Be Afraid... Be Very Afraid...

I just wanted to make a little public service announcement here. Hopefully this will prevent what happened to me from happening to all of you as well.

I try to catch a few minutes of The Weather Channel in the mornings before I head off to work, and last week I tuned in just in time to see the new program called "Wake Up With Al". With "Al" being Al Roker, the weatherman on The Today Show. Now, I've never been a big fan of Al's humor, but sometimes I have to admit, he amuses me with his silliness. And I totally respect the shit outta the guy for the hard time he gave Speidi in that famous interview. I'm going to digress here for just a second to editorialize that I absolutely hate how the Today Show and other morning "news" shows have abandoned hard news reporting and have largely resorted to "fluff programming" and use a good portion of precious airtime to promote other upcoming NBC programming. If I want to see fluff, I'll watch primetime network TV. At least whatever primetime is left after all the stupid reality shows have taken up all the best timeslots. That being said, in this day and age, it's not a bad idea to have a laugh now and then, even though I have absolutely no sense of humor that you know of. Enter Al.

So, I was watching Al on his first day on the Weather Channel, and they have this alarm clock giveaway going on. I decided that hey, I need a new alarm clock, so I found an old picture I had of some snow in Texas, and sent it in. Now, I thought that a clock was gonna be given away every week, and so I was surprised to see a FedEx Special Delivery at my front door that very afternoon. Apparently they liked the picture. I guess it never dawned on them that this is July, and a July snowstorm in Texas is a pretty rare occurrence. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I unpacked the clock and set it up on my nightstand. This was where it all started to go bad.

It was still pretty dark the next morning when the alarm clock woke me up. It was a pleasant sound, not the bone jarring sound that I was expecting. Actually, you'd think that is a good thing, but not for me. I NEED the bone jarring sound to wake me up. Anyway, I punched the snooze button and decided to lie there for a few minutes to see how long it let me snooze before it went off again. I was drifting in that half-asleep stage when I became aware of this strange sound. It sounded sorta like....

SNORING???

I rolled over onto my side and saw a bulky shape on the other side of the bed. It was too big to be wadded up blankets. The snoring sound appeared to be coming from under the blanket, and being half asleep, I did something that I wouldn't have done if I was wide awake. I pulled the blanket back and...

AL!!! Freaking Al Roker is snoring away in my freaking bed!

My screaming woke him up, and he jumped up and out of the bed. In the dim light, I saw that Al sleeps in the nude just like I do, and when he saw me, we BOTH started screaming. I grabbed the closest thing I could find, which was a ballet boot, and whacked him over the head with it. That seemed to surprise him, and while he was gathering his thoughts and fumbling for his glasses, I bolted for the bathroom and locked myself in.

"Your name is Little Bitchass, right? You were the winner of the alarm clock. I'm sorry if I startled you, but this is how the deal works. We don't give a new clock away every week, the winner gets the clock for a week and then it goes to the next winner. When you set the clock, you get to wake up with me for a whole week."

He went on to explain that the clock was a sophisticated transceiver, which teleports him to the alarm clock's location. Once I had set it, it locked in to my location, and Voila! You have Al the next morning.

"But I don't want to wake up with you in my bed! Go away! One attention whore in this house is enough!"

"But the week isn't up yet..."

"I don't care! Get your naked ass out of my house and take that stupid clock with you!"

"But you agreed to the conditions by sending in the weather picture."

"I've got a ballet boot in here, and you'd better be gone when I open this door. I'm gonna count to 10."

"I haven't brushed my teeth yet. I can't interview you without brushing my teeth first."

"You're not fucking interviewing me! I'm serious, get the fuck out of my bedroom!"

I started to count, and as I did, I heard noises of things being moved around, which I figured was the sound of him putting his clothes on and unplugging the clock so he could leave. Finally, I heard a door slam and it got quiet. I waited a few minutes and cautiously opened the door and stuck my head out. Al was gone. I looked over towards the nightstand, and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that the alarm clock was gone too.

I realized that I needed to get dressed, so I went to the closet to get something to wear. I opened the closet door.

"FUCKING AL! You bastard!"

There I was, still naked, and Al is standing inside the closet shoving a microphone in my face! He's got some guy crammed in behind him with a video camera with lights on it. He starts filming me and the lights are super bright and blinding me. I screamed and ran for the bathroom again, this time grabbing my antique samurai sword on the way. Al and the camera guy followed me to the door but I was able to slam it and get it locked.

"Al, I'm serious as a heart attack, you'd better get the fuck out of my house. I'm not doing this for a whole week!"

I heard Al chuckling softly outside the door, and then I started hearing the sounds of drawers opening and closing and clothes hangers being moved around.

"Al, you perve! Get the hell out of my underwear drawer! I swear to God, if you don't get the fuck out, there's gonna be hell to pay! Don't make me come out there!"

The noises outside the bathroom continued for what seemed like hours. Eventually they stopped. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, and so I gathered up my courage, threw the door open, and leaped out into the bedroom. I didn't see anybody around and I was starting to calm down when I saw the camera guys shoes sticking out below the window curtains.

Something inside of me snapped, and I screamed and went for the camera guy. One swipe of the sword brought down the curtain, and the second swipe sent his head rolling across the room. I started to laugh like a maniac and went looking for Al."

"Oh Alllllll.... come out come out wherever you are...."

Al was either gone or he had found a really good hiding place. I went though the whole house looking for him, but no luck. I finally gave up and figured that he had split. I went back to my bedroom and that's when I noticed the alarm clock and the soles of his feet sticking out from under my bed.

"AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!"

I let out the most blood curdling scream that you could imagine, and reached down and grabbed his ankle. With superhuman strength, I yanked him out from under the bed.

"Say your prayers, AL... Your ass is my meat!"

Before he could even make a move, I stabbed him in both ass cheeks with the sword, and then started to dance around him, swinging the sword every whichway, while yelling and screaming at the top of my lungs. I think Al got the picture at this point, and made a beeline for the front door. As he was just clearing the doorway, I threw a 100mph alarm clock that bounced off of the back of his head and knocked him for a loop. He did a perfect forward flip, picked up the alarm clock, and hit the ground running, all in one motion. You'd be surprised at how agile the guy is since he lost all that weight. He ran down the street and that was the last that I saw of him.

Until the next morning. He was back doing his show like nothing had happened.

I guess the moral of my story is to be very careful. Read all of the fine print before you agree to any contracts, even if they are with a jolly TV weatherman. If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Until next time,

little bitchass