Bill Cosby Teaches Jared from Subway

"Hey Jared! Good to see you! How are you?"

"Bill---Bill Cosby? What are you doing here? Wait, where the hell are we?"

"My boy, this is a place called the Public Consciousness. It's not fun, but don't worry, it's very temporary."

"The Public what? Look, I have some commercials to tape, I have to--"

"Hahaha," Cosby laughed. "Jared, trust me, all that filth flarn filth in your career just came to a dead stop. Nobody at any corporation is touching you now. Come on, let's walk this way." They started towards a door.

"How do you know so much about this place?"

"I was just here a few months ago. All these accusations came out about me drugging girls to have sex with them. It was Godawful. But like I said, you're only in the Public Consciousness for a very short while. I was quickly forgotten about."

"So why are you back?"

"Apparently, I just admitted to raping girls."

"WHAT?"

"That's what the public thinks. That I just said, 'hell yeah I raped them. I raped them all!' But of course I didn't say that. A sealed document from 2005 came out where I admitted some things. It was released, but since nobody reads anything more than headlines, the public just assumes I admitted it today."

Just then, the door they were walking to burst open. A lady was being escorted out while screaming. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!! I BELONG HERE!! DON'T KICK ME OUT YET!!"

"Holy crap," said Jared. "Who is that?"

"Haha," said Cosby. "That's Rachel Dolezal. I guess her fifteen minutes are up. She apparently wanted to stay here a little longer. That's a little weird. Let's go inside."

Inside, assorted celebrities and Greek government officials took up most of the chairs, as well as the US Women's Soccer Team.

"Hmm...hard to find a seat," said Cosby.

"Here, you can have mine," said Caitlyn Jenner. "I was just leaving."

"Thanks, Bruce--ah, shit, I mean Caitlyn." Cosby laughed. "I'm an old man, you can't switch things up on me like that!" He playfully punched Jenner as he sat down. Jared sat next to him.

"So what do we do here?" Asked Jared.

"Just got to ride it out. See those soccer players over there? The Public Consciousness thinks they were underpaid and are bitter. The truth is, they were paid handsomely and haven't said one thing about it. They're just ecstatic about winning the Cup. As for you, nobody is reading articles about your story, just headlines, so now everybody thinks your a pedophile."

"WHAT?!? I'm totally not--"

"Hahaha," laughed Cosby. "This is the new social media. Facts don't matter. It's what generates clicks. Anyway, the world has massive A.D.D. now, so this will all blow over soon. The true facts about you will come out eventually, but nobody will give a shit because the new made-up stories will be out by then."

"Wow. So, you're innocent? You really didn't rape those girls?"

"Um, let's just change the subject, why don't we?"

An Unexpected Message from my Mom

My OCD got sick and tired of seeing the big red “347” over the Google Voice icon on my iPhone a few days ago.  Yes, that means I had 347 new messages.  Well, maybe “new” isn’t a good description for them.  Some of them were from 2011.  Clearly, I hate voicemail.

But feeling under the weather and having nothing better to do, I decided to log into my Google Voice account on a PC and undertake the arduous task of cleaning it out.  The nice thing about Voice is that it attempts to transcribe the message for you so you don’t have to actually listen to the crap. Any time I saw phrases like “trouble with my Verizon phone you sold me” or “need someone to explain my bill”, I could immediately delete.  Productivity!

Then I saw a message from Norlina P. Simmons.

A message from my mom!

I played it. It was her complaining, wondering why she bothers to leave voicemail when I never check it.  I guess she learned her lesson, since this was the last message from her, and it was mid-2014.  After that she became a texter.

But her voice—My God it was wonderful to hear her voice again. I ceased cleaning out my voicemail and instead started searching for her messages.  There were many.  She’d tell me she was sorry she “missed (my) call, but (she) was in church” or that she “wanted to know if (I) was coming over for breakfast” or if I wanted to go with Dad and her “to get a sandwich”.   I listened to every single one, all the way back to when I started using Google for voicemail, back in ’11.

