We have hardwood floors in our apartment. I love hardwood floors more than I love teenaged internet pornstars. I love how they look, how they sound, how they smell when properly cleaned. Now, let me explain why I like hardwood floors.

When I was a kid, my brother and I would start at one end of our kitchen and run full-speed towards the slick floor covering in the living room, competing to see who could best our Guinness Book of House Records distance. The outcome depended on whether or not my mom had cleaned them the previous week. If she had, we slid until we ran into a wall, or our myopic dog. If she hadn't, we'd know immediately because of the foot-blistering heat created from an amount of friction not so conducive to sliding.

When I first moved into our new apartment, I took one look at the hallway floor and said "Hey, hardwood! I might as well get this sliding thing out of the way." I backed up into my room, licked my finger to adjust for wind speed, and exploded out of the gate. A quarter of the way down the hallway, I stalled and my brain froze up as I couldn't decide if I wanted to slide with my left foot forward, or my right. Right, it was definitely my right foot. Or was it my left?

I backed up and forced myself to slide right foot forward, and two minutes later I regretted that decision as I pulled a sliver out of my right heel the size of a railroad spike. After removing the intruder, I got mad and kicked the flloor, stubbing my toe.

Floor [2]-Chad [nil]

My room is at the end of the hallway, which means that I have to dodge every nail head, every chunk of wood sticking up in order to keep my socks in pristine condition. Since the beginning of the year, the floor has snagged every single sock that I own, somewhere around 12 pairs.

Floor[26]-Chad [sick of it]

Sure, I could scour the hallway, meticulously searching for exposed nails, pounding them down until it's understood they've been a bad dog. No! Bad. Down boy. But the problem with this plan of attack is that our house is old. When we first moved in, the contractor said "Yeah, I'm surprised the thing didn't lean to the left and fall over, or for that matter, even collapse altogether." They leveled it off and it's sturdy enough where I don't fear waking up in the middle of Lake St., but it still isn't all that stabile. It's not going to fall over, but every time the washer finishes it's cycle and spins out, the house shakes. It's not even just a little shake. The house hits huge pockets of ground turbulence.

I've gone through and used a countersink to pound the nails under the surface of the floor, but of course, someone just has to have clean clothes--I admit, it was me--and the spinning out causes the nails react similar to a cobra being coerced out that fucking little wicker basket by a snaker charmer.

Na-na-na-na...na. Na-na-na-wah-wah...wah-wah. There's a place in France where they wear no underpants.

That was supposed to be the snake charmer's song, but I don't think I captured it just so.

Yesterday, immediately after snagging my last, good sock on a nail that I swear let out a mocking laugh, I'd decided I had enough. Off to Target for new socks!

I have a love/hate relationship with Target. Each time the front doors magically and automatically open for me and only me, and I'm allowed to roam free in my own, personal Mecca, a feeling of elation not only washes over me, but molests me. I thought the reach-around was a bit too much, but who am I to argue? And then, I'm disgusted as I "come to" in the parking lot, only to find that I've spent $75 on gum, candy, socks, razors(Mach 3 Turbo, mmmbbbooooooyyyy! These things are sharp enough to shave the hair off my heart) and a Pacifico t-shirt that I've always been looking for, but could never find outisde of those silkscreened on a XL Hanes t-shirt, and shoved in my face by a peddler on a warm beach in Puerto Vallarta.

"You like cerveza? YOU LIKE CERVEZA?" Yes I like beer, but not when it's full of your fingerprints, damn it.

I arrived at my place, unpacked all this shit that I didn't need, and it suddenly hit me.

It's almost summer. I NEVER WEAR SOCKS IN THE SUMMER! I am a flip-flop guy. Flip, flop, flip, flop, FLIP, MOTHER-FUCKING-FLOP. So, not only did I spend not-so hard earned money a white pieces of fabric that I'm not going to wear, it'll be five months before my floor will be allowed to fuck with them.

Ha, ha...take that, Floor! You suck. I hope you get blue balls.