Oxygen Bar

"Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy.." were the words my ringtone serenaded me with this morning. But, unless P. Diddy generally feels disoriented and groggy I'm not sure my ringtone fit my theme for the day too well.

"Hello?"

"Is this Nick?"

"Yeah."

"Hey, Nick. It's Heidi from work. I was just calling to let you know that we're not working tonight. There's not a whole lot of work for the next couple weeks."

"Okay."

"There's no work tomorrow either. Next week we have you scheduled for Tuesday and Friday. You're off the rest of the week."

"Jeez. That's sucks."

"Yeah it does, but at least you weren't laid-off. We had to let 15 people go this morning."

"Yeah. Thanks for that. I'll see you Tuesday."

"Bye."

So, that was that. Great. Now I'm going to have to be frugile. How boring.
My best friend called not too long after that.

"What's up, Bro?"

"Hey, you wanna go to the oxygen bar with me in a few minutes?"

"Well, I'm supposed to be being frugile and junk, but why the hell not? I need to de-stress."

"Sounds good. See you in a few."

"Later."

Neither of us had ever been to an oxygen bar before but, we'd been talking about it for a few days and he couldn't have picked a better time to call me. I don't particularly enjoy my job, but money is a convenient thing to have, and I have a couple somewhat pricey investments coming up in the next few weeks. I have an anxiety disorder and the thought of losing an entire week of work weighed heavily on my mind. I don't take medication. I refuse to regulate my emotions via swallowing a pill every day. I hoped the oxygen bar would take some of the edge off my nerves.

We chose a great time to go to the spa. When we walked in the only person there was an employee. We paid $11 for 20 minutes on a tank. They had a wide assortment of scents to choose from. I went with relaxation for emotional de-stressing. Being a former substance abuser I was determined to get my money's worth of oxygen. For twenty minutes I breathed in deeply through my nose until my lungs were at maximum capacity and exhaled quickly out my mouth. I felt extremely relaxed and could feel a slight buzz, but mostly I just felt calm. When the twenty minutes was up I looked at my friend and neither of us could quit smiling. We felt good. Maybe this is how P. Diddy feels when he wakes up.

I highly recommend the oxygen bar to anyone who is anxious, stressed, or even just feeling tired. Afterwards I felt extremely comfortable and relaxed, and yet energetic, as well. Breathing normal air again made my brain tingle. The oxygen bar was great. I think I'll get a membership. After I start working again, that is.

I have a room mate. He's weird as hell. His name is Damien, but when he gets letters in the mail that's not the name on them. I think he just decided to call himself Damien because his real name is unpronounceable. He's from Ecuador. I'm not sure where that is, but I bet Google Maps does. Now, that I've filled you in on a little bit of Damien's background, let me share some fun stories about him with you.

Damien's favorite TV show is Two and a Half Men (You know..that lame sitcom with Charlie Sheen.) Not only does Damien find this show humorous, he finds it humorous to the point of belly laughing at 3am in the morning for extended periods of time.

Damien enjoys cooking foreign foods in the kitchen. On several occasions I've come home from work and parked a good hundred yards away from the apartment building. When I get out of my truck I can smell something disgusting and it gets stronger and stronger until I open my front door and consider calling poison control. True story.

When Damien wants to borrow a movie he says "Can I take one movie. Because my friend.." and he points to his friend.

The other day me and my friend were playing my friends Xbox on my TV and Damien walked in with some Hispanic friends and said "Can you get out so we can watch one movie?" Me and Brian just both looked at each other for a couple seconds like "Is he serious?" After a few seconds of silence Damien said, "It okay. We can wait." Brian and I proceeded to play Xbox until 5 in the morning while Damien and his friends played on his laptop in the kitchen. When they were ready to go to sleep they stood in the doorway awkwardly holding blankets and whispering to each other. It was too weird for me so I went to bed.

Damien usually only hangs out with girls and his favorite past-time is inviting like 30 of them over and cooking horrid smelling foreign food while the girls have screaming fits of laughter and shout Spanish jokes at the top of their lungs. Then Damien knocks on our doors while we're in bed and asks us "can I borrow one movie, because my friend.." and offers us stinky foreign food. This usually goes on until Chris starts shouting at them from bed and slams our door repeatedly. It's literally the best.

Damien might be insane. He talks to himself in Spanish at around the same volume most people would read out loud in class.

Damien receives phone calls at all hours of the night. He wakes up, answers them, and talks to the person on the other line loud enough to wake me up in a different room.

One time Damien asked me for some good American bands to listen to, in order to help him with his English. I suggested Brand New, Arcade Fire, Hot Hot Heat, and Matisyahu. Apparently he wasn't impressed and went to someone else for advice and apparently he asked for suggestions at a gay bar because he's been blasting Fall Out Boy, Justin Bieber, and Britney Spears on his laptop constantly for two months now.

One time Damien was doing homework in the kitchen and I was running late for work, so I decided to cook an egg in the microwave. (Honestly, who could have guessed it would explode?) While I was staring in horror at the inside of the microwave and dreading the clean-up Damien gave me this funny smirk and said "I can cook you egg if you want. I know how cook." I guess Ecuador is big on eggs because he cooked me the best egg I've ever had.

Damien owns a Super Nintendo and no TV. So he likes to unhook my DVD player, Xbox, and sound system from my TV on a daily basis, take all the cushions off the couches, throw them into a pile on the floor, flop himself down on them and play Lion King for SNES. It definitely brings me back to like 1st grade.

Damien is a pretty weird kid. He throws loud Spanish parties on weeknights, his food smells like sewage, he is rather inconsiderate of people's sleeping schedules, and he talks to himself extremely loud. But, he cooks me food all the time and we have some pretty interesting conversations on occasion. Damien is the weirdest room mate I've ever had. But, he's a good kid. I like him.