ill-fated haircut
Because my brain operates in a general state of chaos most of the time, my To Do Lists serve as a thin-but-critical lifeline of sanity. The Lists keep me from straying off into the wilderness, where I would inevitably become lost and live in the trees and have to eat beetles. I am fairly worthless in a grocery store without The List -- Instead I'll skip up and down the aisles, excited about some new chicken marinade recipe I just thought of, only to come home to be greeted by a hungry dog. Then I have to go back out to get his dog food. And he sits there and judges me.
When I don't get around to doing something, it gets repeated at the top of the next day's list. That's the little penalty -- I have to rewrite the undone thing on the next list. It's not quite the same level of self-flagellation like the creepy albino guy from the Da Vinci code, whacking his back with some sort of torture device at the end of a rope. But it's still a penalty to pay.
Recently, I found myself doing the list-rewriting thing with my haircut. For weeks. I simply could not make it to the place. At first it was general sense of procrastination, but then I ran into an odd series of obstacles that wouldn't let me get my haircut.
Eventually, my hairdo started doing some weird stuff. If it was music, this would have been free-form jazz. Lots of noise, no melody. For some reason, my hair doesn't all grow at the same length. I grow hair seven times as fast at the temples, which can get out of control pretty quick.
One Saturday morning, I rushed over to the haircut place right when they opened, hoping to be the first one in line so I could make it to some birthday event on time afterwards with kiddo. No luck -- the manager was late to open the place, everybody was standing around out front. And I couldn't talk the haircutters into giving me a trim right there on the sidewalk, and they were a little standoffish when I offered to pick the lock to the store's front door.
Another day, I ventured out to the haircut place by my work but they were "out of stylists." But they said I could come back at 3pm and they "might" be staffed then. How does a place run out of stylists? In some crazy scheme to turn a profit, you'd think they'd keep the place staffed with scissors and people who know how to use them during the day.
So I tried to leave work early one day, and right as my car hit the on-ramp to the highway, I got called to do a U-turn back into work for an emergency. At this point I started looking around to see if I was on Candid Camera or something.
This went on literally for weeks. Everytime I'd try to go get the haircut, something crazy would pop up. Like I'd get held up by a stopped train when I had a short window of time to get the haircut. Or I'd finally make it there during daylight hours, but oops, forgot my wallet. Fate obviously did not want me to have shorter hair.
Finally, the planets aligned in my favor and I was able to make it to the place by my house. And not only were they open, and I had my wallet, and I had time to get the haircut without being somewhere else in a hurry... my favorite haircutter Betty was also available. Score.
I peeked outside to see if the place was about to get robbed, or perhaps a pack of wolves would figure out how to open the door and try to come interrupt us. No, this haircut was definitely going to happen.
But as I waited for Betty, there was a weird vibe in the air. The stylists were awestruck as the guy right before me gave Betty a $100 tip. Holy crap -- that's like a 700% tip. I was sure she'd suddenly decide to be done for the day and I'd fall back into Haircut Purgatory. It was the biggest tip she'd ever received, by double, and she was glowing with the feeling of appreciation for her special craft.
Despite being wildly distracted, chatting to the other girls about the big tip, Betty went ahead and gave me a terrific haircut as always. In fact, she was in a zone today -- it made my top 5 best haircuts ever.
It was such a relief to have this thing done -- not just because my hair continued to grow longer each day, but because of all the obstacles. Through a combination of the sheer happiness of getting my haircut finally accomplished, and the funds I accumulated while missing whole haircut intervals, and a general sense of competitiveness... I knew what I had to do. I threw down a tip that beat his by one dollar and strutted out of there like a boss.
Get a haircut
hibachi screamer
I took Diva Girlfriend to a small town last weekend for a bed-and-breakfast thing. It was mostly great -- I'd recommend the historic and beautiful place where we stayed, if not for the creepy innkeeper who lurches over you like one of the hillbillies from Deliverance, and the enormous box-top TVs that dangle precariously over each of the bathtubs and beds.
We explored the small town in search of a good dinner, and a wishy-washy Yelp crowd led us to a small hibachi place in a strip mall across from a SuperTarget. But we're open-minded, so we gave it a shot. ("Hey, this looks like the least worst place within 45 miles!")
Our hibachi griller wasn't exactly spectacular, in the sense that he seemed nervous and completely boned all of our orders. But you had to appreciate that this was some pretty fine dining for a small town. The table next to us was full of ranchers' sons and daughters out on their prom dinner dates. They looked like they were well-fueled with teenage hormones and rot-gut whiskey. But in a good way.
And I thought the griller guy was trying really hard, which was worth more than anything. When I see a guy trying his best and struggling, I can't help but to pull for them. I suddenly become their own personal plant in the audience, laughing at their terrible hibachi-themed humor (Ha! You spun the egg! An "egg roll"! I get it!), trying to get the rest of the crowd to rally in their behalf. I root for the underdog, even when he's making bad food for me.
So while our less-than-spectacular griller made unrepeatably awful jokes, and I laughed out loud, and Diva Girlfriend wondered if I had a head injury, the rest of the small town hibachi crowd did their normal thing... until suddenly...
Whoosh! The sudden flame of the grill as the next griller set his little round of oil on fire. This was followed immediately by the loudest, girliest shriek my ears have ever heard.
It was a boy at the next table. Probably 10 years old, definitely impressed by the hibachi experience, scared out of his wits. He was caught completely unaware that his griller was about to set his hibachi on fire.
Somehow that single banshee-like exclamation made the whole experience worth it. I didn't get the food I ordered, my Asian griller was actually kinda Mexican, and the local prom yokels outnumbered us 4 to 1. But that one little shriek reminded me that at some point, we all had our first hibachi experience. Good for you, Scared Shrieking Dude.
how to make diablo sauce
Some of you have experienced the flavor (or witnessed the general insanity surrounding the production) of my new 'Diablo Sauce'. For any of you who are interested in making your own special concoctions, here are some helpful tips to help get you started.
Advice 1: Go buy a badass blender. You need one with at least 3 billion watts and several rows of blades and teeth .. it should be so strong that it makes the lights in the house dim when you turn it on. Mine actually has a picture of a ninja on the side.
