Schmolite

I made my way to Subway for lunch today (which was lovely, by the way). As I was heading back to my car and back to the office so I could eat and peruse the internets at the same time, I saw a guy and a girl headed in for some 6-inchers – or possibly foot-longs if they were feeling really crazy, not that we’re going down that dirty-minded road at this point – of their own. They were youngish, probably either high school seniors or in their first couple years of college. I thought, “How nice. They’re doing a Subway lunch date.”

Since the timing was just about right, I held the door open for them as I exited. The girl said, “Thank you…” and I couldn’t help but think how nice it is when people – strangers, even – are spontaneously but simply polite to each other, and I started to smile at the the thought when those ellipses caught up with me. Those ellipses can be a total bitch when it comes to dialogue, and in this case the girl finished her sentence, “… Sir.”

At that point I rabbit-punched her in the back of her big, dumb, blonde, luxuriously hirsute head, slammed the door on her falling body, and said, seething, “Don’t. [kick] Call. [door slam] Me. [stomp] SIR!” At that point, I stormed back to my car, any pleasant thoughts about people being polite disintegrating into mutters of “Polite? I’ll show you polite. I got your polite right here, you trollop!”

As I later reflected on the scene and the carnage that resulted, some questions came to mind:

• Was that a proportional response? Does feeling old because of something a teenager said justify assault and battery?
• Does politeness often go wrong like this?
• Is there anyone who actually likes being called sir or ma’am in this type of situation, especially by nubile, young people, when he or she (anyone being called sir or ma’am, not the young people doing the calling) is repeatedly reminded of advancing age by things no less clichéd than back pain?
• Isn’t “hirsute” a great word?

 

P.S. OK, fine. It’s possible that I didn’t actually hit the girl. Or even say anything mean to her. It’s possible that I just kind of grunted something like “Welcome,” and walked (rather than stormed) back to my car bemusedly. But there was some serious, if very well-hidden, rancor in that grunt.

No Joke

For some unknown reason, I tend to think that life is very much about laughter. Sure, it’s about tons of other things, but I seem to cherish the funny moments as much as, if not more than, most others. In fact, I seem to grab hold of a very dark sense of humor when many would consider it inappropriate to make jokes. Lawton and I often trade funny and inappropriate comments in the face of sadness. Those who are know things about psychology could probably explain to me that it’s a coping mechanism of some sort, and I’m sure that it is.

Sometimes, though, life isn’t funny, even when I really want it to be. Like now, when I read this message. My friend Shawn had battled cancer for the last 2 years, and, despite being cancer-free at one point, his battle was eventually a losing one, and I just can’t find the funny handle on it. I don’t know what jokes to tell.

Even though I’m a pretty indoorsy guy, I keep thinking of camping. I’ve heard my friends who like to go out and do camping things talk about packing out what you pack in, that you should leave a campsite the way you found it. Shawn, was unwilling to do that, though. He has left this little campsite of ours, but he didn’t leave it the way he found it. He seems to have managed to make it better for all of us who knew him. And that’s no joke.

Happy trails, Shawn. Rest in peace, buddy.

I’m No Boy Scout

The first time I proposed to a girl was via email.

Shockingly, she said no.

I suppose I should provide a little more detail. This all happened several years ago, when I was youngish, had a much fuller head of hair, and still sported the goatee. I met the girl in question, whom we will call Pomona, on a free trip to the Caymans, courtesy of the Pretty Boy. I know you’re probably thinking that I was a fool to let an island encounter get me carried away and lead to a marriage proposal. OK, there’s a large percentage of you who don’t believe there was an island encounter in the first place, and, sadly, you are quite correct. Many of us on the free trip hung out and partied on and in the white sand and blue, blue water of the Caymans, and it was a magical week. But not quite so magical as to lead to a semi-random hook up for me.

