Almost Meri'ed Bonus Materials or Samuel Cooper Stand-up Comedy

On January 8^th, Samuel Cooper tweeted some choice bonus book material (viewable here) for his dozen or so devoted followers, saying only, “Funny story from my book, Almost Meri’ed” and attaching a screenshot of 6 different jokes, supposedly all told to women acquainted with the Zero, of varying lengths. Since this material is promised, by the author, to be in my final copy (still holding my breath, waiting on my pre-order) I feel bound to give this stuff the old Bullshit Book Club treatment.

The Zero sets up his comedy routine by saying, “Here is a short list of some of the truly dumb things I have said to a woman. All resulting in some form of physical smack, slap, or at a minimum The Look:” Things that have resulted in the Zero getting smacked around? Color me interested.  Really, don’t hold back any detail of, what I hope, is merciless physical assault. 

Slapped you say?

 

Wasn't I was just saying a few pages ago that humor is ridiculously important to the Zero, despite not coming off as funny to any degree, and here comes this treat. We’ll get to see just what sense of humor our Zero has, maybe even why he holds humor as such an important value in others. I am all a tingle.

It’s the first joke and I’m already going to throw my bullshit card down. “Why does your mom have a pink rocket ship in her bedside table,” the 15 year old Zero asks his unnamed female associate. “… I found out later it was a neck massager,” ba dum tss. Yep, the Zero finds a vibrator and is just too gosh darned naive to know what it is, end joke. I think I’ve heard a joke like this before; I know I’ve actually seen it before- not recently, but within the last ten years. It was a commercial in fact- a banned Ikea commercial in 2008 in which a giddy 4 year old is happily playing with what he thinks is a rocket ship (you can view it here). 

It makes a hell of a lot more sense for this funny story to work with a cute clueless 4 year in 2008 than an idiot 15 year old in 1988; Kate is going to take one for the team and tell you why. I’m going to date myself and admit that I was barely alive in the 80s, I was born at the very tail end, and I had next to no idea what a vibrator looked like in 1988, when the Zero should have been 15 years old. So, I turned to Google and learned more about the history of the vibrator than I have ever cared to know. Apparently, in the 1980s the vibrator was still very much in the closet. To put it in context, even today, only 53% of study respondents, women aged 18 to 60, said they had, or were probably willing to admit they had, used a vibrator. Two decades ago the number would have been half that. Self-pleasure wasn’t a concept people were talking about; the 1989 film When Harry Met Sally is credited as being one of the first pieces of mass entertainment to broach the topic publically. Manufacturers definitely weren’t catering to this market back then; vibrators mostly existed for the purpose of personal or neck massage- what you did with them was your own business. They definitely didn’t look much like the streamlined phallic devices they are today- you’d probably mistake most of them for bizarre kitchen appliances before ever confusing them with a rocket ship.

NASA Rocket ship c. 1983

Joke two is absolute horseshit, has no basis in reality, and most certainly never happened. The Zero asks a female what a button marked ‘Do Not Touch’ does and sets off the sprinkler system in an office building by pressing it. Ba dum tss. I swear, you can find out absolutely everything on the internet; in researching this joke I ran across an article called “Fire Sprinkler Myths Portrayed on the Big Screen,” published for professionals working in the fire safety industry. Evidently this is fundamentally not how fire sprinkler systems work; they state that this myth most notably appeared in the 2006 movie Casino Royale, in which the villain pushes the same button in an airport, setting off all the sprinklers. “Of course, it’s pure fantasy, since no such button exists,” the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition wrote angrily, and yes, apparently such a coalition exists. 

 Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition- visual approximation

In joke three the Zero muses, “I wonder what came after Z in the first alphabet, Z minus?” in front of Lisa’s parents and close relatives. Ba dum tss. I had to stare at this one awhile; even now I'm barely sure I know what it's referring to. I think the Zero is drawing some sort of lazy parallel between the alphabet and the grading system. No idea why it’s supposed to be funny, though.

Joke four invokes one of the most popular television tropes of all time, the “Your other left,” joke (Tv Tropes). The Zero is moving a couch with an unnamed female and asks her, “What? My left or your left? Your left looking down at me is my right! Your left or you left?” The female is then so disgusted by the banally common question that she leaves him holding the couch and slams the door “twice.” Ba dum tss. I can’t even with this. This is just so unfunny. Every time someone moves anything in my household, 'hey, are we going your left or mine?' is probably asked. No one is trying to be funny; outside of slapstick sitcoms, it’s a pretty valid question. If you responded by storming out and slamming doors I’d look at you like you’d grown three heads.  And where have I seen this "twice" joke delivery lately? It was definitely somewhere. 

Oh, weird. Well I guess it’s because the author is so close with his best friend that they’d tell a joke in the exact same way and with identical punctuation. Same great minds I guess.

I'm not wasting much space on joke five- it doesn't deserve it. The Zero asks a female, "How dumb is your sister? Just a little dumb or does she drool after she laughs," Ba dum tss. If some douche bag asked this about my sister they'd find themselves kneed in the groin, twice, because that makes it funnier.

