All That and a Bag of Mail: Christmas Eve Edition
It's Christmas Eve. I'm putting the mailbag up today because I figure it gives all of you a chance to read it today or tomorrow or Friday. I've got a six year old, a four year old, and a three month old so Christmas here is pretty hectic.
This weekend I'll head down to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl so we should have some good stuff from Outkick there next week.
Our beaver pelt trader of the week is you guys. You've shared our stories, Tweeted me great things, and generally helped to make 2014 the best year Outkick has had thus far. I've been hinting that more good news is coming. It is. 2015 should be massive for Outkick.
Now on to the mailbag.
Please keep me anonymous as I work for Michigan and don't want to get fired:
"You know how crazy this state is over Jim Harbaugh. The message boards are insane, Michigan fans are in full on Harbaugh frenzy right now. So we've been debating this at work, what percentage of Michigan fans would be totally fine with their wives sleeping with Jim Harbaugh if it meant he would come to Michigan?"
I think it's an insanely high percentage of the die hard fans. Contrary to popular expectation the most die hard fans are over fifty years old. The younger you are the busier with life you are. College kids care much less about losing than young graduates because a college kid's life is still pretty awesome no matter who ends up winning. When you're in your thirties you're too damn busy with kids to get worked up over losing for too long. The same is true of your early forties. But once you get over fifty you suddenly have time and money, which are the two most important attributes for any obsession to truly flourish.
Once you have time and money you can fully commit yourself to your passions. These die hard fans sit around all the time stewing over Ohio State dominating Michigan. That's all they care about. They sit on message boards and banter about the body types of 17 year old boys -- seriously, this is the creepiest thing on earth to read, "His shoulders are really broad, got good muscle tone, but can he bulk up to play defensive tackle. His hands are HUGE" -- having their wives sleep with Harbaugh would be an honor. Because then they could go on the message board and be like, "Welp, Jimbo wasn't going to come to Ann Arbor but then Suzie screwed him like it was still 1985 and he's a MICHIGAN MAN NOW!"
I'm going 68% if no one knows, 75% if he can go on a message board and brag about it.
Anonymous writes:
"We're trying to have our third kid for some reason and it's not going as smooth as the first two. As a result I was at the fertility clinic giving a sample. Here's my question for you. When you make the appointment they ask that you refrain from intercourse for two to five days -- they want a solid ground rule double sample. But what if you have a wet dream the night before? I haven't had one in years, but it happened the night before my appointment. What do you do? Cancel and tell the doctor what happened? Make up an excuse? Go anyway -- gotta be strong like a bull, right? What would you do?"
I'd go. Because you're not telling the doctor what happened. You're telling his hot nurse. So you have to call up and reschedule your appointment to jerk off to porn magazines or videos -- seriously, this is what your appointment really is, a jerk off session that you're paying thousands of dollars for -- because you had a wet dream. Which, by the way, is maybe the creepiest word phrase short of "moist panties" in the English language. The only thing worse than "wet dream" is "nocturnal emission," which sounds terrifying. For some reason when I hear nocturnal emission I picture being peed on by an owl.
But thanks to the wet dream, what if your sample doesn't work. The worst thing that could happen is you turn in your sample and later that day the nurse calls you back and says, "I'm sorry, but your sample was insufficient." Which means in addition to not producing a child you can't even jerk off properly.
There have to be tons of you reading this mailbag right now who have the most hysterically awkward fertility clinic experiences. I've never been, but I can't imagine picking the porn to jerk off to, how old is it? How "mainstream" is it? Why can't you just pull out your own phone and use pornhub like a normal married man? Or is that creepier? Has anyone ever brought their own porn with them? We could probably do an entire mailbag on fertility clinic stories. I guarantee anonymity for these if you want to write in.
John writes:
"Clay,
In honor of the Christmas spirit, some buddies and I were debating what would be the dream Christmas present of the 85%? We thought maybe for the Bear to be reincarnated, a day with Nick, Gus to take an NFL job, or maybe Outkick finally firing you. We figured you would be best at being the deciding factor on this question.
Merry Christmas or whatever a gay Muslim celebrates."
Ironically the 85% aren't smart enough to know what the perfect Christmas gift for them would be. So I have to tell you what would lead to more trailer park parties than unemployment benefits being extended for six months -- it's for Gus Malzahn and Cam Newton to be uncovered as gay lovers.
There is literally nothing in the world that could give the 85% more joy than Gus and Cam being gay lovers. Nothing. Not world peace, not Auburn losing the next ten Iron Bowls, nope, it's THE BARN BEIN' GAY.
You know this is true.
Jake writes:
"How much do you think Lane Kiffin actually hates Urban Meyer? Was it for show at UT or do you think he really dislikes him?"
I think he truly hates him. Lane Kiffin is a fascinating dude because by all rights he should have a job where he never has to speak to anyone. Like, Lane Kiffin should have been one of the initial Facebook employees. He just sits around all hours of the day coding with his headphones. He's a genius with X's and O's, but you get the sense that actually speaking to anyone freaks him out. He's pretty socially awkward.
I liked Kiffin when he was at Tennessee because he was such an asshole, and I like him at Bama for the same reason. But I still have no idea what he's actually like.
But he hates Urban Meyer. And the feeling is mutual. That's why I think there's a decent chance that instead of calling touchdowns before the pass is thrown Kiffin doees a suck it in the direction of the Ohio State sideline in the midst of a 75 yard Amari Cooper touchdown.
Louis writes
"Clay,
This morning, I was at the Y attempting to make my beard look as good as yours. Keep in mind that I was wearing my boxers like a normal person. I was on the far left of what was 4 empty sinks and started putting on shaving cream when all of a sudden, a fully naked man who could not have been younger than 74 sets his toiletry bag down at the sink next to me and starts flossing his teeth! THERE WERE TWO EMPTY SINKS TO HIS RIGHT. He is literally less than two feet from me. I went with option A, which meant I tried not to make eye contact and just continued my business as quickly as I could.