Nonetheless, a number of fun people from that early December trip – most of whom lived in the Philly area – decided to try to have some more good times together by coming to D.C. to ring in the new year with those of us who were clever enough to already live in the D.C. area (i.e. me). Many emails flew around (this was before IM really caught on), and I traded several with Pomona. In one exchange she divulged 3 highly unusual things:

1. She and her dad had season tickets to Temple basketball games, not because they had any connection to the university at all, but solely because it allowed them to see some college hoops in person.
2. She happened to know off hand that UNC had lost the night before, but was bummed that she was unable to watch the game.
3. She liked Bobby Knight. (As a speaker. Mainly, anyway. She was trying to book him as a speaker for some event she was coordinating. I point this out not because that makes her right or smart but it’s such an unusual stance for anyone other than an old school IU fan to have.)

That was quite a lot to take in all at once, and I couldn’t help but be more than a tad shell shocked. I decided to go with some email flirtation, and I concluded my response with this gem:

I have to admit that I am fairly disturbed by many of your comments.  A woman who likes college basketball?  What?  She pays close enough attention to know that UNC lost last night?  She likes Bobby Knight?!!  It's a crazy thing.  I can't really explain how the existence of these things turns my world on its ear.  This may sound a little forward . . .  I mean, I know I don't know you that well . . .  but, um . . . well . . .  will you marry me?

Those of you who know about these things will know that my efforts at flirtation are doomed to fail because, as a middle reliever, I’m actually incapable of flirting. And, seriously, that could have possibly been just scary enough to scuttle the whole New Year’s Eve outing. However, my email wasn’t really about marriage. It really just meant, “I’m impressed by you, and I’d really like to date, or at least shag, you, and I’m going to attempt to convey that desire in a possibly creepy and definitely opaque manner that I misconstrued as charming, funny, and flirtatious.” As it turned out, Pomona wasn’t outwardly creeped out (or she at least hid it well), given this response:

I'll have to say no to the marriage proposal today...though, if you present me with a really big ring tomorrow night, I might reconsider.

That was actually somewhat funny and definitely cleverly deflecting of the whole issue. I suppose it could be summed up as, “I’m not particularly interested in shagging you, but I see no reason not to keep my options open for the time being.” Of course, I took it at the time, as was my wont, to mean, “I’d get wit cha if you were rich.” (I believe Kanye had a song about that sort of thing.)

I wrote something back, inevitably about how tough it was on an Abs in those days, and let the whole thing drop.

Right?

Wrong! At least about letting it drop. Yadambetcha I wrote about how tough it was on an Abs in those days. Because it was. However, instead of letting it drop, I opted to respond in a clever, charming, and witty way, even if doing so made me risk going a bit over the top. I decided to buy her that big ring and give it to her the next night.

So, when we met up at the hotel where we were crashing to head out for the New Year’s Eve festivities, Pomona surprised me by immediately asking, “Did you get me a big ring?” I wasn’t expecting her to continue our little joke, especially in front of our whole group of people, and I was more than a little perturbed by her stealing my surprising and charming move’s thunder. Still, there was nothing for it, so I somewhat reluctantly reached into my pocket and handed her a big, red ring pop. I suppose if I were being especially clever, I would have gotten down on a knee or something, but I was too put off of my game. She said, “Thanks,” smiled and we all headed out for the night.

An hour or so later, Pomona had a brief moment to chat, and, as she looked at the big sucker on her finger, I asked her about it: “So you were expecting me to give you a ring pop?”

“Yep.”

“Really?”

“Well, it was the obvious response.”

Sensing my distress at the utter failure of my charm, at being so “obvious,” she opted to be nice: “I liked it though. It was still funny. I would have liked it better if it was a green one, though.”

She was borderline stunned when I reached in my pocket and pulled out a green ring pop. I hadn’t been able to decide between the red or the green, so, big spender that I am, I bought both. “I definitely didn’t expect that,” she told me.

It was dumb luck that I was prepared for that situation, and one might think it was looking good for the Kid right there. What happened next, you wonder? Did Abs shock the world and manage to ring in the New Year with some fireworks? Did he capitalize on this unprecedented show of suavity?

Absolutely not. The details are a bit fuzzy, but at that point, some of our friends came over with shots, I proceeded to get famously drunk, and she went home with one of the guys she had traveled down from Philly with, which was really her plan all along, unbeknownst to me.

So what’s the point of this, you ask? I’m not exactly sure, other than that I was recently thinking about this story and how that second sucker ring made me so prepared. And it just didn’t matter because she just wasn’t particularly interested.

