

thats a crazy story.

[doclinkin]

hold up spiderman...wtf are you doing on row house rooftops? u tar'in those badboys? i don't get it...

I'm on Patrol my man. You think them criminals are gonna beat themselves up? Jeez. And who else is gonna keep the ninja population down. Come on now.

Actually I was doing uh, what you might call a neighborhood beautifcation project. One ugly idiot at a time. Yeah that's it.

-.

[yungal07]

hold up spiderman...wtf are you doing on row house rooftops? u tar'in those badboys? i don't get it...

I'm on Patrol my man. You think them criminals are gonna beat themselves up? Jeez. And who else is gonna keep the ninja population down. Come on now.

alright...i guess imma call you docbatman from now on...watching over the city protecting the innocent...

[doclinkin]

alright...i guess imma call you docbatman from now on...watching over the city protecting the innocent...

Ain't none of us innocent, my man. We're all just moving that karma around.My friends call me doctor nocturnal, I don't need much sleep you see. Like Van Gogh, he jsut took 20 minute catnaps every 4 hours. In my case it's a consequence of some early volunteer trials I experienced when I was new in town and NIH got a new round of disbursements of taxpayer funds and needed human labrats. I got my van out of the bargain. The MCC Mobile command center. Slept in that thing for a year. But like I said, I don't need much sleep any more, I got a gland that will produce seratonin on the double even with out REM sleep or dreams. I miss dreams though. Bastards stole my dreams. They say eventually that can make you crazy.

Batman. Yeah man, how implausible is that. Guy is like a billionaire, you'd think he could like hire quality teachers for the public school system or open up a methadone clinic or something. Buy a newspaper like the moonies and pay kids to deliver it for free just to have something to do. Like my pal The Raven over there in B'more careful.

Why what's your deal? Anybody got a story, true or not? If so feel free to tack them in here. Alright, Goodnight DC. Your pal

-doc.

[BruceO]

lol

[nate33]

Sorry doc, I think you pretty much upstaged everybody. I've got nothin' that can compare to that story.

[miller31time]

Went to the store yesterday. Bought some honey-mustard pretzel-crisps.

Pinnacle of my day.

[Ruzious]

See, this is like when a bunch of us ordinary and less guys were shooting around on a basketball court and in saunters Mike Jordan circa 1984. We're all gawking as he puts on a display of athuhleticism we've never imagined. So, he takes off just south of the 3 point line, and does a dipsy doo power slam. Then he says to us yokels, ok - who's got some other good dunks?

What I'm saying Doc is - get an agent... or publisher... or whatever great writers do.

[daSwami]

What I'm saying Doc is - get an agent... or publisher... or whatever great writers do.

co-sign. your talent is wasted on us.

edited to ask: did you suffer any injuries? If there's one thing I've learned, one can never be too safe. Any numbness/tingling, crap like that - Go get an mri post haste, make sure you ain't tore nothing vital - carotids and whatnot.

My story is well-documented (here and elsewhere). Fell hard on some steps on a Monday. Brushed it off, thought nothing of it. I've fallen a million times -- ski slopes, basketball courts, general clumsiness -- w/o complication. Once I reached my mid-30s I had no idea how brittle I'd become. Not outwardly (necessarily), but on the inside - the lining of my arteries, specifically. A fall on Monday becomes a full blown embolism (read: clot) by Friday. An arterial clot is serious business - ask Teddy Bruschi, or me.

Anyhoo, Doc, I'm sure you're fine. My cynical brain tends to slip all-too easily into "worst-case" mode. Good story though.

[keynote]

Eh, I'll take a stab at it.
---
I had just come back in town from a business trip, and I wanted to go out and blow of some steam. I went to a lounge to meet up with two college friends (Bleek and Lew); when I got there, they were chatting with two very women I hadn't met previously (Patricia and Wendy). Patricia is from Romania, and Wendy is from Trinidad. Both of them were model-height and attractive; and Wendy was cool to boot. She mentioned how she had a background in law, but was foregoing that to pursue a singing career (at the time, she was working with recently-pardoned John Forte--then a free man--and a few other producers). We were all talking, when out of the blue, some random guy interrupted our group conversation, and tried to kick game to Wendy (Patricia had since left by this time). He came with some corny line like, "Wow; you're *beautiful.* You're like Miss Universe, blah blah blah." The guy got brushed off, of course; with ammo like that, he didn't stand a chance.

Anyway, Lew has his car with him, and we're dropping everyone home after the night was though. Wendy was commenting about how she'd had such a difficult time getting an apartment, because she had no rental history for a year, and hadn't even bought groceries in a year (odd, right?). So, then she said that the only way she was able to get her apartment was to get a reference letter from Donald Trump (!?).

