Everybody loves the holidays. It is a time to be thankful for everything we have been blessed with. It is a time to give back to all those we care about, a time to spread the warmth and love that is the very essence of the holiday season. It is a time for happiness, caring, and joy - or so we thought. Recent studies suggest that this time of year is the most depressing on the calendar and there is a noticeable increase in the suicide rate. This self loathing supposedly comes from the envy that single and lonely losers feel when they observe happy families gathering for holiday festivities. They feel like they’re on the outside looking in, so they put a fuckin’ shotgun barrel in their mouth and ruin the wallpaper behind their head. Pussies.
I mean, how stupid are these people? Being single during the holidays is one of the best things that ever happened to me. In fact, I strategically plan my relationships around the holidays so I can avoid wasting money on gifts for a girl who is guaranteed to hate me more than any man on Earth after a couple months of courtship. The money I save by not buying stupid shit for a significant other can then be spent in a more rational way, like funding my championship winning adventures.
One particular Holiday Championship happened not too long ago on New Year’s Eve. At the time I was working as a Floor Manager at the Albany CBS affiliate for the early morning newscast. Basically, I had to get to the studio by 4am every morning and set up the lighting and microphones, and then I used a robotics system to control the four studio cameras simultaneously during the actual broadcast. It sounds complicated, but it was fuckin’ cake. I also got to flirt with the young female reporters, and by flirt I mean lie to them about having connections that could advance their careers in return for sexual favors. I know…I’m a Champ.
Anyways, that year one of my friends was throwing a New Years Eve party at his house. It was supposed to be the party of year, and anybody who was anybody was going to be in attendance, so the Champ was obviously expected to make an appearance. The problem was, I had to be at work at 4am on New Year’s Day, so it seemed like I had a pretty big predicament on my hands. A normal person would realize that a new career should always take precedent over funneling, fornicating, and frolicking with females, but I’m a champion for Christ’s sake. I was determined to own this party and somehow make it to work, so I decided I would attend the NYE bash and just stay awake and go into work red-eyed and whiskey-scented.
So later that night, I packed a bag with work clothes and a handle of Jack Daniels and headed to the party. Before I left, my parents did everything in their power to persuade me to stay in. When they told me it was a bad idea, I told them to stop cock blocking and hopped in my car. I peeled out of my driveway with no regard for human life and made a beeline to the party. Even though I was staying awake until I had to go into work, I still felt like I was in a hurry to get fucked up and make the most of my time, so I immediately started pounding shots and chasing with beer. The best part was, there were a lot of other champions there that I grew up with but hadn’t seen in a long time, because apparently that’s what happens when you “grow up.” And to be honest, we are all terrible influences on each other. The manner in which civilians kept their distance from us when we all congregated in the same area would make an observer think we all had leprosy. It was fuckin’ great. At one point, we took the container filled with punch and started performing the “Cooler Prank” on innocent bystanders….for an hour. It never got old to us.
When we finally decided to give the prank a break, I led my entourage of champions to the living room to post up for a while, because the living room seemed to be where the majority of attractive girls were. Once we established our location, one my boys nudged me with his elbow and pointed me in the direction of a beautiful young lady who was beckoning me with her eyes. For a moment, it seemed like everything at the party froze in time, and I slowly started to make my way over to her. As the crowd gracefully parted before me, I felt like I was in a scene from a corny 1980’s chick flick and everything seemed to be in slow motion. Everyone's attention was focused on me as I drew closer to the gorgeous girl, who was now looking at me while playfully twirling a lock of her shimmering auburn hair. I then noticed she was standing underneath mistletoe that the residents of the house forgot to take down after Christmas. When I finally reached her, we embraced and our faces inched closer and closer while the mistletoe above us was swaying in a faint breeze. Right before our lips touched, I leaned back and said:
“Do you want to suck my dick or something? If not, stop fuckin staring at me from across the room you dumb bitch.”
After the girl poured her drink on me and the uproar of laughter died down, I ran back to my fellow champions and they hoisted me on their shoulders like I was Rudy being carried off the field after making a tackle for Notre Dame. About an hour after the ball dropped, I found the girl I was hooking up with at the time and we made love. Just kidding. I fucked her real quick and hard and the whole time I was screaming “NO EYE CONTACT! NO FUCKIN EYE CONTACT!”
Eventually, after a few more hours of being ruthless at the party, it was time for me to go to work. I was really, really shitfaced, but I somehow managed to make my way to the studio in one piece. I was even fifteen minutes early, so everyone was pretty happy with me. To this day I don’t know how they didn’t realize I was hammered, and I don’t think they even suspected anything until about an hour into the newscast. For the first hour, everything was running smoothly and I was making all the camera movements that the Director asked me to make with precision and accurate timing. However, the whole time I was controlling the cameras, I was all alone, sitting down, and in a dark studio. I was way too comfortable, and if you add the heavy alcohol intoxication into the mix, you can understand how I started to get extremely tired. Then, I started to fall asleep….several times.
I would be sitting at my station operating the cameras, and I would suddenly nod off, then be startled awake by the Director screaming at me because the camera would slowly tilt to the floor. For the thousands of people watching the news that morning, every few minutes the picture on their TV would go from having the News Anchor directly in the middle of the screen to dropping to the lower left hand side where there was only the desk he was sitting at. After this happened four or five times, I realized my whole career was in jeopardy and something had to be done. I knew that at this hour, under these circumstances, the only solution would be to get the J.
So I texted my friend with the J and told him to come to the parking lot of my work and meet me. I also told him it was an emergency situation, and he needed to hurry the fuck up. He said he would be there in fifteen minutes, and I told him to make it here in ten. My only problem was that I had to handle the whole situation during a commercial break, because it’d be impossible to leave the camera station unattended while the broadcast was live on the air. That left me three minutes to unhook the communications equipment from my body, navigate my way through the maze-like hallways and staircases that make up the studio, jump in his car and do the deal, then retrace my way through the obstacles of the building, do my business in the bathroom, run back to my camera station, and set myself back up before the Director gives the on-air cue – all while being really drunk. When my friend finally told me he was in the parking lot and the newscast cut to commercial, I looked like a contestant on ABC’s Wipeout, but I managed to pull everything off with a few seconds to spare.
Once we were back on the air and I was suddenly wide awake, everything went smoothly for the next two hours. Actually, it might have been the best camera performance of my life, and I would even go so far as to say that the show deserved an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Multi-Camera Newscast. When the cameras stopped rolling, I decided it would be best for me to go home and get some sleep. After working this job for a few more months and seeing all of the promotions go to people with Bachelor’s Degrees while I only had an Associate’s Degree, I started to think seriously about going back to college. I ended up quitting and working as a short order cook until I finally enrolled at Oneonta. That is when I solidified my position as the People’s Champ and started adding to my MVP trophy collection every weekend.
Happy Holidays – from the Champ.
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