Easy Breezy Beautiful Bloody Bathroom

This is the story of the time I almost died in my friend's girlfriend's bathtub. 

In early May of 2007, a week after my 21^st birthday, a bunch of friends and I head down to Wilmington, NC to celebrate our friend, Rudy’s 27^th birthday. Wilmington, NC is home to the University of North Carolina East where Rudy’s girlfriend at the time went to school. His girlfriend was very kind to let us stay at her house. I made her regret that decision. 

Wilmington North Carolina = Large college campus = abundance of college kids = plenty of places to indulge any alcoholic desire = perfect birthday party venue.

We kick off the celebration with drinks at Rudy’s girlfriend’s house where we drank for a little while before calling a cab. We began our night out at a very nice Japanese Restaurant. It was a busy weekend, so we probably had a good hour-long wait. There was a really nice bar attached to the restaurant where we waited for our table. I quickly made use of my brand new ability to summon alcohol as fast as I could consume it.

Having the alcohol tolerance of a 12 year-old Amish girl, by the time our group was called I was about a seven and a half on a scale of drunk to fucked sideways into oblivion. We sat down at our table and quickly ordered more drinks. I couldn’t read the menu at this point so I told a friend to surprise me. While waiting for our food, I noticed some kind of party going on outside in the back of the restaurant. I nudged one of my friends and suggested we participate. 

We found the door and made our way outside. The back of this restaurant looked like a Japanese temple garden. It was beautiful. 

 

A quick observation of the scene led me to believe that this was a wedding reception. Not your ordinary Jack and Jane wedding party either; these people were a bunch white-collar yuppies.

As the music played we walked around for a few minutes checking the place out. Having a Fiancé at the time there was no point in hitting on any of the girls. So I did the next best thing and started asking random men to dance with me as I bit my bottom lip and thrust my hips at them. Needless to say, my presence there was very short lived. I was quickly asked to leave. 

We finished up at the restaurant and went downtown where there were more bars and clubs than was probably necessary. The very few memories I have of that night were of random girls using my blood alcohol content as a fulcrum to leverage free drinks. I don’t know how but I was aware of their motives and they were dismissed in very short order. Other than that, I remember being carried to the taxi and then into the house where I was deposited on the couch. 

I woke up the next morning to what I imagine labor pains feel like. Once I gained consciousness I realized that I just had to pee. REALLY. BAD.

I HAVE NEVER had to pee so badly in my entire life. 

On the way to the bathroom, other than feeling like my bladder was dying I felt just fine. Despite the amount of alcohol I had consumed the night before, I managed to walk to the bathroom without putting any parts of my body through anything it wasn’t supposed to go through. 

I get in the bathroom and close the door as quickly as I can. I proceed to the toilet and commenced the euphoric release. 

 

Layout of the bathroom

I remember looking down maintaining positive control of the stream as is protocol when standing up to pee when the feeling of euphoria dissolved into a complete equilibrium failure and suddenly, a loss of consciousness.

The next thing I remember, I woke up with everything but my legs inside of the bathtub and blood POURING out of my face. Despite my obvious injury, my first concern is the fact that my "manhood" was still in the same position as it was during my last moments of consciousness – out and urinating. Now, only inches away from my face and staring directly at me, the blood could wait. My dignity was already wounded; it couldn’t handle the prospect of me pissing on my own face too. 

I quickly “gather” myself and climb out of the bathtub. I rush over to the mirror to assess the damage. It was NOT good. I turned on the faucet and started splashing water on my face to get the blood off as best I could. 

Looking back, this is how I view the bathroom. 

Apparently the sound of my face hitting the bathtub was enough to wake the entire house. 

Sergeant Breeze was the first responder. Breezy was an ODD character. The best way I can describe him is Steve Carell’s role as Brick Tamland in the movie Anchorman. His name poetically suited his mentality.

I hear a knock on the door.

Me: “Yeah?”

Breeze: “You alright?”

