The Man Who Drinks Aqua Velva

Monday night I was minding my own business, doing sit-ups as I flipped back and forth between the Orioles game and The Princess Bride, when I received a text message. The text was from LSilv, referring to a specific individual she works with at the great Bo Brooks. As you all know, I spent some time there as well and Brandon, the individual she was referring too, is hands down one of the sketchiest people I have ever met in my life. Over the course of my young life I have had a countless number of jobs and as a result, met a countless number of people. Now, one thing that tends to happen when you have the opportunity to meet lots of people, is you happen to meet a lot of sketchballs and when you meet a sketchball, you most certainly do not forget them. The focus of this blog is going to be on some of these shady individuals but for now, I must return to the story.

Supposedly, Lindsay and Brandon, left work at the same time and Brandon walked her nearly all the way home. Now, the walk from Lindsay's house to Bo Brooks shouldn't take one very long, but with Brandon, I'm sure it took quite a while, cause the man lacks the ability to do things at a quick rate of speed. Those kinda things tend to happen, when you have to disappear every so often to shoot up some black tar, snort some coke, or perhaps smoke crack. I was never quite sure what drug was the man's drug of choice, but I have a feeling it was one of those three. To be honest, I shouldn't have said the man can't do anything at a quick rate of speed, because, his jaw, lips, and eyes are usually twitching at a rapid pace. Anyways, somewhere on their drug induced walk home, a homeless man approached the lovely duo, and within a matter of seconds, the bum was fleeing down Boston street, garbage bag, cardboard box and all, in a desperation attempt to get away from Brandon. He didn't even take the kid's money. Priceless. Needless to say, Brandon now has a few extra dollars to his pocket and LSilv had the best night of her life, what else can be said.

Now, onto the other sketchballs.

In the summer of 2007, I worked at Brawner Brothers construction, it was a great job, and if they didn't assign me to the most boring crew ever, I may quite possibly still be there. Nevertheless, there was a man there named Rick. Rick, was a heavyset fellow and a lifer in the construction business. He spent most of the days driving the trucks, because he was a worthless complainer who no foreman wanted on their crew. As for the reason he may have been worthless, well I am about to tell you. Rick, claimed that he had reached a point in his life, where normal alcohol no longer effected him like it once did and as a result he began to search for other means to reach intoxication and he stumbled across bottles of Aqua Velva aftershave. So, when the bell rang on Friday afternoon, many Brawner employees would head to the liquor store to pick up a 12 pack or bottle of Jack, but Rick would go to the grocery store and pick up a bottle of Aqua Velva. Supposedly, only a few sips of the stuff and you would reach a solid buzz. I saw him take a quick chug one day and it was just utterly gut wrenching to see someone chug aftershave, but to Rick it was just a way of life.

Than there's Jay Farley. Jay and I worked together for two years, as Lutherville Timonium Recreation Council Leaders and to be honest I always kinda felt bad for the kid. In reality, Jay wasn't really a sketchball, he just lacked basic social skills, and as a result came across to most people as rather shady. The only times we would work together would be in the fall, when football was in season. On certain Saturdays, we would have to set up the football field, help with the concessions and do various other things along the course of the day. The typical football Saturday was about a 14 hour work day, which is totally illegal to make a 16 year old do, but when it came time fill out our time sheets, we would just put down three 6 hour days and I realize the math doesn't work there but it's what the boss told us to do. He wasn't paying us anyways so it didn't matter. Anyways, back to Jay. Now, Jay was a big kid, probably about 6"3 and 250lbs, which is quite large for a high school boy and Jay's main hobby was reading books about goblins, demons, witches, and warlocks. That kinda stuff will pollute one's mind. To make matters worse, all Jay did is read and he didn't really have any friends. At all of these football games, there were cheerleaders. Now, we were 16 to 17 at the time, and these cheerleaders ranged from probably 11-14 and when a 6"3 250 pound man, sits down next to a 12 year old cheerleader and begins to talk about goblins and demons, she gets sketched out. And when a 12 year old girl gets sketched out, she tells her 12 year old friend, who tells her mother who in turns files a complaint. It got kinda ugly at one point, but nothing big ever evolved and I heard through the grapevine that Jay joined the Marines and good for him, I hope he is doing well, and I'd imagine the Marines got him to stop reading about goblins and demons.