The next time around, I wasn’t nearly as prepared. I only got one ring for the Girl. Lucky for me, she didn’t say she would have preferred a green one; she just said, “Yes.”

So let those boy scouts “be prepared.” Maybe sometimes it’s better to just get it right.

A Sample of Efficiency

I like to do things efficiently if I can. I have my computer all pimped out so that I can do a million things with my keyboard. Rarely do I have to waste time by reaching all the way over and grabbing the mouse. With my setup, I can knock out a blog post, peruse Facebook, write an email, fire off an IM, or browse through my RSS feeds, all without ever taking my hands off the keyboard. Aren’t you impressed? Well, my desire for efficiency is especially manifested when the things I’m to do require me to leave my seat. (For those of you saying that I’m really just very lazy, zip it! This is my post, and I’m telling you, it’s all about efficiency.) If I have to get up and go somewhere, I like to knock out a couple of things at once. If I have to scan something, I’ll drop a couple of soda cans in the recycle bin. If I need to meet with someone on the other side of the building, I’ll stop by a friend’s office to visit while I’m in the neighborhood. If I need to fill up my water bottle, I’ll go ahead and go to the restroom if I need to.

That last one got me thinking, though. If I were a random person who just happened to see me (or someone like me) head into the restroom with an empty water bottle, what would I think? Would that random person think that I was going to collect a urine sample? In the case of my 1 liter water bottle, an impressively large urine sample? Discuss amongst yourselves.

Something We Can All Agree On

Can we just all go ahead and agree that garbanzo beans are the funniest kind of beans?

 

Thank you. Have a nice day.

My Phone Sees Things...

... and so can you.

My cell phone has this little camera thingy on it. It takes crappy pictures, but it comes in handy once in a while to take note (well, picture, really) of something that grabs my attention.

For instance, in my office building, I recently came across this:

 

Part of it's a little hard to read, but I think you can get the idea. When I saw this, I couldn't help wondering how in the hell a door can be out of order. Seriously, does that mean it won't open? If so, the sign's pretty useless, don't you think? I mean that would be pretty obvious when it didn't open (although I suppose such a sign would keep people from calling the management, as the sign would indicate they already knew about it). Or does it mean it won't close? No, that's clearly not the case, as the door is currently closed in the picture. I suppose it could mean that, if you do open the door, it might fall on you and possibly kill you. Or it might be broken such that it will only open into another dimension where you are likely to fall prey to the Dreaded Ass Bite of the Evil Buttmunchosaur, at which point out of order doors will clearly become the least of your concerns. If it were one of these last two things (or something else along those lines), doesn't it seem like a more ominous and official-looking sign would be in order (sorry for the pun -- couldn't help myself). Something like "Beware the Dreaded Ass Bite" would likely keep me the hell away from that door. As it was, I opted to pay no heed all the bad things it did to the proverbial cat and indulged my curiosity by grabbing the handle and opening the door and walking right through and watching it close. A few days later that sign went away, and I have no idea what changed.

I was going to put up some others, but I'll hold off on those for now. We'll call this Part One or something. I hope your Monday is as good as can be hoped ... and devoid of out of order doors. But maybe you should Beware the Dreaded Ass Bite, just in case.

Apt Analogues

Not too, too long ago, I was chatting with the BHK, and he relayed to me something that Steve Czaban had said. For those of you who don't know, Czaban is a radio sports talk guy.  Really, he's just a guy.  He likes to talk about sports, women, and HDTV.  He's the rare non-techie talking head who actually knows a few things about HD, and I don't mind him talking about it.  Sometimes, I even enjoy it.  That's not the point right now, though.  The point is that Czabe was talking about femme-o-the-day acress Katherine Heigl. And what did Czabe have to say about her?  "She's not all that." 

