It was half-past nine on a Sunday evening when I strolled into my basement. I had one clear goal in mind: Continue my quest to win a second straight Super Bowl with the Detroit Lions. After starting up the ol' Xbox 360, I reached over to grab the pillow that I use to rest my hands. To my surprise, all I got was a handful of aged leather.
I looked on the couch, the love seat, under the coffee table, and then quickly gave up. Being the procrastinator that I am, I delayed the search. I mean, according to police I still had 48 hours, so why start panicking now?
I continued on with my life and didn't think much of the situation. It wasn't until I went to do my Monday load of laundry that I made the heinous discovery. As I opened the lid, the smell of washed, but forgotten cloth filled the air. I looked down into the washer to find the undried body of my basement pillow staring right straight back at me.
I knew immediately that this was no accident. There was a clear intent behind this sloppy crime. The body had been disposed of in the washer for a reason; But why? Why would the abductor dump the body into the machine, but then never dry the evidence?
Usually, crimes involving things like a basement pillow would go unchecked. People would move on, and the case would be forgotten. Not me. I've always made it a point to stand up for the little guy. It was up to Detective Bigleys to find out who left my pillow smelling like a wet dog dick. I went on a search for more evidence; This is what I found.
**WARNING: The pictures of this case are graphic by nature**
The photo above shows the contents inside of that washing machine. I thought it would be disrespectful to leave the mangled body of my beloved pillow in the wash for any longer, so I spread them out here. As you can see, the evidence contained two socks (matching), a Nike hoodie, a blanket from 1957, two beach towels, and my cherished pillow. A suspicious load indeed. It was obvious that whoever did this was in a rush to cover something up. As hard as it was to smell that moldy pillow, I pulled it closer to my face for further examination. What I found appeared to be a slightly visible blotch. Evidence, I assume, the perpetrator was trying to get rid of:
Following the laundry room photo shoot, I walked outside to get a fresh breath of air. Thank God I did, because as I took my first step into the garage, a single, empty bottle of bourbon caught my eye. Perhaps this devil's juice fueled an emotional and irrational decision. Either way, this entire house was a crime scene, and I knew it could be evidence later in the case:
One definitive detail in the case was that if that whiskey had anything to do with the crime, my father was no longer a suspect.
Next, I decided to go back to the home of the victim. For years, that pillow has lived in the basement. It had no reason to go beyond those 12 steps that separated the upstairs from the down. To me, it would only make sense that the kidnapping took place there.
The first thing I noticed was a single paper towel. To an amateur's eye, this would pass as unimportant detail. But Detective Bigleys knew it pointed to an attempted cleanup. A cleanup of what, though?
I checked out the couch to which the pillow stayed most. It was clear that whatever fucked up human being did this - if you could even call them human - was purposely leaving clues behind:
Eureka! A bullet on the right side of the couch. I figured this served as some sort of pseudo warning to stop digging deeper. But as the owner of an esteemed news organization and someone who takes investigative journalism extremely seriously, I wasn't going to let this fear tactic stop me.
The crime scene photos above show what appears to be a wife-beater; a Mexican style blanket; and a "Champion" towel that the perpetrator presumptively won in a 4th-grade hot shot basketball contest
It was just the demographic I suspected: An ethnic...They must have broken into my house to make my pillow smell like dirty dick hole as payback for one measly article that I had previously written...
I quickly grabbed my phone to call the authorities, but right before I clicked to call, a text lit up my phone:
By some miracle chance, my group chat had caught this douchebag on camera during what appeared to be a FaceTime, mocking me on my own couch. The guns explained the bullet, and incredibly, the man was much more fair-skinned than I had imagined. I clicked on the live image to get a better look at this cocksucker. When I froze the screen on the man's face I was shocked to see....well...well that it was me.
"But how? How could I have possibly committed the crime?" I asked myself. I went into full-blown denial mode, but the evidence was right there in my face. The beater, towel, and blanket from 1957 were all present. Deep down, I knew there was a Jekyll and Hyde inside of me. It wasn't uncommon for Blackout Bigleys to play sick little games like these on a sober me. That asshole always hide's his contact case at night, leaving a -4.75 prescription, sober me (who owns no glasses) to search for his precious little eyes. Quite often I'll find them in two separate shot glasses after being too drunk the night before and giving up on searching for my case before bed. I'll give credit where credit is due: He nearly threw me off with the old "it was an ethnic guy" trick. I damn near called the police and got Token Jeffrey arrested. But the investigation wasn't done yet. What other tricks did this deceptive drunk bastard have up his sleeves? I wasn't satisfied with just knowing who did it (me), I now needed to understand why; So I continued on:
I shifted my focus to the table next to the couch. Two remotes, an Xbox controller, a credit card, laptop, knocked down picture frame, random $20: all signs of a Blackout Bigleys (BB). I instantly took notice of the three water bottles, though. Knowing me, it's not uncommon for a delusional BB to think he would finish all three before bed. It appears as though he managed to finish half of all three, yet not a single full one. Ambition like that can only mean one thing: Things got dark.