So, I'm thinking, "who casually knows Donald Trump like that? Unless..."

As we drop her off, I'm starting to put two and two together. I asked Lew, "who is Wendy? Is she famous or something?"

Lew looks at me, surprised. "I thought you knew! That was Wendy Fitzwilliam."

Then I realized the Corny Guy's line wasn't a line at all, but a statement of fact: apparently, I had been chatting it up with Miss Universe 1998 the entire evening, and didn't even know it.




Doubly embarrassing was the fact that my folks are also from Trinidad, and I remember the country going crazy when she won. Yet I *still* didn't recognize her.

And yes, she had a boyfriend.

[doclinkin]

did you suffer any injuries? If there's one thing I've learned, one can never be too safe. Any numbness/tingling, crap like that - Go get an mri post haste, make sure you ain't tore nothing vital - carotids and whatnot.

My story is well-documented (here and elsewhere). Fell hard on some steps on a Monday. Brushed it off, thought nothing of it. I've fallen a million times -- ski slopes, basketball courts, general clumsiness -- w/o complication. Once I reached my mid-30s I had no idea how brittle I'd become. Not outwardly (necessarily), but on the inside - the lining of my arteries, specifically. A fall on Monday becomes a full blown embolism (read: clot) by Friday. An arterial clot is serious business - ask Teddy Bruschi, or me.

Anyhoo, Doc, I'm sure you're fine. My cynical brain tends to slip all-too easily into "worst-case" mode. Good story though.

Yeah, that's good advice. But nah, see, I'm one of the lucky ones. I got this team of fatbrains and pocket protectors in 'the tombs' -- the subbasements of [government agency name redacted]. MRI ain't the half of it, they just unzip me and put me back together whenever I need it. Right now I'm so zooted on human growth hormone, fresh stuff not the synthetics, from teen corpses, a sad 'benefit' of the Capital City's high casualty rate, that I can't even sleep half the time. Just saying, it helps to have people owing you favors

What I'm saying Doc is - get an agent... or publisher... or whatever great writers do.

co-sign. your talent is wasted on us.

Hey maybe. Actually I was hoping I could sucker you into wasting some of your talent on here. Because hey you're telling the truth. Really funny stuff, I'm waiting to hear you got published so I can buy the book. Whereas me I'm totally lying my ass off. Mostly. As far as you know.

But really, pretzel chip stories are fine. Drunken encounters with Buckhantz' ex-girlfriend; near-death escapes from kidnap/murder in Peru; or the funniest thing my kid ever sent to me. Or total lies -- uh-- fabrications -- uh-- stories that are True in their way. Or not.

-d.

[Ruzious]

I got a crazy one here. There's this guy named KK. He gets this great job - despite not having real qualifications - running a big sports organization in Minnesota. Every year the organization disappoints - despite having one of the best workers ever for a dozen years. One year, he even got caught committing serious fraud, but he kept his job. So anyways one day (today), he blames it all on the chief ops guy in the company, fires him, and appoints himself to take over the job - and the owner agrees to it. OMG, no way! But yes way - it's a true story.

[Ed Wood]

A Complete and Accurate Account of a College Statistics Final Exam

Part 1

If you have any friends in psychology you’ve probably heard the joke that we drive ourselves crazy with self-diagnoses. Sorry if you have, it’s not much of a joke, but we’re a pretty humorless people, and we don’t have a lot to say at parties. If you’re ever unlucky enough to be caught in an enclosed space with more than one of us, and I’ll apologize in advance just in case you are, you may notice that we tend to laugh a little harder than everyone else (assuming anyone else even laughs, if you can force a chuckle bless you for being a good sport). You wouldn’t be wrong to assume that we’re just that good at winding ourselves up, but that’s not what’s going on. Well it is, but it’s not the only thing.

We’re laughing because we don’t, we never self-diagnose. We don’t have to, we already know. We have to, you may think of psychology as a joke major but you’ll never get to know yourself half as thoroughly any other way. That may sound hyperbolic, or par the course for me, but allow me to provide some perspective. For the sake of politeness the names presented here are not those of my colleagues but the particularly particular names of athletes.

It’s the final exam for Experimental Methods and Statistics. That would be the Psychology statistics class; rest assured no one less than entirely devoted to the field of psychology would willingly experience such a thing. Even for those of us who are head over heals for the stuff have our doubts after the fifth or six different permutation of statistical significance is dropped on us at ten in the morning. But we persevere, because of the final exam. You look forward to it, and you fear it, because you hear the stories.