I was surprised by that take, but I have to admit that she doesn't trip my trigger in the most impressive way.  She's certainly attractive and all, but I can see what he was saying, and I told the BHK so. I followed up by saying that I was kind of surprised that Heigl's Grey's Anatomy co-star (and putative leading actress in that particular show), Ellen Pompeo, wasn't able to parlay the show's success into more roles on the Big Screen. I first remember seeing Pompeo play the flavor in Old School, and I thought she was, apart from needing someone to give her a sammich, fairly hot.  However, as the BHK pointed out, she's a skosh old to be the new hotness in Hollywood. I countered by saying that I get that, but she seems to have the bigger role, perhaps the more important role, on Grey's. And the BHK came back by saying, "So she's the Anthony Edwards on ER to Heigl's George Clooney."  I don't think it could have possibly been summed up any better.

On Sneezes

Sneezes are interesting things. I've long found it odd that one can "steal" a sneeze by touching someone in the throes of a long sneeze windup. I don't recommend doing so all that much, of course, as it tends to make the victim of said theft quite angry.  In general, I'm inclined to argue about the terminology there, since I think that you're not so much stealing the sneeze as destroying it. It's not like I can steal someone's sneeze then enjoy it for myself.  Not that I'd really want to.  Really, I'm not quite sure why people get angry about having their sneezes stolen.  But they do. OK, I'm not being entirely truthful, I understand why at least one person would be angry.  One of my Former Neighbor Chicas always claimed that sneezes were "orgasmic," a description I could never agree with.  Still, if I thought of my sneezes that way, I would probably be pretty pissed off if someone came along and stole one.

But Stolen and Orgasmic aren't the only kind of sneezes out there. There are also Multiple Sneezes. Another Former Neighbor Chica couldn't sneeze just once. Nor twice. Nor three times. She generally sneezed at least 4 times, and sometimes upwards of 7. (I suspect this tendency made her roommate, the Orgasmic Sneezer, quite jealous, especially since I can't recall having ever seen/heard the Orgasmic Sneezer actually let one fly. But then again, maybe that was something she was only willing to do in private.) Once, whilst Lawton and I were playing PlayStation hockey, the Multiple Sneezer unleashed one, which Lawton responded to with a "Bless you."

Another sneeze followed, leading to a "Gesundheit" from me.

A third one, met with silence.

A Fourth, causing Lawton to say, "Cut it out."

A fifth.  "Gahdam!" says I.

A sixth, resulting in a resounding, "Bitch, please!" from Lawton.

And that was the end of it because we were all laughing. From that day forward, those responses acted as a sort of protocol for handling the Multiple Sneezes, and that particular female always worked hard to stop before getting the dreaded, "Bitch, please!"

That kind of talk wouldn't have been at all appropriate for the most memorable sneeze from my college days. One day in a huge lecture hall (It was a Chemistry class, I think. I can't be sure, though; I had a bunch of classes in that same room.), a dude about six rows down from me brought his hand up to his mouth to restrain an impressively violent sneeze.  It was a good thing he did, too.  At least it was good for the people in front of him. As he slowly and uncertainly moved his hand away from his face, we could clearly see that his hand was completely covered in Ghostbusters-grade slime. It was disgusting. Naturally, my friends and I sitting there engaged in several minutes of that kind of silent but seemingly endless lecture hall laughter.  I don't remember what that guy did with his handful of snot, but I know he didn't have a lot of options. He was smack dab in the middle of the row, and he didn't seem to have a hanky with him. He might have even been wearing shorts leaving him with a much smaller surface area of clothing to wipe it off.

But I didn't really start this post to write about Stolen, Orgasmic, Multiple, or even Voluminous sneezes. The other day I experienced a new kind. Just before lunch, I had filled up a water bottle and was heading back toward my office. As I reached for the door handle, a sneeze sneak attacked me. What to do?! The hand on the door handle was obviously too far away to get back to my face to cover it up.  I had a big water bottle in my other hand, and that wasn't going to be much use for containing the sneeze. It would really be uncool to sneeze onto the door handle. A co-worker was right behind me making loosing the thing into the air in general or especially directly behind me a bad option. So I kind of pointed my head down, stopped, and tried to constrain the thing with my mouth. I don't know if you've ever tried this, but I strongly suggest that you don't.  There are physics involved, see. I remember in elementary school that everyone liked to talk about how sneezes travel at 100 miles per hour and how your heart stops when you sneeze.  I don't know about any of that, but I do know that this particular effort felt like someone had shot me in the gullet with a slingshot. Or maybe as if someone had used my mouth as one of those bomb squad shells to contain an explosion. My throat hurt for a good 30 minutes.