Advice 2: You gotta get your mind right. You can't just jump right into full-blown kitchen-scale hot sauce manufacturing with a trial-and-error approach. You can't simply dip your toe into the pool of insanity and expect great-tasting hot sauce. To make it really good, you need to make over 200 bottles. It has to consume you. You must be up late at night, firing up variations on new batches with the intensity of a bearded weirdo in a cabin churning out pages of his manifesto.
Advice 3: Pretend to value the input of others. You do need a test audience, so skip around town and pass those bottles out like a spicy version of the Easter Bunny. But don't be surprised when the feedback is all over the map. Some want more spice, some want it milder, some say it's too sweet, some want more sweetness. You can't make everybody happy. So in the end, just stick to the input from a foodie-connoisseur or two who you feel well-calibrated with. For everybody else, just nod your head and pretend like you're listening. Whoever is reading this, yours is the actual feedback that I'm using to shape future batches. Wink.
Advice 4: Save the byproducts. In my recipe, I end up with an enormous amount of the pureed pulp from the blender that doesn't get strained out into bottles. At first I was throwing this away, but I realized later that some people love this stuff. My buddies around here all put it on pizza, and my Austin buds seemed to unanimously prefer it over the original sauce. I dried some out into a spice rub and my girlfriend's mom put it in brownies. I was just reading about how rum -- the world's first globally traded commodity -- was manufactured from the byproduct of the sugar refining process. So hang onto ye scraps, ye salty sea dogs.
Advice 5: Go easy on the thickener. Whatever you use to give your sauce some stickiness/ emulsion / shine, approach that right amount slowly. In my first shot at it, I ended up with a batch that stuck in their bottles like Jello. A hot sauce- flavored Jello might be considered fancy and nouveau at some point in the future, but for now I just want something that I can stick on pizza.
Advice 6: Don't touch your eyes or bits. Remember at all times that these peppers are chemically similar to the ones that are used to make weapons to repel angry humans. I can attest from personal experience, and having done both within the span of seven minutes, that if you rub your eyes and/or aim your man-parts after handing peppers, there is a burning surprise that awaits you.
Visit the new Diablo Sauce website here: http://diablo-sauce.com/
nom nom nom
I have a friend who smacks when he eats. It's a nasty habit -- and not just because that wet smacking sound makes me want to poke four little fork holes in his forehead - it's because you can see the food become chewed up and squishy in his mouth hole. I had dinner with his family one time, and I was disturbed to discover that his whole family smacks. They're one of those families that doesn't talk at dinner until everybody is done eating. So all I heard for 20 minutes was the symphony of grown adults smacking and eating with their mouths open like the Cookie Monster. The nom nom nom family.
My stepmom used to take forever to eat. (She doesn't smack -- she's super polite.) Long after we finished eating and were lounging around sprawled out in the living room (watching The Little Mermaid or The Land Before Time for the fourth time of the day, the cost of being a big brother), she'd still be sitting the dining room by herself, nursing the same little sandwich. I used to tease that she needed to hurry up and finish that meal because it was almost time for the next one. I studied her eating mechanics and tried to figure out why she was so inefficient at getting food into her belly. She seemed to be busy the whole time, and it's not like she was taking little baby bird bites. I concluded that she just chews her food more times per bite or something. Women seem strange to me.
I am a really fast eater. I can usually finish any meal in less than six minutes when I eat by myself. I chew my food just barely enough to swallow it down, and then I already have the next bite already in hand. I remember my Dad making me eat in front of a mirror. But the failure there was that I enjoyed looking at myself. I am one handsome devil.
One time my brother and I went to Pancho's with my mom, and we both finished our first plates before she got to the table. She loves telling that story. In our defense, she was being super pokey -- we had plenty of time to wolf down 4 cheese enchiladas and 2 tacos while she piddled around at the salsa bar.
I guess whatever sort of negative reinforcement tactics eventually worked -- now I consciously alter my habits in the company of others. I intentionally take my time, pacing out the meal to coincide with that of whomever is eating nearby. I pretend that I'm a normal person instead of the ravenous ogre that I truly am. Rather than trying to finish my meal before everybody has their napkins unfolded into their laps, I'll kill time by storytelling, or I imagine poking fork holes into the foreheads of anybody who is smacking within earshot, or I challenge the waiters to wrestle.
Waiters probably wear shirts. This was as close as I could find on Google.
Lent
I used to visit a Catholic church with my buddy Wes when I was growing up. I have fond memories of the place, but they mostly involved me trying really really hard not to laugh at inappropriate times. (Why is the humor center of our strange little brains wired to think it's the absolute funniest thing to get uncontrollable giggles in inappropriate settings?) Wes would get this little smirk, say “Hey man, watch this,” and then do something epic. One time he hooked an arm around the wrist of the wine-goblet-holder-person so he could chug the whole thing before they pulled it away. In the scuffle, he got the Blood of Christ all over both of them. Wes was something of a legend in our middle school circles. To this day, if Wes says "Hey man, watch this," go ahead and get out the camera app on your phone.
I happened to move back to that same neighborhood, and my backyard fence is shared with that church, which is now a huge Catholic mega-church and school. So now I’m surrounded by tons of Catholic neighbors. They all go to the church next door, and they have little gates in their backyards so they can walk out the back door and straight across the field to the services. In reality, however, they mostly pile into minivans and drive around the block. I'm sure my neighbor Andy will love me busting him on this -- but in his defense, he does have 17 kids. After a certain point, the parents have to drop man-to-man coverage and go zone defense.
Being in a high-catholic-density area means two things:
1) My daughter has a million little friends to play with because they don’t practice birth control and their families are enormous and
2) It takes me approximately 3 ½ hours to get home on Wednesday nights because every Catholic in the area swarms my little part of the city.
I'd like to think that I have a pretty good standing with the Catholics. I’ve been a best man in two Catholic weddings – for Wes and Dre – and I’m an honorary Catholic godfather to a perfect kid named Brianna who is much cooler than I was at 10 years old.