“The stats final exam isn’t so much a final exam as it is a trial by fire. You might go in hunting for your 4.0 but you come out happy to be upright, conscious and as sane as any mental health professional can be.”

“You’re going to find out more about yourself than you want to, for your sake I hope you like yourself.”

“You’ll never sleep better, but you’ll never go a night without living it all again.”

You spend a year and a half preparing yourself, sorting through the generalities and truisms of intro psych for every scrap of knowledge you can find. You drill yourself on each and every mental disorder you can conceive; the DSM becomes your second bible. You learn to break down your mind into its component parts, to know it as the sum of its neurons, its proteins, its curves and contours. You tear through dozens of advice columns and a Cozmo a day, if you can stomach it, just for that glimmer of relationship psychology buried in the perfume samples. But when the moment comes, as it has come for me, you aren’t ready. As confident as you are, and I am nothing if not self-assured, that last descent down into the bowels of the psychology lab complex is always made knowing full well that You. Are. Not. Ready.

And yet here I am, alone with my thoughts in the dark of the personality psychology lab, waiting for whatever might come, waiting to run. I know only of what I have signed away with my informed consent, and the wording of the document does not assure me of my own safety. My wait is ended by the voice of the Professor of Self and Identity, Urban Shocker. I try not to seem too relieved, Mrs. Shocker is a former high school cheerleader who’s not yet given up the vivaciousness and enthusiasm of the role, but it seems disrespectful to her to be anything less than terrified at this juncture.

“Wow Ed, it seems such a short time ago that I was guiding you through Psych 101, but I have every confidence that you’re ready. This is the first section of the final. You may use whatever materials you’ve brought along with you, take as much time as you need. The goal here is to put that semester of Personality Psychology to work, and to really get to know yourself. You may begin when you are ready…”

Hell is other people. Or me, Hell is me. I’ve never been so close to striking anyone in anger than I am to wiping that stupid smile off of my face by drilling my self-possessed nose into my, now that I have a chance to look at it, very strangely shaped skull. For the past two hours Mrs. Shocker has left me alone with myself in this lab, and the extent of the headway we’ve made, or had made prior to breaking off conversation altogether, was to very confidently conclude that neither of us had either met a larger **** in our lives. I am currently at a loss; evidently the depth of my self-loathing isn’t the revelation I need to be having right now.

And I can’t stand it, how stupid I feel, how completely incompetent I seem to be at deciphering myself. My intellectual elitism is so thorough that I resent myself for my apparent lack of aptitude, I am NOT coming across as intelligent, and without that gloss of sagacity it's becoming evident that I bring very little to the table. This last discovery really is enough to drive me to violence, so I indulge myself with a black eye.

I am completely disgusted to discover that at this I’ve succeeded. The lights come on, the door opens and the permanent smile of Mrs. Shocker is more sympathetic than friendly as she directs me along my way. Two hours alone with myself and I come away with an appreciation of my intellectual insecurities and a throbbing right hand. I was already sure Personality Psychology was no fit for my interests, but my choice seemed much more reasonable when it was based upon the nebulous nature of the field, not my huge intellectual complex.

I am no longer hunting for my 4.0.

(End of Part One)
Every time I think it's safe to stop looking for these little hidden messages you bring them back Doc. And if you're going without sleep like that you may or may not be depriving yourself of some serious Long Term Potentiation. We haven't decided yet. Regardless, where am I in this little escapade. Have I been demoted from sidekick to stay at home supernerd?
-Ed

[Zerocious]

A Complete and Accurate Account of a College Statistics Final Exam

Part 1

If you have any friends in psychology you’ve probably heard the joke that we drive ourselves crazy with self-diagnoses. Sorry if you have, it’s not much of a joke, but we’re a pretty humorless people, and we don’t have a lot to say at parties. If you’re ever unlucky enough to be caught in an enclosed space with more than one of us, and I’ll apologize in advance just in case you are, you may notice that we tend to laugh a little harder than everyone else (assuming anyone else even laughs, if you can force a chuckle bless you for being a good sport). You wouldn’t be wrong to assume that we’re just that good at winding ourselves up, but that’s not what’s going on. Well it is, but it’s not the only thing.

We’re laughing because we don’t, we never self-diagnose. We don’t have to, we already know. We have to, you may think of psychology as a joke major but you’ll never get to know yourself half as thoroughly any other way. That may sound hyperbolic, or par the course for me, but allow me to provide some perspective. For the sake of politeness the names presented here are not those of my colleagues but the particularly particular names of athletes.