Beware the Bomb in Your Mouth Sneeze.

Waiting to Explode

This weekend, for some reason, I grabbed a box of Mentos at the grocery store. Finding them in my jacket pocket on the way to work this morning, I ate a couple. They are the fresh maker after all, and fresh couldn't be a bad way to start the work week. However, remembering the video makes me wonder what will happen when I drink the Diet Coke sitting in front of me. So this is a warning to all of you that this may be my last post ever. If you hear a pop in the distance, that might very well be me exploding.

Hi, I'd Like to Write a Blog Post

Having just recently polished off lunch, my brain is filled with a topic I have to share, hopefully flushing it from my brain in the process. I had a pita sandwich from a local place that I've been patronizing for well over 10 years now. When I started going there, they only had the one little store, and they were only open from 8 AM - 3 PM on workdays. They've grown over the years, adding a couple of other stores, one of which is even open part of the day on Saturdays now. Anyway, the first location is the one that I go to most of the time because it's closest to the office. It's just a little building with no place to sit down or anything. You pretty much walk in, wait in line, place your order, move around for a little while to get out of everyone else's way that you are constantly in while waiting for your order to be prepared, pick up your order when they call your name, and get the heck out to go eat. That's one way of doing it.

The preferred method of interacting with the place, though, is to call ahead and place your order, which they prepare before you get there. That way, you can just go to the special call-ahead register to quickly pay, pick up, and leave. I used the preferred method today, but the start of that call got me thinking about how it's a bit awkward. Obviously, when they answer, they're not expecting small talk about their health or the weather or anything. They're busy people, and they have a job to do and they don't want to talk to you just now. However, I feel some compulsion to announce my intention to them: "Hi, I'd like to place an order for pick up," is something you might hear me say if you were around me when I called to place an order for pick up.

And maybe that's fine, but it seems silly to me. First of all, of course I want to place an order for pick up. It's not like they deliver. And it's not like I can place an order to dine in. Really, the only option I have is to place an order for pick up. Has ordering pizzas so conditioned me that I'm inflexible in the way I start a food order call? Why can't I just launch into my order? Why do I need the preamble? Do I somehow think they might not be ready to write it down, sort of like the protocol where you ask people if they're ready to write down a phone number when you give it to them over the phone? Do I worry they might not know I'm calling to make an order, that maybe I want to know when they close or whether they sell things other than pita sandwiches or where my socks are or some such nonsense? Am I concerned that they can't process my order without the preamble?

I mean, what would you do if I called you and said, "Hi, I'd like to talk to you on the phone now?" I'd like to think that you would either hang up or say something to the effect of, "Duh." but I guess that reaction would cure me of such things. Sigh. I'll probably keep doing it until they respond with a "Duh."

I'm going to stop writing this post now.

Not Just Me

In some sort of strange me-too-ism, Fj told me last weekend that he saw the same sign as I did (he was in Mexico for the same wedding I attended), and he also thought it said "No Tire Trash." I'm not quite sure what that says about either of us, but there you have it.

Bottom Up!

I was recently relaxing next to the pool, listening to the pleasant crashing of the Pacific on the beach nearby, and chatting with a couple of friends when -- what? You want to know when the hell I got a pool, how the hell the Pacific can be considered "nearby", and what idiot would allow himself to be counted among my friends? I'll go ahead and ingnore that last slight and say that the pool and Pacific were the result of a trip to Mexico for a wedding last weekend (a topic on which I feel sure I'll have more to write later).

