Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Find more of Drew's stuff at KSK or on Twitter. Preorder Drew's new book, The Postmortal, right here. Email the Funbag here. Today, we're covering Skype sex, switches, cell phone death etiquette, and more.
I'm on vacation next week, as much as someone like me can actually be considered "on vacation." In fact, I currently live in a bizarro world where going on vacation is MUCH more stressful and emotionally draining than working. This is largely because I have to spend a full week sleeping in the same room as my children. You should only have to sleep in same room as your kids if aliens have invaded the fucking Earth and are trying to mow you down with their giant alien laserbeams. Otherwise, it should never be necessary.
Anyway, there will be a Funbag next week, and I'm extremely excited to let you know that your guest Funbag writer next week will be Lindy West, who is unreasonably funny. If you've got a question for next week's Funbag, just email the tips line with the header FUNBAG, or hit up Lindy on Twitter.
Your letters:
Brian:
What's the over/under on the percent of kids on Skype having video conference sex with each other? Maybe some are even having remote gangbangs, with Skyped partners in different cities. Who needs phone sex when you can get the audio and the visual by Skyping your girlfriend after the parents are asleep and jerking it/fingerslamming it while both of you are totally nude?
Dammit! I knew there was a reason I had Selena Roberts in my Skype directory. I have had any number of awkward video conversations on Skype and I can't even imagine how awkward they'd become if I used the program for live amateur peep shows and phone sex, especially if I kept the window open that showed what I looked like while nude in front of my computer.
ME: Oh God, you look so fucking hot.
PARTNER: What?
ME: I said you look so fucking hot.
PARTNER: I'm sorry. You're breaking up.
ME: I SAID YOU LOOK SO FUCKIN'… Jesus, are my nipples really that hairy? They don't look anything like that in the mirror.
If you've ever had a terrible experience with Skype sex, I kindly ask that you let us know about it.
Gabe:
How long do you have after winning a major sports title before you're expected to be fully sober again?
Probably a week or so. Personally, if I were a pro athlete and my team won it all, I'd NEVER stop celebrating it. Ever. Eight years later, I'd still randomly bust in on my old lady going to the bathroom and douse her with Dom Perignon and be like GUESS WHO WON THE 2003 SUPER BOWL, BITCH?! ME! WOOOOHOOOOOO!!!! If I were a member of the Boston Bruins, I'd have a replica of the Stanley Cup built (as close to the real one as possible, with the names engraved and everything) and then I'd take it everywhere I went FOR LIFE.
I fucking hate it when coaches and overachiever players win the title and then IMMEDIATELY start talking about how they have to get right back to work to repeat next year. Jesus Christ, FUCK next year. I'd never get back to work. I'd just get progressively fatter and lazier until all the good will from our title run was extinguished completely. That's the whole point of winning it all. I remember reading about Nick Saban after the Tide won the national title in 2009 and his wife was like, "Nick takes two days off a year, even if he wins it all." Really? What's the fucking point then? I hate that guy. And some fans are even worse about it. "I want another!" Like you fucking did anything to win it. Just enjoy what you have for one goddamn second. If you're a pro athlete and you don't spend at least a month waking up face down in the gutter after winning a title, I have no respect for you.
MsS:
Seen in Texas:
I do! I even give money to the cause, in the form of jewelry and any number of unreasonably priced meals!
Timmy:
What do you think you have brushed more in your life, your top row of teeth or your bottom row? I tend to say bottom row since you don't have to turn your wrist as much, but I could be wrong. These are the things I think about at my cubicle.
I would assume it's the top row for most people, because the top row has the headliners of your teeth in the front four incisors. Those are the money teeth. You could be missing a bicuspid and people wouldn't readily notice. But lose one of those front four teeth and people will run away from you screaming in horror thinking you're some kind of inbred cannibal tardbilly. So I brush those fuckers like they're the only teeth I have. I think I spent a solid two decades just brushing my front teeth (mostly the tops) before venturing further into my oral cavity. And the dentist would always chide me for not brushing on the insides of my teeth, specifically at the corners. And I was like LISTEN TOOTHBOY! That shit ain't easy to reach by conventional means! You need a special Swiffer attachment to get at that shit.
By the way, a special note opt the dental hygienists of the world: Can you stop hitting the roof of my mouth with the fucking polisher? Worst tickle torture ever.
Paul:
If you could jizz one flavor, what would it be and why?
I would go with chocolate, it's the most universal.