Is there another legitimate option I had? Do I abandon ship mid-shave? At what point is it appropriate to say something? Should I have picked a fight with him just for the sake of a good story? What would you have done?"
Old dudes just love walking around with their cock and balls hanging out. I have no idea why. This is one of the few things I've promised myself, I won't do when I get old. I won't be the old dude in the gym locker room sitting on a leather couch with my wrinkled old man balls just resting on the leather like it's no big deal.
This ties in with my other big question, why do so many men at the gym put their shirts on before they put their pants on? There should never be a point in time where a grown man is wearing a shirt and no pants. Some of these dudes even wear shirts and socks and no pants. Do you know how ludicrous you look dressed like this?
Anonymous writes:
"Clay,
I work in a 10-story building that's attached via skybridge to another. Last month, on our floor (the 8th) a woman was walking past the men's restroom when the door opened and upon looking inside, she saw a penis - a man turning from the urinal to zip up and go towards the sink.
She complained very loudly and frequently and now this month, our company has given in and remodeled every men's restroom in our building. They took out a stall, leaving us with one stall, and put in a privacy wall where the stall was. Each floor has about 20-25 guys on it, so it's a bit of an inconvenience. The stall is always occupied, so most of us end up going to the attached building where there are 2 or 3 stalls on each of its floors. This obviously cuts down on productivity.
My questions are:
(a) isn't this ludicrous? I told the woman that she had the freedom to not look in the men's restroom. Why can't the management say the same?
(b) how do we strike back? I'm tired of accidentally seeing old, overweight women bend over and revealing their thongs, so should I petition for a dress code change? Coveralls?
Thanks Clay. You are ever my leader."
If you look into a bathroom and see a penis, that's on you. Why do you look into the bathroom to begin with? What do you expect to see? And how does the site of a penis in the bathroom traumatize you? A limp penis -- for those of us not named Greg Oden -- is a pathetic and unthreatning object. It's like a wimpy finger.
The reason why the company acted is because the woman bitched so much that inevitably she would go to the news media and eventually the story would have a headline like, "Woman Unable to Escape Penises at Office Job."
Then NOW gets involved, there's a company wide sexual harassment investigation, and pretty soon the story turns from the guy who was zipping up his pants and had his penis EXPOSED IN THE BATHROOM to him standing naked on a table in the company cafeteria twirling his penis like a helicopter while screaming, "Which lady wants to play my xylophone?" (Incidentally, which lady wants to play my xylophone is going to be the next Flo Rida song.)
This reminds me of the woman who complained because men were peeing on the golf course near her house. Have you ever had five beers and been on the seventh green before and felt like you were going to explode? You're standing by the trees. Every man has peed on a golf course. Anyway, that woman videotaped men peeing on the golf course and turned them into the police.
So pathetic.
I'm sorry there's now a line for the bathroom.
Okay, do y'all want a couple of angry Facebook messages for Christmas? Of course you do. I've linked the actual profiles of the people who sent me these hate messages. The profiles are classic. I'd encourage you to click on them.
Here we go.
"Wouldn't you know a hill jack from Tennessee has the unmitigated gall to assail the intelligencia of The Ohio State University fan base. I doubt your GPA would gain admission (check out the admission acceptance criteria). Wouldn't your dad, who is your brother, be a bit upset with that? By the way hillbilly boy, the North whooped your ass in the big one! Go Bucks!"
Yes, the clear reason that I made fun of Ohio State is because I'm not smart enough to get into Ohio State. You nailed it.
"Your article on uk basketball fans was very rude and unprofessional. Come to kentucky and say a few of the things you said. I am from kentucky and I like kentucky basketball. I do not live in a trailer behind my parents I b live in a nice house, drive nice cars, and have a very good job. You like to stereotype people. Well let me stereotype you. You look like you may have some friends that are girls, because all girls need that one male gay friend. You probably never had a job you really had to work at. You probably live off your mom and dad's money because let's face it your not that great of a sports writer. You was made fun of in school a lot and your hair looks really really like crap. CATS CATS CATS!!!!!!"
I'm fine with all of this except the part where you say my hair "looks really really like crap."
I have the best hair in sports media. If my hair was in a sports media hair bracket it would be the unquestioned number one seed.
HAIR, HAIR, HAIR!!!!!!!!
Blake:
"With the new year approaching, coming up on my 7th year of marriage, and a soon to be 2 year old son I've realized not a lot of sex is in my future. so just for shits and giggles I'm thinking about keeping a journal with a tally for each day we have sex in 2015. I'm guessing 40-50 times is probably where we are at. At first glance it's a horrible idea. But the more I think about it I want to know if we are the "normal american couple". Obviously I need your gay Muslim advice."
I can tell you exactly how this is going to go -- poorly. Most married men can't tell you what shirt we wore yesterday, but we know how many times we've had sex in the past month. Your wife has no idea how often you have sex, but thinks it's much more often than it is. When you show her the actual results, she's going to blame you for counting up the times you have sex, which will lead to a precipitous dive in your sex life.
You really can't win here.
Honestly, if you wanted to keep having sex, you should have never gotten married.
I'm sorry, Merry Christmas.
CK writes:
"It is 4:28 pm EST on 12/23 and my 8 month pregnant wife just told me we are moving the Xmas Eve party her parents always host to my home. Since There is clearly no escape from this situation my question is what cocktail do you suggest to help me survive ......."
I don't think the cocktail matters. I think it's just imperative that you drink a lot of it.
That advice goes for all of you.
Good luck.