In Wes's wedding, I was surprised to find out that as the best man, I had to kneel at the front altar with the groom the whole time. (They call their services a "mass" to give you a sense of how epic-long these things are.) When we were standing next to each other, I could kinda slouch next to Wes and not look like such an ogre (I'm 6'2" and I weighed 320 back then). But kneeling next to him at the front of the church in a tux, there was no avoiding it. In the middle of the service, I earned extra awkward points for getting leg cramps and publicly stretching so I looked like a fat penguin doing yoga. Not a pretty sight.
For the Methodists, our Lent offering is optional, but I've always done it. Every year, my Mema gives up chocolate for Lent. My brother gave up smoking one time, just to show everybody he didn't need cigarettes, but then went right back to smoking on Easter.
I usually give up red meats, but this year I gave up drinking. I considered giving up speeding in my car, but I realized that would be entirely impractical. My car wants to go fast.
Here is the rule of Lent Fate -- whatever you give up, you will be handed many times. If you give up drinking, you'll find yourself as the only sober person at bachelor parties, college buddy reunions, and all kinds of drinkypoo events. If you give up chocolate, you will somehow win the Golden Ticket and end up at Willy Wonka's factory.
how to potty train small humans
One of the universal themes in parenting is that you’ll receive an endless stream of unsolicited advice. For many people, who haven’t accomplished much in the whole world except churning out some loinproduct, this is their one chance to feel like an expert about something. Anything. They’ll assault your ears with all kinds of nonsense and wives' tales about how to get your kids to stop using their pacifier, or how to trick the little weasels into eating servings of vegetables, or how to get them to stop removing neighbors' license plates.
I felt that being the oldest of five kids gave me a nice head start into fatherhood. I was better prepared because I was raised around lots of small humans. I watched the trials and tribulations of my (very young) parents, helped out where I could, and I remember their struggles. I remember having to take a break from my marathon girlfriend telephone conversation -- “Sorry sweetie, my brother is about to poop” -- and then join my family in the bathroom. All seven of us would huddle in there -- we were required to clap and cheer for my brother Jerry while he dropped a tiny deuce into the plastic kiddy potty. Then he received a small matchbox car for his efforts.
I never received anything.
What eventually spawned out of trying to get all these little hoodlums to stop crapping their pants on the couch was an idea of such sheer genius, that it eventually went into widespread usage for successful potty training. You may have heard about it elsewhere, but this all started in my backyard. I give my stepmom Frances the credit for The Method.
Step one: You let your kids run around the backyard with no pants on. There are no other steps -- that’s the whole plan. I didn’t say it was an elaborate system, but it works for every kid. After they drop a couple biscuits in the yard, they begin to realize that it is so much nicer than hauling dirty logs around. Eventually they’re wearing real underwear for the first time, and voila, they’re on their way to wiping their own little butts. Hallelujah.
One of the drawbacks to The Method is that it's not very sophisticated. There is a theorectial possibility that your two-year-old angel hikes up her little easter outfit and starts pooping in your grass while you're talking to your neighbor Andy in the front yard. But just think of it as a small price to pay to have them stop using diapers. As time passes, nobody will ever remember that event and embarrass them later. Unless your dad happens to write a column about it, of course. Sorry, kid.
jules turns five
Wow, five years old. In some ways, Jules hasn’t changed at all – she is still impossibly adorable, she still doesn’t like to cuddle unless she’s sick, and she's much more clever than her Dad.
“Hey Jules, did you know that we can see planets in the sky tonight?”
“No Daddy, that’s the moon.”
“Of course -- the big one is the moon. I’m talking about that glowing dot right over here. That’s the planet Venus.”
“That’s a star, Daddy.”
“That one looks like a star, but that one’s a planet, Jules.”
“Okay, all the dots are planets. I’m going to count all the planets… 1… 2… 3... 4..”
“No Jules, you’re right, most of them are stars. Just that one right there is a planet.”
(She looks up, kinda makes skeptical-face, one eyebrow up.)
“Okay, Jules, let me show you Google Sky Maps. This app shows us which ones are planets and which ones are stars.”
“Neat! Can I play the Princess Game on your phone?”
“Yes, but let me show you the sky map first.” (I pull it up, I show Venus, but she's now fixated on the phone.) “See Jules, there’s Venus. Just under the moon.”
“Can I play the Princess Game now?”
In social circles, her role is best described as a Vice President of Operations. She seems to relish in the planning of events and will direct other little kids in which games to play. She's not quite the Queen Bee -- but stays friends with whoever it is -- and it saves her general bullying and scheming. I'm not going to claim that I understand the innerworkings of groups of little chicks... but then again, I don't understand females who are my age, either.
Maybe I'll ask Jules to explain it all to me one day.
Each night, we have a standing ritual -- it goes bathtime, storytime, prayers ("Give us this day, our stale-y bread"), we talk about our day, and then she introduces random conversations to stall going to bed.
During this time, these conversations cover all kinds of topics -- where does God sleep, why do little bugs always seem to follow her around, why does our dog Ralphie always try to sleep in her bed and then push her off, and why is poop brown instead the color of the stuff that we eat.
I'm the one on the left.
pay per cure
I went to the doctor with a cold, which basically means that I paid a $50 co-pay to have a professional male nurse look at me and go "Yep, you're sick. Good luck with that."
In the doctor-detective shows, the patients usually have some cool disease that can be cured with some kind of miracle /experimental treatment. They'll struggle with the diagnostics, and then figure out the cure during some climactic or inspirational moment during the show.
"Hey man, you wanna pass me the salt?"
"The salt! That's it! You figured out how to beat lupus! It was the salt all along!""
And the patients are usually super hot.
In my real life, which is not nearly as interesting as any doctor-detective show, I show up at my physician's office looking like Death, slinging snot everywhere, hacking up small bits of leathery lung boogers. I get the standard fare about drinking lots of fluids, they check me for strep or rabies or whatever, and they send me back out into the world to go suffer a slow death.
It's just a virus. It'll run its course.
I'd be more inclined to believe them if they weren't so insistent that I always pay my co-pay right then, instead of billing me. "Whoa there, buddy -- let's make sure you pay before you go, just in case you die at home. We didn't give you any kind of real treatment here today, so God knows what's gonna happen later."
