Category: Top 250 Feelings

This one is tied entirely to a fascination we all have with living our lives like movies. Like most of the feelings on this list, this one is a totally insular one. No one but you gets it while it’s happening, and that’s precisely the point.

Me, being the tool I am, try to have a song at the ready that in some way syncs with the place I’m arriving in. Obviously, this only applies to my final destination (all you loser connecting cities can get lost).

As an example, whenever I go to Chicago… which is at least once a year to visit a friend… I try to have something of Kanye West ready as I walk off the plane and into O’Hare Airport.

You remember Kanye West, right? He used to be a famous rapper/producer that made hits for about 8-10 years straight before he got married, had a family and left the limelight behind. Man, we all wish he’d come back already.

Anyway, that’s me. Headphones on, volume jacked, bass cranked. If the weather’s nice and the song’s right, there’s not much that can beat that.

Polar Opposite of this Feeling?: Thinking you’ve got the right song cued or ready, only to either fuck it up, not have the song on your device or have the person that’s picking you up because they’re truly concerned about you call you as you land and fuck up the whole thing with their politeness.

This one has become increasingly more rare nowadays because who pays with actual currency any longer? You guys don’t have the iPhone app that keeps your bank records stored retinally, allowing you to pay for anything in the world with a simple eye scan? Well, you’re missing out.

Before I entered the Minority Report world of the future, free of this world’s simplistic, crude metallic change… I too used quarters and dimes and the like. (Sidenote: you want a real change experience? Go to London. Those sons-a-bitches are nuts with their change. Two pound coins? Fuck out of here).

The funny thing, to me, about this feeling is that it always starts the same: you never think you have exact change, though you suspect it. You always say, “Wait, let me check to see if I have it” to a cashier that has heard this refrain at least 250 times in the last hour alone. You dig around your wallet or (god forbid) your purse, exploring corners fingers haven’t been in months. At first, it appears you’re a dime or nickel short.

Then, divine intervention strikes and you’ve go it. Exactly 5 dollars and 86 cents. You can pay, and leave lighter.

Polar Opposite of this Feeling?: Thinking you’ve got exact change, handing it over and then being told you can’t add and it’s not right. You are a moron and you get to discover this in public.

First off, in doing some “research” for this one, I learned that there’s been at least 8 Mario Karts made. Probably more. Does that strike anyone else as excessive? Who honestly needed more than the one for Nintendo 64? It was clearly the best version of the game. Any of these clowns (read: young bucks) that claim the Wii version is better are fooling themselves. The whole fun of video games is so to  escape reality—not approximate it. If I wanted to drive a car, you know hold a wheel and turn it, I’d drive my real car. No, I want to hold a weird, multi-colored joystick that oddly grips perfectly to my claw.

Anyway, I digress. Whatever version you’re playing, the whole fun of the game is to get those boxes and be lucky enough not to get the bananas. Get one of those red shell trios and roll deep, shoot someone down with green shells (actually, now that I write this, being able to aim, click and shoot with a green shell is a better feeling than anything else in the game)… the list goes on.

Point is, when you’re four beers deep and that obnoxious friend of yours that’s way too good at the game (especially at this age… I mean, seriously… what does he do all day? how is he so fucking good, still?) is just ahead of you… you need the right item. Whatever your specialty, you know you’re in a great spot if you get it and screwed if not.

Good luck.

Polar Opposite of this Feeling?: Being the jackass that, repeatedly, can’t get your guy to run into any box, at all. Lap after lap.

I don’t know about you, but I really only do laundry when I run out of socks or underwear. This is both a joke but also a life goal. For real, kid.

But seriously, every so often in your life, when you’ve graduated to living in a post-quarters world where no one cares how long you leave your stuff in the machine, you get to clean actual clothes. You know, like jeans and pants and long-sleeved shirts.

However, the real treat–what this feeling is really about–is when you get to do a load of sheets or sweatshirts… gasp!… TOWELS.

Anyone who lives in an apartment building surely knows the difficulty that comes with doing a load of non-clothes. Things don’t dry as they should, you forget to take your clothes out in time so they’re either really wrinkled or really damp, you don’t have enough quarters to do another load so your living room becomes a full-scale drying rack.

It’s a nightmare.

However, on the rare days when you can do those non-clothes loads, the feeling of accomplishment is outstanding. Sure, fresh underwear is nice, but a stack of hot towels? That’s fucking luxury.

Polar Opposite of this Feeling?: Toss up on this one… either going for more quarters for that extra dryer cycle and finding out you don’t have any more… Or, bringing your clothes all the way down to your laundry room… and all the machines are taken. Your pick (Hint: you lose either way).

Let’s do this one in reverse.

Polar Opposite of This Feeling?: Getting on to the train or in your car or anywhere else and you know it’s going to be a while before you can charge again. For most people, the device we’re probably talking about here is a cell phone, but for me it’s my iPod (Yes, I still use one of those old school, big charging port, no-WiFi-just-music iPods… sue me).

I’m starting off like this because this feeling always is dangerously close to careening off the edge and into disaster. But, when you are able to skate the line and wind up in the clear, that’s a glorious win.

