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Writer's pictureZach Wilkins

Abbreviated Diary 5/28/2020

Updated: Aug 24, 2020

Note: There are some strong words in this post because that's what happens in life.


July, 2014: I have guests over. We're playing Axis vs. Allies. I made two deep dish pizzas and my A/C can't cool all of us. When it's all said and done, my toilet is broken. Who took my calipers and why would they do that? We missed ET at the Loft. No one wants to be friends after that.


November, 2016: I walk into Trevor's office. He's reading a book, which history can't begin to care about now. I saw his name, but he doesn't hear me. In my work clothes, I get down and start crawling around his desk towards him. I poke my head around. He finally looks over at me with the biggest smile. He returns to his book--looks back again! I've never seen someone do a real double-take, and the scream after is something the audience will never forget.


July, 2009: I walk out of my room at midnight. There's a pot of charred eggs just getting blasted by the stovetop.


December, 2015: Teammate from flag football needs a ride home. He tells me, "You can be in my entourage if you do a few more pushups and situps." He gives me a card for his stripping service "Da Stallionz". They also do Thanksgiving parties. I give him a ride home. He moved his grandma out of her room, to the pull-out couch, so he can collect bigger rocks. I just damaged a vein in my leg. He makes me a healing elixir from some plants growing in the bedroom and others shriveling in the bathroom. We put our hands on geode and I drink it pissedly. He says my leg will be better tomorrow. I'm, right now, wearing compression socks.


August, 2014: Came back from a date. Decided to have a Mario Kart contest where the loser has to eat a foot of Bubble Tape. I eat over 18 feet.


March, 2020: No toilet paper left. Maybe on the planet. We're down to three rolls, haven't seen any in weeks. Hank the cat gets into the bathroom. We end up using confetti for the rest of the month.


September, 2013: At CineMark by myself. The movie hasn't started yet, 20 minutes overdue. I walk out, mad at everything. I'm in the wrong theatre and feel more alone that usual.


November, 2019: Find a picture of Dilbert dunking. Send it proudly to my friends with the caption "DILFbert". Was memorialized.


October, 1997: Not allowed to go the bathroom, but I really have to. Whole cafeteria is watching, but the overlords don't see my pleas. After much too long, I'm pointed to with approval. I'm not sure what to do with my underwear and there's a line after me. It goes behind the toilet. I get back to lunch, and the overlord has my underwear in her hand in the middle of the cafeteria. She demands to know who's they are. I still don't know why I raised my hand.


March, 2017: We're working with aquarium data. This guy puts in his third slide on Harambe.


June, 2006: We're not going to Alaska today because the water was shut out and dad needed to shower after using the toilet.


April, 2003: I forgot deodorant at the school dance and Hey Ya! comes on.


August, 2008: I just got my driver's license, two years too late. I throw an axe, miss, and hit the septic tank.


April, 2008: I don't understand any of the effects of the Great Recession, which I won't understand for half a decade. I have bigger problems. Instead, I forgot my towel and Colonel Nardo caught me in his.


July, 2012: I walk up to Rosalski, fully knowing I aced that exam on statistical proofs. He looks at the score, gasps silently, then looks at me. It was a 12.


July, 2012: I remembered that I forgot my dad's birthday, on my dad's birthday. But I remembered the wrong day, so I got embarrassed, didn't say anything, and still ended up forgetting his birthday.


August, 2010: We use a gold coin with Ken Griffey Jr.'s face on it to dictate where we drive that night. We got stuck in a magnet school parking lot.


February, 2015: Another "Y We Bad" moment. We didn't use the right image of dog biscuits, but no one could tell. We scale all the data by .76 based off 100 other confused people.


March, 2018: Half our office is out of power. The expert says it's because something is gangbanging the circuits and is really concerned about future gangbangs. This can't be a term.


December, 2013: I decide I'll save my old mattress for recycling. It becomes my dining room for 6 months.


April, 2014: I fly back to Orlando for my grandpa's funeral. When I get back to the airport, no one can find a record of my return flight. The ticket is for August, and not even the same numerical day. I watch "The Terminal" for advice.


August, 2013: In a fit of desperation, I send my iPhone 3, keeping my iPhone 2, to Nigeria. After I send it, I realize I've not yet been paid. The "professor" needs $100 to retrieve his package from customs. I use an iPhone 2 for 3 more years until I accidentally throw it into sewage at a rest stop in South Carolina.


December, 2013: I walk into In-and-Out in my Christmas goblins sweatshirt and sweater-pants. They don't seem to want me here.


December, 2008: Kamose gets my dad's underwear for Christmas. There's a big W on the front for "Wario". A week later, the W falls out of his pants while going for a layup.


November, 2008: My grandpa gives me a family bag of peanut M&Ms. I eat a half-gallon of ice cream, then start on the M&Ms. I cry, crush them up, pour them in the trash. I eat them the next day.


December, 2008: The basketball goes into the pond. Too far to reach. We pull out some rope, stretch it over the pond, and wrangle the ball to shore. Someone fanatically shrieks, "They used physics and shit!"


October, 2009: After witnessing the scorekeeper add points to the wrong team without anyone noticing, I see that my bank account is -$62. I overdrafted on Orbit gum. Twice.


February, 2009: The band undergoes a coup, kicking the frontman out. He shows up to the living-room show dual-wielding a saxophone and bass guitar. I'm using Garage Band connected to Rock Band drums, muffled with washcloths. We have a Yamaha keyboard and an electric guitar. Our hit song is Nena's 99 Red Balloons. We never play again.


