First of all, I’d like to thank those of you who have written me back in the last couple weeks. It means a lot that you all are still alive. Seriously, thanks for keeping in touch. Most replies were from people I haven’t spoken to in many years, including a quote from the past from Jeff Menago, my former fake high school twin who had an actual real twin who looked nothing like him. But he’s a Cowboy fan in Eagles territory, so it’s like he’s not even real anyway. I’ll make sure to get that one in when I can. And for the rest of you, thanks again. I’ll write you back when I’m done what I have decided to call “ignoring you.”
“If at the end of a joke, you have to say ‘You had to be there,’ you shouldn’t have told the joke in the first place.” This is a cardinal rule of comedy that will be published in a book on the subject that I will likely never write. It’s basically what you say at the end of a story that isn’t funny now because it required the audience to be present at the time of the joke. A few friends and I came up with it back in high school and it is also known as the “Sean Dallesandro Axiom.” He used that phrase so much, I don’t think he knew what it meant. Anytime he needed to back out of an unfunny comment. Even knock knock jokes. So the fact that I’m about to disclose the Top 15 Quotes of the Moment of the Last 15 Years is pure hypocrisy. Maybe you had to be there for some of these. I was there for all of them and they were damn funny in the approximate order that I randomly put them in. And like Steve Martin said in his book, this is where real humor resides. Not in stand-up comedy with a contrived context and obvious vocal cues to the audience to laugh. I only hope that you didn’t need to be there for all these to be funny or I’m no better than Sean Dallesandro.
Top 15 Quotes of the Moment
Well, I'm gonna stay in Boone for this next quote in hopes that I'll never have to take you guys back here. Chris went up to the ATM worrying that it was going to laugh at his puny little Maryland bank. He came back to the car excited and with money. The following conversation ensued...
Tanis: "So it didn't laugh at your bank?"
Tony: "Of course not. Nobody laughs at Chevy Chase. Did you see Fletch?"
I've always been more of a Steve Guttenburg fan myself.
#14
The office is a fun place to work. Lots of characters around. Geoff and Heidi were having a conversation last week about something which is fairly irrelevant now. But here's how the conversation ended...
Quote Of the Day 10/23/00
Geoff: "You're nuts, Heidi."
Heidi: "No, Geoff. You're nuts. In fact, you're the definition of nuts."
Geoff: "I'll show you the definition of nuts..."
It's a wonder he had to go to sexual harassment training classes.
#13
Anyway, I was telling my dad my theory on why casinos make money when I got back from Reno. In a nut shell, here it is: See, when you're up $200, you could always be up $300, or even $900. You can always go higher into the positive. But if you start out with $400 and you get to a point where you have $0, you are done. There's a sense of closure…
Quote Of the Day 1/19/01
"Oh, I get it. So there's closure... and then shortly thereafter there's foreclosure."
-The Dad
Spoken like an experienced gambler.
#12
Well, when I first met Drew, we gave each other those Indian nicknames I mentioned above. Nick also wanted to be part of our clan. The following day, we were sitting outside waiting for X-Country practice to start and we were trying to think of names. Usually, when a child is born in that culture, they name the children after the first thing they see, like "Running Brook," or "Two Frogs Trying To Mate On A Small Rock In The Middle Of That Running Brook" and stuff like that. So as I said this, we looked up to see what was in front of us. Robyn Gaylon, a real sexy cheerleader just happened to be standing right in front of us bending over with her short-ass skirt on to stretch or whatever. We didn't care why. Nick said to me without turning his head away "Dustin, I have my name." I smiled, and also not looking away, I replied "What's that, Nick?"
Quote Of the Day 9/20/99
"Sprouting Weasel"
-Sprouting Weasel
This is actually remarkably similar to how "Extendo" came about.
#11
You know, rooming with Billy makes quote of the day so much easier. I could probably have a quote of the day and a Billy of the day if I so desired. Well, this came up in a conversation with Mark about why beastiality wasn't natural (don't ask)...
Quote Of the Day 9/23
Mark: "Guy and a dog, can't make a kid."
Billy: "Yeah, but they can make a cat."
And we let Billy experiment with test tubes.
#10
After a long day of playing 4 volleyball matches on Saturday, the team took a trip to the Olive Garden for a nice team bonding dinner. We were all starving and we didn't see food until about 45 minutes after we sat down. This turned out to be a problem. Clint and I were both famished and couldn't think of anything else. He suggested that we start drawing straws to see who we were going to kill and eat like in that movie Alive. That's not exactly what they did in Alive, but that's not the point. Anyway, we started picking out potential people to eat. We couldn't eat Milky because we needed him for the games on Sunday, and Drew was just too skinny for our hunger. He suggested Driz...
Quote Of the Day 11/18/99
Me: "I don't know. Is it really safe to eat Driz?"
Clint: "Sure... I mean, we eat cows."
#9
Anyway, I was recently playing hold em online with my dad and got an ace-four. I told him I didn't want to call because I had an ace with a poor kicker...
Quote of the Day 2/7/05
"That's not a kicker. That's not even a punter."
-The dad.
#8
I went to a club with a few people last Thursday, and outside the door, there existed this guy yelling "If you're over 21, get in this line... If you're under 21, get in this line" as he pointed to 2 different lines. Aaron turned to me and said...
Quote Of the Day 12/21/00
"Well, what if you're 21?"
-A-Rock
Aaron had to leave.
