Sunday was a very sad day at my alma mater The University of Florida. One of the real monuments of Gainesville, the UF bathouse collapsed. If you’ve never been to the bathouse, I feel sorry for you. If you’ve never dropped acid and gone to see the nightly flight to feed, I feel real sorry for you.

The campus at the University of Florida used to have a little bit of a bat problem. The little fuckers were everywhere, especially at the athletic facilites, during the late 1980’s. One time while at James G. Pressley Stadium at Percy Beard Track for a track meet, then Governor Bob Martinez famously complained about the smell of bat guano. It was due to this problem that the Bathouse was constructed, with money from the University Athletic Association, in 1991. Its goal was to provide the perfect type of structure to convince the bats that it was the best place to be. It was sort of a hedonism resort for bats. The Bathouse became home to over 200,000 Mexican free-tailed bats.

The Bathouse also contributed to the local economy, as all the pounds and pounds of bat guano that fell to the floor was donated to organic gardeners to use as fertilizer. The Bathouse really contributed nothing but good to everyone. That’s why what happened on Sunday was so sad.

One of perhaps the most tremendous experiences of my life was the first time I went to see the Bathouse. I had heard about beforehand but had never been out there before. I was sitting around with some friends doing acid when my buddy, WAKEBOARD BEARD, turned and said “It’s getting close to dusk, we should go see the bats.” This would become one of my favorite lines, and I’m definetly going to work it into a screenplay before my time here is done.

For those that don’t know, every night the bats leave the Bathouse to go out and feed on the insects around Lake Alice for the night. They all leave at the same time, its really quite a mesmerizing experience. It takes about 10-15 min for all of them to leave and its just a mess of fluttering flying little hell demons, its fantastic.

The first time you see it is just really incredible. I had such a great time, that I made it my goal to spread the joy of the experience to anyone that had never had it. Every year I’d find some new students and I’d provide the acid and the life changing experience. Its really the closest to nature that you can possibly feel. Especially if their a novice tripper, the look on their face when you turn and say “I think it’s time to go see the bats”, is just priceless. I’ve had people afterwards get down on their hands and knees and thank me for the experience.

That’s one of the things that makes it so ironic that the collapse happened on Sunday. Sunday was also move-in day for all the new students. I feel sad for those students and hope that the plans to reinvigorate the Bathouse come to fruition. They say that its going to take about $10,000 dollars to repair the existing one, and $60,000 dollars to construct a new one which they were already thinking about doing before the collapse.

These numbers seem like nothing, and I don’t really see anyway the University does not get right on. After all we pay Urban Meyer $4 million a year to coach the football team. I’m not saying he doesn’t earn every penny of that, but the money for the Bathouse should be no problem.

It should be mighty interesting the next few days in Gainesville as well, as now these 200,000 bats are searching for a new home. I implore anyone that spots a bat, to just leave it alone. If you leave them alone, they usually leave you alone. My dad was not so lucky as a child. One time while cleaning out the chimney where he lived in Cedartown, GA. A bat swooped down and bit him, right on the big toe. He jumped around with that bat latched right on his big toe and it wouldn’t let go. Eventually they got the bat off, but my dad then had to go and get rabies shots. If you’ve never had rabies shot, I can assure you that their something you want to avoid.

To UF officials, I must say get off your asses and get the dam Bathouse fixed. All those new students are missing out on one of the most important experiences of being a Florida Gator. I’d really like to try and raise the money myself. Imagine if I got it together and they named it after me. The Frank Fitton Bathouse, oh my god.

I came to a startling discovery about myself, that I think I’ve actually been aware of for quite sometime. Every single action that I take, whether good or bad, is somehow an attempt to get laid. Now I realized that I can’t control my mind a long time ago. It races constantly. It assesses the pros and cons of every situation that I come into contact with on a daily basis.

A lot of this are instant seconds of contemplation while others may drag out a little longer. Either way I’ve realized that I have hopes of getting laid by every action that I do. I think that every action we take affects thousands and thousands of other possible actions in the minutest of ways. Most of them no one could even fathom thinking of. Such as, you put in a dollar at the Starbucks tip jar, then the hot chick barista ends up leaving that dollar in her tip later that night at Denny’s where the old hag of a waitress buys her hot 19 year old daughter some lip gloss with the money. Later that week the daughter checks in to rehab and then ends up at a meeting when she has 30 days sober and is blowing you behind Oasis with that very same lip gloss on. This is of course an extreme example, but I believe that things go full circle a lot more than we realize.

Yesterday, I felt that I was doing a good deed. I was on my way to the gym when I noticed our token gay guy out front waiting for the bus.

At my halfway house it seems like we have a gay quota that we have to fill. There’s always one flamer. As soon as we got rid of the last one, they went out and brought one in. I swear it was like the very next day. Like their sitting on the shelf at the store or something.

Anyway, I’m leaving to go to the gym and I see him waiting on the bus. Immediately my mind starts going through its pro and con list. I roll down the window and yell to him that I’ll give him a ride. I’m not sure at what time the thought popped into my head. It almost seemed like it was while I was in mid sentence of offering the ride, I can’t really determine which happened first. Still I did think, now hot chicks love gay guys. Then my good deed for the little diva is going to filter back through the hot chick network, and their gonna just think I’m so great that they want to sleep with me right away. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have done the good deed anyway, but the thoughts still go through my head.

After he pranced off to work, I was at the gym riding the bike just thinking about all the different things I do that have this elaborate plan of how their going to get me laid. Its staggering.

