Connect with us

Blog

THE WALKING BORED

Published

on

by Mike Covers

As I am now terribly old (42), it has been years, possibly decades, since I have been “carded” for anything. When I was younger, though, I had to show my ID for everything. Including, one night, crossing the street.

I grew up physically–but thankfully not intellectually–in the suburbs. Once my friends and I were made aware that there was a whole, unique, different world beyond the cul-de-sacs and chain restaurants of our sad little slice of Pennsylvania, we immediately realized just how boring our hometown actually was. Sure, we would trek to nearby magical utopias of excitement and activity–Philadelphia, New York City, Delaware, etc.–but at the end of the day, we always found ourselves back on our drab streets, bored out of our skulls. Part of the problem was that everything in the area seemed to close at 9PM, which posed a problem for our age group, which typically doesn’t even wake up until the late afternoon. We were also all broke college students as well, meaning that bars and clubs, where you’re charged $17.50 just for a cup of water, were well outside our realm of possibility. Plus, that would mean we would have to interact with people our own age, which was a major turnoff. My friend Bill and I were once so desperate for something to do at, like, 9:01PM that we went “supermarket-ratting,” which was similar to our favorite past time of “mallratting,” only in our local 24-hour supermarket, one of the very few businesses open at that time. We honestly spent hours–or perhaps minutes–aimlessly wandering the aisles of laundry detergent, baking supplies, and divorced dads just so we wouldn’t have to trudge back home to our TVs and sleep regimens for yet another night. 

One summer night, my friend Brian called me and our friends Sean and Bill up. He would have texted, but ran into the problem of text messaging not having been invented yet.

“Yo, want to come over and watch movies?”

Watching movies inside each others’ houses was terminally boring and pointless, so naturally we were all about to agree to it, when Brian sweetened the pot a bit.

“We can watch them on my pool deck.”

Brian’s family had a huge above-ground pool in the backyard of their row home, meaning that the space was basically 25% yard and 75% pool. Its “deck” was really nothing more than an elongated edge on one side of the pool, certainly not the kind of pool deck you would see at a beach resort or even a Motel 6. Despite these physical limitations, Brian was nevertheless able to rig up a nice little outdoor oasis for him to relax and avoid his mother’s nagging after a long day of sleep. During the summer months each year, we spent a good deal of time there swimming and ogling his attractive next door neighbors enjoying their own pool, as the height of the pool deck cleared the 6-foot fence separating the two properties.

In the days before phones, tablets, and laptops, you had to get creative if you ever wanted to watch TV more than 6 feet away from an electrical outlet. Brian was a technical genius, though, as evidenced by the fact that he had electrocuted himself no more than 6 times. He ran an extension cord from one of the outlets in his house out to the pool deck. There, he connected the VCR (a VCR is a prehistoric DVD player) (and a DVD player is a prehistoric streaming service) and, of course, the TV. Granted, it wasn’t a huge TV. Rather, it was one of those tiny sets that you usually see sitting forgotten on someone’s kitchen counter, with a screen the size of a mousepad, only with crappier picture quality. 

But it was good enough for us, since we all lacked both standards and anything better to do.

As night fell, we all crammed onto Brian’s pool deck. The small size of the deck didn’t allow for luxurious, or even discount, patio furniture. Thus, every piece of furniture on the deck–the chairs, the footrests, the stand that the TV was resting on–were all crudely constructed out of, seriously, plastic bread racks and milk crates that Brian had stolen from behind supermarkets and convenience stores. Tying them all together with bungee cords (which he bought legitimately) (we think), the crate-and-rack structures actually resembled real furniture, assuming you were blind or had never seen actual furniture before. The chairs were rather sturdy, violently wobbling only when we sat down, stood up, or sat on them motionless. The “table” was made out of a long bread rack precariously balanced and attached via bungee cord to several milk crates stacked atop one another. Like the chairs, it too was rather sturdy and only wobbled if something disturbed it, like a slight breeze. Brian decided that this was the perfect thing to balance the TV and VCR on, its wires mere inches from the calm pool water.

