– Deadbeat Writing Staff

 ”At first I thought it was living in the Six Pack, and not fitting in with the alcohol scene,” Grimps said. “But the artists hate me just as much.”

 A change of pace was recommended by multiple counselors and psychologists. They would not let Grimps move out of the dorms, but encouraged him to seek greener pastures through Allen Hall. Known as a dorm for the “artsy” people (see: ego), this would be different than Weston, dorm for the “cool” people (see: ego).

 ”In the end, I guess I either don’t fit in or everyone else sucks,” Grimps said, as he dramatically ripped down a name tag from someone’s door. “I’m thinking it’s everyone else who sucks.”

 But his former roommate from Weston tells a different story.

 ”He was weird, detached,” said Henry Livenston, sophomore in Kinesiology. “We invited him out to the Red Lion once but he told us he was afraid of animals.”

 Living in the dorms is supposed to be an environment of community, but for Grimps, it was an environment of pain.

 ”I just hate it here. Everyone is so full of themselves and refuses to talk to me. Why should I even waste my time talking to people? I’m happy being alone,” Grimps said. Unable to fit in, Grimps finds solace in Sunday morning brunch.

 ”I get there super early to take the giant table. That way, somebody is almost guaranteed to sit with me. It’s very busy, and they have strawberries.”

 When asked on future living plans, for next year, Grimps is confident that through an apartment, he will work something out.

 ”It’s just a matter of finding somebody on Craigslist, which I can do,” Grimps said. “Heck, maybe it’ll even be a girl. That would be something. Then she’d have to talk to me!”

– Aaron Toch

Photo by exalted

Dear Lysander,

I don’t usually open up about my sex life, but at this point I’m getting desperate. I am a man in my middle-forties, healthy, and from what my friends tell me, pretty good looking. I’ve been married for over twenty years to an amazing, sensual woman with whom I am still very much in love. The problem is that our sex life has been getting progressively stale over the last few years, and I’ve been starting to dread any thoughts of love-making with wife. The passion just seems to have evaporated between us, and I think she’s been feeling the same way. Lysander, you have to help me: How can we inject some oomph into our love life? –John, Kansas City

Oh, John, stories like yours cause me to audibly moan with empathy. (However, I must suppress such noises for fear of waking the piss-soaked man slouched against the toilet.) Your endeavor, while common, is a bane that many couples must overcome if they want their long-term relationships to last. You must rediscover the raw eroticism in each other.

This is what I suggest: Go out and buy a pair of two-way radios, or even a couple of baby monitors. Both of you should carry one and continue to broadcast throughout the entire day. Now, here’s the key part: Masturbate. A lot. Do not tell your partner or warn her. Do this at all times of the day. Excuse yourself from your desk, lock yourself in the bathroom, or even better, a boiler room, and really just let it rip. The sounds of pure masculine passion will startle your wife, to be sure, but when she hears the raw power crashing out of her speaker at 120 decibels, she will not be thinking about her cooking or bills or the line she is currently standing in at the bank. She will thinking about you.

Now, remember, this works both ways. Perhaps you’ll be stuck in traffic, and over the din of car horns will suddenly erupt the sound of your wife forearm deep in her mons pubis. Or maybe your next business presentation will enjoy the out-of-nowhere soundtrack of a volcanic orgasm!

Reacquainting yourselves with the spontaneity of each other’s sex noises will surely bring back that spark you’ve been missing. I can assure you that this is a time-honored tradition in my family. Just remember to replace the batteries.

Lysander,

My boyfriend and I want to try something really crazy and avant-garde. What’s the newest craze in the world of humpin’? –Liz, Little Rock

Liz, I’m always at the service of those who want to push the boundaries, and then take those boundaries from behind during their cousin’s little league game! Before I was so rudely incarcerated, I had been spending time in that moist, ruddy sexual haven known as Connecticut. There, while on a tour of the local glory holes, I got into a very interesting conversation with a college student, although I must admit I cannot tell you what he looked like or what his name was…In any case, he informed me of this new fad called “cobbing.“

Here’s what you do. Before you begin, your man’s bits-and-pieces should be totally smooth, so shave his balls, groom bush, and (if necessary) wax his shaft with a fine strop razor. (There is nothing I love more than a finely-waxed shaft.) Once that’s done, heat up some butter. Lay your gentleman on his side, so his penis is parallel to the ground. Then, take a butter knife, scoop up some of that hot butter, and just spread it around. Now, here’s the best part: Take his shaft in both hands and run your mouth back and forth across it, gobbling it up like a delicious piece of corn! Num num num, I say! If you get bored with that, you can add a little salt, or if you’re feeling adventurous, even some teeth. Good luck, Liz!

Well, readers, from the sound of the jangle of keys coming from the hallway, it appears that my editors have finally posted my bail, and from the coy looks and batted eyelashes from my already half-naked cell mate, I believe I’ve found an assistant to help me re-hide my netbook. Until next time, my faithful readers, may your love life be caressed by silken hands, and may you never be fisted by a federal judge wearing a diving watch.

- Danny Wicentowski

Photos by Jökull Sólberg Auðunsson, Sabrina Hockey, Sultmhoor and Jster91

So, let me start this off by saying I’m aware that I complain quite a bit. And when I say “quite a bit,” I mean, “every time I open my God forsaken mouth.”

As a Jew, I feel like it’s in my nature to take the most beautiful elements of the world around us, and nitpick at their imperfections until there’s nothing left but a pathetic, muddled concoction of guilt and shame. What can I say? It’s a gift. More specifically, it’s a gift that I feel should be used for the greater good. After all, if I don’t address these pressing issues, who will? We can’t make any progress in our society if no one’s there to keep us motivated (i.e., nag) the whole time.