It’s the final exam for Experimental Methods and Statistics. That would be the Psychology statistics class; rest assured no one less than entirely devoted to the field of psychology would willingly experience such a thing. Even for those of us who are head over heals for the stuff have our doubts after the fifth or six different permutation of statistical significance is dropped on us at ten in the morning. But we persevere, because of the final exam. You look forward to it, and you fear it, because you hear the stories.

“The stats final exam isn’t so much a final exam as it is a trial by fire. You might go in hunting for your 4.0 but you come out happy to be upright, conscious and as sane as any mental health professional can be.”

“You’re going to find out more about yourself than you want to, for your sake I hope you like yourself.”

“You’ll never sleep better, but you’ll never go a night without living it all again.”

You spend a year and a half preparing yourself, sorting through the generalities and truisms of intro psych for every scrap of knowledge you can find. You drill yourself on each and every mental disorder you can conceive; the DSM becomes your second bible. You learn to break down your mind into its component parts, to know it as the sum of its neurons, its proteins, its curves and contours. You tear through dozens of advice columns and a Cozmo a day, if you can stomach it, just for that glimmer of relationship psychology buried in the perfume samples. But when the moment comes, as it has come for me, you aren’t ready. As confident as you are, and I am nothing if not self-assured, that last descent down into the bowels of the psychology lab complex is always made knowing full well that You. Are. Not. Ready.

And yet here I am, alone with my thoughts in the dark of the personality psychology lab, waiting for whatever might come, waiting to run. I know only of what I have signed away with my informed consent, and the wording of the document does not assure me of my own safety. My wait is ended by the voice of the Professor of Self and Identity, Urban Shocker. I try not to seem too relieved, Mrs. Shocker is a former high school cheerleader who’s not yet given up the vivaciousness and enthusiasm of the role, but it seems disrespectful to her to be anything less than terrified at this juncture.

“Wow Ed, it seems such a short time ago that I was guiding you through Psych 101, but I have every confidence that you’re ready. This is the first section of the final. You may use whatever materials you’ve brought along with you, take as much time as you need. The goal here is to put that semester of Personality Psychology to work, and to really get to know yourself. You may begin when you are ready…”

Hell is other people. Or me, Hell is me. I’ve never been so close to striking anyone in anger than I am to wiping that stupid smile off of my face by drilling my self-possessed nose into my, now that I have a chance to look at it, very strangely shaped skull. For the past two hours Mrs. Shocker has left me alone with myself in this lab, and the extent of the headway we’ve made, or had made prior to breaking off conversation altogether, was to very confidently conclude that neither of us had either met a larger **** in our lives. I am currently at a loss; evidently the depth of my self-loathing isn’t the revelation I need to be having right now.

And I can’t stand it, how stupid I feel, how completely incompetent I seem to be at deciphering myself. My intellectual elitism is so thorough that I resent myself for my apparent lack of aptitude, I am NOT coming across as intelligent, and without that gloss of sagacity it's becoming evident that I bring very little to the table. This last discovery really is enough to drive me to violence, so I indulge myself with a black eye.

I am completely disgusted to discover that at this I’ve succeeded. The lights come on, the door opens and the permanent smile of Mrs. Shocker is more sympathetic than friendly as she directs me along my way. Two hours alone with myself and I come away with an appreciation of my intellectual insecurities and a throbbing right hand. I was already sure Personality Psychology was no fit for my interests, but my choice seemed much more reasonable when it was based upon the nebulous nature of the field, not my huge intellectual complex.

I am no longer hunting for my 4.0.

(End of Part One)
Every time I think it's safe to stop looking for these little hidden messages you bring them back Doc. And if you're going without sleep like that you may or may not be depriving yourself of some serious Long Term Potentiation. We haven't decided yet. Regardless, where am I in this little escapade. Have I been demoted from sidekick to stay at home supernerd?
-Ed

So, you sat in a dark room by yourself for two hours and gave yourself a shiner? That's a A+ in my book! and WTF is up with this small ass shxt? Get some sleep folks!

[BigA]

This one's not amazing, but it's true, and short.

Yesterday, I was walking north on 17th St. just past C St., passing the Red Cross HQ on my left, the Ellipse on my right. A huge hawk glides about 6 inches over my head (didn't see him until he was past me) and pounces on a squirrel about 20 yards away, on the lawn in front of the Red Cross. He stands on the squirrel for a few minutes until its dead (some other passersby stopped to watch him, its unusual to see a hawk standing on the ground, and this guy was big). Then he picks up the squirrel and flies to a nearby tree. It was like a little Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom episode right near the White House.

[nate33]

You sure that wasn't David Falk?

[Ruzious]

You sure that wasn't David Falk?

Geeze, ya could have put up a warning - don't read with coffee in your mouth.