Me: “No.”

Breeze: Knock knock knock “You ok?”

Me: “NO!”

Breeze: Knock knock knock “ARE YOU OK?”

What I wanted to say was “No motherfucker! I’m bleeding profusely and I almost peed on my own face!!! I’M NOT OK!!!” But my lack of coherence rendered me incapable of a multi-syllabic response.

Thankfully my friend Mike pushed him out of the way and opened the door. I honestly think that if Breezy and I were the only people in the house, this exchange would have continued until I bled out. 

I don’t remember Mike’s exact response, but it was something to the effect of “HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” By this point I had gathered a crowd.

To this day I have no idea what compelled me to do this but once I got the blood off my face, I put a finger on each side of the inch-long gash and pulled it apart. Bad idea. Once again, the lights went out. Fortunately this time I had several people there to break my fall.

I regained consciousness once again, this time to everyone laughing at me. Rudy was holding up his middle finger asking me how many fingers he was holding up. I’ve always prided myself on the outstanding character of the people I hang out with. This moment was no exception. 

They helped me up and took me to another room to check out my battle wounds and snapped a couple pictures as any good friends would do. It was then that the effects of the gaping head wound, alcohol, and severe dehydration converged on me to form the trifecta from hell’s butthole. I needed a hospital and unfortunately the base hospital was over an hour away from where we were. 

We get in the car and made our way to base. I checked into the emergency room and customarily waited forever to be seen. In the mean time I was asked by one of my friends if I had called Ally, my fiance' at the time to let her know what was up. SHIT. I remembered that I promised to call her the night before when we got back from drinking. I didn't have the capacity to control my extremities, let alone command my phalanges to dial a ten-digit phone number and then coherently tell her I was alright. Hellen Keller would have had better luck. Then with what happened that morning, calling her had been overcome by events.

I already know she's not going to be happy so I had my friend James call to break the news to her softly. Here's how the conversation transpires:

James: "Hi, I'm James. Im Aaron's friend. You don't know me but the reason I called is to tell you that your husband is OK but he is in the emergency room right now."

Ally: "Heavily emphasized expletives with a few words mixed in"

James: As he hands the phone to me, "This is all you bro."

So I ended up having to explain why she never got a call the night before and why it took until mid-afternoon to call her that day.

I don't want to give off the impression that she's some psycho controlling bitch, because she's the complete opposite, but at this point in our relationship I had already shown the propensity to get drunk and do stupid shit so she had cause for concern. She's extremely caring and was really worried about my safety. Did she have a point? Absolutely.

Still hungover, I decide that she's not being as empathetic as I think she should be. I start to get testy.

I may or may not have crossed the line when I told her "I don't know why you're so mad; it's not like I busted YOUR face open."

With that statement I might as well have. 

Funny/Weird Pictures I've Taken Pt. 1

Over the last few years I've taken pictures of some completely random things. I thought about submitting these to some of the popular fail websites but never got around to it. Now that I have my own forum I think this is the perfect place for them. If you can think of better captions feel free.

This first picture is of me and an Iraqi policeman taken while we were out on a foot patrol in Ramadi. There are several things I would like to point out about this picture. First, note his incredible sense of style; the scarf, the 50 Cent-style bullet proof vest, the AK47 slung as if it were some kind of accessory. But the paramount to this ensemble: the SAME L.E.I. jeans my sister used to wear in high school. No joke. I don't know, call me crazy but maybe the reason you still have terrorists in your city is because you have Muhammad McPillow-biter patrolling the streets.

*I mean absolutely no disrespect toward the man's sexuality. In all seriousness, if he is gay, more power to him. Especially in such an oppressive culture. All I'm saying is that you may have more success if you at least tried to look aggressive.

But unfortunately the absolute WORST part about this picture is something that cannot be seen. This man smelled like a mix between a hobo's scrotum and a dirty foot on it's period. Notice how I'm standing three feet away from him and I still had to hold my breath the whole time this picture was being taken. It was appalling. You have to understand though, that this is kinda the norm over there.