In the last joke the Zero defends his title as the laziest mother fucker on the planet. The Zero didn’t know just what sort of animal a Llama was at the time of this joke; to this day, as a 42 year old business tycoon, he still doesn’t. It’s kept him up at night, but fuck if he’s going to invest any time to figure it out. He theorizes it might be some type of camel or a “giraffe slash horse thing,” but, in his mind, there’s really no way to be sure. 

 

Well, Kate to the rescue. “Google, what is a Llama?” A domesticated pack animal of the camel family found in the Andes, valued for its soft woolly fleece. Done! The greatest mystery of your life solved in 24 keystrokes. How should we be expected to believe the Zero runs a company? I’m surprised this sack of useless can tie his own shoes in the morning. 

Anyhow, the Zero’s unnamed female friend asks him what one sounds like. “Not wanting to sound stupid, I let off a combination of some donkey like HeeHaws mixed in with 2 squawks and followed it up with a few V twin motorcycle engine rumbles.” Ba dum tss. Hmm, I don’t want to sound stupid, and I know I’ve never heard a single animal in nature sound anything like a motorcycle engine… so I’m going to say they sound like a motorcycle. Solid logic. The Zero muses that, as a reader, you’re probably pissing yourself laughing as you try to imagine the sheer genius of his sound effects, “It will either make you laugh until you cry or think outloud This guy is a moron.” And try to remember, if you’re thinking the latter, that he’s got thick skin, doesn’t care what outsiders think and your brain is probably just too dumb to understand him properly. Unnamed female asks him to do it two more times before succumbing to a 10 minute long hysterical fit because it’s just the best thing she’s ever heard.

Guess what he thinks you sound like

If you meet Samuel Cooper today, you won’t by the way, he won’t tell you what a Llama sounds like. He’s discovered they don’t sound even remotely close to what he haphazardly conjectured. No, you don’t say. “Hey, I tried,” he insists. You did buddy, you really did; that's what makes all of this really really sad.

-Kate

Chapter 1, Page 5

It's page 5, last of the provided sample, and we’re off to an auspicious start. “Where was I? Oh yes!” Silly forgetful Zero, before your grammar melt down you were talking about forcing yourself to date women, despite having an obvious disinterest in doing so. Which I assume was going to lead us back to your relationship with Meri, you know, the reason we’re all here.

However, the Zero decides that was not where he was and now we’re back to the Zero’s childhood. “As a kid I modeled how my parents acted until my teachers at school kept giving me timeout in the captain’s chair.” Well, you’ve described only one parent- but he’s been something of a monster, right? I can imagine how screaming at other children on the playground to fetch you more Bourbon might not go over too hot.

So the Zero gets the “chair” a lot; apparently this is his catholic school’s punishment in which the naughty child must, “stand in a corner, squat like you were sitting on an imaginary chair with your arms straight out and stand like that until you either fell over, faked a fall to get out of it, or until the kitchen timer went off.” I work out quite a bit; this sounds something like a wall squat. Other than that I have no frame of reference for this type of punishment. Google didn’t seem to know what this is talking about either; I found very few instances of it that were similar. One was in an African parenting blog about creative punishments and the other was in a blog entitled, “Stuff Korean Moms Like,” (apparently, punishment). So this must not be all that common in the United States.

What? You didn't think English nerds work out?

The Zero says he was in trouble quite frequently, but it’s not what you think. “I was never in trouble for running my mouth off in class. Or pulling pigtails. I always got in trouble because I wouldn’t rat out my friends.” This dude had been a boy scout since birth, and he would really like you to remember that. Seriously, has there been a page yet where he hasn’t viewed himself as a chivalrous asshole? He goes on to elucidate, however, and that’s when it becomes pretty obvious that he’s just a blameless hero in his own mind. He just got into trouble because his friends did things to “involve” him, “Making me pass notes, making me sneeze loud so they could make a weird noise to distract the class at the same time. It was always something.” Alright, how does someone make you sneeze? Did they toss some pepper at you? Do you mean they said, ‘Hey dude, sneeze,’ and you faked a loud one at their behest? Because if it’s the latter, you’re pretty much the main perpetrator- you deserve to be punished, it was your choice and your damn action. Once again, the Zero has no sense of personal accountability, ever.

He speculates he had to take the wrap for his friends because, “I was a good 6 inches taller than anyone else my little brown-haired head was always the one the teacher focused on.” Oh good, we haven’t been treated to any special snowflake narcissism in at least half a page, I was beginning to miss it. I’m 6’ tall, and I guess we do stand out in a line up- but I’ve never been in a line up, so I couldn’t tell you from experience.

Once the Zero is implicated for his wrong doing, for mysterious reasons he just can’t figure out beyond his being tall, he refuses to name any of his accomplices, “Instead of wasting time finding out who really did the bad things I would get punished for not giving up any names.” Bro. You passed the note. You sneezed. You did the bad things pal, it’s all you. His friends love him for abiding by Stop Snitchin’ mentality and it gives him, “mad street cred for this.”