Instead, I wish that we paid for all healthcare afterwards, based on how well it worked. Waiters and bartenders are paid for each performance, so why not doctors? Here's how the plan works: If you die, you don't pay anything. If you do live, but it was a wrong diagnosis and you spent 3 months chasing the wrong cure, you give them a bad tip, just some marginal amount. Hey Doc, better luck next time. You'll afford that second Lexus when you start brushing up on recent medical advances.
But when they nail the diagnosis the first time, and your doctor called and checked on you at home, and he or she went out of his or her way to pretend like you were more than just a 7-minute segment on their Thursday calendar, you pay them handsomely.
"Mister Young, you have six months to live."
"Oh yeah? make it eight and I'll double the pay."
the fight
In this corner… weighing over 200 pounds, in his hometown of Keller, Texas, we have Jeff “Surprised to suddenly be participating in this fight” Young!
In this corner… we have some random drunk guy that Ogre James brought over to play cards, who has suddenly revealed some impulse control and boundary issues!
Are you ready to Rummmmmmmble?
No, I was not ready to rumble. I was ready to sit on a couch and exchange witty banter and vulgar stories and drink whiskey with my friends. Instead, I found myself with a big idiot jumping on my lap, trying to pin my arms down.
I don’t have a temper. I can usually defuse fights with wordplay. “Psst. Hey man, between you and me, you look like you need a hug. No no no, not from me – watch this. OKAY LADIES, free drinks for whoever hugs this big ugly dude over here. Now don't hold him too long, he looks like he might have ticks.”
Whenever you see the macho escalation of two guys posturing and yelling “You want some of this?!?” and “You want to say that to my face?!?” and “Do you want to take that outside?!?”, I can't help but to grin. It reminds me of the kinds of primal behavior that you see on National Geographic -- the silliest and worst of our human instincts. I call it the Gorilla Standoff. The male gorilla beats his chest, bristles out his spine fur, runs off the other gorilla, grabs a flower, sticks in up his butt, then eats it.
Our version of conflict resolution is almost as elegant.
I’ve learned from my friend Jack Reacher that all plans go out the window just as soon as you get punched in the mouth. No matter how fast your brain goes in that fight-or-flight moment, the slippery crunch of a fist hitting your teeth and lips is enough to make you forget your next move.
Here’s how it played out...
Big Random Idiot jumps on me while I’m lounging on my couch. Out of nowhere.
What is this guy doing? Okay he’s holding my arms down – Is he kidding? I don’t think he’s kidding. If I can just…. No… he’s pretty strong. Yep I’m pinned. Okay, defuse this before it gets out of hand.
“Okay you big dummy, you win, whatever, ha ha, look how strong you are. Now get off me before I sic Ralphie on you.” (Ralphie is my 16-pound, timid little terrier).
Big Random Idiot responds by punching me in the face, and re-pins my arms back down. Our faces are 8 inches away, and now he look possessed. He reeks of pink lemonade vodka and I can tell he's not a big fan of flossing.
Whoa whoa wait, am I in a fight? I haven’t been in a fight in years. We didn’t do the Gorilla Standoff yet. Okay this is happening, I gotta get this guy off me. Damn that hurt. I forgot all my sweet hypothetical fight moves.
He hops into a full straddle, facing me. I’m totally pinned, adrenaline is up, and I’m losing energy fast. My shoes are trying to grab traction with the floor for leverage, but I’m basically trapped like a turtle on my back, with the weight of both of us pushing me down into the couch.
Okay let's keep cool here. If I can just get my arms free, then I can … I wonder what my dental co-pay is. I think it’s 20% plus the deductible?
I pull an arm lose and we scuffle in a flurry of hands, trying to contain each other’s fists. I take a hard elbow to the chin and feel and hear my jaw pop.
Everybody in the house is now standing, watching in shock, paralyzed by surprise. Ralphie – who I’ve learned is worthless in an emergency – is barking maniacally, and we’re kicking furniture everywhere.
Okay brain, let’s do something here! Protect protect protect! No wait, hurt him hurt him hurt him! No wait, protect protect protect. What would Chuck Norris do?
Just as he grabs both wrists to pin them again, I hook my right elbow up and draw it across my body and crack him in the side of the head with it. Having stunned him for a second, I‘m momentarily able to twist my hips slightly, just enough to get my right foot on the ground. Then I push hard and pivot, and I’m on top of him instead.
Ha ha! Now the glove is on the other foot. Whoa, we got some wild knees here. Protect the Boys.
Although he’s taller, I’ve got the weight advantage, and I press my body against him to wear him out. The strategy is also heavily influenced by my complete exhaustion. I realize I've been holding my breath for a whole minute, and I stop and remember to breathe. We do the grabbing-for-wrists thing again, but this time when I grab his wrist, I pin his arm under my knee, giving me a free arm.
Yay, this is finally starting to go my way … Whoa, note to self, that plant really needs watering.
I use my free forearm to jam in Big Random Idiot's neck, choking the bejeezus out of him for about 20 seconds, then give him a chance to submit. Finally he taps my arm, indicating surrender. I climb off and tell him he’s lucky I don’t kick a new hole in his face. He gets up and then proceeds to barf all over my guest bathroom for the next hour. I limp away, completely out of energy, shaking as the adrenaline works its way out of my bloodstream.
I would find out later that he had earlier drank 15 shots of (my) pink lemonade vodka and would not remember the incident.
In retrospect, one of the funniest moments from the scuffle – as brief as it was – was that I had invited a new couple over to join our card game for the first time. They happened to walk in during the middle of it, and asked "Are we at the right place?".
(I’ve never been accused of making a good first impression.)
In the aftermath of the fight, I ended up with a bruised chin, a body full of bruises, and I learned that my dog - while awesome at snuggling - is not quick to action when I'm fighting to the death.
past my prime
While waving my hand frantically in front of the automatic towel dispenser, I start to wonder which is drying my hands more – the paper towels, or all the hand-waving and time spent waiting for more towels to dispense. I give it 50-50. Before I leave the restroom. I take one last look in the mirror to make sure my hair isn’t standing up all crazy and that I look generally presentable – Hello there, handsome – and… uh oh, there it is. My zipper is down again. My barn door is open. XYZ, examine your zipper. Your cows are getting out.