It would have to be a flavor that you find pleasing with jizz's natural texture. For example, you wouldn't want it to taste like beef, because beef in seminal form would be fucking gross. Whereas chocolate is found in syrups and mousses and many other smooth textures, so it's a much better flavor profile for jizz. (Watch "Top Chef" and the phrase "flavor profile" pops up a thousand times. Just say "flavor," asshole). Ditto salted caramel. Imagine the enthusiastic head you'd receive if you told your date you were born with the superhuman ability to ejaculate salted caramel. Tell me that wouldn't be the first thing you'd list on your match.com profile.
Ever have Magic Shell? It's the chocolate syrup you put on ice cream and when it hits the ice cream it freezes up and makes a hardened shell around it. I'd like my jizz to do that. WATCH WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR CHEST! IT'S MAGIC!
Kevin:
If there was a natural disaster park, (or zoo, whatever works) how often would you visit? I have lived in the Midwest for the last 12 years and have yet to see a tornado. This troubles me. I was thinking it would be pretty rad if a place existed where people could go and watch tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanoes all that awesome shit from a safe distance without all the death and destruction.
Well, there certainly are natural disaster simulators, like Earthquake: The Big One, the old ride at Universal Studios where you sat on a train and then got caught in an "earthquake," modeled after scenes from the 1974 movie "Earthquake," which precisely no one remembers because it was so horrible. I remember sitting on the ride and all the foam sets started breaking apart and the train tilted a little bit and the PA guy was like OMG! IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE! And it so wasn't. It was a broken train.
You can also take helicopter tours of erupting volcanoes in Hawaii, which also counts for natural disaster tourism. But to be able to walk up to some kind of external viewing platform and watch a tornado blow apart a replica town, like the phony Rock Ridge? I'd pay five bucks for that.
Donovan:
Ninety-eight percent of the time, I sleep on my back. So tell me why do I sometimes try sleeping on my side or my stomach?!? It never fucking works, and I always waste a good hour slowly rotating around until I get right back to the beginning. I can't be the only douchebag that does this.
Of course not. I too do the whole rotisserie thing, which drives the Mrs. out of her fucking mind. Once a week, without fail, I will turn in the bed and my wife will get super pissed.
HER: You gotta stop.
ME: I'm trying! You think I'm not TRYING to fall asleep here?
HER: You don't see me moving.
ME: That's because you're a woman and your woman breasts are pinning you down!
Seriously, a woman can lie there in bed like a corpse and not move until she's fast asleep. It's completely beyond my capabilities. I sleep like I'm eight months pregnant. WHERE'S MY BODY PILLOW?!
I get really upset when I've turned onto my side or onto my stomach and for that one instant, the position is incredibly comfortable, only it fails to stay that way. Just for a split second, I'm like, "God this feels great!" Then my shoulder seizes up, my back starts to tighten, and suddenly everything falls apart. NOT FAIR.
CG:
How many times in your life do you think you've eaten something that someone has spit in? Think about all the times you've ordered at a restaurant/fast food place. There must have been a few times where you gave the server an attitude or they were just having a bad day and decided to add a little something extra to your meal. I'd say maybe 5-10 times. Is that too high or low?
It's probably too high. Unless you're a complete prick to every waiter you meet, chances are you've never had someone openly hock a loogie on your burger. I've gotten pissed about bad restaurant service before, but I'm the kind of person that fumes quietly, only to bitch about it out loud for hours later once I get into the car. "CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT SHIT?! OUTRAGEOUS! I should have given that guy a piece of my mind!" I think you have to be truly horrible to waiters to compel them to do something that could get them fired/sued/arrested/blacklisted.
It's much more likely that saliva reached your food via double dipping. I used to be a busboy and table runner when I was in school. I also worked at Little Caesar's for a summer, and Lord knows how often I polluted the food of others by sticking my hands in my mouth and then jamming them into formerly pristine pizza dough. Or by dipping my spoon into the hot fudge vat and then dipping it in again (Mmm! Tastes like chocolate jizz!). All that saliva probably adds up to a few loogies over the course of a lifetime.
Zack:
Last weekend I was working in the garden and digging up chunks of sod so I could dig some post holes. When I pulled up the first piece, about a 12" square, I realized that holding onto the grass was like holding onto a bunch of hair, and the dirt and roots probably weighs about as much as a human head. It was pretty exhilarating to imagine that I was a barbarian savage and I'd just beheaded some bitch-ass Roman soldier and so I paraded around the yard for a while displaying my grim trophy to my wife and to the cat.
It's true! Ripping up sod feels just like scalping another man. It peels off so cleanly!
HALFTIME!
Nicholas:
Which is better, assuming each is equally connected to something worthwhile, pushing a button or flipping a switch?