The final two sketchballs I'm going to discuss are both former Bo Brooks employees as well. The first, is the lovely Jen Jones.

I only had the luxury of working with Jen Jones for a few months, she walked out on the Fourth of July during a shift, and to this day I believe she stills owes Bo Brooks a couple hundred bucks, but that girl definitely had some issues. There was a specific evening last summer, where I ventured out to JD's in Canton with a few employees, and we got to last call and Jen still wanted to keep drinking. I was with Creech and the two of us were not opposed to the idea of still drinking with a good looking young lady, so we invited her back to Towson. Somewhere, along the ride, Creech got the genius idea, that we should take Jen to my parents house, they were in Bethany Beach at the time, and convince her that it was our place. I had to go along with the idea, because who would really want to drink late night in a house with no cable, no furniture, and no air conditioning. Quite frankly, we may not have even had power. A few minutes later, Creech is pulling into my driveway and the three of us are walking into my house. Now, if you have ever been inside my parent's house, there should be no way imaginable that one would ever buy into the concept that the two of us lived there by ourselves, but Jen Jones did and that alone should speak volumes. Instantly, the girl just started slamming vodka and once she got drunk, her persona changed. She went from a sweet loving little girl to this enraged white trash hoochie mama. She kept talking about how she stole things, smoked crack, and beat up other bitches and Creech is just looking over at me scared shitless. Girls from Dundalk, you really gotta watch out for them. But, I gotta give it to her, she had one hell of an ass, an ass that would make Sir Mix A Lot proud because Baby Got Back.

Finally, I'm onto the sketchiest person I have ever come into contact with. I believe his name was Ben and I actually saw him while I was driving the other day. He was walking past the Kent and I screamed like a 10 year old girl, granted, I was in my truck and passing him at a high rate of speed, but it was still way too close for comfort. This man could straight up put chills through your body. I worked with him for only a matter of day's, before he was fired. He had one of those beards, that someone who can't really grow a beard has. I mean, it is a beard, but you can tell their rocking it because it's the first time in their life they've had enough facial hair to attempt to rock the beard, but it doesn't really work. Nevertheless, he kept telling me and other employees about African slogans and signs, how he believed everyone should keep a handgun in the glove box of their car, and just other weird things like that. I believe he was fired for telling customers that his tattoos resembled everyone he had killed in his life or something like that, I don't really know, but the man was a total creeper. Supposedly, Nate passed him on the streets once and hid behind his wife in an effort to avoid him, and I don't really blame the guy, if I fired this man, I would have no shame whatsoever in hiding behind a woman to avoid an encounter. Anyways, that's enough for sketchballs.

I walked into Razorback's last night to play trivia with Andy and Damon, and as soon as I walked in, I noticed the Big Unit on the tele. He had just won his 300th game and I mentioned to Andy and Damon that I don't know if we will ever see another 300 game winner unless of course Jamie Moyer pitches until he is 60, which is quite possible, and Damon started laughing because supposedly he had just said the same thing to Stills before I walked into the bar. What can I say? Great minds think alike. Speaking of Randy Johnson, the man had quite the mullet at times, and anyone who can rock a mullet, and rock a mullet well, is good in my book. Plus, he scared the living shit out of John Kruk in the 1993 All-Star Game and may quite possibly be the best dove hunter in all of baseball. Speaking of the 1993 All-Star Game, I'm still pissed at Cito Gaston for not brining in Mike Mussina to close out the ninth.

The Jacoby's were out last night and I'm big fans of both. They kept going on about a possible fishing trip with Andy, Damon, the two of them, and myself and that would be one for the ages. Alex is upstairs singing like a girl, its kinda funny, I don't know if he knows I can hear him. I'm gonna let this one ride for a moment.