How did I make it this far in life doing something so well, only to suddenly start leaving my zipper down all the time?
The same sudden decline of other abilities is emerging in other areas of my life, too. I used to be a pretty decent bowler, but now I’m happy just to clear triple digits. I used to have a sweet spin move, where the ball would Tokyo-drift back to the center and obliterate all the pins and I would do white-guy fist-pumping dance moves. Now when I fire that sucker off, it makes a beeline for the gutter and threatens to hop out into the next lane.
I understand that in time, I may not be able to run as fast or take a punch the same due to old age and the slow decline of my body – I’m cool with that. But I’m still in the first half of my 30’s – I’m supposed to be at my peak! Why have I suddenly started losing my few awesome abilities, like my 30+ year streak of always remembering to zip up my pants after shaking hands with the man?
As another example, I’ve been driving legally now for more than half my life, but I just now started to forget to close the little gas cap door after I fuel up. I’m the dummy who has to get out of the car at the red light and run back to close it. Luckily for me, nobody notices because they’re all playing with Facebook on their phones.
Perhaps my glory days are behind me. I know I’m a bit young to start talking about a mid-life crisis, but I feel one coming on. Is there a place you go to sign up for that? How does that work?
My one consoling fact is that my closest friends are all getting older, too. Mike the Greek’s mantastic-sexy facial scruff is starting to show a few silvers. Fox and others are starting to show some midsection. Dre is having his first mini-Dre, Crazy Mike has a real girlfriend, and Clinticus even got married.
If you’re feeling the hands of time too, just be sure to stop and check your fly in the mirror on the way out.
More Places You Might Find Your Keys
There comes a point in the mad scramble before work, when you’ve already looked in all the normal locations for your keys – twice – and you find yourself revisiting all those same spots in a loop. When you’ve looked at where they should be for the third time, hoping that they magically reappeared, it can truly make you insane. In that fifth trip around the house, you’re ready to just call into work crazy and watch The Price is Right dressed in clown makeup while they fit your for a straightjacket.
Just in case this happens to you, I’ve given you a quick-reference here for more places to look. Here are:
More Places You Might Find Your Keys
Still in the lock, hanging outside your front door
In the fridge, top shelf
In the pants you wore yesterday
In the garbage
In the dryer
Buried in the backyard next to Fluffy
Gripped in your ex-girlfriend’s hand while she watches you with binoculars from across the street
In that package that you sent to your eBay customer yesterday
In a pile of other shiny things where those damn raccoons hang out under your house
In the drawer where you keep your unmentionables
At the bottom of the front pocket of your invisibility cloak
In your big Bucket ‘O Keys
In your pocket, but in a different dimension
Transformed into a tiny robot that steals one sock at a time
What are “keys”? We’ve always used combination locks on cars – you’ve been imagining this “key” thing this whole time
The last place you look
ten things I am not good at
Sometimes we find ourselves in a time of introspection. When you look deep within, and give yourself an honest look, you might just admit that you’re not as perfect as I am.
Just kidding, of course. I have all kinds of flaws. Here are:
10 things I am not good at
1) I am not a good dancer. If you look into my eyes and whisper Hey, you’re actually a pretty good slow-dancer, then that is a good sign that you are currently really drunk or have experienced a recent head injury.
2) I’ve never been hunting. I am not opposed to the idea of hunting at all, and I even took a bow hunting class in college. If I were hungry enough, I could knock a koala bear out of a tree with a hammer. But so far, I’ve never killed any animal larger than a squirrel. And he had it coming.
3) I never learned to whistle. I know how to play several instruments, but my mouth just isn’t made for whistlin’ purposes. People always say “Oh really? Look it’s easy, you just roll your lips like this,” and shriek one out. Then I ask them if they can still do that if I were to knock out all their teeth.
4) I have never been skiing. Neither water nor snow. I am more of a sledder. My special sledding techniques rely heavily on my ability to lay down and allow gravity to drag my ass down a hill. One time I stripped down to my undies when it was 12 degrees out and sledded down an icy hill. I didn’t realize I was dragging my feet behind me on the ice because they were too numb to feel it, and afterwards they were so chewed up, they looked like a polar bear had been gnawing on them.
5) I am not a very kind driver. I am a good driver from the angle that I’m really good at avoiding obstacles and other vehicles. My car is an extension of my own body (unlike some drivers I know, who barely have command of their vehicle between applications of makeup and playing with Facebook on her phone). But from the perspective that I'm zipping around out in public and not being a friendly representative of our community, I am the cartoon equivalent of the Tasmanian Devil when I’m behind the wheel. I’m really impatient, I’m quick to use the horn, and I fly past people like they’re standing still (whenever kiddo is not in the car with me, of course).
6) I’m bad about going to the doctor for regular checkups. My medical history is strikingly boring – no stitches, no broken bones, never been admitted, or anesthetized, or had anything removed besides wisdom teeth. If my past performance of not dying so far is any indication of how the future will go, I am apparently invincible. (If I die in some cool way, be sure to re-read this at my funeral for irony purposes.)
7) Whenever I meet another Jeff, I can't remember his name later. I see his face, recognize him, and then draw a complete blank. Geez what is this guy's name? It can't be Jeff, because I'm Jeff. This is probably rooted in some version of egocentrism, where in my self-absorbed brain, I am the only possible Jeff.
8 ) I am not as strong as I used to be. When I weighed 320 lbs, I could lift a small car off the ground like a chunky white Hulk. I guess my muscles were stronger then from hoofing all that fat around. After losing all that weight, I'm noticeably more puny. But I can still hold Diva Girlfriend up over my head in the kitchen, against her will. At least I still have that.
9) I have to turn down the radio to find street signs. Everybody thinks they're good multi-taskers, but apparently my brain cannot handle both audio and visual stimuli at the same time. On a similar note, if you ever start into a super boring story and my eyes are pointing towards my Skyrim character on the TV, please be advised that I might be only devoting 03.7% of my attention span to your super boring story.