As I was looking down at the table, something oddly suspicious on the rug deviated my attention:
A second, faded blotch, similar to that of the pillow. "An attempt at getting rid of incriminating evident?" I thought.
I began to fear the worst, but I needed more evidence. I knew I had played Jeopardy while FaceTiming my group chat that Saturday night. Perhaps there was evidence in those old text files.
It was apparent that things got a little more out of control than I may have initially thought. Sometimes a game of friendly FaceTime Jeopardy turns into a full-blown blackout. I'm not judging, but that still doesn't explain the Irish goodbye. "What would cause me to leave without a trace after a nearly 4-hour long FaceTime?" I thought. It was then at that very moment that I started to connect the dots.
I looked back to the last known image of me alive that night and thought about that glass of golden liquid on the table:
And what kind of shit hole bourbon could that have been?
BOOM! That sugary, vanilla sweetness finally explains my newly, super glued space bar:
It was evident that a Blackout Bigleys spilled his drink onto his laptop, panicked, and hung up on his friends before they could notice. Still, that left me with no explanation of the blotches and missing firearms. As I scrolled through the crime scene photo's once more, I pondered what the answer could be. Then, as I swiped past the picture below, it hit me: THE CLOSET!
Exactly what I expected: Two confiscated guns, sloppily hidden on top of the old Hot Wheel's collection.
I was finally headed in the right direction, but I still didn't have any connection to the pillow. What about that fucking pillow?
I looked back into the closet (somewhere that I spend a lot of time), and like a fucking iSpy master, I noticed an inconsistency between two old images ingrained in my brain. Those "Spot The Difference" puzzles I've been doing the past 26 years had finally paid off:
It was confirmed. Not only did I spill a drink on my laptop, but I, without a doubt, puked. It's a fact that I've never reacted well to sweet liquors. The vanilla bourbon was purchased with the belief that it was something closer to that of Bullet Bourbon.
Next, the execution of the cleanup was a distinct sign of my signature, sloppy, everyday thought process. To help walk you through what the crime looked like in real time, I've created a timeline that proves my guilt:
2:30 AM: Blackout Bigley's spills his drink onto his laptop. To hide from the embarrassment of his weak, fragile hands, he quickly hangs up without saying a word. Panic ensues. He sprints upstairs to grab towel #1 to wipe up the mess.
2:45 AM: Bigleys places towel #1 into the wash, turns around to the fridge, and grabs three water bottles. He returns to the basement with clear ambitions to finish each one before bed but forgets one key ingredient: food. After chugging half the water from each bottle, an exhausted, and very drunk Bigleys passes out.
3:45 AM: Bigleys wakes up in fear and a mouth full of saliva. His stomach sloshes of whiskey and water, but no food is available to weigh it down. Bigleys thinks about running upstairs, but he knows its far too late. In a last-ditch effort, he reaches for anything that can put off what's about to happen: A pillow, a blanket from 1953, perhaps even his own hoodie. He catches most of the predominantly liquid puke, but some of it still finds its way to the rug.
3:52 AM: Bigleys runs upstairs, finishes his puking, and grabs cleanup supplies. These include paper towel, dog carpet cleaner that's only ever kept under the kitchen sink, and towel #2.
4:15 AM: Bigleys places the pet cleaner into the closet. At this point, he's so deep in his blackout paranoia that he thinks hiding toy airsoft guns is a necessary step. He then goes upstairs and dumps his hoodie, towel #2, the blanket, the socks he stepped in the puke with, and the body of his beloved pillow into the washer. His drunk ambition once again kicks in, assuring himself that he'll both wash and dry the evidence before morning.
4:17 AM: Bigleys passes out, forgetting any such knowledge of the crime.
**DunDun**
Thanks to the wet dreams I've consistently had into my mid-20's, a sober Mr Bigleys ran out of boxers, forcing him to do laundry that following Monday. Without that, Blackout Bigleys would have made it out scratch-free. (Is that a real saying?) I guess to close this out, I'll say this to myself: I know you're not a bad person at heart, but just...just be better...better at hiding the things that you do when you're blackout. Sober me would much rather not know; you're just so goddamn awful at hiding it. You left a fucking pillow in the wash...You've literally never washed a pillow a day of your life. But then, to put it with your hoodie, one pair of socks, a blanket, and two towels...Cue the video: