There has never been, and never will be, a more exciting sight than sitting down on a streetcar at 2:30am and seeing a drunk, middle-aged person sitting by themselves. Now, I\u2019m not saying that the idea of a lonely, drunk, middle-aged man on a streetcar fills me with joy, but something about them makes me happy. Primarily because those guys don\u2019t give a fuck.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what it is about these guys, but they will talk to anybody: male or female, conscious or not. It\u2019s a bit of an extension of people generally being more jovial when they\u2019re wasted, but these middle-aged men and women don\u2019t seem to be constrained by our occasionally odd societal norms. Do you have a burning desire to tell the 25 year old drinking a Slurpee behind you about how boss Grand Funk Railroad is? Go for it. You want to talk about the period in history when you thought Bruce Springsteen really meant something? Now\u2019s the time! These people remember a world where The Godfather was in theatres, and tonight they\u2019re more than happy to tell you about it, whether you care or not.<\/p>\n

I suppose my fascination with these people is mostly inspirational. I enjoy how little they care; Eminem talks the \u2018not giving a fuck\u2019 walk, but Gordon from Markham drunkenly stumbles that walk right into my face. And despite normally hating having to talk to strangers, these people are extremely interesting.<\/p>\n

I always imagine middle-aged people as having so much to do with their lives: I can\u2019t picture a 45 year old version of myself stumbling home at 3am and passing out while watching a Michael Bay movie after explaining to somebody half my age how excited I am to do just that. I assume by that point I will have some sort of lawn to mow in the morning, and have fallen asleep ten minutes into the second period of the west coast Hockey Night in Canada matchup. And most of the people I do see are like this: they have their lawn, and they often fall asleep before Jarome Iginla notches a point. But tonight they\u2019re not thinking about those things. Tonight is the night into which they have to inject all of their remaining youthful enthusiasm. They don\u2019t go out every week anymore, and they wouldn\u2019t want to if they had the chance. So now, when they do have something that pulls them into a more stereotypical, partying kind of night, they want it to be great.<\/p>\n

It seems like every time I go out, I see somebody crying. Since I\u2019m both an expert eavesdropper and a total dick, I generally try to figure out what\u2019s going on. Often it seems like the person with water streaming out of their face has been insulted by a potential romantic partner in some way, or they simply haven\u2019t seen their night through in the way they wish they had. And it would be false to say there aren\u2019t countless other people who feel the same way about their evening, minus the tears. They should have kissed that person they didn\u2019t know who walked up to them and said, \u201cWill you kiss me goodnight?\u201d They shouldn\u2019t have done that extra shot. Or they should have just done that shot before that unknown person asked the question.<\/p>\n

When an old guy starts to talk to me about the merits of The Boss, I don\u2019t see a sad old-ish drunk guy. I see a guy who knows what his life is about, and how he refuses to let anything stand in the way of enjoying his night. He\u2019ll be hung over and watching the Bills game next to a bucket and some Aspirin tomorrow, but tonight is his night. Tonight he is in control. And I can\u2019t wait to be comfortable enough to finally stop caring like this guy. After all, the kids need to know what Wu Tang Clan really meant to 1990s hip-hop, and we need somebody to spread that gospel.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tip Your Cashiers<\/h1>\n

Sometimes you meet somebody who is extremely interesting, and you only meet them once. You might only meet them at a barbeque and have an interesting conversation about the soap opera Passions, or you might meet them a couple times through a friend. Or you might meet them for less than a minute and they blow your fucking mind.<\/p>\n

Last summer I was with a friend, buying a pack of Nibs from a grocery store outside of my neighbourhood. When the cashier asked me how I was doing, I said that I was well, as I always respond to questions in the way my Grade 10 English teacher taught me to. To this, the cashier responded with a common joking response, saying, \u201cOh, you\u2019re well?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I get asked that question so often that I figured it was time to start answering it in a grammatically correct fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell actually, language is adaptive, so maybe you should be saying that you\u2019re good instead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWait, what?\u201d I understood what she was saying, but I was exasperated from all the obvious truthiness she was dropping on me at one time.<\/p>\n

\u201cLanguage changes with time as people change, so maybe we should reconsider whether or not the answer \u2018I am well\u2019 is grammatically correct. I mean, nobody talks like they\u2019re in the Great Gatsby anymore, do they old sport? That will be $3.49.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHoly shit.\u201d I paid her.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave a good night.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I was literally pulled away from the checkout by my friend, I immediately began telling said friend how interesting the cashier\u2019s point was. My friend was not amused, but that could just be because she isn\u2019t interested in talking to strangers who aren\u2019t really, really good looking. We walked away, although there was somebody behind us in line, so it\u2019s not like there was going to be a fully fleshed out conversation happening or anything.<\/p>\n