11) I never learned to count.
the cruise, part 3: shore excursions
I enjoyed all the merriment on my first cruise ship – all the eating, the lounging around in the sun, the singing, the drinking, the two or three naps a day, and all the eating. In fact, the ship experience was so much fun, I would have even had a great time on one of the 'cruises to nowhere,' where the boat basically does donuts in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico while everybody inside slowly becomes one of the big fat hover-couch-people from Wall-E.
The cruise director James woke us up constantly. Diva Girlfriend and I would be happily napping in a burrito-induced food-coma, hear that cheerful little bell, and before he could say anything we’d both grumble “Hi James.” Then his chipper British voice would come over the loudspeakers, “Hello passengers! This is James your cruise director! Come stop by our booth and see all the exciting ship excursions! Go zip-lining through the trees! Or surf in the nude on top of a dolphin! Or go parasailing in Jamaica and take pictures of all the sad little homemade shacks from above!”
After hearing a few dozen of the overhead advertisements from the eternally perky little director, we were set on not going on any of the damned excursions. No amount of reminders could make us go. Maybe we could drown out the announcements with some TV… nope, the ship’s TV channel is showing advertisements for the same thing.
At one point, they were showing all the underwater adventures that you could see from their submarine, which looked like an underwater bus packed with other cruisegoers. I had already been packed into elevators and hot tubs with my fellow cruisers, had my fill there, and I wanted no part in sharing an underwater mobile cage with 3 dozen more of them for a whole hour. On the commercial, we were watching the footage of turtles, manta rays, various fish, etc, and Diva Girlfriend suddenly blurted out “Ha! That’s a ridgeback Galapagos turtle! Those aren’t indigenous anywhere above the 39th parallel! See the purple ridges on his lateral crest? Who do they think we are, a bunch of dummies? Just wait until I tell my ichthyology forum friends about this.”
Whoa. My girlfriend is a huge fish nerd.
So we invented a few shore excursions of our own. Here are our homemade shore excursions, if you’d like to do one of these instead on your next cruise.
Hide and Seek - Jamaica
This adventure is a simple 5-step process.
1) Go to any beautiful beach in Jamaica.
2) Get hammered on the local rum.
3) Store all your cruise ship “Drink n’ Sink” cards and credit cards in a loose pocket.
4) Swim out to a floating trampoline and jump into the ocean.
5) Swim around all afternoon and try to locate all your cards on the ocean floor.
It took me a couple hours to find the last of our cards, but with the clarity of the water and the courage from the rum, I found them all. Diva Girlfriend called me a hero, but I’m also the one who lost them, so it kinda evens out. If you save somebody from a burning building, you’re the hero *unless* you’re the same dummy who forgot to turn off the stove.
The Price is Right – Grand Caymans
This adventure depends on your bartering skills and knowledge of precious stones. Your challenge is to go into any Cayman Islands jeweler and try not to overpay for any kind of trinket or precious stone.
Somehow, even among thousands of other cruisers, I must look even more like a clueless American than the others. The vendors (all from India, by the way, which I didn’t mind of course, but seemed halfway-around-the-world out of place there) treated me like I had never stepped into a jewelry store before. The guy would talk really slowly, nod yes while he explained things to me, and used a lot of one-syllable words for my dumb little brain. The vendor explained that the bigger stones cost more because they’re more rare. What? Really? All this time...
Maybe I should re-think how I’m dressing or something. Because they all approached me like I was the kid who licked the windows on the short bus.
Eventually I just started playing the part, and threw on the big fake Texas accent. “Hoo boy, look at all these shiny little rocks. Hey there little fella, how ‘bout you trade me some of this beef jerky for one of ‘dem big shiny stones over there? Yee haw.”
The Amazing Race (back to the boat) – Cozumel
By the third shore day, you’ve successfully survived a couple foreign excursions, and now your confidence is up. People hit the pier in Cozumel, split up, and zip out to all ends of the island for whatever versions of organized merriment that the perky director James talked them into doing.
But here’s the thing. Cozumel seems like it’s a part of Mexico – but it’s actually a big floating college party barge. They hand you tequila shots just for looking in their stores. After browsing about 5 shops, you’re ready to take off your clothes and go streaking through the quad.
We learned (not the hard way, thank God) that the ship will leave without you. But I could see how it would be really easy to lose track of time on a beach, and get lost staring into the waves with a margarita in hand, and notice your cruise ship slowly coasting across the ocean without you in it.
Our new cruise-friends, who I explained before were all way better at this than us, have a tradition of camping out on the high decks and watching people try to scramble back to shore on time. After a fiesta day in Cozumel, you could very well end up limping back down the pier, dragging your cruise companion, or trying to swim your drunk ass back to the boat.
runner’s high
Have you ever heard advice that was so good that you couldn’t ignore it, even though you didn’t want to hear it? I was talking about exercise with my boss’s wife, who is one of those naturally-gifted mega-athletes that does marathons just to stretch her legs a little before her real workouts. Talking about cycling, she said “You only have to ride one mile at a time.” Well, hell, that certainly makes it sound much more do-able. I was seriously enjoying my couch time before, satisfied with how reasonable it sounds to fear a whole bunch of running. Little chunks of running aren’t so scary, so I’m out of excuses. I run a few houses – then a few more – and so on – and the next thing you know, I’m Forrest Gumping it all the way down the street.
So now I find myself hitting the pavement three or four times a week, propelling my large body at great speeds through our neighborhood. I kinda run like Batman, with too much arm movement, like I’m punching a guy with each step. KER-POW! Between that, and the momentum that is created by any large body moving at a fast rate, and my general lack of attention because of low oxygen to the brain while running, you definitely don’t want me to run into you. I’m trusting you to notice me and move out of the way before I plow into you like a big retarded grizzly bear.
People talk about a “runner’s high,” but I haven’t experienced anything like that yet in my first few weeks as a new jogger. Usually at the end of a run, everything hurts and I’m so grouchy that I could kick a baby otter right in the face. And it’s usually something different every time. Just my right knee will hurt. Or just my left foot arch. Or my moobs will hurt from bouncing around. (That’s “man-boobs,” for anyone out there who is new to the term). It’s like playing Bingo, figuring out what’s going to scream in pain by the time I get back home.
