SHORT:
On Thursday I was walking to the train in broad daylight and a man came out of nowhere, punched me in the eye, and then ran away.
Phenomenal!
MEDIUM:
An important thing to note: My Puncher™️ was wearing rainbow pants. So… legally speaking, it was gay on gay crime.
A few people have asked me “if it was Randy Rainbow"?” I had the same thought (at first)...
Perhaps it was Randy coming to “block” me in real life (he blocked a bunch of Brooklyn comedians a while back on Twitter #tbt)…
But after a few days of deep anamnesis, I don’t think it was R.R.
If it was, he probably would’ve stuck around to belt a little tune.
Like “Eye Of The Tiger” but make it “Eye Of The Reid” or something.
I don’t think I used the word anamnesis correctly a few sentences before this, but I don’t care. I live a post-punch life now. I say whateva words I want!
Before the punch, I was timid, cautious, and using words of which I knew the complete definitions.
POST-punch? I’m UNTAMED (like conceptually, not the book by Glennon Doyle).
Of course by ‘UNTAMED’ I mean still absolutely weirdly flinching every time I walk by the corner where I got hit, terrified of seeing the man in the rainbow pants again and wondering if the feeling will ever fade. Haha!
LONG:
“We live in an effed up world, have fun in CO” — my mom after hearing about the punch.
She said the second bit because I did, in fact, go to Colorado for the weekend.
For those who remember, the last time I went to visit my gf’s mom in Colorado, I threw up breakfast burrito all over main street. Upon returning, I made sure to visit the historic site/ the trash can that I barfed in. They have yet to install a commemorative plaque on the can, so I shot the mayor an email.
The day after I landed in Colorado, my girlfriend made me get up at 5:30am to go on a hike. The trailhead was at the end of the world’s bumpiest rode. Seriously, it had more potholes than a store that sells pots with holes in them. The Jeep was rocking so severely I thought we were going to flip. But we didn’t.
We hiked a few miles up, stopping every now and then for (you guessed it…) my gf to “smell the trunks of trees to see which ones smelled particularly of sap”.
The glacial lake at the top of the hike was beautiful. I took a nap next to it, and then when I went to stand up, I fell over and plopped my entire Nike sneaker in the water.
The way back down was a lot of me talking about how wet my shoe/sock was and how I really had to sh*t (and what if I didn’t make it to the parking lot outhouse in time, then it’d be Big Shit Pt II: Return Of The Big Shit.
Thankfully, nobody punched me in the face in Colorado, so I don’t have a lot to report. I drank gasoline-flavored Starbucks in my gf’s mom’s condo complex’s hot tub and then went out to dinner and got ice cream.
At the ice cream store, I ordered the only chocolate-peanut butter flavor on the menu (Larry’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Madness), by saying: “may I please have a scoop of the chocolate-peanut butter flavor”. The kid taking my order nodded, walked away, and then came back and said “I’m sorry, did you mean: LARRYS chocolate peanut butter MADNESS?” And I was like “yes” (of course! it’s the only chocolate-peanut butter option on the menu by a MILE, sir!)
My gf’s mom and I laughed about the exchange, and then decided that, maybe he was Larry.
And he didn’t like how I improperly referred to His Madness.
He played it cool at first…
But then circled back and was like “No. You know what? This b*tch is going to respect the name.”
Also.
Right after this happened, my gf’s dad ordered dutch chocolate in a cone…
that was…
so already-melted that it was…
2-D.
I can’t express how 2D it was.
It defied all laws of physics.
2-dimensional is the only word I can think of right now to describe it.
It was… unlike anything I had ever seen.
Right out of the scooper onto the cone and FLAT.
I am going to attach a photo at the end of this newsletter in the Bonus Jonas zone.
You have to see it.
It blew my mind.
Maybe it had something to do with the Colorado altitude.
I don’t even think the pic does it justice.
Anyway.
Thanks for reading this.
Watch out for men in rainbow pants.
As always, if you’re a fancy agent or manager, I promise these are sometimes formatted and crafted in a coherent way.
But most of the time, they’re Larry’s Chocolate Peanut Butter… (madness)
U get it.
C U Next Tuesday!
Thank you for subscribing. If this is your first time reading the newsletter, read the archives. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s not – it’s very much like when people slip on ice.
Sincerely,
Reid
Venmo: @rpope-venmo-26
Donate to The Audre Lorde Project
Bonus Jonas Zone:
the ice cream looks like big cartoon hair, if the cone was a face/head
Omg I was so unprepared for how flat the ice cream was