The Collar Pops from Within

Over the years, my wife has struggled to break me of certain lingual habits, not the least of which is using the phrase "lingual habits." I'm told it smacks of pretension, but as a friend recently told me, pretension is the new modesty. And in the spirit of both those sentiments, today I want to talk about the douche bag, kids. I'm not talking about that mysterious feminine product that seems doomed to be forever linked to meadow or spring metaphors in advertising, but rather that special brand of gentleman who makes me what to drive a railroad spike through my temple.

I bring this esteemed topic to the fore in honor of a man who I met last weekend at a wedding. Let's call him Andy, or as we soon started calling him: DB; the Douche, that guy, and Andouche. "But Colonel Gentleman," you might say, "you're a complete narcissist and your default opinion of any newcomer is disdain." Touche. Nevertheless, I still maintain I'm in the right on this one, and despite the rapid and unanimous consensus of those in attendance at the blessed nuptials (congrats again, Brock and Natalie!), allow me to furnish you with proof.

Item 1) Insisted on going on separate trip for his special, elite tequila (Don Julio, as it turned out) during a family barbecue furnished with enough booze to bring down a rhino because "I only drink margaritas."

Item the Second) The following morning, he insisted on taking the remainder of his tequila with him, rather than leaving it at the host's house.

Item Two and a Half) The same morning, he also refused to leave the room he slept in, or for that matter, even get out of bed, until his girlfriend went to the store and bought his special french vanilla creamer for his coffee, because he can't get up without his coffee, and he can't have his coffee without his special creamer. I opined that a steak knife to the trachea might due, but after some consideration, we decided it wasn't worth staining the furniture with arterial spray. Barely.

Item the Third) He's 39 and dresses like he's 22.

Item Fo') Here's a sample interjection of his into an otherwise innocuous conversation. See if you can detect the pattern developing before the train utterly derails:
"Hey Jim, I saw this shirt you'd like. It read: 'Shakespeare hates your emo poems.'"
"That's hilarious, Darren. You know about the one Kelly got me that has a picture of the Bard and says, 'Prose before hoes,' right?"
Enter Douche. "I saw this shirt that was two lines of gibberish on it, but if you fold them together right, it reads FUCK YOU."

Awesome, right? Anyway, here's a website that utterly captures the spirit of this man, and since the gentleman is actually a web guy, hell, maybe he made the site himself. It's called A Shirt for a Stud, and I'm genuinely sad to say I don't think it's meant to be funny. ....sorry about that. I just looked at the page again, and I started weeping blood. I don't think that's supposed to happen. Of course, it could be worse. They actually showed the page to someone's pet, and look what happened to it:


I'm not sure what the hell that thing was to begin with, but it's clearly been abused. And in Andouche's defense, so was he; his girlfriend was a real gem. Still, that's no excuse. Of course, it's not entirely classy of me to take pot shots at him from the dim corners of the internet, but I figure it's okay. I'm kinda a big deal.