Here is your typical Iraqi bathroom. I did not take this picture but this is just an example.

I know what you're thinking: "That's not a toilet." But let me assure you that it is. I've never tested this out, but the concept is that you simply squat over the hole and let gravity do the rest. Easy enough right? Wrong. I think Arthur Harris' carpet bombers in WWII had better precision. Believe it or not but this is the average cleanliness of an Iraqi bathroom, and sadly I've seen worse. The smell in those bathrooms is so bad that you can literally taste it. As counter intuitive as it may seem, breathing through your nose is probably your best bet. Suffice it to say that personal hygiene over there is not a common virtue.

Moving on.

In the next two pictures is something that kind of took me by surprise. Heading over to Iraq we had these preconceived ideas of what we would encounter; terrorists, bombed out buildings, death and destruction. All of those things were as we anticipated but we didn't expect to see such a large ninja subculture.Who knew they had such an affinity for covert Japanese warfare.

In an effort to avoid making this post completely about Iraq (because that can be a little gloomy), this picture is of a birthday cake I purchased for one of my friends and presented it to him in front of our whole office.

There are many more pictures still but I'll save them for another day. For now I'll leave you with the one and only video in this series. We were headed back to base after being out on a week-long mission. We hadn't showered or had a decent night's sleep for several days so this kinda broke up the monotony.

 

Awkward Situations: Phone Sex is Extremely Weird When You’re an Innocent Bystander

**Warning** I am going to apologize for two things before you read this: One being the terrible art. Obviously I’m a novice Microsoft painter so stop judging me, monkey. I also apologize for the graphic nature of the recounted conversation. If you are overly sensitive, I suggest you stop reading after the description of the bunk bed. You have been warned.

In August of 2005, I was nine months into my first enlistment in the Marine Corps. I had just graduated from my occupational trade school and was on my way to my very first duty station – the 6^th Marine Regiment on Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. To say that I was nervous would be a huge understatement. You see, the 6^th Marine Regiment is an infantry unit. At this point in my career, my perception of an infantry unit is where they eat wild boar fetuses when they aren’t wrestling jungle cats and sparring with grizzly bears – which I later found out was partly true.

Fortunately for me, there was another Marine I was in school with who had the exact same orders. We will call him Kevin. Kevin and I were able to reassure each other that everything would be ok as long as we acted exactly like we did in boot camp with a heavy emphasis on instant obedience to orders. Can’t go wrong there can you?

I remember we arrived in Jacksonville, NC on a Friday afternoon. The first thing we did was get dressed up in our Alphas as is customary when a Marine checks into a new unit. 

So we get dressed up in our uniforms and we head to the base reception facility where everyone going to a unit on Camp Lejeune goes to check in. Apparently we arrived at the wrong time because the Sergeant in charge of all the new Marines (more affectionately referred to as ‘Boots’) was in a bad mood. In good Marine Corps fashion, he decided that this boot looked like a good target.

In combat training we learned all there was to know about a very common piece of communication equipment – the PRC 119. We knew it better as the Prick one-nineteen.

 

Since the United States has four military branches, and each one having a different rank structure, a common pay scale had to be used. For instance, an E-7 in the Air Force is a Master Sergeant, in the Army it’s a Sergeant First Class, in the Navy it’s a Chief, and in the Marine Corps it’s a Gunnery Sergeant. A Gunnery Sergeant is an E-7, but you would NEVER refer to one as such. It’s basically like stripping him of his title. A huge no-no in the Marine Corps.

So the Sergeant tells me to go down the stairs, take a left and go into the third office on the left and ask for a PRC E-8. Making the association between the PRC 119 and the PRC E-8, PFC Voshell thought he was on a quest for a radio. What didn’t connect in my little head was the fact that E-8 is also a way to refer to a Master Sergeant.