The night wore on and we watched movie after movie, pausing only to slap mosquitoes and to leer at Brian’s neighbors whenever they came into the backyard and did something sexy, like taking out a bag of trash. I forget what movies Brian had selected for the evening’s entertainment. We watched either Clerks or Scarface; it was hard to tell what, exactly, was playing on the tiny TV screen.

Well past midnight, we decided that our ass cheeks had been sufficiently impressed with the criss-cross patterns of the hard milk crates acting as our seats. Brian bid us farewell and Sean, Bill, and I made our way through his backyard and into the alley where we had parked. 

Suddenly, a cop car pulled up and stopped right near us. Since we were all products of the suburbs, cop worship–and fear–was something that we were taught from a young age. We were still years away from the widespread exposure of police brutality, but we were starting to realize that anyone in a blue uniform was not to be trusted. In our experience, suburban police activity seemed to be less focused on stopping crime and more on harassing people. Cops either had nothing better to do since suburbia was devoid of so much personality and activity that this even included crime, or they were focused on harassing people for minor, or even nonexistent, offenses while ACTUAL crimes were probably occurring mere streets away.

Shining his flashlight in our faces, he asked “Hey – what are you three doing out here?”

Perplexed, we said, “We’re going to our cars.” Cars that were, in fact, currently blocked by the parked police vehicle. “We were at our friend’s house.”

This didn’t seem to sit well with the cop.

“What were you doing?” he asked, making sure to blind each of us with the flashlight again.

“Uh…watching movies,” Sean answered.

“On the pool deck,” Bill added, thinking it was somehow useful.

This blew the older cop’s mind. People went OUTSIDE after 9PM?! That went against suburban code! 

“You shouldn’t be out here,” the cop said. Exactly what law we were breaking was not explained to us by him, either because it didn’t exist or, if it did, it had too many syllables. 

Then he added the kicker: “I’m gonna need to see your IDs.”

“For crossing the street?” Sean said, incredulously.

“I need to see them,” the cop repeated in that tone of voice that suggests that the next thing he will spout forth at us will be measured in millimeters (and I am not talking about his brain) (or his penis). Had we not been Caucasian, this likely would have already been done, probably when we were still on Brian’s pool deck. 

I removed my wallet and showed the cop my driver’s license. Bill did the same.

Sean pointed to the next street. “I…live over there. I’m just walking home.”

The cop studied our IDs–and our faces–a few more times with his flashlight. As he did so, we wondered why we were being hassled. We certainly weren’t drunk, nor were we doing anything more disruptive than walking along a street. While he was sitting there trying to decide if he was going to cite us for walking at an hour he personally didn’t think was walking-worthy, again, there were probably ACTUAL crimes going on elsewhere in the area. Brian may very well be stealing more bread racks and milk crates from the local 7-Eleven as we speak to build himself a poolside couch!

Finally, he handed us back our IDs. “Just get home now,” he growled. Then, he sped out of sight, looking for a minority to shoot.

Sean, Bill, and I exchanged glances. “Did that seriously just happen?” I asked.

“Is it…ILLEGAL to cross the street now?” Bill asked.

“I guess it is after one in the morning,” Sean said.

I relay this story all these years later as a warning. If you find yourself in the suburbs for any reason, including your car breaking down, make sure the boredom doesn’t cause you to fall into a life of criminal activity like walking across a street without proper ID. Keep that kind of unchecked troublemaking in the city where it belongs. 

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Blog

Putt Putt Golf N Games N Arcade N Nachos N…

Published

on

by Mike Covers

I recently had the opportunity (translation: was bored enough) to go to Delaware County’s popular “Putt Putt Golf ‘N Games” attraction with a few friends of mine. As with any night out at the miniature golf course, the coming hours promised to be filled with fun, laughter, and violent, homicidal thoughts toward a rented golf ball. We got there sometime between 12PM and 12AM (I don’t own a watch).

The first step of our plan was the most important part: using the restroom. We had just come from a Burger King that still places its soda fountain out in the middle of its dining area, well within the reach of our large-sized cups. In other words, refills are unlimited. The Putt Putt facilities were nothing more than small holes in the wall, furnished with a toilet, sink, and a stench equal to that of a dead, constipated, rotting animal on a hot day.