Now, back to what what I was saying. Those of us doing our lounging got around to discussing the ins and outs of co-habitating, and the Girl and I were willing to say that we liked it pretty well. I told everyone I thought the biggest reason that we liked it is that we were enacting advice from a Dave Barry book (I believe it was from Dave Barry's Guide to Marriage and/or Sex) that I read when I was in middle school. Yes, yes. It sounds scandalous, but the advice was that males and females living in the same house should have separate bathrooms. And that's what we do. It's not so much that I'm concerned about the awkwardness I would endure from being in close proximity (not that one ever hears about being in far proximity) to ... girl things. It's not that we would be subjected to dealing with foreign hairs that would end up littering the bathroom. It's not that we would have to constantly fight for all-important real estate in which to store our varied number of items in the shower. And it's not that I'm concerned one of us would endlessly be living out the title seen from that elementary school/ early teen classic, Who Put That Hair in My Toothbrush? Sure, those are all valid and serious concerns, but the biggest issue is toothpaste. As far as my friends and I could work out, there are two types of people in this world: those who squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom of the tube up, and those who squeeze the tube somewhere right in the middle of the tube. As it turns out, those two types of people can't stand to deal with each other's method. The Bottom Ups think their way is efficient and neat, if perhaps a tad anal, in that their toothpaste is all at the top of the tube when they're trying to get the last vestiges of paste out, and it makes for a more pleasant squeezing experience. The Middle Squeezers like the feel of finger indentations in their tubes, and they think there's really no difference in how the toothpaste is squeezed.

Naturally, the Middle Squeezers are wrong.

I happen to be a Bottom Up, and it drives me batty when a Middle Squeezer (like the Girl) gets his or her hands on my tube of toothpaste. In fact, when my mom rented out my big brother's room to two girls after he went off to college (true story, but one of them was my cousin, and they paid $0 in rent), I was able to handle the choking fog of hairspray they left in our bathroom after spending hours building up their towers of state fair hair, and I could deal with the fact that I often had to use another bathroom because they spent at least 93% of their waking hours in there (together), and I could handle the fact that when their mountains of state fair hair were subjected to water they deposited remnants all over the bathtub like all the needles from Charlie Brown's Christmas tree (albeit disturbingly long, clingy needles). BUT, I couldn't handle the fact that they squeezed that toothpaste in the middle. I even thought of teaching them a lesson by sliding a lit match under the door to ignite all the hairspray in that enclosed space, thus teaching them a lesson, but that response seemed a bit disproportionate. Instead, I used to fart in their room a lot when they weren't home.

It's not just me, though. One of my friends felt exactly the same way I did, and his wife happened to be a Middle Squeezer. That made me think that maybe this is a gender-based preference, until I remembered telling my mom and Granny about the issues I had with the afore-mentioned girls living in my brother's room. They listened as I ticked off the list of things I didn't like, repeatedly telling me to get over it. But when Granny heard about the Middle Squeezing, she expectorated, "Well, that's just rude! That's ridiculous!" The intensity of her response was something I would normally think should be reserved for Nazis, or at least for people who club baby harp seals.

I don't have the heart to tell the Girl that scientific studies have proven that Bottom Ups are smarter, stronger, and generally better people than Middle Squeezers. So don't you tell her, either.

And if you're a Middle Squeezer, stay the hell away from my toothpaste.

What Did the Birds Do?

I was in a meeting this morning, and someone mentioned that if we did a certain thing, we could "kill two birds with one stone." Now, I realize this expression is a commonly used one, but for some reason it gave me pause this morning. I just couldn't help but wonder 1) why people are always wanting to kill birds and 2) why it is that stones are so bloody valuable that we need to be sure to get that extra bang for our proverbial buck. Seriously, what did birds in general do? I suppose they could be the type of garage-dwelling birds that are forever shitting on otherwise sheltered cars, but I would think even those birds would be worthy of their own individual Stones of Death.

Feel free to enlighten me. Otherwise, go in peace, and, if you must kill birds, at least give them the dignity of using separate stones for each of them.

Safety First

I know I haven't posted here in a very long time, and I have no real excuse. I had intended to write a detailed follow up to talk more about my experience at the Masters, but I never got around to it. It seems a bit late to do so now. However, I know I need to get back on the horse here, and I reckon, if Jen can do it after about 4 years of not posting, I can, too.

In the car on Saturday morning, I had a bit of a blast from the past in hearing "The Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats. I've always felt a strong sense of affection for that song. Maybe it's because of the video, in which the singer is wandering around a countryside that is remindful of feudal England, singing this song with the word "dance" in the title and hinting strongly, if perhaps not quite proving, that he is completely incapable of dancing. On top of that, the song itself doesn't seem particularly danceable. (Yes, I said "danceable." It's early, and I don't want to hear any shit about it.) In general, I'd say the song is deliciously atrocious, like so many 80's songs. Also, the video prominently features a midget. What's not to like?