As I was going through them all, I noticed something.  I hadn’t heard the words “I love you”.  Mom and I had no qualms saying this to each other—in fact we said it a lot—but I guess it wasn’t something we did much in voicemail. 

I kept playing message after message.  I desperately wanted to hear it.  Finally, I played a message from April 18^th, 2012.  It ended with:

“…checked my phone and there you are! You called me. Okay, you’re okay. Love you! Bye.”

And, that’s when the waterworks started.  It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.

Shit. Why do I write this crap?  It’s starting again.

Okay, the point of this essay isn’t to get all sappy.  The point is this: That message was a somewhat random voicemail where my mom was worried about me because (I guess) we hadn’t been in touch.  At the end, she told me she loved me to end the message, and probably didn’t think much about it after hanging up.  And now it’s the most important recording I have, and I plan on keeping it the rest of my life. 

Okay, THAT wasn’t the point either.  That was what happened.  THIS is the point: Tell your loved ones you love them.  All the time. Every time. Any time you think of it. Because you never know if that random “I love you” will be the last one you ever have to ability to give.  Or receive. 

I love you too, Mom.

My Mom, My Hero

When I was a Verizon rep in Florida, every once in a while another rep would catch me at my desk without a customer, seemingly doing nothing, with a big smile on my face.

"Dude, why are you smiling?" He asked once.

"No reason. Just to smile I guess."

"Well, you look like a serial killer. Stop."

My smile turned into a laugh, then back to a smile. I never really put that much thought into it. Sometimes I just smile.

In retrospect, I guess I now know where I got it from. My mom always smiled. She was perpetually happy. I'll never forget being at my parents' house one day at dinner when she just blurted out, "I'm so happy with my life". It was entirely genuine. There was no one in the world happier than her.

The crazy thing was, she had so many reasons to deny herself happiness. She never experienced having wealth. Even before the cancer, her body was ravaged with rheumatoid arthritis, osteo-arthritis, and some disease that prevented her body from producing any moisture. She also had an artificial shoulder and her hands were starting to become deformed.

Mother was in constant pain, but honestly, us loved ones always forgot about it because she NEVER talked about it. She never complained. And despite her crippling handicaps, she'd keep on volunteering, keep on making cakes and candies, and keep on smiling.

Check out these two pictures:

In the first, Mom is in the Cancer Center getting her chemo...smiling away. In the second--damn this hurts--this was the last picture ever taken of her. A few hours later she left on an ambulance ride she would never come home from. At this point the Cancer Center had told her her body was too weak for chemo. Every part of her ached, and she was only walking because her rehab specialist was trying to keep her muscles from atrophying. It's a blurry picture and hard to tell, but you know what you see when you zoom in?

A big smile.

I think Mom figured out two things that most people never do:

1. Happiness really is a choice. You can choose to be miserable, you can choose to be stressed, and you can choose to be dissatisfied. But my mom chose to feel happy and fulfilled.

2. At no time in life do you receive more happiness than when you give happiness. I already knew that Mom volunteered at LifeLine, a charity that supports single mothers, sang choir at the bedside of patients in hospice, gave away cakes and candies, et cetera. But since her passing I've learned DOZENS of stories of her giving her time, energy and love to others that I had no idea about.

Which explains the absolute FLOOD of people that came to her house to help her and Dad out in any way possible. So many people loved her because she loved so many people.

And that is where she got all her happiness.

As I said in her eulogy, the way I plan on honoring my mom is by living my life like hers: giving of myself. And in fact, it's not really work. It's all reward.

Because all the love you give, you get back tenfold.

I love you, Mom.

Mom and Dad (and Cell Phones)

Mom was in the passenger seat of Dad’s pickup truck.  She was playing with her brand new BlackBerry while Dad was driving.

“Great,” he said sarcastically.  “Now you’re going to become one of those damn ‘BlackBerry Zombies’.”

