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Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Playing With Myself

When I was younger, my mom's tactic for getting me to get a chore done faster was to put me in an imaginary competition with a girl from a different country (typically Jamaica. Nope, no clue why).

"Skylar you have to beat the girl from Jamaica in unloading the dishwasher!"
"See if you can vacuum the living room faster than the girl from Jamaica!"
"I need you to take the dog on a long walk. Be gone...longer than the girl from Jamaica."

My mom is a scheming little genius, but this trickery instilled a lasting competitive spirit in me that has since caused me to seek and find the game in every situation. Why suffer through a nine-hour road trip when you could be racing on the real-life version of Need for Speed's Rusty Springs track? I need to unlock the secret ninth car! I want to drive the Warrior! The Mitsubishi Eclipse next to me doesn't know it but we're totally in two-player head-to-head racing mode right now, and I. don't. lose.

 

Life should definitely not be taken seriously, so if you need to participate in your own personal game show to get yourself through the day, feel free to get yourself started on one of my favorites:

Treadmill Races: Everyone does this. If you are side-by-side with someone on a treadmill, and you both happen to crank your speed up to 7 at the same time, it's so on. Once, I had already run my two miles and was about to slow down to a walk when a girl jumped on the machine next to me and immediately cranked it up to a sprint. Part of me thought, "Have fun with your shin splints, idiot," while the rest of me realized she was about to win. Win what? I don't fucking know, but I wasn't going to lose it. My inner Shaun T said to dig deeper, so I upped my speed to a 9.5 and prepared to dominate.
She totally noticed.
Other people totally noticed.

 
It was the most unnecessary display of female peacocking that has ever taken place inside of a university gym, minus the sluts in the corner successfully out-whoring each other with their thrice-rolled Soffe shorts. We hung together for about a minute before the awkward side glances started to happen, silently asking, "What is even happening right now?" Need I remind you that I'm not a quitter, so I ignored the gargantuan cramp developing in my ribcage and pretended like this was just a casual yog. This was a girl after my own heart, because she stuck it out for another 15 seconds before she let out a small gasp and desperately punched the keypad down to a cool five miles per hour. I'm a gracious winner, so I continued on for 30 more seconds before I calmly turned down to a 3.5. I went on to walk home like a newborn deer because my legs were completely shot, but whatever, I had Flo-Jo'd the shit out of that girl.

 Clean Up on Aisle 3: If I don't have a game plan upon entering the grocery store, it is a complete disaster and I end up panic-buying three bags of almonds, pizza dough, and a greeting card. A shopping list is not only an orginizational tool, it's a necessity. However, even with an outline of my needs I can still get distracted and find myself spending an inordinate amount of time comparing the protein amounts in various brands of hummus.

 
I came up with a solution to this problem by accident. I had been running errands all day and was starving, but the grocery store was the last stop on my itinerary so I just scooped a 32-ounce Gatorade and kept moving.
By the time I got to the parking lot I was legitimately in fear of my bladder. Boy, was she angry. Still, I needed food, and the Get Out of the Store Before You Pee Your Pants game was born. I was checking out, with precisely everything on my list, in 12 minutes. Now, when I know I don't want to waste time/money perusing the aisles, I drown myself in water and then do a little jig as I pick out my 10 for $10 yogurts before I speed home.

Secret Singing: I really get down with my bad self while listening to music in my car. If Rihanna ever had a freak vocal cord accident and needed someone to sing the rest of her set list, I could grab the mic and belt out both parts of "Stay" without issue. I took voice lessons for five years and, as the youngest child of three, am a natural-born performer, but I still have serious problems singing in front of people. Even within the confines of my car, where no one can actually hear the sweet magic coming from my mouth, I am self-conscious about the guy next to me on the highway noticing my solo performance. To avoid embarrassment, I have come up with a series of tricks that allow me to trust the voice within while appearing completely normal to the outside world.


1. Pretend to be on the phone - Unless you live in California, New Jersey, or any other state that prohibits cell phone usage while driving (safety first!), simply holding the phone up to your ear and singing your heart out just looks like a very passionate conversation to onlookers. Foolproof.
2. Nose scratch - The point here is to create distraction in the vicinity of your mouth. Just make sure it is very obvious that it's a casual scratch. Appearing to dig for gold is infinitely more embarrassing than being caught belting out "Timber."


3. Drinking from bottle - Pretend you're going to take a sip of water, stop short of getting any liquid in your mouth, and proceed sing it loud and proud. Bonus: it works as a mini microphone!

Six Degrees of Tanning Bed Music Separation: I will admit, this one is a bit excessive. You're literally just lying there, so you've gotta do something to stave off your mom's incessant warnings of skin cancer. A typical tanning bed sesh lasts about 12-15 minutes, or about four popular songs from 2007. Let's say these songs are "Buy U a Drank" by T-Pain, "Kiss Kiss" by Chris Brown, "Umbrella" by Rihanna, and "Good Life" by Kanye West.
Lets play: I clearly remember getting in trouble at a high school dance for grinding up on a kid from my math class too intensely (you're welcome, buddy) while "Buy U a Drank" played romantically in the background. T-Pain was also featured in Chris Brown's "Kiss Kiss" that year, and with two years before the Rihanna Smackdown would go down, those two were still cute together. Rih came out with "Umbrella," which I'm still not sick of, featuring Jay-Z. Jay-Z and Kanye West are butt buddies. Kanye had released Graduation aka not as good as The College Dropout and Late Registration and "Good Life" which featuuuuured...T-Pain.
Technically that's only five degrees of separation but I can feel my moles changing in color and border regularity so it's time to get out.


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