7 modern day activities that could serve as medieval torture

Since we crank out so many stories each week some really good ones get lost in the cracks. And since so many new people visit Guyism every day (thank you), we thought we’d start taking some time on the weekends to share some classics that many of our newer readers may have missed.

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With cars and airplanes and iPhones, it seems that the world we live in just keeps getting better and brighter (with the exception of a fledgling world economy, countries with less of a GNP than Apple, adult onset diabetes, cancer, US magazine, Swine Flu, etc.). But that’s not always the case when you really think about it. Sure, we don’t have to worry about the plague or invading Mongols, but sometimes I wish I did when compared to these tortuous modern activities.

7 Getting waited on at the Verizon store
Look, I know everybody has cell phones. I still can’t figure out how a company can have five stores in a three-mile radius and I still have to take a number and wait a half an hour before I can go through the long and complicated process of upgrading my phone without mysteriously having to update my current contract another seven years. I think you do it on purpose, Verizon.

That’s why while you’re taking your sweet time waiting on the blonde in the mini-skirt, I have gone around to every individual phone in your store set the alarms. The first five phones go off in increments of one minute. Then five minutes later another bank of phones go off in the same increments as the first group of phones. I leave the next bank with the alarms off to give you a false sense of security. And then two minutes later — all the alarms on the rest of the phones in the store go off at the same time.

6 Trying to leave the parking lot after a sporting event or concert
Is there anything more arduous and lawless than having than having to leave a professional sporting event race thousands of other people like out of a sports arena to a chilly car while crawling though hordes of ecstatic drunk people that you wish you were drunk as, but you’re too busy trying to escape the abyss of red lights and douchebags in Hummers cutting you off. And if you’re lucky enough to be driving a car full of people who are drunk and are screaming in your ear about going to Waffle House…this is why cabs were invented, guy. And don’t be afraid to make anyone walk home.

5 A little girl’s dance recital/piano recital/etc.
Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. Oh, there’s a guy with a video camera waving at his daughter. There’s the overbearing mother giving very complicated hand signals to her four year-old; you know she’s tap dancing and not trying to land a Harrier jet on an aircraft carrier, right? Cue the crying baby and the restless 11 year-old boy to start kicking my seat… tap, tap, tap. Mild clapping. God, how many four year-old dance troupes are there in this city? Fast forward to four hours later to a bewildered parking lot full of smiling little girls in tutus holding bouquets of flowers while parents and siblings race for the car to escape the tap, tap, tapping. SOMEONE STOP THE HORRIBLE TAPPING!

4 A Carlos Mencia and Dane Cook Tour
This is why I don’t believe the United States really wants to torture its detained terror suspects. Water boarding is cake compared to what they could be doing to these prisoners. You want to fix the terrorism problem in the United States? Send Carlos Mencia and Dane Cook to do a comedy concert down at Guantanamo Bay. A dueling stage kind of thing, where you can’t escape the performance. An anti-comedy vortex of horror, if you will. All you can do is cringe as these two men wave their arms around and scream semi-racist jokes and unfunny observations for the next four hours. Then you release the prisoners and tell them to return to Afghanistan and tell them if they don’t give us Osama Bin Laden, we’re gonna parachute these two into Kabul and let them go Hope and Crosby all over your ass for the next five years. They go back. End of terrorism.

3 Going to the DMV
Everyone knows it’s the law to take the most surly and unfriendly people in the state and make them work for the DMV. Have you ever seen them smile in the DMV? Have you ever seen anyone in a DMV smile? Twenty one people in line and two people working and yep, that guys is taking that guy on his road test. Creepy guy that looks like he’s a Hell’s Angel or a roadie for White Snake–Check. Angry man swearing loud enough for everyone to hear him on his cell phone — Check. Girl crying because she failed her test and can’t get he license — Check and Check. Being as uncomfortable as possible in a confined room with these people for the next four hours will be fun. Yay, for mindless paperwork. Wait, it’s lunchtime, so tack on another hour and I will be at this damn place for the rest of time! Death, I await thy cold embrace…

2 Paint shopping
This falls into the “stupid things men do to impress women” category. Paint has a well-deserved poor reputation. Between shopping for it and watching it dry, you’d be more likely to have fun at your own funeral than you would dealing with paint.

1 Jagermeister hangover
Anybody that has had the good fortune of having a Jager hangover will need no more explanation than the thought, while those of you who have never dealt with the excitement of this feeling will no doubt be skeptical. Well, here is how it works. You get up to a throbbing head and your mouth has the taste of black licorice pasted to the inside of your mouth. Then you puke. Then you try and go back to sleep. Then you puke. Then you try and eat something. Then you puke. Then you see the empty bottle of Jagermeister. Puke. You try and watch TV, but get motion sickness. Puke. And this vicious cycle goes on for about three days. And when it’s done, you claim you’ll never drink the stuff ever again. Right…

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