First of all, I am ashamed of myself for including the following list on my blog—it is jejune in its attitude and has no redeeming qualities that I can see. The events described did however, take place, and being the prisoner of truth that I am, I feel an obligation to share. Please be aware: this is a remarkably childish (and masculine) account. Those with an appreciation of the finer things of life may want to go back to Google and start looking for something else. This true life adventure is primarily for men. Real men.
Some years ago, while serving time working in a video production facility, my fellow workers and I, (a great bunch of guys), were working late one night and I asked them for some euphemisms for vomiting. While this may sound like a junior-high level goal (and it was), I did have a purpose. At that time I was (on the side) contributing ideas to a company in South Carolina (High Cotton) that produced t-shirts and other popular printed merchandise. Coming up with the right combination of words that were humorous and had a broad appeal worth putting on a shirt was not an easy task—my batting average wasn’t all that great and I was always looking for an idea that could make a few bucks for High Cotton and me.
The college crowd seemed like a good target (or market). After all, many had money from mom & dad to squander and they are well known for being irresponsible, silly and drunk much of the time, so if I could figure out what might appeal to them, I might have a clear shot at success. As they also seem to be proud, or unashamed of their own asinine behavior, binge drinking and vomiting ranking high on the list, it occurred to me that a t-shirt listing the many euphemisms for vomiting might have a certain dark attraction for our leaders of tomorrow. So, I needed euphemisms. The idea for the shirt was to have a bold headline, something like:
Charles can’t come to the phone, he is too busy ____________
Which would be followed by the list of vomiting euphemisms. In a surprisingly short amount of time, my fellow workers and I came up with these:
- Throwing up.
- Puking his guts out.
- Upchucking.
- Tossing his cookies.
- Hurling.
- Humbling himself in the tile cathedral.
- Gushing a taco.
- Hauling garbage uphill.
- Entertaining the chipmunks.
- Projecting snacks.
- Filling and flushing.
- Spitting up.
- Feeding the birds.
- Laughing at his shoes.
- Driving the porcelain bus to hell.
- Blowing chunks.
- Kacking.
- Heaving.
- Doing a Technicolor yawn.
- Sharing breakfast.
- Serving kibbles & bits.
- Being a fountain.
- Speaking French.
- Launching lunch.
- Making trail mix.
- Returning the goods.
- Singing opera.
- Being Vesuvius.
- Flying down to Rio the hard way.
- Delivering pizza.
- Cashing-in.
- Racing to Cleveland.
- Making a harsh contribution.
- Giving back.
- Spouting niblets.
- Rejecting his din din.
I don’t mean to suggest that this list was exhaustive—it wasn’t, it’s merely what we came up with that night, in an embarrassingly short amount of time. (Feel free to pass along any examples you may want to share, but don’t feel obligated.) Surprisingly enough, High Cotton rejected the whole idea after only one focus group analysis. I suspect that the people in the focus group had never attended college—what else could explain such a negative reaction? Then again, maybe a focus group made up of college dropouts would have been more appreciative, or maybe just men.
As I recall, the job we were working on didn’t suffer from this mild diversion and we all went home feeling we had contributed something to the lexicon of American Pop culture—extremely small, but a contribution none-the-less.
I have yet to discover a way to make a buck with all this brilliance, but I remain hopeful. If you think you could add to this collection, all suggestions are welcome and anyone with the time on their hands to add to this quest, have at it.
Thanks-a-million!
©2010 Tom Roy
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