To my loyal readers who don’t give a damn about football, I think it’s obvious that we have a problem. After months and months of us having so much to talk about, the well’s run dry. It’s like we’re on a first date, and the first six months of this blog was the part where I talk and talk and talk about anything under the sun. And you’re like the quiet girl on the date who doesn’t have much to say but thinks I’m hilarious and spends all her time laughing at my stories. And the last couple months has been the part where I’ve kinda run out of things to say, so I pull out my wallet and start showing you pictures of my kid (or in this case, my dog). But now we’ve exhausted that part too. I see you nodding and giving a polite smile whenever I talk about my dog, but I can tell you’re thinking “Will it seem obvious if I pretend to get an emergency phone call that forces me to cut this date short?” So instead of having this magical night end abruptly, I’m turning to a device that any desperate man who’s looking to get laid would turn to…the google search results to “conversation starters on a date.”

That’s right. I’m not below relying on someone else to provide me with topics of discussion. In fact, I feel like it’s the only shot you all have of reading non-football posts over the next two months. I’ll admit this is a risky road to travel. Rather than blog about noteworthy things I’m observing in my everyday life, I’ll be talking about past experiences/inner thoughts that might only pertain to me. And there’s a good chance you’ll hate me after reading some of these. But this blog needs page views and I have no better idea on how to generate them.

When you google “conversation starters on a date,” you inevitably get a mix of lame topics (where were you born? what do you do for exercise?), and outrageous topics (what animal besides humans do you think would make the best world leaders?). I’m going for the topics that are somewhere in the middle. I’ll limit it to just a few questions on this first post, and if it catches on, I’ll post a series of them over the coming weeks. Sound good? Great. Let’s roll.

1). Do you prefer the window seat or the aisle seat on a plane?

Starting with an easy one. This depends on the length of the trip and what my goals for the flight are. Usually if it’s a two-hour-or-less kind of flight, I’m taking the aisle seat because there’s a good chance the people in my row won’t be bothering me with repeated trips to the bathroom, and because I always wanna get off the plane as quickly as humanly possible. But if it’s a long flight, I’m all about the window. That way I can be in my own little world, not have any tiny bladder people asking me to move every hour and can use the window as a pillow and sleep the flight away. The only other reason I’d pick the aisle is if I know I’m going to be drinking heavily on the flight (i.e. any time I fly to Vegas). Because that’s when I turn into a tiny bladder person myself.

2). What’s the longest you’ve ever waited in line?

Originally I was thinking it was on one of our family trips to DisneyWorld when I was a kid and we waited FOREVER to get into the Indiana Jones show. But actually I once slept overnight in a line on the sidewalk next to Fenway Park to try to get Yankees/Red Sox tickets for the next day. I believe I was in line from 11PM until 10AM the next day. I remember having an incredible amount of adrenaline over the first three hours because it was such a cool thing to do. But when that faded, I decided it was one of the three worst ideas I’d ever had. I used a wine bottle as a pillow that night. And if memory serves, I believe me and my buddies got kicked out of that game in the fourth inning. So yeah, 11 hours of waiting in line to see one-third of a baseball game. Good times.

3). Do you prefer baths or showers?

I have absolutely no patience for baths.

4). What’s the habit you’re proudest of breaking?

Well I’m still working on some of the typical bad habits like biting my nails and picking my nose. And I still catch myself with my hand down my pants in public sometimes. Would love to break all those some day. I guess it would have to be going into a casino and spending every single dollar I have to my name. That was a pretty bad habit I had in college.

5). What’s the first thing you wash in the shower?

Legs. I’m a “start from the bottom and work my way up” kinda guy. Although I often wonder if I should wash my face first before the soap has all of my armpit and ball residue on it. But then I just remind myself that soap can’t possibly be dirty because it’s soap.

6). Where were you on September 11, 2001?

Jesus this got serious quickly. Listen, it was a Tuesday morning at like 9AM. Where do you think a freshman in college who had probably been out late the night before was? Asleep in my (or someone’s) bed. I was woken up by my brother calling from the West Coast to tell me to “stay out of tall buildings today.” I’m sure my first thought was “Does this get me out of classes for the day?” That call started a disturbing trend…whenever Neil wakes me up with an early morning phone call, it’s bad news (runner-up to the 9/11 news was him calling to tell me that the greatest Red Sox player of all time, Ted Williams, had died. I admit it’s a distant runner-up, but still…).

7). What was your best, or worst, Halloween costume?

I can actually answer best and worst with the same costume. It was senior year of high school. My friend Sam and I wanted to dress up in something outrageous for the party we were all going to. I believe we had just learned in religion class earlier that month what a partial birth abortion was. Naturally we decided to be partial birth abortion doctors. The execution of this plan was nothing more than wearing doctor scrubs, squirting some fake blood on ourselves and taping a sign to us that said “partial birth abortion doctors.” So I showed up to the party in all my glory, and I found Sam dressed in a poncho and sombrero. His explanation? “My girlfriend wouldn’t let me dress in our original costume idea.” Are you fucking kidding me, Sam? Do you know how insane it looks for one guy to be dressed as a partial birth abortion doctor? But it was too late for me to change it up. I just had to own that creepy costume, and I did. (Yes, you’re allowed to be disgusted with me right now. I’m pretty disgusted with myself.)

There I go doing all the talking again. This is the type of blog post where it would be really cool for my readers to respond with some of their answers to these questions. That way I don’t feel like the clueless guy on the date who can’t pick up on a signal that you’re bored out of your mind.