The Daily Derenger

11/15/2002

This will be 3 out of the last 4 Daily Derengers about IKEA. But you know what, that's the beauty of free speech and owning a website that about 12 people read on a daily basis. If you're reading this and you're not one of the 12 (I'm sounding a bit like Christ right now) then I thank you for stopping by ShaveYourHead.com. And Thomas, I assure you that many more people that 12 read this site. Have a little faith, will ya?

Last night's IKEA trip was to return something. Had I a house or anything worth betting, I would've bet it that we would've been looking around IKEA for another 2 hour excursion. Such was not the case. Erin returned the end table that didn't match and got one that did. We were in and out in 20 minutes.

That left plenty of time for more errands and repeat trips to places I vowed to never to visit again. Bed Bath and Beyond in Schaumburg saw me come through their doors with the look of defeat plastered on my face. It was the fourth such Chicagoland store I ventured into over a 5-week span. And they are all the same with the just a small tweak in their set-up. I even went so far as to get stuff that I thought she might like just to speed up the process of us leaving. That helped as much as a glass of skim milk for a lactose-intolerant marathon runner.

The only thing I took joy in was taking all the stuffed toys and make them have 3-somes with one another. Spiderman and Skrek did a number on Curious George. Which makes me wonder if he shouldn't be now called Bi-Curious George? Don't worry, Sponge Bob-Square Pants got some 69 action with Hello Kitty while Scooby Doo's cold nose poked in on occasion. Leave it to the domestic animals to make it heterosexual.

Erin was on a mission to find some thing for her bed that goes over the mattress and under the sheets. I guess it makes it even more comfy to sleep on. You know what, enough already. I sleep in a Prizm when times are tough. There's a stick-shift in my right thigh and a steering wheel in my crotch. You'd need Sherlock Holmes to find the comfort there. Having some extra cushion to lie upon is for the birds. Or those with an endless cashflow. Either way you look at it, I need to invest in the mattress business.

After that it was a quest to find sheets for the bed. Until recently, I had never heard of the term "thread count." Let me educate you. The higher the thread count, the softer the sheets and the more expensive they are. I have no idea what the market price is for linens that someone's sweaty ass or drooling mug is gonna sleep on. But I'll tell ya this - 1000-count sheets feel like a quartet of freshly shaven super models. And both need to be slept with to fully understand the comparison.

Erin's apartment has the dimensions of a hamster cage. Small doesn't begin to describe her bedroom yet she felt the need to have a head and footboard on her bed. And even a bed frame. Okay. So I get the bed frame. I haven't had a bedframe on all my beds and I've turned out just fine. Besides, without a bedframe, the boxspring sits on the floor and then you have that far less to fall out of bed when drunk. It's like rolling off a step or better yet, a street curb. Bedframes and boards attached to beds are overrated. Sleep on the floor when all else fails.

I need to get to bed since I must play cab driver in about 4 hours. Cyndi needs a ride to the airport around 5a.m. and then Erin will be ready for work by the time I get to her place. That should put me in bed around 9:30a.m. with plenty of time for a noon breakfast. Plenty of jokes should result. If not, I'll head back to IKEA.

11/14/2002

Apparently I made a huge blunder in the "guys and girls are really different" game. Last night, Erin got home from work and I didn't notice her hair cut. At all. She had to tell me that 5 inches were chopped off on her lunch break.

I told her that given a few days or simply a few more hours, I would've noticed. That didn't suffice. I guess I could've been in the middle of naked twister with the Olsen twins and as long as I uttered, "Hey there. Wow, you're hair looks great," all would've been salvaged. And then Mary Kate would've fed me grapes while Ask rubbed my feet.

Did it even dawn on Erin that my website was ShaveYourHead.com? Hello. If I had 5 inches of hair chopped off it would surely be front page worthy. The barber would've had to cut from the inside of my head. The last time my hair was 5 inches long the Bulls were winning and gas was about a buck and a quarter. I should be given some slack for not noticing. And besides, I was putting the finishing touches on Erin's brand new nightstand from IKEA.

Have you purchased anything from that place? If not and you plan to, I hope you like pictures. A lot. All the directions are just that - pictures. Even where is says 'if you have any questions call' they have a picture of a guy with a question mark over his head and a phone in his hand? And it's not a guy just out of the closet either. It's clearly a picture of a guy who purchased something from IKEA without a clue how to put it together. But it was a stick figure without hair. It could've been me but Erin didn't notice.