Next, we purchased our games. We opted for a single round, in that physical exertion was never popular among my group of friends (“physical exertion,” in this case, meaning something more than mashing buttons on a video game controller or digesting Burger King food in our half-blood, half-fountain-soda bloodstreams). We were given brightly colored golf balls to play with; I chose the green colored ball for two reasons: a) it’s my favorite color, for it is the color of money; b) it was the only one left. We also selected our clubs, which ranged in size from “Short” to “Toothpick.” It is a common rule at miniature golf courses that the clubs should be at a comfortable length for people no taller than a Ninja Turtles action figure. Our final ingredients were the official scorecard and official eraser-free pencil, which itself rivaled the size of our clubs. A miniature golf scorecard is used for many different things, such as recording the players’ strokes at each hole, totaling up the final scores at the end, and to further fill up the official Putt-Putt Golf ‘N Games trash cans, their contents already comprised of used scorecards and, presumably, erasers.

We stepped up to the first hole and chose an order to play in, through the grueling task of seeing who would put their ball down first. Each person got a chance to tap the ball across the course and into…a patch of Astroturf approximately one molecule away from the hole. This managed to launch us into a barrage of swear words so vile that they would make Denis Leary cringe in offense. We also employed the technique of “Psych-out” mini-golf, where we would attempt to verbally sabotage another player using visual images featuring various ugly people we knew engaging in graphic, often physics-defying, sexual positions with certain species of animal.

The above paragraph pretty much described the events that took place at each hole, in addition to the fact that I was the only one who couldn’t live up to the “Par 2” standard at each hole. Judging from my golfing skills that night, I would not be safe on a Par 4036 course. Some holes offered obstacles, such as raised surfaces which would cause the ball to approach the hole, teeter on the edge of it for a moment, then roll BACKWARDS to the starting pad, where the current player was already unleashing colorful swears. Another type of obstacle included various painted objects rising up from deep within the roots of the Astroturf, designed to either bump the ball in its intended direction or (more often) into an unexpected direction, such as off the current course and inside a potted plant several courses away. Yet another obstacle was a small pool of water, which acted as a nuisance but did clean the plant’s topsoil off the ball.

Finally, our game came to an end and the scores were tallied up; I received the highest score and, for some reason, was the only one proud of this fact. We proceeded to return our balls, replace the clubs in their protective cigar boxes, and listen to the clerk tell us how wrong/inappropriate/illegal everything was that we did or yelled. Afterwards, we rested from our 3-hour round of golf (we all REALLY suck) in the arcade on the premises. I tried my hand at skee ball, where I easily scored 500 points, which translates to two prize tickets. I also played a game of pinball, earning 54 billion points simply by starting the game. I was able to trade in my prize tickets for a tiny plastic spider ring, which seemed to be worth 37 times less than the actual tickets. Nevertheless, I kept my hard-earned, 25¢ prize and proudly displayed it in my trash can.

After a short snack of nachos and pizza, my friends and I left, our goals of paying money to tap balls into 18 different cups satisfied for another year. It was time to go back to Burger King for more refills.

Continue Reading

Blog

Inaction News

Published

on

by Mike Covers

The events of this story took place back in 2002, during my senior year of college. I dubbed it worthy enough for not only documentation, but also for inclusion in the university’s newspaper. Perhaps that is why the newspaper never earned any awards/recognition/readership.

On that day, I took off from classes due to a mild sickness which involved a stuffy nose, sore throat, and a massive splitting headache (imagine having a bowling ball dropped on your skull; I would have preferred THAT over the type of headache I was suffering). Fortunately, Ny-Quil, Excedrin, and several straight hours on America Online’s Instant Messenger (again, it was 2002) proved to be just the remedy I needed to feel over 15% better the next day.

I was not prepared for the phone call I received.

Usually, weekday calls to my family’s house were limited to telemarketers and my parents calling to remotely play the saved messages on our answering machine, which mainly consisted of 5,211,080 calls beginning with “This is Verizon AT&T Sprint Arctic Bell calling with a special offer…”, which were all promptly deleted (and, when it was my dad calling in, cursed at).

