The Man Behind The Jug: From "Oh Yeah!" To "Oh No" In Thirty Days

It's hot and sticky. The air is so thick I'm choking on it. I can taste my hair gel in the sweat that is streaming straight into my mouth. I can't close my mouth because I'm panting like a dog. I can see the sunlight beaming in through two small mesh holes just above my head. If it's 30 degrees out there, then it has to be pushing 50 in my cell. I hear a lot of kids laughing and screaming. A parent yelling, "Well Steven I told you five times not to hit your sister and now look what happened." I can hear "the sister" crying in staccato. As I sit here in these precious few seconds before all hell breaks loose, I wonder: How I ever got here, whom I'd be willing to kill to get out of it and just who does Steven think he is?

Then I hear it. The noise. My partner Justin, next to me, says "Alright man, get ready." It only takes one kid to notice and then it's all over. I hear the rushing of feet, the screaming, the laughing and the madness. Worst of all was their chant. Oh Yeah! Oh Yeah! It's coming closer. Does anybody care how I feel about this? Does anybody know? No, no one cares because all they see is the big happy face on the outside and not the real man on the inside. "Who is he?" you may ask. I'm the Kool-Aid Man.

*****

It sounded like such a good idea when my good friend Justin Rutka had explained it to me after a marathon 100 shots of beer in 100 minutes.