ChrisMohney.com

Rejected by McSweeney's: Gross Roof Love

Pursuant to this, here's the second in an already tiresome two-part series. This bit was actually rejected out of a larger bit that was itself accepted. I suggest you read the full version before consuming the apocrypha below, which I believe they wanted taken out because it was "too gross."

-------------------

SUBJECT: Lisa T.

Top floor. Frequently has friends over, and they all sit on her balcony and chain-smoke. Most of their cigarette butts are tossed into the courtyard below, to land outside my apartment. Some even land on my porch.

Q: Hi there. Lisa, right?

A: Yeah, hi.

Q: Top floor?

A: That’s me. You’re …

Q: Chris. I’m right here, on the ground floor.

A: Right, right.

Q: You smoke Camel Lights?

Rejected by McSweeney's: Unexpected Workplace Comeuppance

This past weekend, my PC succumbed to a virus attack that left it partially deranged. I was able to copy off all my files, but I had to lobotomize the computer and reinstall everything. While copying over my documents, I found three pieces that were rejected by McSweeney's online humor mag. What do you want from me -- I was in grad school, I had nothing else to do. They did take a couple bits, just so you know how cool I am. Anyway, one of the three documents was corrupted from age and stupidity, and another rejectee is actually just a part of one that was, in the larger sense, accepted. But here's the third wholly rejected piece, "Unexpected Workplace Comeuppance." It amuses me in a nostalgic way.

-------------------

The maintenance man will not stop talking about his gun collection. For what must be the hundredth time, he explains that his favorite Sig Sauer pistol had a rough action when cycling a round into the chamber, and that rather than take it apart and polish it, he tried a new method his uncle had recommended. He packed the chamber with smoker’s toothpaste and dry-fired it one thousand times.

Ritalin Reading Clip + Bonus Misshapes Tedium

Thanks again to Lindsay Robertson and Gabriel Delahaye for letting me onstage during last week's Ritalin Readings. It was much fun, and the other readers were uniformly excellent -- far beyond my abilities, as is only natural. Gabe has the full podcast of the evening, and I encourage you to enjoy it all. For my impatient friends and Aunt Petunia, here's a clip of just my own four minutes in heaven. Inside-blogball alert.

And if that wasn't enough -- and in honor of this, which I think marks the expiration of the statute of limitations -- after the jump, enjoy a series of emails between myself and one of the Misshapes (and others) while I was at Gawker. It's much longer than funny, but if nothing else it gives one a depressing glimpse of what it's like working the turnstiles at such a freak parade.