August, 2006: I just got my learner's permit, but I have to go back. They marked me as Female.


July, 2019: I've been "ma'amed" four times in as many months.


March, 2004: I see our regular substitute teacher brown-bagging on a tricycle during school hours. He later becomes my interim physics teacher.


July, 2008: I think I'm going to metalworking school to make armor.


December, 2004: We spent all night sleeping in neighbor's yards. All of us get sick, so I play Roller Coaster Tycoon for a few quick days.


May, 2020: I put a soda in the freezer. I forget about it, but catch it before it explodes. I laugh, put the bursting can in the sink, and put another one in the freezer. It explodes.


August, 2010: I find out I'm lactose intolerant when Kamose and Schwee have to throw the rest of my ice cream off the balcony. I go to look for it, see a naked man climb out of a window, and then return to my business.


October, 2015: Tomorrow's the pot luck. I try making whipped cream by physically whipping cream with a fork. I try for two hours. I punch a third hole in my wall--the last from stubbing my toe, the first from video game cheaters. I buy cold fried chicken from Walmart in the morning.


April, 2014: I'm put in charge of buying food for camping. I get Slim Jims, Go-Gurt, sponges, and Reese's eggs. I only bring a Wilkins Dozen of the eggs--a half-dozen where three of them are just wrappers.


March, 1995: I get kicked out of the school musical because not only did I forget the lyrics, but I failed to lip-sync to the right song.


February, 2014: I pass the SOA Exam P, the hardest exam I've ever taken. I celebrate by watching Neil Breen's Fateful Findings for the very first time. It's still one of my best memories with my friends.


June, 2018: We order "slices" at a potato-based fast-food restaurant in Moscow. "No slices". Because their version of "salad" is actually "nasty crap", we cry over an open-faced baked potato, and we wonder why everything is so hard.


May, 2015: It looks like we've been backing up "My Humps" by Fergie every night for years. And we've backed up all of those back ups. We have more GBs of Fergie than we care to report.


April, 2018: I got my first manbun you guys!


July, 2001: I've watched the first 8 minutes of Shrek on loop every night for 2 months.


October, 2012: I'm waiting for my bus at McDonald's. A guy walks up to me, thanking me for helping him last night. "Hey Mike!", he says. We talk for about 15 minutes about his car, my tattoos (that I don't have), and how he doesn't have my money yet. Then the real Mike shows up, and he's less understanding that this guy doesn't have his money, while this guy is less understanding that I wasn't Mike.


January, 2008: I find out Monk drinks coffee before he runs any race. I ask him why. He starts a long addiction to BK Chicken Fries.


November, 2014: Andy and I might freeze death as we try to nap in a blizzard. All I can think about is that we only went to restaurants with turkey clubs.


September, 2016: We drive 2,100 miles one-way to Yellowstone on a three day weekend. It takes 42 hours to drive there, leaving us 31 hours for everything else. We get pulled over listening to Donkey Kong remixes.


July, 2013: I've spilled coffee in my hair and I'm using the company sink to wash to it out.


October, 2008: The barbell falls on my chest without a spotter and I flail around for help. It takes 3 minutes, but I'm saved. I don't learn my lesson and do the same thing 2 weeks later.


December, 2009: I lose sight of what's important when I hear someone falls into severe depression after facing the fact that Avatar isn't real.


March, 2018: I've repeated the same WWII in Color episode every night for 3 weeks and I still can't remember what it was about.


August, 2004: I spend the last money I have on a paintball grenade. I finally throw it, but it doesn't go off. They chuck it back and it explodes right in my dumb face.


June, 2015: I go climbing for the first time. My hands are 30% deskinned. I can't use shampoo for a week without screaming.


December, 2010: My roommate finally returns my pizza pan. It had been under his bed for a month, still with half my pizza in it.


January, 2013: It's 6am and my roommate woke me up screaming. A sac of baby spiders exploded from our spare mattress and started to conquer his room.


February, 2013: Before friend X goes to the Air Force in 3 days, we try to make a Land Before Time remake. In frustration, friend X gets a stomach infection so bad from IHOP that he misses out on his career in the Air Force.


November, 2016: We spend Thanksgiving eating pumpkin pie with our hands in Green Bay. It's 30 degrees and raining, and we've been soaked through for hours. It's so painful that we're laughing as the pumpkin filling falls out of our mouths into the bin of things we missed out on.


August, 2001: We dig a hole in the backyard that we're going to "live in". It gets covered with palm fronds and brush, so that it doesn't look as gaudy as a hole would. A horseback rider falls in, which is strange because it's our backyard. My dad gets really mad.


August, 1994: I eat the third Reese's in the King Size and move on with my life. My uncle asks, "Aren't you going to eat the fourth?" There isn't one, I thought. He opens his mouth and there's the fourth. I cry.


September, 1995: Some guy gives my sister and I each half of a $5 bill. We can't use it until we agree to buy something together. It gets taped together and we order slushies from the ice cream man. He throws them away because our money is no longer "legal tender".


June, 2018: In Russia, I order a hot, black coffee that is also iced. Barista asks, "Iced coffee?" No, an iced coffee. It is also a hot black coffee. Barista doesn't say anything this time. It goes like this three or four times. I end up with two cups, neither of which I want. There are two Russian words for "also". You can almost never get black coffee there, either.



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