Is that the best you can do?
by Seven

PART ONE: The smoochy Mexican

I was driving down the road the other day minding my own business and a bicycle was riding toward me. There were two grown men riding on the bike: one peddling and one trying to balance on the handle bars. I was trying to be polite and not run over them, and I smiled politely as I drove by. I looked at the man riding on the front, a shabbily dressed Mexican with a mustache, and he had his lips sticking out as far as they would go making a very perverted-looking kissy gesture. (Either that or he had just eaten a lemon, but I'm guessing that would be hard to do while holding on to the front of a bike.) I'm wondering if this guy has any actual pickup lines for those times when he has a chance to speak to a girl, or if that's all he's got. I had visions in my head of what his nights at the bar must be like. He's the illegal immigrant version of the Saturday Night Live guys from "A Night at the Roxbury." He probably drives... err, RIDES to the bar, sits in the corner making kisses at all the women, they laugh, and he goes home alone again wondering what he's doing wrong. It's like a worst-case-scenario of the TLC song "Scrub." His best friend's ride doesn't even come equipped with a passenger side.

Let's take a step back to the drive-by-smooching, and analyze just what was going on there. Just from seeing the two men riding by, I can tell the following two things right off the bat: He doesn't have A.) a friend with an automobile or B.) a bicycle of his own. After making those observations, I can tell two more things: He doesn't have C.)Anything to offer me and D.) A snowball's chance in hell of getting me into the sack with him. I just can't understand his logic. He doesn't have a friend who drives an automobile. OR HIS OWN BICYCLE. So he smooches at girls whizzing past him at breakneck speed in their awesome white 2000 Mustangs. That's the best he can do.

PART TWO: The shirtless guy on the corner

Siren and I were leaving the bar one night and we stood outside at a friend's car for a few minutes listening to a song on her radio. There was a guy sitting on a curb about half a block away that kept turning around to look at us. He had no shirt on, scruffy facial hair, and possibly a bottle of alcohol near him. We stood there for about 5 minutes, all the while with him turning to stare at us every couple seconds. I was dreading walking by him to get to the car, but there was no way around it. We said good-bye to our friend, and began walking his way. It was then that we saw another guy sitting next to him, and they were whispering back and forth. Siren was wearing a black dress, and she has dyed black hair, cut shoulder length with bangs. Seems like a normal enough haircut to most people, right? Well, apparently this guy took it as her feeble attempt to make herself more Betty Page-like, which by the way is absolutely wrong. As we walked past the men, the one that kept looking at us spoke up and said, "Excuse me, I have some very sad news. I hate to be the one that has to tell you this, but... Betty Page is dead. She died." It took both of us a minute to figure out what the hell he was talking about, but it eventually occurred to us that it was a cheap shot at her attire. I looked at him and mumbled, "Uh, I'm sorry to hear that."

He had been sitting on his curb in the convenience store parking lot next door staring at us for at least five full minutes. That's 300 seconds of thinking time that he could have been using to think up a better line than that. Thinking up witty comments isn't always easy, but given an entire song's length of time, I'm sure I could have come up with something a hell of a lot funnier than that. What response did he expect us to give him? "NO DOY!" The part that's most annoying is that she doesn't even LIKE Betty Page. I've known her for years now, and never once have I heard her even mention the name. The fact that by coincidence she happened to be wearing a black dress and have black hair is apparently enough to warrant a rise out of that guy, but the lame line he spouted was the best he could do.

PART THREE: The stupid email girl

As you may or may not have known, we once did a feature making fun of the unintelligible lyrics to Pearl Jam's "Yellow Ledbetter." We listened to the song lots of times and wrote down silly, wrong lyrics and posted different versions of them of the page. Someone wrote us a gripey email about it. Here's the exchange of words that followed: (notice how she makes fun of me for making a typo, when she herself made one in the subject line of her first email. I also suspect that her last name isn't "None" if you get my drift.)

From : Natalie None klevor_kitty@juno.com
To : yellowledbetter@eville.net
Subject : Yeallowledbetter
Just wanted to tell you how appalled I am at your site, it is a disgrace to Pearl Jam and their lyrical genius. You could have at least gotten close to the real lyrics.

From : yellowledbetter@eville.net
To : Natalie None klevor_kitty@juno.com
Subject : Re: Yeallowledbetter
I'd like to tell you how appalled I am at your complete and utter lack of a sense of humor. You're a disgrace to us and our satirical genius. You could have at least realized (like everyone else in AMERICA) that it was a joke, therefore having the actual lyrics on the page would have compltely defeated the purpose. You are a dope.
Even Rainman eventually found humor in "Who's On First." There's hope for you yet.
-The Eville Staff

From : Natalie None klevor_kitty@juno.com
To : yellowledbetter@eville.net
Subject : Re: Yellowledbetter
Thanks for the response. I never said I didn't realize it was joke, I should have said it was a lame ass joke. You should try and find something a little more productive to do with your time but then again I shouldn't criticize your for it since I'm taking the time to e-mail your sorry ass back! Oh and you should also spell check your e-mail before sending them obviously you are not a genius. Thanks for the response anyway......

From : yellowledbetter@eville.net
To : Natalie None klevor_kitty@juno.com
Subject : Re: Yellowledbetter
A typo in my email? That's the best you can do?
I'm sure you and I have different definitions of the word "productive," but I'm glad to see you take an active interest in trying to prove to me that I'm not funny.
Good try, though.