At that point we both needed a hug. What the hell, there should have been hugs all around - me, Erin, the stick figure and the twins.
Erin went on to say how great her hair looked and felt now that it had been cut. She didn't even blurt out an inadvertant "thank you" for my fighting with some Swedish artist and his furniture. The hair was the only concern.

"It feels so good to have your hair cut, " she said aloud in an overly elated tone while almost implying that I had no idea what she was talking about.

"You know I used to have hair back in the day," I snarled. "There was even a time when I had it permed in the back, spiked on the side and nary a bald spot or receding hairline was there."

Okay, so bragging about a spike and a perm wasn't necessary. As a matter of fact, it made for an even worse case and hairdo. Someone should've shaved my head back then simply for having a perm. Even if it was only the back-bottom portion. Not quite a mullet but surely horrifiying to say the least.

I guess that most people who've only known me since June of '97, the last time I had hair to speak of, only know me with a shaved head. Some people even talk of shampoo around me like it's a Beta machine. "Remember this stuff, Scott?"

Having disregarded her new hair cut, I felt the least I could do was let her watch whatever she wanted. It was Wednesday night and hot damn!, The Bachelor was on. Well I had made my bed so now I had to lie in it. Luckily the TV in her room had the same channel on so that's where she made off to. I was again alone with my Swedish nightmare. I mean nightstand. Now if only the Olsen twins were European ...

When all was said and done, I apologized for not noticing her great-looking hair cut and things were okay. Until she loses 5 pounds, gets has nails done or gets a nose ring. Hopefully I'll have another project by then.

11/13/2002

I don't think Erin's apartment will ever be done to her complete satisfaction. It's coming along nicely though. That term is used loosely and translates into "she needed a trip to another store".

And why not? We'd been to The Great Indoors, Bed Bath and Beyond, Restoration Hardware, Crate and Barrel - the regular store and the outlet, Pier 1, and a handful of other horrendously overpriced places to buy stuff that she will only leave behind or give to her siblings in a few years.

I've had plenty of say in the purhcases even though I've contributed no money to the "make Erin's place look as trendy as possible" campaign. Now that doesn't mean she's taken my opinions as anything other than mumblings from a 3-year-old. Having much to say ultimately means there was a lot to ignore. If it was my place, it would be just fine the way it is. Why paint and fix-up something that's not even yours to begin with? Plus what money do I have to throw in the mix anyway? My bank account gets bigger laughs than my punchlines these days. And that's not to slight my jokes in any way.

So on Monday night we visited IKEA. Another footabll game down the tubes. She's quite aware that the Bears are on next Monday night and even though they're 2-7, I won't be lifting anything but some Budweisers.

I'm not sure if these IKEAs are all over the place but there is one huge montrosity in the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg. By huge I mean the thing stood 3 stories tall and resembles that of O'Hare International Airport from the outside. Once you heard all the different accents and languages you thought you were at O'Hare. Near the living room section there was enough diversity to hold a UN Peace Treaty hearing.

The employees at IKEA were about as helpful as cancer. Erin asked one guy about something and he looked like we asked him to jump our mobile home with his 10-speed. That's why he wore a shirt with a name-tag on it. A bright future awaited him.

Something else I noticed was the uniquely designed food court on the second floor. The cuisine was nothing you would asscociate with looking for a desk lamp or coffee table. Being a store from Sweden, the food court offered their country's famous meatballs. Now I'm sure they were great. But to be enjoyed at a store selling plungers and pillow shams? If I was a kid and my mom dragged me into a store that served Swedish food on the kids' menu, I'd shit my pants right on the floor. I would hope a 3-story store would have something to clean it up. And some new pants for me.

Erin and I debated back and forth whether or not certain things would match the existing furniture at her place. I threw in the towel in about the 4th round and agreed whole heartedly with whatever she thought. The only time I spoke from then on was to say "that probably won't fit in the Prizm." We got the stuff home and sure enough - the end table didn't match anything in the living room. I suggested putting a black cloth over it to match the futon cover. Her look told me that I would be sleeping in the mokey cage if I didn't shut up.

The table must go back and my car will get it there. I was looking forward to cranberries and a Swedish meatball sandwich anyways. Right after I see about some track lighting in aisle 47.

