It’s been a little serious lately, so here’s a completely dumb moment in history brought to you by me, Jason, and Jason’s son Otto. Of the three of us, can you guess the person most responsible for our misery? Yeah, it’s Jason.
To be fair, I think the misery can also be blamed on David, who moved to Los Angeles with cleaning behaviors that were already suspect (like the time he left a cooked chicken in his oven for, oh, three months). This was compounded by the fact that David almost immediately fell in love when he moved to Los Angeles and started transitioning his life to a much nicer, better apartment in a much nicer, better part of Southern California.
But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself.
Gossin, in addition to being a delight, is a magnet for strange and wonderful cars.
I am certain that if Jason’s place didn’t come pre-leaded it’s definitely full of lead now.
So, while this was happening I was chatting with David about my upcoming trip to Los Angeles. I was looking forward to crashing at his new place, which is very nicely kept and co-inhabited by the aforementioned significant other, with whom all of us are charmed.
I was supposed to be picking up the i3 there and crashing for the night. This is me right after being told by Jason that neither of those things would be happening.
Yeah, David’s place was not great when Otto, Jason, and I decided to stay there on my last trip to Los Angeles. There was old Chinese food in the fridge, half-cleaned plates in the sink, a thick layer of dust on everything, and as we walked to the apartment David produced a laundry basket and proudly proclaimed that “This time you’ll have clean towels.”
Apparently, our towels weren’t clean the time prior to that.
Moving sucks.
Yes, Jason is recovering from surgery, but he got out of the hospital last night so I feel comfortable peppering him a bit. How long should we feel sorry for him? A full night and day? That’s too much.
Ok, so rewind to our last stay, it’s the last night. I’ve been sleeping on the couch and filling up my water bottle before leaving Galpin/Autopian World HQ every afternoon. I’m ready to take a shower and go to sleep when a river starts pouring out of the bathroom.
“Oops” says Jason, realizing he’s clogged David’s toilet. It’s here we learned that David’s apartment slants towards the LA River as the water swiftly started moving towards his bed and towards the couch.
[Editor’s Note: I’m a person with a potent, robust alimentary canal. I produce healthy, loamy poops with such regularity that on more than one occasion the United States Naval Observatory has used the actions of my bowels to calibrate their atomic clocks, which rely on the less-regular pulsation of atoms or when a lone atom of hydrogen poops, or something. What I’m saying here is the fault is in David’s sub-par plumbing, which seems to be only suitable for thick-ish urine and an occasional vigorous fart. I’m not taking the fall for this one; blame David’s slumlord and their use of drinking-straw pipes. – JT]
I quickly grabbed our only towels to stanch the flood while Jason plunged the toilet. Eventually, the water stopped and we went to work using the Swiffer (David did have one, thankfully) to mop up and clean up what we could. Friends, you don’t want to know the color of that Swiffer.
It was there I resolved to never stay at David’s apartment again. I failed in that resolution, but at least this time I remembered to bring my own towel.
Way to bury the Lede. Erica Lourd, awesome!
I’ve seen her mentioned a few times before. She’s been working on their video content for a while now.
Matt: First lesson from Hitchhikers Guide is to always bring your towel. David and my 19y/o engineering major son would get along. My son cannot handle liquids without spilling them. We’ve had two cars ruined by old dairy smell in the carpet. Moldy coffee with cream spilled one time and raw milk (he was making cheese in school for a project).
Torch: “oops.”
Me, as I’m reading this: “Yep, acronym confirmed. Operation Outside Prescribed Specifications.”
Time for DT to call Mitch Bryant.
I threw up in my mouth a little.
A lot. I threw up in my mouth a lot.
I can relate to the clogged toilet. I’ve clogged public toilets, hotel toilets, and workplace toilets on multiple occasions, and even clogged the kind from the 1950s that have enough suction to swallow a chicken. So home low-flow toilets with even less flushing capability are problematic, especially at friends’ houses.
Pro-tip: keep a bent coat hangar and a plunger next to your home commode. Breaking everything up helps it go down, but even then, that may not be enough.
The evening dump. Always the riskier one.
But I am a member!
So is that cooked chicken that was in his oven still available?
SWG! That 26 Chrysler is so awesome!!!
My thoughts exactly! I dig your style, my homie.
So glad that you’re better Jason. And yup, moving sucks, that’s why I don’t do it. Hell, it would take me 3 months to pack up up my massive RV and car memorabilia and model collection, never mind another month to pack up the hotwheels and matchbox cars. Please tell me you threw that swiffer away after you used it. God forbid it should be used to dust something now after the pure hell y’all put it through. Good to know, though, that in an emergency a swiffer will hold up to poop water.
Where you been SWG?!?!?!
We miss you!
Coming back with a vengeance wicked shortly. Thanks a ton for the kind sentiment, my dude!
Yay!
I been jonesing for content from your Southern Lair
His GF will fix him quick. She drives a Lexus after all.
My favorite part has to be SWG’s dogged “hey yellow Chrylsers amiright?!” conversational attempts right before everything gets steered into a very different lane. I like to think he knows exactly when to fold when playing with this group.
Amen, Jack!
Will we get a SWG piece about refurbishing that ’26 and selling it to a community college student for $75?
Harvey! There will be some SWG on the site this week with the Good Lord a-willin’ and if the creek don’t rise!
Yassssssssssss
Hey now – if the chicken reached an internal temperature of 165F, and if the oven had a good seal, and if no one opened the oven after it cooled, then in theory that chicken should have been fine in that sterile environment forever.
That’s why high praise from Douglas Adams included “he’s a hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is”.
If one or more members of the ‘topian staff are not familiar with the works of Mr. Adams, please let me know. I will not judge; instead I would treat that as a teachable moment.
And possibly send the offending staffer a copy of the first book in the increasingly inaccurately named trilogy.
Not “the offending staffer” – remember, no judging.
But yes. 🙂
Probably not. Ovens are vented so pathogens can enter a cold oven that way. Plus cooking might kill 99.999999% of existing pathogens but that still leaves thousands of pathogens in that petri dish if there were billions to start with.
What kind of an oven can hold a chicken AND a seal?
I knew better than to trust anything with flipper-grey flooring.
Did he at least get his deposit back?
I think the deposit was the problem. 😐
Nice one. More to the point, Jason got his deposit back.
I love this more than I should. Y’all are far too entertaining! And now I’m picturing Jason calmly saying “oops” as he walks out of the bathroom, followed by a tidal wave of sewage. Meanwhile David looks up from his computer in the corner and exclaims “Come on man! I eat in there!”
No worries, David eats his spaghetti in the shower. From what I gathered, only the toilet backed up. Bon Appetit!
“Oops” is one of those words that depends on who’s uttering it. A little kid coloring outside the lines expressing an oops wouldn’t concern me. Torch dropping an oops as he leaves a bathroom would worry me.
That would worry almost anyone, with good reason.
I can just feel the beaming pride of “you’ll have clean towels this time!” and I have tears in my eyes from laughing.
That said, being in the next town over from Torch… let’s just say I haven’t missed a daylight saving time change in a few years.
My housemate cleans his tea towels by popping them in the microwave for thirty seconds.
I mean, I guess it probably sterilises them, but they’re still stained 🙁