Month: December 2016

Wait, you mean you’re not supposed to gluttonously take all of the soap, shampoo, coffee filters, towels, linens, sheets, pillows, televisions and shower curtains that you can stuff into your suitcases?

I was under the impression that going to a hotel room was like a 48-72 hour-long version of Supermarket Sweep. “Whatever you can fit, you keep”, I believe, is the motto for one of the Hilton chains. Not sure which.

Assuming you’re not a goody-goody who has never taken a thing from a hotel room, you’ll know this feeling.

I’ll admit that in honesty, I don’t just take shit to take it. However, if I’m in a hotel and the shampoo is amazing… that shit’s coming home with me. And hell, I’ll ask for more from the room service just so I can take that shit too. I’m a real thug when it comes to looting hotel bathrooms.

There’s also shower caps, conditioner (it’s honestly cheaper for me to go to a hotel once ever few months than buy conditioner on its own), bar soap (long live bar soap, BTW) and other shower accompaniments that are just begging to be taken.

Do them a favor. Bring ’em home.

Polar Opposite of this Feeling?: Having one of those shampoo/conditioner bottles explode in your bag on the ride home.

Just over a week ago, I bought stuff online. I hadn’t planned to. I typically don’t. But, I was having lunch with a friend–a savvy shopper in her own right–who suggested that if there was anything online I was looking to buy, now would be the right time.

It turns out, Cyber Monday is a real thing.

I wound up buying a pair of headphones (for $80 down from $200) and then 7 separate articles of clothing (for a combined total of $160) all in the matter of a few hours.

I have yet to receive all of these items and, of course as is the case with most shopping, I didn’t absolutely need any of them… but simply the idea that I was able to buy them all for so (so, so, so) much cheaper than they originally cost made it all the sweeter.

In fact, even as I use these various things, I don’t think the joy I’ll get out of them at any single time will equal the joy of knowing how good of a deal I got.

The super-sized version of this feeling is when it’s not a massive deal, when it’s something relatively (or very) exclusive. Obviously, everyone’s in on Cyber Monday. But when you (somehow) get a good deal on a car or know someone somewhere who hooks you up in a way most people aren’t, that’s the real winner.

Polar Opposite of this Feeling?: Thinking you got the deal of a lifetime on, say, a car, only to find out that a friend got a way better deal than you. And you’ve already made your purchase.

This one is pretty self-explanatory, I think.

Let’s be fair, it’s so engrained in culture at this point that the scent has literally been packaged as it’s own air freshener—which by the way doesn’t do the real smell justice and is just a tease, if you ask me.

The reason we like the new car smell is, in my opinion, two fold… One, we’re all cheap whores for that leathery smell for some reason. Like the need to eat to continue life, the scent of leather drives us all forward for one reason or another. Two, it implies you just bought or leased or borrowed or rented a new car… which has its whole separate and obvious list of good feelings.

I wouldn’t recommend buying the air freshener.

Just buy the car.

Polar Opposite of this Feeling?: Having that odor in your car you not only can’t get out (windows open, full-scale cleaning, etc.) but can’t identify.

There’s something about the peeling off of drenched workout clothes that brings with it a satisfaction hard to describe.

It’s basically the only tangible proof that you, in fact, just worked out in either a strenuous fashion or a gym with no temperature regulation.

You’re not yet sore so you don’t feel bad. You’re still riding high on endorphins or dopamine or whatever the fuck it is that keeps you from not jumping into oncoming traffic and you’re about to hop into the shower and get on with your life.

But before you do, you slide that shirt off and marvel at how hard you—yes, you!—were able to work that this shirt has basically been reduced to a thick puddle. Good for me, you think, I should be some sort of an Olympian the way this shirt is so fully drenched. Did I go swimming in my clothes and not tell anyone? I am impressive.

And on an obvious note, there’s the simple fact that you get to take off what is otherwise disgusting and uncomfortable clothing in favor of warm, normal clothes.

Polar Opposite of this Feeling? : The start of every single workout, ever.

Tonight, I was at a Nets game.

Don’t worry about why I was at a Nets game or how sad my life has gotten that I, indeed, found it to be a good way to spend my time to go to Brooklyn to watch Sean Kilpatrick and Isaiah Whitehead get starter’s minutes… I was there, that’s all you need to know.

Point is, once the game was over, my friend and I sat in our seats for a while as the rest of the crowd filed out. We had no where to go, so we waited for the traffic to die down.

Then, I heard this:

“Is that fucking Scott Spinelli?”

The answer was, of course, “Why yes, dear fellow.”

All jokes aside, it was a kid I’m friends with from growing up and high school that–completely randomly–also had nothing better to do on a Thursday night than watch the Nets play live and in person.

We’re not best friends in the whole wide world, we don’t text every day… but seeing him was a fun surprise. The three of us hung out for a while after the game, shooting the shit and it was all by random chance. Had we simply left earlier or sat somewhere else, no dice.

In a crowded place, to see someone you recognize somehow makes the whole place more familiar. Like it’s always been your little cove.

Polar Opposite of This Feeling?: Thinking someone is someone else and being wrong, or waving at a person you do know and having that person either not see you or ignore you.