Friday’s Featured Blogger – Tom Nardone
Subject: Tom Nardone of I Am Tom Nardone
Location: A Dumpster in My Apartment Complex
I hear rustling coming from the dumpster while I’m on my morning walk with my dog. I pause at the side of the dumpster, which Sophia is now sniffing suspiciously.
“Hello?”
A man’s head pokes above the rim of the dumpster. “Good morning.”
“Weird question,” I ask as I stare up at the man I recognize to be Tom Nardone, “what are you doing in my dumpster?”
“My wife threw out some cupcakes that had a least another week left in them. I’ve tracked them to this location.”
I tilt my head. “You’re in my dumpster for cupcakes?”
“Yeah,” his head disappears back over the rim, “but you guys have a lot of good stuff in here.”
Now I’m curious. “What’s in there?” I stand up on a box and stare over the rim. “Are those shoes?”
Tom picks one up and looks at the bottom. “Yeah, Prada something.”
I vault myself up onto the rim. “Give me your hand, I’m coming over.”
I land on the bottom in a pile of garbage and I pull out my tape recorder.
***
Tell us about your blog I Am Tom Nardone. What are your goals? What projects are you currently working on?
I write to entertain people. That is what my site has always been about. There is nothing like coming home from work, and seeing a comment that someone has left.
However, there is one article that I wrote called “ADHD is a Super Power” It was my favorite for a long time, and it did very well, so I wrote two or three more on that subject. A reader who works in that field said that these articles should be chapters in a book. I ran all of this by a friend of mine, Ned Hicks, I think you know him. He seemed to agree with her. So I am currently working on my first book. I expect this book when finished, will end up never being published and ultimately pieced out each week as a series of posts. So either way it will not be a waste of my time.
I always say ”The less you expect, the less you will be disappointed”
You’re married. Who is your one ‘free pass celebrity’ and who is your wife’s?
I have only contempt and disgust for Hollywood and all of its inhabitants. Therefore I could never partake or indulge my wife in such a cesspool of self-absorption however, I will submit to your question and say
Ellen DeGeneres (You should see her dance).
I read my answer to my wife, and she said “Yah ok I could get in on that with you” So that would be 2 for Ellen.
Aside from the hamburger fiasco, tell me about some other times you’ve eaten out of the trash.
About three weeks ago, my wife had bought some fried chicken from Publix. She has this Idea that fried chicken can only keep in the fridge for three days. After five days, she threw it out. This was about 3 hours before I got home.
When I got home, I opened the refrigerator and did not see it. I knew she threw it away so I dug it out of the bottom of the trash, rinsed off the coffee grounds and put it in the microwave. I really hoped to have it gone before she got home. She came home in time to see me finish off the last piece. She said “tell me you did not get that out of the trash” I told her, “I did not get this out of the trash.” She walked over and checked the can and saw that the chicken was gone. She said “You did do it and you are going to lie to me about it?” I said I did not lie. You told me to tell you something and I told you exactly what you told me to tell you.
Here is the real bitch of it is that the reason she was gone, is because she is such a great wife that she went out to get more chicken from Publix for me. She was so angry that she threw the brand new chicken right back in the trash and said “HERE! WHEN YOU GET FINISHED EATING THIS, YOU WILL REALLY HAVE SOMETHING TO BLOG ABOUT!. She went to her room and slammed the door.
Tell us about a job you were glad to be fired from.
I had this job working at some warehouse where I had to wrap pallets for 8 hours a night. This job paid about $6.50 an hour. My boss was like 18 years old. He sat in a chair and just watched all the workers from a loft above the production floor.
He would come down if he saw any body stop working for even 10 seconds. It was my first day on the job and I thought they were joking. They said “Try it and see Tom” I waited an hour and saw him do this a couple of times to other people. We were laughing so hard. This guy wore a shirt and tie. He even wore cuff links. “What kind of an asshole wears cufflinks” He came over to tell us to “Quit laughing and joking” I decided right then that tonight would be my last night.
I looked at him and said “Daren I am sorry. I don’t know what I could have been thinking. My behavior was inexcusable, and is certainly not the kind of example I want to display considering my goals with this company. It won’t happen again” he asked as I hoped that he would “Oh. What are your goals here” I told him “I would like to someday be a manager here but I am afraid the size of my thumb will prevent that” He said “why would that matter?” I said “It’s probably nothing, it’s just from what I have seen here from you, I just gathered that it would have to be able to fit up my ass”
He said “GET OUT YOU ARE FIRED” I said “I know.”
What is the biggest lie you’ve ever told? Why did you do it and do you regret it?
I have two favorites; one of them involved me living a lie for four months to both my ex-wife and my employer.
The other one involved me not wanting to do yard work so I came up with this brilliant scheme to kill my whole lawn and look like a hero for it
Both of these stories were deemed blog-worthy and are on my site. They are titled:
Trouble Unavoidable? I Don’t Think So.
You were in the Navy for four years. What was showering with other dudes like? Also, what was being in the Navy like?
I did not like being on a submarine. We had single showers so I always showered alone. In boot camp I had to leave the group every day at 3pm and go back to the barracks to start the clean-up. I was to take a shower and then go clean up the personnel office where I never saw a single person ever. I had two hours every day to do nothing.
For that shower I would go into the 8 man shower by myself and turn on all 8 shower heads and adjust them to the perfect water temperature. I would then aim all of them in toward the center of the shower. I would then stand in the center if the shower. The 8 heads allowed me to not even have to move. I called it showering in the round. I actually came up with that name while showering this way.
You used to be a regular listener of the Rush Limbaugh show. Did you fully recover from the brain damage?
Not Fully. I think the news was far more damaging.
If you had $100,000, what useless item would you blow all your money on?
I would have my entire yard replaced with a swimming pool and my current driveway would serve only as a bridge
***
“Excuse me?”
As I put away my tape recorder, I realize one of the security guards from my complex is watching us rummage in the dumpster. “What?”
“You can’t do that?”
“Why not, it’s not like anyone wants any over it. All that is in here is shoes, cupcakes and some old action figures.”
The guards eyes light with interest. “What kind of action figures?”
“GI Joe, I think.”
The guard tosses his leg up on the rim. “Give me your hand, I’m coming over.”
If you want to read more about Tom, he can be found on his page, I am Tom Nardone.