To this day, Dad hates cell phones, and only has a little flip phone because I got him one and made him promise to always leave it on.  That wasn’t the easiest rule to negotiate because the only thing he hates more than cell phones is actually answering calls on cell phones.  Mom, on the other hand, not only liked them, but seemed to have a knack for them.  I noticed her storing appointments and reminders on flip phones, which I thought nobody did.  This is why I got her the BlackBerry.

“No I won’t,” she responded.  “I’m just replying to some email.”

“You’ve been on that damn thing for half an hour.”

“Just a few more minutes.”

Dad stewed in the driver’s seat.  If he could keep his cell phone in his pocket while out with his spouse, he didn’t see why she couldn’t.  Whatever.

“Okay, okay, I’m done,” Mom said, after noticing my dad’s bitterness.  She put the BlackBerry in her purse.  

“Good.  I hate all this new technology.  I’d like to be able to enjoy just one damn day without it.”

Just then, his cell phone rang.

“Aw, SON OF A BITCH! Who the hell is calling now?!?”  He started to undo his seatbelt.

“Honey, be careful,” said Mom.

Dad, who’s a little heavy in the midsection, really struggled to get to the phone in his front pocket while it continued to ring. “DAMMIT this is why I hate these things!”

“Maybe you should pull over.”

“I can get it!”

After a few more curse words, he finally pulled the phone out of his pocket and flipped it open.

It said “Norlina”.

Mom purse-dialed him.

After a second of silence, Mom erupted with laughter.  It took a few more seconds, but Dad eventually joined her.  

Should I be Fired?

“My son just wants to take a look at iPhones,” said a middle-aged woman who hurriedly walked in our store on the Upper West Side. She wore very expensive clothing and was talking on her cell phone. She gestured at me to go away. Over-entitled Upper West Side bitch.

I turned to the boy. He was about 17, also well-attired, but not wearing it well. He was overweight, had thick glasses, and was all wrinkled. “The iPhones are right over--”

“I know where they are,” he interrupted and brushed past me. He immediately started touching all the app icons on our demo iPhone.

“Where's the big one? The iPhone 6 Plus?”

“We don't have a demo of the Plus,” I responded. “But if you want to know the size, this is the case for it.”

“What kind of store doesn't have a demo of the Plus?!? How am I supposed to decide on a phone I can't try out!?! This is ridiculous. This store is stupid.” He looked at me with detest.

I hit him with a left hook right in the gut. He grunted as the force caused him to bend slightly forward, which was unfortunate for him as it made it easier for me to connect with a followup right uppercut to the jaw. The punk literally flew into the iPhone display, which got knocked off the shelf. He slammed against the wall and slumped down to the floor. OtterBox cases and car chargers rained down upon him as he lay on the ground, groaning, with his bloodied face.

“Is it the same price here as online?” He asked.

Startled, I snapped out of my fantasy. “Yeah, Apple controls their pricing. iPhones are always the same cost no matter where you buy them.”

“Good,” he said, still playing with the iPhone. “I already ordered mine online. I just wanted to play with this one.”

“You already ordered it?!? YOU'RE WASTING MY TIME FUCKING WITH STORE iPHONES WHEN YOU ALREADY ORDERED THE PIECE OF SHIT ONLINE?!? COME HERE YOU OVERENTITLED TWERP!” I quickly put him in a headlock. “YOU WANT TO SEE AN iPHONE?!?! HERE'S A GODDAMN iPHONE!!” I started smashing his fat face into the iPhone display.

“What are you doing?!?” His mom shouted. I reached for an iPad with my free hand and quickly flung it, frisbee-style at the mom, knocking her in the forehead. She fell to the ground. The contents of her Prada purse spilled out onto the floor. A bag came out marked “Two Million Dollars of Untraceable Bills that can Definitely be Stolen and You'll Totally Get Away With it and Quit Retail”.

I quit smashing the punk's face and rushed over, grabbed the money, and ran for the door. Yes! I'm free forever! I can write and perform all I want and--

“Okay, that's enough,” said the kid. “I can't wait to get my phone! MOM! I'm ready to go!”

The mother, who was still on the phone, simply turned and left, and the son followed her out the door.