My friend JPC goes to a Running Class (I call them the “run-tards,” which I understand is a terrible term and apologize profusely to any of my readers who run, or are retarded, or both). I thought this class was the silliest thing in the world until I started jogging too. I figured there was just one lesson where the teacher said “Okay, here’s our only lesson. Use your legs to run that way,” and then took everyone’s cash. But there is more to it.
I’ve been figuring out all the jogger mistakes by trial and error. For example, you definitely want to pee right before you go. Otherwise you’re three miles away from your house, trying to find a place to go, a car shows up out of nowhere with its lights on and startles you and then you run home covered with three pints of your own urine and it’s 35 degrees outside.
I also learned that wearing the right gear is important. I thought my old tennis shoes were okay to wear, the same ones that I wear when I mow the yard or swim in a creek. But JPC gave me a sizeable gift card to a real running store where they sell real running shoes, and a tiny old dude with creepy little marathon-runner’s-bird-legs showed me the right kind to wear.
You put these things on, and it’s like they’re making sweet, sweet love to your feet. Not only are they the most expensive pair of footwear I’ve ever owned, now when I put on any other shoes, it feels like I’m clamping on rusty bear traps.
I ran my first 5K this weekend, the Hot Chocolate Race in Dallas. The temperature at start time was 27 degrees, but I still managed to sweat profusely during the run. The scarf that I thought was a good idea to wear ended up strangling me during the race. When I took breaks from fighting with the scarf to focus on the running, I was flying through the race, passing folks left and right. I zipped past all kinds of kids, old folks, people doodling around with strollers, playing with their Facebook on mobile phones, chicks chit-chatting about Grey’s Anatomy… you name it.
I’d like to think that none of these “casual” 5K-ers beat me because I ran the whole time, but you never know. I’m probably still slow enough that somebody could beat me while they’re tagging themselves in their friends’ Facebook pictures during the race. Hi Facebook friends, I'm almost at mile marker three, and I almost got run over by what looked like a retarded grizzly bear struggling with his scarf.
In the end, I hit all my goals: 1. I didn’t die. 2. I beat Diva Girlfriend. 3. I finished in under 30 minutes. 4. And I didn’t die. Good race all around, plus there was tons of chocolate at the end. I briefly considered how ironic it was to put all those lost calories right back into my system, but I was grouchy from everything hurting. Plus, my soul needed the chocolate.
KER-POW.
the cruise, part 2: rookie cruisers
I recently went on my first cruise. I came back in one piece, a bit more tan, and noticeably chubbier. But more importantly, I became wiser in the ways of the high-seas vacation experience. Here is some advice for any of you who are considering going.
Get to know your cabin stewards
They start off the cruise with mandatory meetings at the "muster stations," where they explain that if the ship is sinking, you should casually grab your lifejacket out of your cabin closet (if you're not somewhere else on the ship, floating in a hot tub, hammered out of your mind when the ship rams an iceberg or Italian coastline) and gather at your safety locations. Our safety-experts, who looked an awful lot like our hot dinner hostesses, all looked like Russian porn stars (don't ask me how I know).
If you go right, tiny ninjas will attack your family from all directions
Our cabin steward was very friendly guy with a 27-syllable name that we couldn't remember. He never stopped smiling. Ever. This was my best guess on why he was missing a couple of prominent teeth. You gotta occasionally not-smile to protect those things.
One night, Diva Girlfriend wanted a grilled cheese at 3 am, so I called it in and fell back asleep. When they knocked on our cabin, I groggily stumbled to the door to open it. Only then did I realize that one part of me thought it was morning already in a really obvious way. I'd like to think that maybe the cabin steward didn't notice, but my error was gloriously noticeable, and I noticed that Smiley didn't make eye contact with me for the rest of the trip.
Use the buddy system
Whoever you bring on your cruise, you want to stick together. The ship is a 14-stories-tall playground, and you can get lost with that much merriment at hand. The one time I left my cruise companion unattended for an hour, I found her on all fours in our cabin, naked, very out-of-sorts, and sporting a new black eye. As a side note, the cocktails in Mexico are super strong.
Pack your booze
The ship doesn't let you bring your own adult beverages because they want those drinkin’ dollars. Following the advice of friends, we emptied out the contents of a case of plastic water bottles, filled them with premium liquor instead, and jammed them back into the case. We packed enough clothes to live on the boat indefinitely, so we didn’t have any room left to put the "water" in a suitcase, and we ended up having to let the cruise security team inspect it along with our other carry-ons. I would refer to these folks as ship "Security," but they also looked an awful lot like the guys we saw making pizza at the all-night pizza buffet later.
I'm terrible at being sneaky because I blush like I've been attacked with pink paintballs in the face. The inspector guy saw our case of "water," rolled his eyes, and sang, musically, “What do we have in here? I wonder if it’s water or something else?” and he ripped open the case. After shaking each bottle, he was able to determine that they didn’t contain water. He comically opened one up, sang a little song about vodka, and tossed each one in the trash. In the commotion, Diva Girlfriend adjusted her shoulder straps and her tubetop fell down, popping out a boob.
The combination of watching my premium combustible beverages go into the trash and the sudden public appearance of a nipple broke my brain, and I could only stutter out a rambling apology to the guy. “I, uh, don’t know how that got into my milk bott… I mean my water bottles... I mean, those aren't mine...”
Make some friends
Our first couple of breakfasts were spent listening to stories about grandkids from 37th-time cruisers. Everybody goes around the table, inevitably asks all the same questions, and then we go about eating our eggs benedict and making smalltalk.
We eventually just started skipping all the back and forth, and introduced ourselves with all the pertinent information. "Hi, we're from North Texas, this is our first cruise, we're having a great time, and we're a dating couple, living in sin."
After listening to unsolicited cruise advice from the Golden Girls, we were thrilled to find out that they assigned us to our dinner table with similar folks. Everybody at our table was roughly our age, all couples, all from Texas. And all of them were way better at this cruise thing than us. A couple of them were selected to be headline performers at the last theater show because they were badass singers. A couple others were newlyweds, winning big at the casino. Another couple swam with dolphins, took scenic beach photos, and saved 27 kids from a burning orphanage at one of our stops. We were the couple who lost all our credit cards in the ocean while swimming in Jamaica after too much rum. In comparison to our new friends, we were like a couple hobos who snuck onto the ship.