But I didn't start this post just to laud a delightfully crappy song. Instead, I wanted to draw your attention to its lyrics. I had to look them up because of one particular phrase: "We can dance, we can dance / Everybody look at your hands / We can dance, we can dance / Everybody's taking the chance." Can someone please tell me why we need to look at our hands and what the fuck that has to do with dancing? Also, what chance is everybody taking here? Does this song come from some strange parallel universe where it's extremely dangerous for a person to let his gaze come to rest on his hands?

These are the questions that fill my brain after hearing that song. Have a good Tuesday.

Question of the Day

I like to think of myself as pretty decent at coming up with plausible explanations for things that seem silly, even though I still like to think of them as silly. For example, after giving it some thought, I was even able to come up with some explanation for why the drive-through ATM at the bank has braille options.

Still, some things persist in puzzling me.

Today, I was walking back into the building from the parking garage after lunch, and I was struck by a puzzling situation. Near the garage's exit, there were numerous spacious and well-marked handicap spots. That's not the puzzling part. Naturally, I understand that. On the other side of the entrance, there were a whole mess of places reserved for expecting mothers. Still not the puzzling part, in that I kind of understand it, although I'm skeptical of just how many expecting mothers are ... expected ... to be in this particular building at any given time. Still, I can see how reasonable people might want to make it less of an effort for these to-be moms to get to and from their cars and offices.

What puzzled me, though, was that between the expecting mother spots and the garage exit were a number of spots designated for motorcycles. It was pretty much 2 motorcycle parking spots per normal car spot. I can see why it's good to designate spots for motorcycles. You probably don't want them taking up an entire parking space and all, but why the hell do they need to be right next to the building? Wouldn't it be just as good to put them on the other side of the garage? Why should those who ride motorcycles get to park closer to the building than the handicapped or women with buns in their ovens?

Please explain it to me. These are the kinds of questions that keep me up at night.

Bad or Worse: You Make the Call

I've been contemplating two hypothetical situations and the impact they might have on one's day, and I just can't decide which one would move the needle more. So I figured I'd toss it out there so you could make the call.

Situation 1
You're working from home, and you realize as you pour your first soda of the day that you have foolishly allowed your soda supply to be depleted. However, you're doing some work and such, and you don't really feel like making a special trip to the store just for the soda. So you do nothing. As the day goes on, you decide that it's really not appropriate for your first soda of the day to be your only soda of the day, and you decide to rectify the situation.

The exercise room in your complex has a soda machine in it. Granted a 20 oz. bottle of that which you desire costs a whopping $1.25, but such is your yen for that carbonated NutraSweet-y goodness that you are willing to deal with the extra moolah involved. So you bundle up (it's cold out there), grab a dollar bill and a quarter, and trudge to the exercise room, using the few moments of travel time to ponder a) why there isn't a soda machine in your building or perhaps even your apartment and b) just what it says about you that you are going to the exercise room for the specific purpose of buying a soda. Arriving at your destination, you brush those thoughts away like so many gnats flitting around your head (there are some benefits to the cold, you reckon). You feed the greedy machine the paper and metal money and consider a new quandary: there are two buttons with Diet Coke labels; which one to push? This question doesn't slow you down much, and you punch the top Diet Coke button. The machine responds with the normal whirrings and plunks and you bend down to pull out ... a gahdamned Fanta Orange Soda.

You don't drink Fanta Orange soda. You don't want Fanta Orange soda. If you did, you would have pushed its button, which is at the very bottom of the array of buttons, nowhere near the second one from the top that you pushed. Quick! Use the other button! Nope, sorry. You only brought enough money to buy one soda. It looks like you're going without another soda for a while. Now go back out in the cold and walk home. Take that soda with you, though.

Situation 2
It's early in the morning. Just how early, you're not sure, as you are doing what ought to be done early in the morning: sleeping. Suffice it to say, though, that it is nowhere near an hour when any reasonable person would desire to be awake. You might be engaged in a dream. You might be chewing up the REM cycles. You might be caught in the comfy warm bliss of the dreamless. You might be rolling over. You know not because, as mentioned before, you are asleep.