As my very first order in the Fleet Marine Corps, I carefully and diligently execute. I made my way downstairs and found the office he told me to go into. The room was small – Probably 8’X10’ with a desk in the middle and a couch in front of it. The room was occupied by one Marine – A Master Sergeant. He looked up at me with contempt and asked me what the hell I wanted. As confidently as I could, I told him that I was looking for a Prick E-8.

In retrospect, the Master Sergeant responded quite delicately given the circumstances. His look of contempt quickly turned to that of a ravenous wolf staring into the eyes of a helpless baby bunny.  

“You better get the fuck out of here before I rip your goddamn head off!!!”

Needless to say, I exited the room in the most expeditious manner. It wasn’t until I got back up to the room where the Sergeant was laughing hysterically that I realized what I’d done wrong. Thanks for looking out Sergeant. Way to make me call a Master Sergeant a prick on my first day.

Fuck. Me.

Feeling optimistic about my very first – and very victorious day, Kevin and I decided to go to one of the MANY strip clubs in Jacksonville. Not having a car, we take a taxi to the closest one to base. Any Marines reading this will know what I’m about to say. The Dirtwood. 

 

Photo by: Viva J-Vegas

Never having been to a strip club I was completely fascinated by the fact that the relatively hot naked chicks were INTERESTED in me! Or so I thought. In my drunken stupor I mistook their filthy little daddy-hating self-indulgent greed for interest. Oh well, at least I got a few anticlimactic and ultimately pointless lap dances.

About eleven lap dances later it was time to get these stupid boots back to base. We repeated this night at least one more time before we had to begin our work week. Reality was setting back in.

Every Marine has a certain kind of affection for Sundays. It’s the day when we’re herded through the barber shops like sheep in a wool harvest.

 

This is not an option. A Marine showing up to work on Monday without a fresh haircut is like a delivery nurse wearing this shirt; UNACCEPTABLE. It’s punishable by just about anything your boss can think of. And you’d be surprised at the possibilities. 

 

Sunday morning arrives and we wake up knowing what lies ahead of us; a whole day spent in haircut lines waiting to be ruthlessly scalped by some dickhead who’s capitalizing on our misery. Either they don't know, or they don't care but having those clippers with no guard being scraped across you skin is definitely not one of the most pleasant feelings. You’re making a fortune off of us, asshole; the least you could do is not make me feel like I’m in a scene from Last of the Mohicans.

We wake up, go to the chow hall and mentally prepare for the day ahead of us.

We’re halfway through our meal when it hit me. 

“FUCK, FUCK FUCK FUCK! Kevin! We don’t have money for haircuts!”

We didn’t even have enough money to buy a used happy meal between the two of us. We spent ALL our money on strippers. Talk about a cold empty helpless feeling. Not only were we going to show up on Monday without a fresh haircut, we were going to check into a new unit without one. Absolutely unforgivable. Those strippers took our haircut money and as far as we were concerned, our lives. With so much at stake, how could we forget? Fortunately for stupid little boots like us, chow was free on base otherwise we would have starved because we wanted to see some boobs. Worth it? Arguably. 

So that Monday we check into our actual unit. The first person we go see is Gunnery Sergeant Heaps. To this day I have no idea why he responded the way he did; maybe he thought our story was funny or maybe he got laid that morning. Instead of making our lives a living hell as would have been completely justified, he pulled his wallet out and gave each of us money to get a haircut.

Gunny Heaps – to this day is one of the top five coolest Marines I’ve ever met. What a class act. He’s one of those Marines you’ll never forget.

So the great thing about the Marine Corps is that every few years you get a clean slate. At each unit you meet new people and get a fresh start in case you made an ass out of yourself at your last unit. It’s hard to explain but each unit has its own personality. It’s kind of like taking a random high school kid and sticking them in a random clique. Either you fit in, or you don’t. If you don’t, you end up being the butt of everyone’s jokes for the next couple years. The first two weeks are the litmus test in determining how the next couple years of your life is going to be. Unfortunately for Kevin, it didn’t go well. I don’t know why, but his personality just didn’t fit.