Around the middle of the day, I received a phone call from my friend Bill. This somewhat surprised me, for none of my friends even WOKE UP until the middle of the day and didn’t really possess a clear voice or coherent thoughts until later on in the evening. Bill cleared up why he was calling at what would otherwise be an ungodly hour for him: he and our friend Brian were getting ready to leave Atlantic City, where they had spent the past few days. This excursion to the popular (meaning “only”) New Jersey hotspot was a result of both of them having a lot of money and nothing better to do.

“Dude, we’re gonna be on the news,” was his greeting.

Again, I was not prepared for this greeting. 

First of all, the only statements I’m used to my friends greeting me with over the telephone are “Wanna go to the mall?” or, simply, “Food. Now.” Also, my friends have never exactly done, or even been involved with, anything newsworthy. To them, “newsworthy” would not be something like the kickoff of World War III, but rather the announcement of a new Final Fantasy game.

“Why were you on the news?,” I asked, still not sure whether I had heard him right. Just how strong was my latest dose of Ny-Quil?

“There was some assault under the boardwalk last night and they asked us if we knew anything about it,” he explained. “We were pretty hammered last night but we kinda remembered hearing something about it so when they asked us if we knew anything we were like yeah.”

Verbatim quote. Probably. 

Next, you will witness the real, authentic reason that Bill and Brian were enthusiastic about being interviewed. This is evidenced by the fact that they began to pass the phone back and forth.

BRIAN: “Dude, I said ‘shit’ on the air.”

BILL: “Dude, Brian said ‘shit’.”

BRIAN: “I don’t think they’re gonna use that part though.”

BILL: “Brian doesn’t think they’re gonna use it on TV.”

BRIAN: “Hey, wanna go to the mall when we get back?”

And so on. They finally got around to the part where they requested that I record the 5:00 PM news that afternoon. So I accepted, mainly because there was nothing better on at that time. Had the request interrupted my mandatory viewing of syndicated “Simpsons” episodes between 6:30 and 7:30 PM, I would have heartily declined.

At 5:00, I pressed “record” on my VCR (yet again, 2002) and sat through the obligatory opening stories of murders, fires, politicians, politicians committing murders and setting fires, etc. Finally, footage of the Atlantic City boardwalk and the sub-boardwalk sand dunes popped onto the screen. After an interview with a police officer (who managed to make an entire speech about the incident WITHOUT saying “shit”), Bill and Brian’s segment appeared.

The first clip showed them, in a city full of casinos, live entertainment, a beach, strippers, etc. standing next to a railing doing nothing…a stance that they regularly assume pretty much anywhere they go. Both stood expressionless, looking around (Bill later remarked “I did some good standing around, didn’t I?”) as the reporter narrated. The shot next cut to an interview with Brian.

“There’s not a lot of people under there…and it’s a pretty shady place at night.”

And that was it. Although there was some speculation over whether Brian’s pronunciation of “shady” sounded like “shitty,” nothing came of it. 

However, the news managed to once again do its job of entertaining two hungover suburbanites and one ill suburbanite at home with ten seconds of TV footage. We still talked about the incident…excitedly…for years.

For the record (meaning for the college professors whose classes I missed that day who might be reading this), I did not go to the mall that evening. After all, not a lot of people go there and it’s a pretty shady/shitty place at night.

Continue Reading

Blog

Our Eyes Were Lazed over

Published

on

by Mike Covers

I’m currently 43 years old and counting (not by choice). So far, I have spent my 40s waxing nostalgic about my 20s and plan to continue this for the remainder of them. 

When most people put on their rose-colored glasses and gaze back on their younger years before marriage, children, mortgages, Trump presidencies, etc., they usually remember the same kinds of things. Parties. Bars. Prison. My own friends and I, however, spent these years not getting drunk (all the time, anyway) and instead shooting each other with lasers.

Don’t worry: these weren’t death lasers like those used in James Bond and Short Circuit movies. The only real consequence of getting shot by these lasers was losing the game, which was usually WORSE than actual death. This all took place at Lazerworks in suburban Philadelphia, which has since closed permanently and been transformed into a sports bar (something even worse than losing the game AND death combined). Seven of us would pile into my friend Bill’s Beretta, which comfortably fit maybe 3 people. My friend Jon and their brother would occasionally agree to ride in the trunk. 