This is a copout, but it depends entirely on the button or switch involved. For example, let's say there's a light in your room, and the light can be turned on either by a regular ass light switch, or a giant red button, you're taking the red button. The red button would feel incredible, like you nuked the fucking Persian Gulf in one swift move. Whereas a light switch is just a light switch, especially if it's a weak one that doesn't give you that great SNAP! sound upon flicking.
But what if your choice for the room light was between some piece of shit little metal button, like the kind you'd find on an apartment intercom, and a giant metal lever switch, like the kind you'd use to raise a cadaver on a platform up into the sky hoping lightning will strike it and reanimate it? Switch wins. NO ONE DENIES THIS. So you see, not all switch and button mechanisms are built equal.
By the way, there's a certain gratification to be had in turning on the light to any fully darkened space. I used to work in an office and sometimes I was the first one there and got to turn on all the lights, and you feel like you own the fucking place when you do that. I also would hope that I'd turn the lights on and there would be a couple banging on one of the desks. Never happened.
Mark C.:
If you had the ability, would you have your wife give birth to a Lebron James level talent in any sport (we'll assume you ARE the father)? The caveat, this child cannot financially benefit you in any way. No free tickets, no houses, cars, etc. Is that shit even worth it? You can't watch ESPN or listen to sports talk radio without hearing some Skip Bayless level fuck just demean them in every way possible. However, you do get the kudos and admiration of having super sport sperm. You also may get the chance to sleep with Delonte West.
Is it worth it? O HELLZ YEZ, it is. First of all, even if I don't benefit financially from it, THE CHILD does. Which means that kid can now pay his own way. He can pay for his own place, his own food, his own insurance, his own car. He doesn't have to ask me for a goddamn thing. I live in a world right now where my child will ask me to heat something up, then I will do so and she'll bitch that it's too hot, then I'll cool it down and then she'll bitch that it's too cold, and then the cycle repeats itself for nine fucking hours. YOU LOUSY CHILD. IT WILL NEVER BE THE EXACT 86 DEGREES YOU WANT IT. MICROWAVE THOSE NOODLES YOUR OWN GODDAMN SELF. So yes, to have a child with an ungodly talent that would get him or her out the door and self-sufficient at 18? In a nation where the average child lives with their parents until age 26? HEAVEN.
Then there's the matter of personal pride in having a son who dunks, or can hit home runs, or whatever. You have to understand that being a parent means succumbing to the completely stupid urge to want your children to be better than ALL other children, even though that's impossible. So to be able to watch my son dominate a bunch of his mouth-breathing classmates on the football field, which would allow me to gaze smugly at other parents to let them know their child doesn't stack up? Again, priceless. Shit, I'd even volunteer to coach the team.
Sure, my kid might grow up to be an entitled dickhead. And perhaps catty bloggers would openly call my kid a cocksucker. BUT HATERZ GON HATE. All I know is that I'm off the hook for buying life insurance. Plus he has to thank my ass when he gets the Heisman. That's right boy. I BROUGHT YOU INTO THIS WORLD.
Vaughn:
Zoom in close and you will see those are Yankees logos all over the body. This is an actual truck some guy is driving in Pittsburgh. He works out at my gym as well and wears a bright blue (not the traditional Yankee blue) Yankees hat while he works out, with tight fitting bright blue Under Armor shirts. He's also about 300 pounds of muscle. Still, who does that? Maybe a 6-year-old dreams of doing something like this, but a grown man?
Seriously. It looks like his truck had sex with a toddler's bedspread. [UPDATE: I'm told by several people that the truck belongs to Willie Colon. Steelers and the Yankees? Fucking frontrunner.]
Jeff:
Do you ever read while you're standing up peeing? I find myself doing this all the time now, sometimes without even realizing that I'm doing it until I'm halfway through peeing. And I'll read anything, a novel, the newspaper, L.L. Bean catalogue, it doesn't matter. To make matters worse I'll stand there for an additional minute or two with my dick hanging out over the bowl while continuing to read. If someone ever walked in on me I wouldn't have an explanation for my actions.
I do it, though virtually never in a public restroom. At home, I'll happily grab a book and stand there with my dick out of my pants for five minutes while finishing a chapter. Feels freeing to read with your cock out. Really lets the book know who's in charge. Plus, it's fun to see if you can hit the bowl without looking up from the book OR using your hands. Very sanitary.
John:
This past week I had two people I know very well pass away. It got me thinking, what's the etiquette on keeping their numbers/contact info in my cell phone? Do you never take them out as an homage to them and a way of remembering them? Do you take them out right away so as to not feel worse about the situation?