Well, Kevin and I were put in the same barracks room. We shared a 10’X12’ room with a bunk bed, two secretaries, two lockers, a sink and a pint-sized bathroom. There was very little room for privacy.

The bunk bed we slept on was very unforgiving. For every small movement you made, your roommate felt it twofold.

One night I’m lying in bed, very close to entering my REM cycle when I hear Kevin talking to his girlfriend, little Suzie Rottencrotch. Trying not to pay attention, I roll to my side and concentrate on falling asleep. 

I soon realize that this is no ordinary “I love you and can’t wait to see you” conversation. The tone of voice is unmistakable. THEY ARE HAVING PHONE SEX. I’m right fucking here dude!

So then I start to feel the bed shake a little. 

 

 

 

What do you do in this situation??? I froze.

Now that I’m fully aware of what’s going on, I have no choice but to listen.

“Oh yeah, I like that”

“Are you touching yourself?”

“Good. Me too”

“Oh yeah, call me daddy”

I. SHIT. YOU. NOT.

“No, not Kevin, call me daddy”

Am I really here right now? Is this real life?

I’ll spare you most of the conversation but I can’t leave the next part out. It wouldn’t do the story justice.

“Hey, Suzie do me a favor.”

“No, not Kevin, DADDY”

“Ok, stick your finger in your butt and pretend it's my d*&#.”

OK Asshole! You just crossed the fucking line! Being the nice person I am, he’s lucky I didn’t climb up there and punch him in his stupid little dick.

I never did say anything to him that night.

The next morning was awkward as hell for me. I got up and dressed and left for work as soon as I possibly could. Since I didn’t have the heart to make fun of him, I told everyone at work that morning so I didn’t have to. Trust me; they took care of the rest. Six years later and we still haven’t let it go.

My Journey To Atheism

As far back as I can remember, my family was at church every time the doors were open. I remember reading my dad’s bible at the breakfast table and having bible study before bed. It was the only thing I really knew.

I will never forget the day I got “saved.” It was in the gym at Glenville Bible Baptist Church. I was in the AWANA club which is basically boy scouts for Christian kids where games and achievements revolve around brainwashing kids to be little bible thumpers. For a couple of days afterwords I felt pretty good about my brand new redemption but nothing really changed after that.

I’ve always considered myself to be fairly intelligent. Not to brag or anything but I can tie my own shoes, I dress myself in the morning and I know how to make a bowl of cereal. I’ve always been a deep thinker. Even when I was young I would think about everything from the molecular composition of furniture to the galaxy and the cosmos. At that point I still thought that god had created it but it just seemed so completely irrational to think that one being was in control of it all. Despite everything I was ever taught, I doubted.

If you really want to feel insignificant, watch this video. Sorry, it’s really long but this is the kind of stuff I used to think about.

I always felt wrong for thinking that god wasn’t real so I ended up convincing myself that the devil was responsible for my doubt. I remedied it by praying for faith - basically lying to myself. I used to look at clergy and other people I went to church with and wished that I had the same faith that they did. I hated myself for it. It bothered me for a long time.

Growing up I was taught that homosexuality and Christianity shared a dichotomous relationship. The two were mutually exclusive and tragically many people still believe that. I was also taught that homosexuality was a choice and nothing else. But let me ask you this - How can it be a choice when so many people out there, at the expense of being gay, have endured unbelievable amounts of adversity? They have been denied basic rights, they have been beaten and killed, and they have been shunned by their families. Do you really think they would go through all that pain and torment because they WANT to be gay? Don't be so naive. Not to mention the multitude of studies that have shown genetic differences between heterosexual and homosexual men.

Here are a couple videos that do a lot better job addressing the issue. PLEASE watch these videos.

