Life with a broken wrist

I used to wear crocs to the bar in college. I didn't do this because I thought it was a fashion statement, I did it because I took overwhelming pride in how few fucks I gave about everything. I wanted every person at the bar to know, that the same crocs I wore in the frat shower riddled with dip spit and urine were the crocs I wore to the bar.

Everyone kind of has that vibe in college though. People roll to class in sweat pants, drinking whiskey out of a water bottle playing Brickbreaker on their Blackberry Curve or pinging girls they want to fuck later. Hell my frat bought a car during finals week, parked it in the front lawn and smashed it to shreds with sledgehammers. The idea behind this was that it would become a philanthropy event. We would take money out of the fraternity's budget and buy some shitty car from a townie for $500 bucks. Then during finals week, for $5 we would let stressed out students blow off some steam by taking a few whacks at it.

Well as soon as the car pulled into the yard we immediately began drinking Jack Daniels and pulverizing this poor thing. I think within 3 hours we had set it on fire; the philanthropy netted -$500.

Not surprisingly one day, when I was wearing aforementioned crocs at Kilroy's some dumb chick wearing heels (I'm kidding, it's never dumb to wear heels, unless you're super hot and 5'11, find a nice pair of Tory flats, other than that every girl should always wear heels) stepped on my foot. She went right through one of those holes (designed for those LOONEY pins you could design your crocs with lolz) and about a half inch into my foot. I bled profusely for days, had a scar for a while, and the rest of the time I owned those crocs, there was a small tear in the shoe right where her heel had speared through the top of my foot.

But I deserved this. I'm sure I pissed and moaned at the time about how she was a drunk bitch and she should watch where she's going and not step on my foot. But who the fuck wears glorified sandals out to a bar and doesn't expect disastrous results? This one was all on me. Those who don't give a fuck are destined to stumble at some point or another. BTW it's all good, I think I went home with a Sophomore Kappa that night that wanted to "help out with the bleeding." College is full of negative reinforcement.

This concept of not caring has not gone away, let's just look to popular music. I think sometime between the release of the 17th remix of Ellie Goulding's "Lights" and the introduction of some Australian white chick rapper that tries to sound like Nikki Minaj; the recording industry is officially trolling us, and like the music business didn't learn their lesson after giving notorious lip syncers Mili Vanilli a Grammy, they gifted us Ashlee Simpson several years later. Time is a flat circle and history is doomed to repeat itself.

Thus it should be no surprise to anyone that under the guise of training for a triathlon 2 weeks ago, I through on my douchiest cycling kit, put on an aggressive dubstep Playlist from Songza and set out to smash all of my records on MapMyRide. I am the guy on the Santa Monica bike path that everyone hates. When you bring your toddler to the beach on a Saturday I am the one speeding by way too fast, endangering your family. I am the dickhead that screams "ON YOUR LEFT!" to drunk Mexicans leisurely pedaling by on their stolen beach cruisers. I do this for two reasons.

1. I legitimately like to go very fast, because adrenaline. It is fucking thrilling to take a turn at 20 mph at a 45 degree angle where your knee almost scrapes the pavement.

2. I don't like outsiders coming to the beach. If you're from Santa Monica/Venice go to the beach every day. It's yours, you earned it. What I do not approve of is these family outings from the valley on the weekends. You crowd up the bike path, cause unnecessary congestion and cause the wait at Venice Ale House to always be over an hour. You decided to move to Woodland Hills for affordable Housing and decent public schools, you made your grave, now lay in it. You can't have the best of both worlds. Therefore if I give just one outsider a bad experience when they visit the beach well then I feel like my obnoxious behavior was all worth it. As Charlie Hunnan so eloquently says in Green Street Hooligans "WE DON'T LIKE OUTSIDERS."

And so on this particular day when a certain Zedd song came on my headphones, I decided to pedal my little heart out rounding a corner just north of the Santa Monica pier. An Australian jogger cut me off EVER so slightly, forcing me to turn my wheel just a hair, but at that precise moment I hit a patch of sand, went over the handle bars and SNAP.

Broken, bloodies and covered in sand...and you know what? I deserved it. In a world of Karma you can only get away with being an asshole for so long, until life kicks you in the ass and gives you a little wake up call.

So now I'm in a brace and have a broken wrist...and it kinda sorta sucks. Lots of things I used to be adequate at, I now struggle immensely with. Things like using a pencil, plugging in my phone charger, masturba...I mean mustering the strength to take out the trash. All of these things are now enormous undertakings.

Now...it probably didn't help that I took a vacation to Phoenix and went to a wedding before, you know...getting an X-ray. The O.A.R. concert that Sunday night probably didn't help, I've spent enough time on Web MD to know that jumping up and down, showering people with beer is not the ideal way to let a bone set.

And of course, my first day on my new show was the Monday immediately following wedding/concert/broken wrist. Like why the fuck do I do this to myself? I truly must be a sadist. The last 3 shows I have started this is the activity I did the night before my first day.

1. Mardi Gras New Orleans
2. Coachella
3. An OAR concert (on cinco de mayo)

I promise before my next show I am going to stay sober the entire weekend in anticipation of my big first day. The sweet irony will be when I watch 16 hours of Lost, lose track of time and end up sleeping in when I go to sleep at 4 o clock in the morning the day before I start a new job. TV binging can be just as unhealthy as unchecked alcoholism.

Fortunately for me, things in my life seem to be turning around. If the glorious state of Indiana can get me a new title by Friday, CarMax is going to buy my car (because apparently they were looking to invest in a bomb) I'm shopping around for a replacement and now that I have this brace, no one at work asks me to lift heavy shit.

Also to my surprise, the brace is a social asset. I went out both nights this weekend and just stood in the corner while girls came up to me and introduced themselves and inquired about my hand. GAAAAHH ICEBREAKER MUST BREAK MORE BONES!!!! (or I can just wear the brace forever mwahahaha)

Caveat: It is also possible that girls approached me because of my hair. A while back a girl asked me on a date for the following day. That day I got my hair cut, because I dunno, that's what I planned to do that day. I showed up for the date and was told that due to the change in my appearance, she no longer wanted to go on aforementioned date. I vowed to never cut my hair again. That was like 4 months ago, I have "hair popping through the lacrosse helmet" flow at this point. Though I'm still a couple months out on the full Gordon Gecko slick back.

So as much a pain in the ass having a broken bone is, it has taught me lessons. (Don't be a dick), has garnered me some degree of sympathy (easier tasks at work, my dad wants to help out with a car) and I now have a universal excuse to stay in, take Vicodin and watch copious amounts of Netflix. Sure eating crab legs might be a little difficult should I decide to go that route tonight, but that's a #firstWorldProblem if I ever heard of one.

I went to 3 doctors in the last week, and what I thought was going to be a career ending injury requiring 17 surgeries ended up being something that cost $250, got me out of about 8 hours of work and will allow me to be back on the bike in 4 weeks. And I learned a valuable lesson, ride with caution on the bike path, share the beach. Maybe be the guy at a stop sign that waves a car by even if I got there first. And maybe if I focus on being a generally better person in the next few months the Karma bug will boomerang me back some good news, like I am secretly 1/32nd cherokee, I will get staffed on a show next TV season...

AND THEN I WILL PARTY LIKE JOHNNY FUCKING MANZIEL with my outrageous weekly salary.

And then that show will get cancelled after 2 episodes, because karma and history is guaranteed to repeat itself, because time is a flat circle and shit.

I'm so fucked.