Monday, December 9, 2002
If you were paying any attention last column, and not just skimming for mentions of supermodel sex, you’ll remember I started a story about building a new Bricksmobile and running down to Sears to get a floodlight for the garage, and how those cheap fuckers tried to con me into paying fifteen large for some kind of gold-plated adapter. Long story short, I remembered I already had an adapter at home, so I called their bluff and let them contemplate my bare ass on the way out the door.

I went home, dug up the adapter and with a little elbow grease I managed to get it to plug into the floodlight. Turned the whole shebang on and no light, but a weird humming noise and the place started to smell like a hair salon. I figured the adapter might have gone bad some time while I was using it to prop up the washing machine, so I unhooked it from the light and considered ways to test to see if the adapter was still good.

When I was a kid, Mom Bricks showed me a trick about how to tell if a battery was still good or not. This was back before they started putting those worthless little pretend power gauge stickers on batteries as part of a partnership with America’s Funniest Home Videos, and even before they built that flimsy battery tester into the package.

Nope, back then when you found a AA rolling around back behind the refrigerator, you had to call up NASA and read tea leaves or some shit to find out if it was still any good. Sure, you could wipe off the corroded cat hair, pop it in your Walkman and just hope, but then when the tape started freaking out and playing at one quarter speed half-way through No Sleep Till Brooklyn you had no idea whether it was that battery or one of the seven others that was puttin’ on the shits.

So, unless you wanted to get a summer job or something so you could replace all the batteries, you had to find some way to figure out which of the coppertops was riding bitch. Shaking them seemed like a good idea, but they didn’t make any obvious half-empty rattling noises, plus since they were so small it was hard to be sure unless you shook your head the same way while you held the battery to your ear, and that just got confusing.

Likewise, tapping on them was no good, and tests to see if the empty ones rolled slower proved inconclusive. None of them floated, and if you cut one in half with bolt cutters it made a huge mess and you couldn’t use it then anyway, even if it turned out to have plenty of juice left. That’s when Mom Bricks stepped in and showed me that if you touch the end of the battery to your tongue, you get a little shock if it’s still good. I later learned this works for other body parts too, though that’s a story for another column.

Fast-forward to Saturday night, and what works for a battery should work for an adapter, right? Well, I touched the end of the adapter cord to my tongue and there’s no nice way to say how fast the Omar Bricks weekend went to pot after that. I don’t really want to talk about it.

Let’s just suffice it to say that’s the first time I’ve ever shit out anything that was on fire.

Bricks Out.

Let There Be Light
With money a little tight in the Bricks household since the out-of-court settlement, why flush away more precious green paying some overpriced beerbellies up in Detroit to build a car for me, when I could build it myself? I’ve seen some of those guys. Believe me, it can’t be that hard.

Silly Attorneys, Tricks is for Bricks
Things have been downright rancid lately, like I need remind you. No car, no bus or cab rides since they banned me for having a sense of humor, and if another punk kid makes fun of the basket on my bike I’m not even going to explain how it’s screwed in and the screw’s stripped, I’m just going to jump to the ass-beating.

Deep Omar is the Chess Messiah
Omar Bricks knows a thing or two about chess. For one, there’s a dude that looks like a horse, but he’s not called a horse. Don’t ask me why. I think it’s stupid too, but I didn’t make up the game. Also, don’t try to mix and match checkers pieces while you’re playing, because nothing pisses off chess geeks more than bringing up the subject of checkers.

A Prank Call From the Fates
Everybody knows about my well-publicized car troubles and my citywide taxi ban. For most people, the parade of tears would end there, but for Omar Bricks they’re just getting the marching band and sweater-wearing elephants out of cold storage.