Imagine: you pop on down the stairs and into the subway, blissfully listening to whatever new Bruno Mars song has caught your fancy. For whatever reason, you take the device out of your pocket to check something and are stunned to discover how low your battery is… You panic, initially, wondering how on Earth you’ll be able to survive the rest of the journey without music to block out your fellow human travelers. Then, you start thinking of ways to minimize the damage… What if I don’t hit the volume or ‘next song’ buttons? How about lowering the screen brightness or volume in general?… Ultimately, you decide to press on, realizing you have no choice, but desperately fearing the dark side of this reality.

It doesn’t happen often, but when you do make it to the other side unscathed and in the good graces of your battery, that’s got to be as good as cheating death.

It should be pointed out, this is a very superficial feeling. I mean, let’s be fair here: it’s not like we’re talking about this person (be it a girl you think is hot, a minor or major celebrity, someone that can help your career, whatever) actually doing something for you. They’re simply hitting a button which relays what you said, to the people that listen to what they say. Realistically, there isn’t much less they could do to show support.

But, in the world of twitter, it means a lot. Many of us have gotten that retweet from someone that made you say, “Holy shit, (someone) just retweeted me!” And yes, as I’m sure you’re wondering, it’s happened to me. Twice, actually.

His name is Edward Burns. I’ve detailed my fandom of him before (here and here), so we don’t need to get into that again. I’m a fan, big time—this we know. And as such, it comes as no surprise that, after watching Newlyweds and Fitzgerald Family Christmas, I tweeted out something positive both times.

Now, I realize it makes sense he’d retweet something good about a movie of his, but the fact is he has a lot of followers and couldn’t possibly do that for every single tweet. That I happened to be a random selection out of the thousands—well, that’s just good fortune.

And while I don’t think it makes me a better guy, it certainly made me feel better at that moment.

Polar Opposite of this Feeling?: Reaching out to someone on twitter, especially someone you know, and getting nothing in response. A public ignore.

My apartment, generally speaking, doesn’t keep outside weather outside. When it’s freezing outside, it’s pretty damn cold inside. That said, I’m generally pretty good when it comes to just about every other spot than my hands.

Now, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has cold hands.  My roommate, for sure, is on the list. That’s a story for another day as I’m pretty sure he has some yet-to-be-discovered blood disorder, but the fact remains that cold hands—I’m fairly confident—aren’t a rare affliction.

And so, for any of the legions of you that have been where I’ve been, where gloves and blowing don’t quite do the trick, you know there’s few things better than the quick-warm. I’m talking putting your hands directly over a radiator or pot of boiling soup, washing your hands in scalding water, or simply putting your hands in your pants.*

You go from ice cold to toasty, almost instantaneously. Gone are numbness and freezing. You suddenly have dexterity, quite literally, at your fingertips.

Polar Opposite of this Feeling?: If you go for the hand-in-pant or sitting-on-hand strategy to warm up, that initial feeling of COLD skin on WARM flesh.

*Mock all you want, ladies. It does the job.

About three years ago, my mom kicked me to the curb. After years of doing my taxes for free, she told me I needed to either chip in or do ’em myself. I responded in kind, probably something with an expletive and neglecting of the reality of how it was, in fact, time for me to do it myself.

And so I did. I shopped around, found that–as a single man with no dependents–all those tax houses are (WITHOUT QUESTION) rip-offs and that you can just do it yourself. This feeling isn’t about the satisfaction of doing it on your own (although, that did feel good).

This feeling is about the moment a few weeks later, when a certain something came in the mail. You see, I’m old school. I could have just as easily had the refund deposited into an account of mine, but, I knew that would be too easy for them*. I opted, as I’m sure most people do not, to receive the paper check.

It’s a feeling certainly shared by at least one semi-pro hockey player-turned-pro golfer. I like knowing that they had to put in at least a little effort to get that to me. I like looking at that big Statue of Liberty on the check, the colors, the eagle, all that shit. It’s the closest I’ll ever have to one of those golf checks our pal Happy yearned for so dearly.

And, above all, you get to actually put in money to your account. So, that’s nice.

Polar Opposite of this Feeling?: Checking your bank statement to see how much money is in it, assuming the rent check or car payment has been processed already because of how low the number is, and then realizing, in fact, neither of those have been deducted.

*Them, of course being the government, and by extension, THE MAN.

Friend: You should watch “The Last Man on Earth”

Me: That one with Will Forte? On FOX?

Friend: Yes. It’s really funny. You need to watch it.

Me: But, isn’t it on FOX?

And so, on we went, me questioning how a live television comedy could actually be recommended by someone with good taste (of which my friend is impeccable) and him answering that, despite all previous signs to the contrary, this show was actually pretty good.

This feeling isn’t about The Last Man on Earth specifically. In fact, I’ve only seen those first two episodes… and who the hell knows, the rest of the series could absolutely stink, but that’s not what this feeling is about.

What this is about is finding out about a new show, one you’d already heard of but didn’t have either enough energy or interest to seek it out on your own, actually hearing good things about it, and then watching it to discover that it was, in fact, as funny as your good-tasted friend said it would be.

Now don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of good comedy out there. Broad City, Man Seeking Woman just to name a few… But I already knew about those. I have expectations for them and I’m not surprised when they make me laugh. But, finding a new player for the roster? That’s a swell feelin, y’all.

Polar Opposite of this Feeling?: Well, there’s two. There’s the obvious, which is that the show you’re recommended sucks worse than Mulaney. Or, perhaps more soul-crushing, is realizing, after investing in the entire season, that it never got better than those first two episodes.