I doubt I\u2019ll forget that conversation any time soon. Since I was working overnights that summer, the lack of sleep hugely affected my memory, and that this memory has lasted a year is already amazing. I hate tipping bad servers at a restaurant simply because it\u2019s custom, but I do so. However, I would love the option to take all of the money I ever gave those shitty servers and give it to this cashier. Society will continue to tell us what to do, but I would rather listen to the actual people in it who have interesting things to say. I\u2019m well when I respond to social norms, but I would be much happier if I was good.<\/p>\n

Dammit, Wes!<\/h1>\n

Most of my friends hate sports, and the ones that don\u2019t are into them because we once lived together and my love of sports Bogarts the television for ten months of each year. That doesn\u2019t matter on the first Sunday of February, though. That is truly a day of days. It\u2019s the only day of the year where I know I\u2019ll be able to talk about the only subject I really want to talk about, and the one day when nobody thinks my more American tendencies are ridiculous*. The Super Bowl truly is a North American sporting event unlike any other, if only because it\u2019s the only one we all watch.<\/p>\n

*I\u2019m basically just a polite American. The only things I think about on any given day are basketball, football, and Michael Bay movies, I don\u2019t like maple syrup, I\u2019ve consumed more 7-11 Slurpees and hot dogs than you\u2019ll ever see in your life, I often yell at televisions while sober, I never watch hockey on those televisions at which I yell, and I gorge myself on chicken wings every week as a part of my self-imposed Meat Sweat Mondays challenge.<\/em><\/p>\n

The thing I find most interesting about my relationship to sports is that I care far less about specific players and teams than I used to, likely due to the fact that watching 82 games a year of the Rafael Araujo-era Toronto Raptors will crush anybody\u2019s ability to dedicate themselves to a team. I still feel emotion watching a big game, but now I mostly feel for the people playing the game, as opposed to getting so angry that I want to punch my roommate because Morris Peterson clanked a game-tying three. If I don\u2019t hate anybody involved in any given professional sports match-up, I just tend to end up feeling kind of shitty. I don\u2019t care about the Baltimore Ravens, but I felt bad for Billy Cundiff, a man who has to deal with people hating him because of Lee Evans\u2019 inability to hold onto a touchdown. Similarly, the San Francisco 49ers mean little to me, but I feel infinitely bad for Kyle Williams, returning punts because Ted Ginn Jr. couldn\u2019t. In both conference championship games this year, the team I was rooting for won, but I still couldn\u2019t help but feel horrible for the losers, and a comparable feeling happened on Sunday. Despite enjoying each player similarly, I\u2019m going to remember Wes Welker\u2019s drop in the Super Bowl more than I\u2019ll remember Eli Manning\u2019s perfect pass to Mario Manningham. I doubt Manning will spend much time thinking about that pass, but I know Welker will think about his drop every day for the next decade. Success feels great for a little while, but failure crushes you forever.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t totally understand why some of my friends will only watch one game of any sport in a given year, although I would imagine the reasoning is similar to why I decided I should see Twilight. We might not be interested, but there\u2019s something going on there that we want to understand. We want to know why sparkly vampires, or Welker\u2019s drop of a poorly thrown Tom Brady pass, is such a big deal to so many people, even if we never really understand why. But what we see in the Super Bowl is everything that is good about sport. It brings people together, it gives us something to collectively experience, and it allows us to witness the happiest and saddest moments of people\u2019s lives, if they\u2019re players or die-hard fans. It\u2019s how Friday Night Lights managed to be a great television show based around football without ever really being about football itself. It\u2019s not so much the game, but what the game means to the people who are attached to it. Despite not sharing similar opinions, we share the fried chicken, and we\u2019re all watching the same thing. We see Manning\u2019s goofy smile, but we also have to see Welker looking like he\u2019s about to die from heartbreak. The people we want to win do so sometimes, but as with all in life, that rarely happens. When it does, it\u2019s nice, but when it doesn\u2019t, it\u2019s still alright. It\u2019s just good to know that there is something that everybody I know can take one day to acknowledge something as \u2018interesting,\u2019 if never really essential to one\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alex writes about a number of topics, including Brad Pitt and the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[560,559,171,558],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2889"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2889"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2896,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2889\/revisions\/2896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themacguffinmen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}