While our games usually only lasted an hour or so, one night we all took advantage of a deal that allowed us to play as much as we could between 10PM and 1AM. It took place on a Saturday night, a time frame in which approximately 98% of other people our age were busy leading social lives which require as few laser guns as possible (the other 2% were with us at Lazerworks). Nevertheless, we continued on our quest, for defeating the Red Team was far more important than, say, meeting girls.

Upon entering, our first step was…you guessed it…using the rest rooms. 

Fortunately, the facilities had some degree of cleanliness, which meant it was safe to enter them without wearing an oxygen mask. However, something struck me as odd: in a building whose main activity was completely run by and dependent on computers, the toilets had manual flush handles. Yep, there was a total lack of easy-to-use, sensor-operated automatic toilets that you find virtually anywhere else. Manual flush. It was almost as if the toilets themselves were aimed against us and our voluntary immobile lifestyles. However, we all found the strength to MANUALLY flush them and return to the lobby.

Each of us paid our $25 for the session; next, we sat around and waited for the game to start amongst a collection of arcade games, which were probably bought with the money that Bill alone spent on summer laser tag sessions. After discussing news, politics, and other topics (i.e.—which specials we were going to take advantage of at Dennys later on), we entered the Loading Area. The Loading Area is a small room in which players accessorize themselves with the laser guns and laser-sensitive vests for the upcoming game. Players are also told the instructions of the game, which most of my friends were probably able to lip-synch. 

Finally, it was time to enter The Maze.

The Maze is the heart of laser tag, the virtual battleground. It consists of a labyrinth of walls to run amongst, as well as the “Energizer” for each of the two teams, the “Base” for each team, and, of course, the “Other Energizer” for each team. The “Base” for each team is a section of “The Maze” that opposing players must “deactivate” by shooting their “lasers” at a small circle of “light” in the “ceiling.” Each player is given six lives, which can be lost if the opposing team shoots you enough. If you lose all of your lives, you must go to one of your team’s two “Energizers,” which are small portals in the wall that reproduce your lives, available shots, and chances to get killed again.

The “Energizer” was always a regular home for me and my laser gun.

Our friend Brian was the self-appointed “leader” of our team, for he was the only one psychotic enough to dye the tip of his hair green to symbolize his Green Team loyalty. I am not kidding. He explained to each of us, in deep and frightening detail, his strategy to ward off the opposing team and deactivate their “base,” with as little physical movement as possible. Once the game began, we all completely forgot the strategy, said “Screw this” to our appointed positions, and concentrated only on running around and shooting people. At least, this is what I did. Of course, this might explain why I got shot by pretty much every opposing player and needed to visit the “Energizer” more times than everyone on both teams combined. The Maze, meanwhile, was not only full of artificial smoke and music loud enough to be heard overseas, but also full of pathetic, plastic vest-coated losers running around shooting toy lasers at each other and at specified points of light in the ceiling while green-haired Brian ran around like a lunatic, trying to get the Green Team to re-assume their positions in his plan.

As the hours wore on, a total of eight games were played. My friends continually racked up scores in the thousands, while I continuously stayed in scores that regularly match January temperatures. At times we were on the Green Team, other times the Red Team, and one time on the Sit in the Lobby and Drink Pepsi Team.

As we approached the last game, the computer system actually crashed, rendering the main game as useful as DOS. Thus, we were forced to play “Vintage Laser Tag”, in which we used obsolete equipment to play. We wore vests that looked more like kitchen table placemats than huge, fearsome wads of plastic. We also used lasers that resembled department store pricing guns, thus making everyone look like a group of people randomly bar-code-scanning opponents.

In conclusion, laser tag was fun, but never play over seven games in one session, unless you are handy with a bar code reader. Also, keep in mind the cardinal rules of the game: deactivate the enemy’s “base,” re-energize as often as needed, and never, EVER, listen to Brian’s strategies.

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2023 Media Train Rek LLC