So if homosexuality is something predetermined at birth and there is nothing they can do to change it, then why would it send them to hell? That’s like saying that all left-handed people are going to hell. (Which I think is entirely true) The dots just don’t connect in my mind. I see it as a major flaw in Christianity. One that can't be overlooked.

On a side note – and a very important one at that – I can understand how people believe in religion. Some people need it to get by in life. I view it as a sort of placebo for coping with life’s curveballs. But what I don’t understand is how people who believe in love and understanding and kindness can be so heartless towards homosexuals. It’s disgusting to me. In my eyes, people who disrespect homosexuals in ANY way are completely and utterly ignorant. I know, I used to be one of them.

Being in the military I have had the opportunity to talk to people of all faiths and all backgrounds and have been given the privilege of seeing things from different perspectives. A friend of mine introduced me to the story of Horus; this was probably the catalyst in my questioning religion. The story of Horus closely parallels the story of Christ, yet it had been in circulation for centuries prior to when Jesus walked the earth. 

If you’re interested here’s a link I found on it. 

Story of Horus 

How can we accept one and not the other? As far as I’m concerned, Christianity is the copycat.

During my tours to Iraq I was exposed to things normal people aren’t. I watched a friend of mine hold back tears as he told me about how a day earlier he’d pulled one of his buddies out of a truck after it had been blown up by an IED. He told me that when they were trying to get the severely burned Marine to safety he spoke his last words as his charred flesh was literally falling off as they tried to carry him. He said that all the other Marines in the truck were killed and accounted for except one. They could only find pieces of him. I’ve had friends physically scarred and maimed; a friend who had half his face ripped off in an IED attack, another friend shot through the face on Christmas day. Eight very good men died on that deployment. I grew up being taught that god is all-powerful and all-knowing and is in complete control of everything. If that’s the case, I don’t want to know him. He is the epitome of evil for having allowed those kinds of things to happen.

And I can no longer accept the “god has a plan” excuse and “it all happens for a reason.” It’s a cop-out. It’s an excuse for a flawed and archaic ideology.

But let’s entertain the idea that everything does happen for a reason, and that god does have a master plan. Let’s try to think of any possible explanation for the following story.

This is a true story I came across while working as a military, political and economic analyst for a few different African countries. It takes place in a remote village in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A village is raided by rebel soldiers. During this raid many people are ruthlessly killed and all their belongings are taken to subsidize the rebellion. A woman and her husband futilely take refuge in their home. The rebels break in and start to hack the husband into pieces with machetes as the wife watches. Then they scatter his remains throughout the hut. They then make the wife pick up the pieces of her husband and arrange them on a table as if he were some sort of anatomical puzzle. Once she was finished, she was forced to lay on top of her dead husband as they took turns raping her. When they were done they made her eat her dead husband’s penis.

I know that Christian theology would say that God didn’t explicitly DO this but he ALLOWED it to happen. But that’s still not good enough for me. According to the same theology, divine intervention is extremely common. So why didn’t it present itself in this extraordinary situation? Because god has a plan? Not buying it.

And this is a microcosm of the brutality that occurs in the world EVERY day. But people don’t see, nor do they care about these kinds of things – partly due to a natural psychological ethnocentric mentality, and partly due to their satisfaction with living life willfully ignorant to the world around them. So that’s what allows people to continue in their blissful existence only left to excuse trivial misfortunes as “god’s master plan.” I would like to see those same people give me one good thing – conversely equal to the pain and suffering – that came out of this, or could come out of this.

My purpose for saying these things isn’t meant to insult or to proselytize, just to answer questions. I only want you to know the reasons why I no longer believe in theism - in any capacity. Ally, in her infinite wisdom suggested I explain my 'sudden' change as it appears to everyone around me. It's taken me a long time to come to this conclusion and it wasn't easy. I've finally found the strength to make the leap from the fence to the greener grass and now that I'm sure about where I stand, I've been vocal about it.

All I ask is for you to continue to show me respect. I’m still the same person; I just look at life differently.

More Cowbell

Matt Lauer can suck it!