OW! All of a sudden you wake up because you just bit the ass out of your tongue.

Bad or Worse: You make the call. And my sincerest condolences for any poor soul who suffers both fates on the same day.

Hineyless Pant-things

I actually recently had this discussion twice, and neither time really left me satisfied, so I will now present it to you. The topic that has left me so stymied is this: Why do people insist on referring to certain garments as "assless chaps?"

[Aside: yes, this comes up. I have friends (you know who you are) who like to bandy about the term in question somewhat frequently, typically in an effort to disturb those foolish enough to listen to them. I am sometimes one of those fools.]

I know this is the type of question that keeps people awake at nights, and I hope our bringing the subject out into the open will help avoid some of those difficult and annoying tossings and turnings. I wonder about it because I have often (by which I mean about once a year) heard someone use the phrase, and it always ejects me from whatever conversation is actually going on by causing me to think, "Aren't chaps assless by definition?" Seriously, aren't chaps those leather things that cowboys wear to protect their legs from ... something? Aren't they worn over pants? Aren't they like pants with a significant part missing? You don't ever hear about assful chaps. I did some research here, and it looks like I had pretty much the right idea.

Both times this discussion happened, the people I talked with thought that "assless chaps" referred to the chaps MINUS the pants. Naturally, I think it's a misnomer if that's the case. They should be called pantsless chaps. (Or trouserless chaps, for you Brits out there -- not that it seems right that Brits might wear chaps.)

Ultimately, I guess "assless" is funnier than "pantsless." Plus, "assless" is in general a concept that one doesn't hear about a lot. Other possibilities spring to mind, though: chaps without ass, butt-baring chaps, and cornhole cutaways (OK, so that one didn't involve the word "chaps," but it made me chuckle).

I'm just not sure. Next time you see a cowboy, ask him what he calls them.

Ticker Translation

The other night, the Girl and I were hanging out and watching some college hoops, when she asked me, all out of the blue like, "What's mnf?"

"Mnf?" I asked. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Yes, mnf. What is it?"

I was confused. She's quite good with words, and she's generally pretty good at using them. Plus, her diction is such that it wasn't likely a problem with her enunciation. After some probing and clever cross-examination, I found out that this "mnf" was something she had seen on TV. Thanks to the powers of the DVR (which, even though the Comcast version is a piss-poor imitation of the goodness that is a Tivo, did come in handy), I was able to see what she was talking about. The ticker on the bottom of the screen, where ESPN2 shows scores and such had a score category labeled "MNF."

"That's Monday Night Football, baby."

"It is? Why don't they just call it 'NFL?' Isn't it kind of obvious that it's the Monday Night kind?"

I think it has something to do with branding, or name recognition, or some damned fool marketing concept that sounds good on paper. But, to paraphrase Kenny Mayne, concepts aren't played out on paper; they're played on TV sets. And that one is a head-scratcher.

Leading Indicator

This past weekend I went to see my beloved Wahoos engage in gridiron battle with the Wolfpack of NC State. I was a bit trepidacious about the game, as the Wahoos have been bad this year, needing a missed extra point in OT to beat Wyoming and losing at home to Western Michigan, to name a couple of missteps. (I can't even go into giving away the game against the hated Terps.) On top of the general not-goodness of the Wahoo team, NC State had managed victories against once-mighty Florida State and never-shitty Boston College. None of those factors made me confident that UVA could pull out a victory, even though NC State's overall record wasn't that great. In retrospect, I should have been overtaken by a serene calm and supreme confidence once I got to my seat.


My seat happens to be near the visitors' section in the stadium, meaning that their cheerleaders are in front of me. Once I saw that crew, I should have known we were going to win. "How could you know from seeing the cheerleaders?" you might be asking. And it's a good question. Really, it's not the cheerleaders that should have foretold the downfall of the Wolfpack, but the mascot. Seriously, how can you possibly expect your team to win a tackle football game with the mascot pictured below on your sidelines? Shouldn't you just expect to lose that game?




Final score: Wahoos 14, Pearl and Dress-Wearing Girly "Wolfpack" 7