 Playground gangsta yo

He muses, “Loyalty is a must as a kid to keep your friends.” Loyalty is a must as a kid. Interesting distinction. You see, as a child his skills as a sociopath weren’t yet finely developed; he had to do annoying things like take a fall and be loyal. As an adult he’s figured out that there are so many alternatives to tedious loyalty in order to keep people in his life coming back for more. Why be loyal when mind games and manipulation will suffice.

Out of nowhere we get, “I honestly believe my parents should have never gotten married.” Kay. No idea how this came up. He prayed that they would get divorced and prayed, on several occasions, that his father wouldn’t come home. “I am ashamed of admitting that but I wanted him gone.” Understandable, it seems like you had a pretty crappy home life and a complicated relationship with a man you were afraid of; yet, desperate to please. Go ahead, let it all out and continue to explore this topic- we are your captive audience.

Nope, we’re done. That was it. Onto another topic. We’re now at the Zero’s first love interest- a comely lass named Lisa, his, “first everything.” Lisa is a go-getter who doesn’t believe in wasting time or mincing words, “She told me on the first day of freshman year that I was going to be her boyfriend.” He agrees to this but doesn’t know what it means and ignores her for the rest of the week. Bro, she wants to sex you bro. This guy really could have used a sex education class- the idea that two people could want each other in a sexual capacity just isn’t on his radar at all.

Lisa- visual approximation

One Friday, Lisa lets the Zero know that he really needs to pull some weight in their relationship and take her on a date already. Our young business tycoon didn’t have a cent to his name though and he, “… doubted my mom would give me $10 to go anywhere.” Okay, what happened to those fabulously wealthy uncles that were spending money like it was going out of style? Couldn’t they make it rain on their favorite nephew? No? Kay. Anyhow, it’s not Lisa’s problem and she tells him so and declares she’ll meet him at 6 at the old Dairy Queen.

The Zero never says how he scrounged up the cash, which you think would be sort of relevant since he spent so much time on the idea, but whatever. Did your mom end up giving it to you? That would have been nice of her; been nice of you to give an ounce of character development to the poor woman. She did birth you, I think she’s earned it. Geezes.

Zero's Mom- visual approximation

The Dairy Queen date gives rise to a stunning “off and on” 15 year relationship between the Zero and the Lisa. Even more stunning, the Zero says, “There was one other girl in between Lisa and Meri, I won’t talk about her.” One. One other girl besides Lisa and Meri. So, unless he’s simply not counting one night stands or something- he’s had a sexual relationship with only 3 people. Using slate.com’s sexual history calculator- that puts him in the bottom 20^th percentile for number of partners for his age and gender. Definitely well below average; pretty unusual.

He credits Lisa with showing him, "how to be in a relationship." We'll just have to guess at what she-who-must-not-be-named taught him during their relationship since he refuses to talk about her; personally I am dying to know. You'll talk about overly attached Lisa and a trashy romance with a reality star but not this chick? That must have been a total train wreck; really, why isn't that this book. Fuck Meri, this isn't going anywhere, tell me all about the she-beast who feasted on your tears. Anyhow, Meri showed him, "how to nurture and build a relationship," because that just didn't come up in a staggering 15 year relationship... 

"And the sex with Meri was amazing."

Oh God, I pictured it 

 

 And don't worry, if that sentence wasn't enough to rev your engines, "I will get more in detail about our sex life in a few more chapters." Once I feel a little less nauseous I will definitely be there with bells on.

 "Lisa and I got along very well because she understood being Catholic." I'm starting to think the theme of this book is, you can't understand me unless you're Catholic. Seriously, are Catholics a mythic breed of human? Am I missing something? "She didn’t pressure me into anything," like sex, huge relief right? And though little Lisa didn't pressure him, she did just micro-manage every aspect of the Zero's life, "She told me what to do, where to be, and who to talk to." The Zero gave into her demands because her smile was so darn cute and, "It made me happy to make her happy."  

He ends the page by dropping the advice, "By the way, don’t be like that in relationships. It eventually makes you resentful. I know that now." He's the thing though- you shouldn't live to make someone else happy and ignore your own needs in a relationship, sure, but if it's genuinely making you happy to see her happy then that's not going to breed resentment. Do you think there was a point where Mother Teresa, just to throw out a Catholic reference for ya, was like 'You know, fuck these sick, poor people, what have they done for me lately?' Going to go out on a limb and say no. When you try to fake that you're that sort of person though- that's what causes resentment. And don't worry Zero, you've fully established you're not such a person.

 
Closing Thoughts:

This page was so much less of a bummer to review! We've still seen only fleeting glimpses of his relationship with Meri though, but hey, at least he's promised more gory details. I, for one, cannot wait for though. Seeing as how this is the final page of the preview those, I guess I'll be holding my breath until my pre-order rolls in. Might want to send me those funeral wreaths now.

 -Kate