The Top Five Worst People I Have Ever Met (Part One)
Using state of the art computer generated imagery, Seckscab recants the Top 5 Worst People He Has Ever Met, which immediately puts them in the running for the Top 5 Worst People On The Planet. Will one of these human blood boils surpass such luminaries as Kim-Jong Il, George W. Bush and Philip Seymour Hoffman? You decide! So much MS Paint madness your eyes may bleed with glee!
I am potentially the Center of the Bizarre Universe. All the crazies feel compelled to talk to me, and, from time to time, I've been called crazy myself. I can't seem to help it, really. Maybe it's that I live in Olympia, Washington, home of the Evergreen State College, itself a hive of scum and villainy that would put Mos Eisley to shame.
Still, the genuine nastiness of the following people appalls even me, Stout Hearted Yeoman that I am. What caused their complete and utter worthlessness? From whence cometh their spectacular lameness? Can they be stopped before it's too late?
Perhaps.
Perhaps not.
NUMBER 5: JAMES THE MORBIDLY OBESE BEARDO "DRUID" MOOCH
I'm usually not a shallow guy. In fact, I generally put more stock in the physically infirm and dirty, being convinced that if the People of God were good enough for, well, God, they're good enough for me. Unfortunately, the 20th Century had a strange effect on the poor: rather than being skinny and ill-fed, as they had been for centuries previous (I don't know about the Dark Ages, but I assume it was just as likely), they somehow got enormous. You can usually tell a truly impoverished person by the need for a motorized scooter, which DSHS seems to hand out like so many barbiturates to ADD children. Those commercials that promise a "free scooter" if Medicare can't pay for it seem to imply that Medicare will pay for scooters for everyone, which I am firmly against. But the dirty thin guys that have signs that read "Will compost your food scrapings and non-finished paper products for food?" God bless, mah chilluns!
Nobody needs a scooter, especially the Great White Whales that populate Wal-Mart. Let them walk, dammit. Better yet, let them kill, de-feather, dress, and mechanically separate their own damn chicken.
One of these monstrosities felt it was easy (Slim?) pickens to haunt the comic and gaming stores, as nerds are desperate for friends and are already used to nonrestrictive personal hygiene theories. Sounds like a good plan for a professional mooch, and James was. I feel it's necessary to describe the bastid first:
James was at least 400 pounds, had a ratty ginger minger beard, wore a pair of Cheeto-beer-chicken wing grease-semen-vomit-dirt-Jello-pesto encrusted sweatpants that somehow (barely) covered his gut, and he was the only human being I have ever actually known to attract maggots. I cannot stress how disgusting this person was. There is literally no way to describe it, other than to suggest you imagine Pigpen, make him weigh a quarter of a ton, give him Hagar the Horrible's beard, and then beat yourself mercilessly with a bludgeon so as to get the effect upon your sense of smell correct.
James was evil.
I go to the comic/gaming shop frequently. It's actually a pretty good one. It's two stories, spacious, and reasonably well lit compared to other stores of it's ilk. The staff enjoy their jobs. A little glaze of glee seems to touch everything there, like the faerie glades of Arcadia, sparkling in the early morning dew.
It was here that James set up shop. Sitting in the corner of the gaming area, he would look for potential marks, and find out where their games were being held. He somehow found where my tabletop occurs. He showed up, uninvited, and demanded to play a Druid.
Why a Druid, you ask?
Glad you asked that. Really glad you did. You're a cute kid. How sweet and innocent you are. All wrapped up in the swaddling cloth of curiosity and adorable naivety. I could just pinch your cheeks, you're so cute.
Yes, Virginia, he "was" a "Druid". Not of the ancient, white robe wearing, golden sickle carrying, Asterix and Obelix variety, but of the modern pseudo-Pagan "I Laugh Because You All Dress The Same" self-congratulating variety popular since they original iteration of The Wicker Man.
I'm an accepting man. I really, truly am. I think I own more religious and occultic texts than anyone I know, from nearly every religion in the world that is capable of putting pen to paper, covering St. Augustine of Hippo, Martin Luther, Mohammud, Cornelius Agrippa, even Anton LaVey. I don't necessarily believe them (I'm likely considered an "Atheist by Default"), but something about reading this kind of stuff interests me. I let my initial gut reaction (ha ha, pun) slip aside, and I allowed this shyster to play. New Agey types are generally harmless, and at least they're imaginative. Could be worse.
No.
I had determined after 45 minutes of letting him play his "Druid" that he was not invited to the next session. I was needing to find an angle to give the news to him. He knew it, the beast. He knew, instinctually, that he wasn't likely to get a handout from me. He changed tack, and quick.
He asked for a ride home. "Thank GOD," I thought. "At last, a way to get rid of him."
I drove him home in my Honda Civic Del Sol, quite possibly the smallest car ever made, and found myself closer to this monstrosity that I would ever consider otherwise. I turned on the AC and rolled down the windows. Somehow, he convinced me to stop off at Safeway, so he could get some groceries. I was tempted to ditch, but my conscience, DAMN'BLE WRETCH THAT IT IS, objected. I needed air. I needed to vomit. I followed him in, looking for some quiet way to get him on his way.
After emerging from the restroom, I discovered that he had loaded up on pickled sausages, pork rinds, SOS pads, gummi worms, fried chickens, Hot Pockets and Carlo Rossi jug wine. I absentmindedly watched as the cashier ran them through the laser, beep-beep-beeping.
$98.67 was the final total, and I was wondering how I was going to get this in my goddamned car. He pulls out a twenty, and goes "Darn, I'm short." Then he gives me a "Come hither" look.