11/11/2002

Now I don't pretend to be Magellan or even Rand McNally himself. However, I do have a pretty good idea of our nation's geographical set-up. Some of my friends do not. I'll spare them the embarrassment and render them nameless.

The first such flub happened a few months ago. I thought it funny at the time and even a bit pathetic. I didn't think this person had others that were afflicted with similar stupidity though. Until this weekend.

As I was mapping out my recent tour out West, I mentioned that I would be traveling through Montana and possibly Idaho. My friend said, "Idaho huh? What part of Vermont will you go through to get there?"

What? Any idiot knows that you take I-78 West to hit Idaho from Vermont. (That was my sarcastic comeback.)

I couldn't believe that she asked that. And she was dead serious. Shen then claimed that she never drives out of Illinois let alone the Midwest so why should she know where the states are in relation to one another. How 'bout because you live in this country! I may not vote but I sure as hell would know how to get to Wyoming if that was the only place where ESPN came in.

Getting back to the neighboring states of Vermont and Idaho "Well they both have mountains and snow," she said. I had nothing more to say. I was even convinced that Vermont's potatoes were the best around.

I could see if someone in northwest Africa didn't know where the hell Chad was. And why would they need to? They need to be worried about where their next meal is coming from. Forget Chad. Unless he has some left-overs.

Over this past weekend, a comic I drove to the UP with was riding shotgun and reading the map. We were trying to find the most direct route to Neguanee, MI located in the upper peninsula. However, on the map of Wisconsin and Michigan, the UP was either covered up or cut and pasted in the middle of Canada and Lake Michigan. We eventually got there with plenty of time to spare. For those of you who want to know how long of a drive it is to the UP (directly above Wisconsin), from Chicago it's 6 hours.

As we were talking about our comedy travels, he asked this question, "Are there any states above Michigan?"

Maybe some of you have wondered the same thing. I was again shocked as I answered 'Texas'. Okay, so I have driven through about 40 states and have done comedy in 28 of them. I also have a map of our country on my wall that I inevitably look at every day. Call me crazy but adults should know where the hell Idaho is in relation to Vermont and what is above Michigan.

All this geography talk's made me journey-hungry. Not the band either. But surely don't stop believin'. I'm off plan a trip to the west coast. North Carolina here I come.

11/10/2002

A fellow commrade has fallen from the ranks of the unemployed. My friend Cyndi has been a temp for the last 14 months; on Veteran's Day she begins a new full-time job with benefits and other perks. Gone are the days of drinks 'til dawn and naps at noon. Man how I would like to know what having some health insurance felt like. I hope Cyndi will share such feelings with me. After I catch up on The Bachelor, Real World Las Vegas and any other mind-boggling TV shows of course.

Cyndi was working as a restaurant server and a temp for many companies in downtown Chicago. Technically she was working while her college degree stared at her wondering "what the hell am I good for?" So she wasn't really unemployed. But neither am I as a comic I guess. However my bank account may show otherwise.

Because of their computer skills and simply being women, Cyndi and Erin have worked many of these temp jobs. It's not a sexist thing it's just fact: companies prefer women over men in an office setting. Or maybe my little experience in the real, corporate world has left me with a loose grip on reality and with a firm grasp on How to Be Worse Off Financially at 27 Than at 17 - The Sad Truth by Scott Derenger. In paperback soon.

My travel schedule as a road-working comic hasn't afforded me the opportunity to be available on a weekly or even a daily basis to work a day job, even random ones. While I've been tourning the moose-land of Montana, Cyndi and Erin have been getting about 12 bucks an hour to answer phones and open Excel documents. They both have something called rent to pay. I used to have that problem until I tucked my tail between my legs crawled back home - again. It's all relative and it all happens for a reason. I just don't know what reason some of my relatives have for happening at all.

It's worked out nice, though. Just a few weeks ago, Cyndi landed a temp job that would have her work 5 days a week for 4 months. Upon getting a real job, Cyndi mentioned to Erin, who was doing different jobs on a day-to-day basis, that she may be interested in taking over her position. And such is now the case.

Cyndi has a real job, Erin has Cyndi's temp position and I drive them around and write about whatever I choose. I hope it's someday going to be about my 3rd published book or second screenplay purchased by Dreamworks. Until then, the Daily Derenger will be my canvas and my Prizm will be Erin and Cyndi's chariot. Let the artist live and starve. Let the workers work and thrive. What? I don't know where those last lines came from but I'm hungry.