I have a Free Tibet sticker on my car for instance, not because I care about the stupid dam Tibetans, but because I think hot chicks will see what a great guy I am caring about a cause. I actually read up on the cause a little so I could be prepared if a girl ever quizzed me on it. As I was looking into the cause, I actually thought I was starting to care about Tibet. I can’t really be sure though, cause sometimes when your so good at being full of shit, you can even fool yourself.

The crazy part is, the things that actually do end up getting me laid turn out to be the things I didn’t think of at all. One time in Gainesville, I found out that I ended up getting laid just because I was wearing the most comfortable looking fleece at the time. I was out drinking with a bunch of people at the Swamp and a cold front had just come through that night. The temperature ended up dropping about 20 degrees in just a few hours. Being the amateur meteorologist that I am, I knew about the impending dip in temperatures and dressed accordingly. As the night ended some girl came up and asked to borrow my fleece because it was cold. She ended up going back to my house with me, and the rest was mediocre magic.

Later we became friends and she told me how that night she was just cold and looked around for whoever had the warmest looking coat on. The crazy part is I remember specifically that night that I put on these crazy pink argyle socks thinking how cool they were and showed that I was senstive, and that was going to get me laid. I didn’t even think about the dam fleece at all. It just goes to show how little I understand women.

I’ve also realized that when I have a girlfriend this all changes. I’m a pretty good guy deep down, and when I have a girlfriend I’m not out trying to get laid by anyone else. I’m not saying that I’ve been been 100% faithful, but it was never planned, I just sorta fell into it. So when I have a girlfriend, I can actually do good deeds just out of pure altruism. Thats gonna be pretty sweet. Now in recovery they tell you not to get into a new relationship in the first year. Right now I got about 6 months sober, so I’m still in that period. They also tell you however to help others. Its a double edged sword for me, because I can’t do both. The only way I can do good, just for the sake of doing good, is to be in a relationship. Without that, everything I do is to try and get laid. Its quite the situation to be in.

Tipping is one of the policies of life we live with in our modern society. Its governed by these rules that when you look at them are simply baffling. How much to tip, when to tip? These are questions that could drive a man crazy.

These are the kinds of things that I stress about on a daily basis. Now that I don’t pass out every night, I have to grow through this strange process that civilians refer to as falling asleep. In those moments my mind races with all sorts of different things that happened that day. Did I play my cards right in this situation, or how could my entire life be impacted by this small decision I made.

I’ve found that a lot of those nights the subject of tipping comes up. No one, especially someone who cares so much about what other people think such as myself, wants to be labeled a bad tipper. That can affect you in so many ways, the possible ramifications are endless.

Why do does society deem that we tip certain members of society, but not others. Restaurants have it the best. In theory, tipping should be an extra reward that you give for good service. With waiters and waitresses however its just implied that they are going to receive a tip. They don’t get paid jack shit, because tipping is just an accepted custom with them. The level of service only determines how good the tip will be, and the fluctuation isn’t really that bad. If the service is horrible you leave 12% instead of 18% or such. Where’s their incentive to provide the excellent service, I don’t think that’s room enough.

It’s even crazier if you have a big group of people, then they put the tip right in for you. There’s no way around it. You would think that with a large group of people, the level of service would be even more important. Yet their tip is secured, the waiter definitely has no incentive here. I guess its just that they figure we are to ignorant to do basic math. If the numbers involved are too high, there’s no way these ignorant customers can figure it out. Is finding 20% out of $300.00 really that much more difficult than finding 20% out of $50.00. I don’t think so.

Yet people that work at say Taco Bell, we feel no need to tip. Do they do any less of a job than the chick at Denny’s that gets a tip, if they do its minuscule. Then you have places in the middle, Quizno’s for example puts a tip jar there so that you can add to it if need be. What makes Quizno’s that much different than KFC, there’s really no difference.

The one that drives me crazy is the one at Starbucks. They put that tip jar there and I always like to contribute. Sometimes I just toss the change, sometimes I put in a buck. The tricky part though is when to time your placement of the tip. What’s the point of giving the tip if they happen to look away right at the instance I toss my dollar in there. The hope there I think is that you’ll get the reputation of tipping, and then that’s gonna let me into the inner circle for secret benefits later on down the line. I’m the guy that always tips, so every once in awhile I figure their going to toss an extra extra shot into my frappuccino. Is that wrong? Does that defeat the whole purpose of tipping. Maybe they should put the tip charge at the pickup section so that you can toss something in if you think they’ve earned it. When you have to tip before service is rendered what barometer do you use.

One thing that I can’t stress enough though is not to go back into that tip jar. If your at Starbucks and pick a bad time, then you just have to live with it. If the instant you go to toss that dollar in, the hot emo chick turns to yell something at the coffee maker, that’s it your done. To then go back into the tip jar to get your dollar back is definitely crossing the line. Once it leaves your hand, its done. Remember that my friends.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that now pizza places that didn’t charge a delivery fee, have started charging one. So now do you just take that right off the top of the driver’s tip, or am I supposed to contribute my same usual tip amount. Here these dam places have slipped in an additional fee, and no one really causes that much of a fuss over it. It pisses me off. As someone who knows how to take care of his driver the right way, that fee is an insult.

That’s one thing I loved about Gainesville. That’s the only place I found where you could just assume that the delivery driver would be more than happy to take his tip in bong hits rather than money. Go Gainesville, you rock.