#7
Well, I have a follow-up to the last chicken finger joke, and this one is by the same guy on a completely separate occasion. We were eating at Pizzeria Unos in Maryland on my birthday, and we saw an item in the menu called "chicken thumbs." Well, this set Craig into "joke mode" and there was just no turning him back...
Quote Of the Day 1/7/99
"Chicken thumbs!?! What the hell is that? (turns to waitress) You know, thanks to you guys, there are thumbless chickens running around out there like this (hold hands up with thumbs concealed behind palms) 'OOooh God! NOOooo!! Oh, if it weren't for you, we'd be able to use tools...'"
- Craig Klukus
Animal Rights Activists
He went on, but his attempts to cut his steak without thumbs can only translate so well over e-mail.
#6 
There are two brothers, Kevin and Erick. Erick has a girlfriend who, through some extraordinary stroke of luck, isn't dumb, and likes him (sounds like a contradiction there). Anyway, she bought him a tiny little thingy thing for Christmas. It was wooden, about 6 inches tall, and had a series of little ramps that if you dropped a little tiny silver ball on the top one, it would go down to the next one, and to the next one, and through about five or six of these ramps all the way to the bottom. The thingy thing came with its own little tiny silver balls that were the perfect shape to slide down this wooden piece of... work. It's not a very complex piece of machinery. Well, Kevin, Erick's younger brother, says "Wow, neat!" and proceeds to pick up one ball at a time and drop them on the top ramp and watches in amazement as they all make their way down to the bottom, where Kevin would pick them up from and repeat the process. As he picks up another ball and watches it roll down the simple model, Kevin asks...
Quote Of the Day 2/17
Kevin: "HEY! Is this a perpetual motion thing?"
Maria: "Yeah... If you keep doing it."
Kevin is a psychology major. That might help put things into perspective.
#5
I was trying to explain this 9 card poker game to a few friends of mine to try to get them to play. I think I had a couple of them, but Erick had to go and resist saying that he thought the game sounded made up...
Quote of the Day 2/11/03
"Well, aren't all games made up?"
-J-Me
Apparently not.
#4
Well, as you all possibly know already, I went to the Inner Harbor for New Years Eve with 5 guys and no chicks. Upon retrospect, that's maybe one of the few things about that night I'd change. Anyway, we wound up in the middle of the inner harbor at exactly the stroke of midnight. I think I kissed a girl I didn't and still don't know. If memory serves me correctly, I think she was surprised and not necessarily pleasantly. Ah, she'll get over it. But anyway, from there, we went to Max's, who, unbeknownst to us, was having a private party. We had no idea of this until they didn't charge us for drinks. I don't remember leaving the bar. I remember talking to a girl named Shannon who Mike later said was hot. But what the hell would he know, he doesn't remember leaving the bar either. Apparently we wrestled on the way home and I pinned him and then proceeded to shove his head into the mulch repeatedly. That's the kind of crap you wish you could remember. Oh well. We were reminiscing about the events of the previous night (that which we could recall) at the International House of Hangovers, and Tony sarcastically interjected...
Quote of the Day 1/15/01
Tony: "Dustin, at one point, you were hitting on a lamppost."
Me: "Well, she was hot."
Mike: "Yeah, but not very bright."
But she was probably at least 18.
#3
Well, the coolest part of the night was the dinner that we got. It was very good, and they had lots of glasses and forks that I didn't know what to do with. Anyway, I got some chicken and a salad and cheesecake, and lemon cake, and blah, blah, blah. I started eating and after like my second bite, I peaked at Heather and she was using a different kind of fork to eat her salad. Well, I found out I was using the wrong fork already...
Quote Of the Day 4/30
Me: "Damnit. I'm on my second bite and I already started using the wrong fork."
Hassan: "That's OK. I already ate my cake."
And I think he used the salad fork to do it too.
#2
This quote came from a conversation I had with Evil Lance McFreelander as he was in the process of signing his contract a few weeks ago with Little Boy Hair Girl (I need to start re-nicknaming my friends again). Anyway, he was trying to describe to me the state of being his relationship with Teresa was in...
Quote of the Day 2/14/01
Me: "So are you guys exclusive now?"
Mike: "Well... kinda."
Me: "Well, if she goes out with somebody else, would you get pissed?"
Mike: "Yeah."
Me: "And if you go out with somebody else, would she get pissed?"
Mike: "Gosh, I hope not."
Where do I sign?
#1
I had an internship last year and there was about a span of three weeks when I didn't have a car, and so I needed Proz to wake up and drive me there at 7 in the morning every Tuesday and back again around 5 or something. Well, we were driving back home after a long ass day and we passed a Saab. I started telling him that the ignition to a Saab is down between the driver's side and passenger's side of the seats. I then began to tell him that I knew this because we have a Saab. Well, we don't really have one, but my uncle from Maine, who isn't technically my uncle, went to Spain indefinitely, and... (he cut me off)
Quote Of the Day 2/7&8
"Wait, wait, wait. Is this another Saab story?"
-The slightly smarter half of Dumb and Uglier
I don't think I ever finished my story.
That’s it. 15 years of unscripted humor wrapped up into a ten minute block of congealed awesome. And just in time for me to go watch my bracket implode. Stay tuned next week whenI veer off the Quote Path and bring you the hugely anticipated Top 15 Awesome Moments of the Last 15 Years (anticipated by who, exactly?). And yes, these will be moments in Dustinland, not worldly events like the moon landing, which I’d be willing to bet took place more than 15 years ago anyway. So stop back in to check on that. And feel free to call and remind me this week if you know of any. Right now, I think I can think of 3.
Still Standing Right Here...