Yes, I'm weak. I paid. I figured it would get rid of the bastard. It didn't work, as he tried to come back the next game session. And the next. And the next. Even though we never let him play, he'd still show up, and I'd still slam the door in his face. It was rather pathetic. After awhile, he finally stopped coming, but only then did we discover that he had laid an "Ancient Druid Curse" on the apartment complex, which I assumed involved eating a whole rack of ribs and a quart of Rose Chablis near the gate. According to rumor, he was the only person the Salvation Army has ever had to "cut off".
NUMBER 4: PATTON OSWALT
Yes, he's had some success lately, what with playing a squirrel in Ratatoille and a raccoon in The Comedians of Comedy and I think "Fudgey the Whale" in Everybody Loves the King of Queens, but the man was quite rude to me once.
And, being the magnanimous, forgiving man that I am, I have never forgotten it.
A few years ago, I attended the San Diego Comic Con (E3 for Poor People), and I saw Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn at the booth of my buddy, Tony Moore. I thought it would be fun to get a picture with Brian Posehn, as I find his comedy mildly amusing and a reference my numbskulled coworkers would get if I pinned up the picture on my cube. "Hey," they'd say. "It's that guy from Just Shoot Me. Not David Spade, the other one."
Oh yeah, it was a great plan.
Patton Oswalt, who I still couldn't likely pick out of a police lineup, asked to be allowed in the shot. I told him I just wanted a pic with Posehn.
He threw a SHIT. FIT.
Tony quickly snapped the shot and Posehn kindly shook my hand and left. Oswalt shot a glare of such hatred that I will never in all my days forget it. I was certain there would be like a squad of mafia hitmen following me when I got to the Adult Swim booth.
No, no mafia hitmen, but
NUMBER 4.5: JOSS WHEDON
Just moments after my moment of nastiness with Patton "A Bug's Life" Oswalt, I found myself in the line for the Adult Swim booth, where they had literally a pound of shwag and everyone was laughing and cavorting and capering madly. In front of me, a short, red haired guy was stinking up the place. It was Joss Whedon, and it was a unique smell that I have never smelled on a human before. It was kind of like patchouli, but somehow unnatural and vaguely reminiscent of smegma.
I have since referred to it as "Dead Moose".
Out of the frying pan, into the stinky, stinky fire. The line, which had been moving swiftly, stopped. I was trapped immediately behind this man. A few fans congratulated him, and he turned to me, as if to demand that I offer some sort of recognition. So I did. "Hey, good job on that, uh, Firefly thing."
I had never actually seen the show. I still haven't. Chris has punched me several times on this fact. I don't punch him back, but I do withhold his copy of Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal just to spite him.
"I'm glad you liked it, it was fun to do, everyone was... blah blah blah I STINK AND SMELL OF ROTTING MEAT. WATCH ME SHOOT ROT SMELL RAYS FROM MY EYES. HAHAHAHAHAHA."
I nodded. I knew that he didn't actually say that, but that was his jist. He stank, he knew it. He liked it. The man can have any fangirl he wants, and he gets off on living the smelly life just to rub it in our faces. THE NOIVE.
NUMBER 3: THE GUN LOVING JAPANESE ROOMMATE
I need to preface this by saying that this one is kind of hard for me to put on here. I debated it, and I came to the conclusion that it had to be done. Shuta, buddy, I know you aren't reading this. But you deserve it.
Shuta was my roommate in college, and possibly one of the more bizarre people I've ever met. He knew not a single word of English, and he didn't care. He flaunted his lack of understanding. He avoided responsibility by pretending not to understand. He was a decent sort, personality wise, he was low maintenance and reasonably good at paying for things on time. Still, he was guilty of the vice of sloth to an extreme degree, which is deeply ironic, as the man never slept the entire time I knew him.
Shuta never slept. Ever.
Oh, he would put on the pretense of sleep. He would put on his pajamas and brush his teeth and turn off the light. Still, he never slept. He just lay awake, all night, every night. He became incoherent at times, obviously hallucinating, stabbing at the air in phobic terror at 2 am. He would get up, just before dawn, and pace the room, muttering to himself in Japanese about something. Then, he'd disappear for hours at a time. I knew there was someplace odd he went. One day, I learned where it was.
One day, before class, I heard a faint clicking noise. Instinctually, I knew it was a pistol being cocked. Shuta had a pistol, and he was practicing cocking and uncocking it, repeatedly. On his desk was a line of empty shells.
He smiled, and put it away. It wasn't a threatening smile, it was just a "lookit what I just purchased" smile. I was a bit put off, but I didn't really do anything about it. I figured that as long as it wasn't aimed at me, I was fine.
I didn't see the gun for awhile, but I knew it was there. The line of empty shells was growing. Shuta's sleepless nights were getting more obvious. I was worried, and I resolved to ask him to take the gun elsewhere.
One day, before I could bring myself to the gumption to do it, I came home from a class that had ended early, only to discover another Japanese student in the room, with Shuta, naked.
Yes, they were jerking off.
And yes, they were jerking off with the gun between them.
I'm a fairly open guy, sexually. Not much really freaks me out. This, however, did. I ran, and put in a request to have Shuta transferred out. He was gone the next morning. I don't really want to know all the specifics, but I assume that it was one of those weird fetishes that only the Japanese can invent.
I never saw Shuta again, but I did receive an American Express gift card a few months later from Shuta's father in Japan, loaded to $100. There was no note, no explanation, but I figure it was repayment for "time served". Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
TO BE CONTINUED: Who is Number 2 and Number 1? What horror awaits you, the gentle reader, as the two worst people on the planet are revealed? Can your heart stand the shocking terror and true facts of....THE TWO WORST PEOPLE EVER
What say you?!