Take them out of your phone. First of all, there's no reason to keep them in there from a practicality standpoint. Secondly, if I were up in Heaven and someone said they were going to pay tribute to me by being too lazy to delete my number off their fucking phone, I'd fly down and haunt the fuck out of their house.
Third, and most important, you should remove the number from your phone to prevent any and all GHOST CALLS. You don't want your friend to be dead for two weeks, then one day out of the blue you hear your phone ring and see it's THEIR NUMBER displayed. I'd blow a gallon of fertilizer out of my asshole if that ever happened to me. You don't want that ghost call. The ghost might suck you into the phone and trap you in his evil fiber optics.
Kurt:
Situation, bottom of the ninth, runner on third, one out, scored tied at 2-2. Batter launches a fly ball surely deep enough to score runner on third. Instead of catching the ball the left fielder, takes the back of his glove and bats it into the air towards home plate. When the ball comes down again, he bats it up in the air again. Finally, after batting it 50 feet closer to the plate he secures the ball and throws it home. The runner does not advance because the ball was no longer deep enough and the runner just has his mind blown by the left fielder.
PLAUSIBLE?
No, but that isn't gonna stop me from fantasizing about being the first outfielder to do so. Just as I spent much of my youth fantasizing about being the first outfielder to jump into the stands and catch the ball twenty rows back. Young Me didn't know that this would still be a home run anyway, so I always dreamt of being the first to conceive of such a play and then blowing the announcer's minds with it. Did he just climb into the stands to catch the ball? WHAT MOXIE! This is why Doug Flutie practiced drop kicks all the time.
Your idea isn't plausible in baseball. HOWEVER, it is possible in kickball, isn't it? I'm not sure if you can turn a pop-up into a volleyball serve in kickball, but I sure would love to try.
Rob:
If you HAD to have your birthday on a major (or semi major) holiday, is there a better one than the 4th of July? You and all your friends and family will always have that day off work, there will always be a big party, and you have full license to celebrate your birthday by exploding as much shit as possible. Also it's a holiday that doesn't allow friends and family to double up on gifts like Christmas or Valentine's Day (if you're in a relationship).
My birthday sometimes falls on Mardi Gras, which is fun, but I don't know how the 4th can be topped. Can you find any drawbacks to sharing a birthday with America? I'm pretty sure that people would be excited to celebrate your birthday with you on the 4th, whereas with something like Christmas or Thanksgiving people just feel bad for you.
The problem with having a birthday on any holiday is that people are celebrating in general and not taking a special occasion to celebrate YOU, and you alone, and all the great things you do for the universe, like daydreaming about impossible plays in kickball. So while the 4th is probably the best holiday for your birthday to fall on, you still probably want to have a birthday that has its own special place on the calendar. That way, everyone stays focused on you and how great you are, AND you have an extra drinking landmark in the year. You don't ever want drinking occasions to overlap if they don't have to.
The other thing that blows is if your birthday falls on the exact same day as another family member, or someone in your class (brutal if you're a little kid). Because then you have to share YOUR day with some other asshole. You're tethered to them forever by that date, and you can't undo it. I've known people with the same birthday as a parent or sibling, and no one wants to share the limelight like that. It's bullshit.
Nick:
Do you think these people like Martha's Vineyard?
Fuckers.
Email of the week time.
Dave:
I was 2 months shy of my 23rd birthday when I saw my first dead body: my grandmother. And it wasn't at the funeral (which was closed casket), it was at the hospital. She died somewhat suddenly on a snowy day between Christmas and New Year's (the kind of blizzard that shuts down the interstate), and at this point, her only remaining immediate family were my parents, my sisters and I.
I had just moved to Milwaukee a week earlier, and I'm the first one who can reach the hospital in Madison. By the time I get to the hospital, it's looking very unlikely that my parents or either of my sisters will be able to get into town until the next morning. The nurses give me the option of seeing my grandma and waiting with her before they wheel her to the morgue. For some reason, I feel honor bound to sit in that room with my dead grandmother and watch over her. Partially, I'm waiting until I hear back from my parents and sisters to know for sure that they won't make it to town until late that night or the next morning, but I also feel a strange need to do it simply out of respect. Not out of shock. Not out of regret (she was dearly loved and regularly visited, even after dementia kicked in). Just out of respect. For some reason, it felt like one of those things that you should do, simply because it's your family and they deserve to have someone stick around by their side until they go to the morgue.
Of course, I must be the only one in my family who feels this way, because everyone kept telling me that they wouldn't have had it in them to sit in a room with a corpse for an hour and a half, no matter how much they loved the dead body. Am I the creepy person in my family, or are they just being prudes?
You've got balls, good sir. Big compassionate balls.