So here it is, world: my most genuine, heartfelt advice to you about the things you do that make me want to drive my head through a wall. Sure, they might be mundane issues, and sure, they might be irrational complaints. But readers, you know that at the end of the day, deep down somewhere, you can’t help but agree.

This week, I’d like to take on a topic that those of you who have lived or are currently living in University Housing can understand: bitchy University Dining Hall workers. Now, I’m not saying that all of their employees suck. In fact, I enjoy seeing most of them on a regular basis. However, there are a select few that come to mind that I wouldn’t mind beating senseless with that blue visor they’re forced to wear. It’s because they think their misery from working a minimum-wage job at unreasonable hours somehow trumps our misery from all of the shit going on in our lives. Look, we’re all miserable. So what makes cleaning up our careless, disgusting spills more aggravating than paying three times as much for our crappy-ass meal plans? This writer says, not very much.

I’ll give you an example: recently, I was eating with a friend who wanted to take some raspberries out of the dining hall with him to make smoothies. One of the Dining Hall workers happened to catch sight of this. Based on her reaction, you would have thought he was trying to deal heroin to second graders. She came over to the table and got right up in his face, hell-fire smoldering in her eyes. She started screaming at him because “he was being horribly disrespectful, had no consideration for others, was setting a bad example, blah blah blah.” (It’s hard to paraphrase; I started tuning her out after a while.) Pounding her fist on the table, she proclaimed that if he didn’t eat every single raspberry before he left, he was going to have to pay for another meal. Without waiting for a response from him, she stormed off to the cashier at the front of the room, and pointed him out like some dirty criminal to monitor. The cashier looked as annoyed as we were.

To her credit, my friend was trying to lift a good 6 lbs. of raspberries. I mean, he had two full-size plastic storage containers that he was trying to smuggle out of there… Not the strongest with foresight, this one.

The idea still remains, though, that it wasn’t that big of a deal. We pay way too much for the food that we’re served here, anyway; if he wants to steal a few extra pieces of fruit, I say let him have at it. Besides, I’m sure that before she was working in University Dining, she was in his place, a student trying to make it on the few resources for food that she had at her disposal. Where’s her compassion for a fellow sufferer?

Look, all I’m saying is, she didn’t have to be such a bitch about it.

- Nikki Kofsky

Flickr photo by Ishikawa Ken

Are those comic book themed candles you are lighting? Don’t get me wrong, I like comic books. But you probably don’t want me comparing your body to Spiderman’s right now.

And look at that, matching Spiderman sheets on your twin bed. And they say boys can’t decorate.

This wet, sloppy tongue in my mouth – is this supposed to be attractive? Yes, we did call it tongue kissing in middle school, but there’s actually more to a kiss than shoving a fishlike organ into the other person’s mouth. Some lip-on-lip action beforehand is usually a good idea.

You seem alarmed that I’m wearing a bra. They’ve actually been rather fashionable for a while now. I realize this presents a dilemma for you, but I’m sure that, using basic problem-solving techniques, you should be able to get around this obstacle.

Good try! But the bra actually doesn’t go over the head. It’s attached with hooks in the back, see? They’re just normal hooks. I realize they’re small, but if I can attach them every morning, surely you can unattach them.

And you think now is the appropriate time to take the condom out of your wallet? I guess you’re not too fond of foreplay. How long have you had it there? Months? Years? Oh, you say your teacher passed them out in 8^th grade? Sounds like you’re not into the whole expiration date thing.

This rhythmic grunting in my ear is almost musical. It sounds like something Beethoven wrote after he went deaf. And senile. Come to think of it, I wish I were deaf right now.

You know, I’ve changed my mind. This has been fun, but I’m really not interested in bearing your children.

Don’t feel bad. I’m sure you can get permission to join a high school Sex-Ed class in the fall.

- Ilana Strauss

You’re noticing how for the third night in a row, I’ve come in here wearing the same flannel pajamas to buy two pints of ice cream. You don’t say anything rude, but your eyes do all the talking. You’re thinking “Ma’am, I suggest you shower” or “Are you aware each container of that has 840 calories?” You’ll thank me and I’ll nod, and then trod back to my ten year-old sedan barely registering what just happened. You’ll just sit there, behind your stupid cash register thinking,

“Well isn’t that sad?”

Who the fuck are you Brendan?  Judging me behind your counter wearing a plastic name tag and smock.

You’re so great huh? That why you’re working the night shift at a convenience store? Not everyone can go to junior college and get a degree in business management like Brendan can! Not everyone can date a plain, yet polite girl named Judy like Brendan does! Not everyone is a hypercritical prick that knows exactly the right sneer to undercut the already low self-esteem of “Ice Cream Sad Lady” like Brendan knows! I know everyone that works here calls me that.

I know what Brendan doesn’t know: The unbearable sting of soul-crushing defeat. Brendan is blissfully ignorant of a life where ice cream flavors like Chubby Hubby and Chocolate Therapy are cold spoonfuls of irony.
Well guess what: you’ll get it one day.

I’ll be in the parking lot, waiting for the ice cream to melt a little so I can eat it with a plastic spoon, when I’ll see you walk up to innocently ask for a bite… Just a taste to see if the sugar, or the high fructose corn syrup, or chemical coloring agents, makes you feel less worthless. I could say no, and get the immediate satisfaction of denying you something so simple—but instead I’ll give you a taste, and you’ll thank me.

Then, I’ll laugh. I’ll laugh when you bring home a pint each night while some stupid teenager stares at you thinking to himself, “I’ll never be that.”

That’s when I win.

- Nick Martin

Flickr photo by Joyosity