I'M ONE SENSITIVE BASTARD

I ALMOST wrote an entry explaining why I hate cheese today before I remembered...dammit...I ALREADY WROTE ONE.

Apparently I need to explain how I can love pizza and still hate cheese.

1) If possible, I order my pizza without cheese. Most pizza guys won't even blink because I'm not alone in my quest to be cheese-free.

2) I CANNOT eat a plain cheese pizza or pepperoni pizza. I MUST have plenty of meat and/or vegetables on my pizza to overpower the cheese taste. Normally, a combination of sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, onions, green pepper, bacon, ham, hamburger, pineapple and sauteed mouse turds do the job quite nicely. If a restaurant is stingy on the toppings, I will not go back. There's one restaurant in town where if you order sausage on your pizza, you get so little of it that not every slice will even have sausage on it. They've lost my pizza-eating business and as a result, gone out of business.

3) If there is cheese on my pizza, it cannot be burnt or "golden brown". It must be sparse and still bright yellow.

Ummmm...that's it.

I hope.

I love my job except for one single quirk.

Whenever anyone can't answer a question, they forward the call to me.

Keep in mind ... I'm the newest guy in the company. There's about 40-50 people in the company. And every single day, I get calls that I have no business getting.

Like yesterday.

CALLER: "Can you send me a list of all the real estate agents in town?"

ME: "Do you have access to the internet?"

CALLER: "Uhhhhhh.....yes."

ME: "Go to Google, type in '(City, State) Real Estate Agents' and click on the link it gives you."

CALLER: "Okay (pause). But can you still send me the list?"

ME: "It's all right there on the Internet!"

CALLER: "I just want it on paper."

ME: "Can't you just print it out?"

CALLER: "Yes. But I want YOU to send it to me."

ME: "Where do you live?"

CALLER: "Here in town."

ME: "Can you drive down here to pick it up?"

(I'll do ANYTHING to keep from having to send stuff through the mail these days.)

CALLER: "Can't you send it to me?"

(Okay fine. This guy is either an extremely proud invalid or this is some sort of prank.)

ME: "What's your address?"

The guy tells me his address and he is in an office building that is literally three blocks away. So he would rather I print this list off the internet, stuff it in an envelope, PAY MONEY to send it to him three blocks away and receive it the next day rather than look it up on the Internet which I had already done while he spoke.

I had half a nerve to drive over there to his building, ask the receptionist where I could find him, walk up to his desk and slam the page down on his desk and say "Here!" and then walk away.

Goddamned lazy fuckers.

I'm not a fucking information desk.

Since I'm really exposing my sensitive side today I thought I'd tell you guys the five songs that have made me shed a tear in the past.

While reading this list, you may think ... "Holy hell! Uncle Bob cried listening to THAT shit?!?"

Yes.

I did.

Even today these songs still bring a lump to my throat and dammit ... I don't care who knows it.

THE TOP FIVE SONGS THAT MAKE ME CRY LIKE MY PENIS IS STUCK IN A BLENDER

5) "TRULY" by Lionel Richie

REASON: At the time this song was released in 1982, I was desperately trying to get this sorority girl that I had been dating to come back to me. She had dumped me because her Sorority sisters told her she could do better than me (at the time, I had long hair, wore my silver hoop earring, had been kicked out of college and was basically homeless. Not exactly frat boy material). I heard this song on the radio and it laid out every feeling I had running through my head about her to music. I scrimped and saved and spent $1.29 on the vinyl single to give her as a last ditch effort to get us back together. We listened to it together and I had tears running down my cheeks, hoping this would be the one saving grace to our relationship.

RESULT: We had sex one more time that night, she thought I got her pregnant, and I was overjoyed at the age of 20 to think that I may be marrying this girl having fathered a child with her. She wasn't pregnant, she started dating her boyfriend before me again and I moved to New Jersey, heartbroken.

TELLTALE LYRICS: "Girl, tell me only this ...That I'll have your heart ... for always"

HOW DO I FEEL WHEN I HEAR THE SONG TODAY?: I still like it but would never admit that out loud. It makes me think of her every time. And how I hope she's horribly miserable for dumping me.

4) TO M.G. (WHEREVER SHE MAY BE) by John Cougar

REASON: Once again, another female. I feel confident none of you have heard this song so I'll lay it out for you. Basically it's John Cougar talking about his first girlfriend and admitting that if he saw her today, he wouldn't even know her. When I first heard it, it reminded me of my first true love who I was still trying to get over at the time. I guess I couldn't imagine that there would be a day when I could think about her without experiencing a pain in my heart.

TELLTALE LYRICS:

"Well I know it wasn't that big of a love affair,

But boy, it sure seemed like one back then,

When I parlay the memories into their proper places,

I can see now we were no more than friends"

HOW DO I FEEL WHEN I HEAR THE SONG TODAY: It makes me smile and I hope that girl is doing good. Sometimes I want to look her up and call her, but the internet makes it tough to find gals by their maiden names when you don't know their married names. So I go on about my day.

3) "RUNNING SCARED" by Roy Orbison

REASON: Such a simple song. You're dating a girl and the ex-boyfriend shows up and you're wondering who she's going to go with. It's heartbreaking because it's coming from ROY, dammit!! This guy had more heartbreak in his life than anybody ever deserves and he was still a humble man. And ugly. Damn, the guy was ugly. So when you listen to this song, you think "Damn! How is this ugly guy going to be able to hold on to his woman when her ex-boyfriend comes back into the picture?" Then the "twist" at the end of the song comes as the whole thing builds to this huge crescendo and ... dammit ... it's just beautiful.

TELLTALE LYRICS: "Just runnin� scared. Each place we go.

So afraid. That he might show."

HOW DO I FEEL WHEN I HEAR IT TODAY?: Sad that he's dead now.

2) "BREAK YOUR HEART" by Barenaked Ladies

REASON: I ... uhhhh... let's just say that at one point in my life, I was breaking a girlfriend's heart by seeing another girl behind her back and my situation mirrored the situation in this song perfectly.

TELLTALE LYRICS: (These are coming from the perspective of the "heartbroken" person)

"And you said:

'What'd you think that I was gonna do,

Curl up and die just because of you?

I'm not that weak, you know.

What'd you think that I was gonna do,

Try to make you love me as much as I love you?

How could you be so low?

You arrogant man,

What do you think that I am?

My heart will be fine

Just stop wasting my time.'

HOW DO I FEEL WHEN I HEAR THE SONG TODAY? Not nearly as bad as I used to.

1) "THE LIVING YEARS" by Mike and the Mechanics

REASON: Gimme a break! You need a reason for this song to make you cry? How about you go all your life without speaking to your father and then when he dies, you feel so much remorse for not speaking to him and regret it most when you hear your infant son crying?!? GAH!! You insensitive BASTARD! If you've never teared up listening to this song, you have no heart!

TELLTALE LYRICS:

"Say it loud, say it clear

You can listen as well as you hear

It's too late when we die

To admit we don't see eye to eye"

HOW DO I FEEL WHEN I HEAR THE SONG TODAY?: Jesus! I STILL bawl my eyes out AND I speak to my father regularly and have no problem with him.