Bring your fat pants
Holy crap, I gained a pound a day. It’s not that we necessarily ate enormous meals at each sitting – we just tended to eat 6 or 7 times a day. I’d be walking by holding a chimichanga roll, suddenly notice a Mongolian wok bar that I hadn’t seen before, and then make excuses to come back there after whatever shop we were visiting next. Then on the way, I’d grab a couple sushi bites and an ice cream. Almost all of the food around the ship is included, there’s a ton of variety, and room service runs all night (also free). When you add that to vacation-mode lack of diet willpower, plus tons of free time, you can expect to look and feel like you’re about to give birth to walrus twins.
It might just be a coincidence, but towards the end of the trip, I noticed more passengers triggering the heavy-weight siren on the elevators. After each chubby would-be final passenger embarrassingly stepped back off to wait for the next elevator, all the other people would make comical faces at each other. Then I'd whisper, "Psst, we're the fat ones."
Actual picture of me, day one
Actual picture of me, day seven
the cruise, part 1: trip prep
As we prepared to go on our first cruise, the process of getting ready highlighted some of the differences between men and women. Here’s how it played out.
One month until the trip
Diva Girlfriend already has all our trip information printed out, we’re registered online, she has maps of where our cabin is, she’s researched everything about the ship, and she’s asked her doctor to prescribe her the little patches that go behind your ears so that she won’t barf when the boat wiggles. At this point, I am vaguely aware that there is some kind of trip coming up.
Two weeks until the trip
Diva Girlfriend is already starting to feel the stress. She has compiled detailed lists of what to bring, she wants to spend every dinner talking about which bags will be used for carry-ons, and she starts dedicating multiple nights to pack in the weeks ahead. I am still mostly oblivious about the trip.
One week to go
Now Diva Girlfriend is asking me every day if I’ve packed yet. She has all her luggage out, and she’s trying to whittle down which seven pairs of flip-flops she will need to sit on a boat. I watch the news about the cruise ship that hit the coast of Italy, and picture swimming down the hallway out of my cabin room, in slow-mo, dramatic movie fashion, to escape the ship before it topples over. I consider watching Titanic again.
Three days to go
Diva Girlfriend is in full panic mode. She starts chanting we’ll never be ready in time, there’s no way we’re going on this trip. I finally agree to write down a packing list so she’ll settle down. “Phone charger, clothes, deodorant, lube.” She didn't seem impressed, so I fixed the handle on her luggage that I broke at Disney.
Two days to go
Diva Girlfriend has our luggage tags printed out and is running around the house panicking like the place is on fire. She uses our living room and bedroom to stage large piles of stuff to bring, and other piles of stuff to maybe-bring. I pour four liters of liquor in water bottles and cram them back into the case so they look like water. Then I start realizing that I’m going to be out of the house and away from technology for 9 days, so I start playing video games around the clock.
The day before we leave
Literally 70% of everything that Diva Girlfriend owns in the whole world is sitting out in piles around the house. She has rows of shoes, three-foot tall piles of reading materials, and several different kinds of cameras. She even brings plastic cups for us to drink from. It looks like she's moving out -- I have moved into new homes before with less stuff.
She makes the very bold claim that when she usually goes on vacation, that she packs super light, like one bag. I look at the enormous piles of clothes, along with every kind of medicine and first aid we own, three different kinds of sunscreen, and the seven open luggage containers, and I silently scoff at her light-packing stories. Then I invite buddies over to play video games and drink whiskey. The cats notice that we’re about to leave and all start acting insane.
Thirty minutes before we hop in the car
While Diva Girlfriend dresses and second-guesses and triple-checks which shirt she wants to wear to ride across Texas in the car, I calmly walk around the house and pack in ten minutes flat. Two piles of clothes, a dressy coat, some toiletries, cell phone charger, a guitar, and a book. Easy. I end up spending more time hauling all her enormous luggage out to the car, and trying to do a big Tetris puzzle to cram it all in there.
The final result of our packing:
- My total time spent packing: 10 minutes. I ran out of t-shirts shirts and underwear, and forgot my sunglasses, all of which were replaced for a total of $40. Side note: Wearing underwear in the ocean doesn't get them as clean as you might think.
- Diva Girlfriend’s total time spent packing: 73 hours. She remembered everything and had clothes to spare, but we had to pay porters to lug all the extra crap around, plus whatever costs we spent on extra fuel to lug all of it back and forth across Texas.
In retrospect, my packing method was very much like firing a shotgun. It wasn't very accurate, but it got the job done quickly. Next time I'll remember to bring more underwear.
need for speed
Did you know that some cities are expanding their commercial offerings and providing personalized car photography services? Here’s how it works – They take a picture of your car (with zoomed-in views!) and send you a picture in the mail. Then you send them a check for $75. If you don’t pay, they’ll even send reminders. It can be any time of day – even if it’s at night, they have little automatic lights that come on to get a good shot of your car. Neat!
Actually, it’s not neat. I can’t imagine a lazier version of law enforcement.
I recently started to contest one of these traffic camera tickets. After receiving my ticket, I went to the online website (from the shenanigans-out-of-state-third-party company who operates it) and logged in to see more information. Not only did they have a picture of the event, but full video as well. The video showed me taking a right turn on red at about 45 mph, didn’t even slow down. I might have been eating lunch and texting somebody at the same time, or maybe working on my cross-stitching. Who knows. But I rocketed around that corner like a cartoon character.
The bad news is that it cost me $75, but the good news is that my car looked pretty awesome. I considered going back there and trying to get up to a higher speed around that corner, just for the cool video, but $75 is a bit too steep.
It is a good thing that I’m not independently wealthy. If not for the $75 price tag, I’d go around that corner backwards, or with a foot out the window, or maybe I could run the light and get out to do some kind of chicken dance on camera.
The same day I sent in my check for the ticket, I was heading home from the store and trying to get off the phone with my mom. This is my end of every conversation: “Okay Mom. Yes. Yes you told me that. Yes you already told me that too. I would get that looked at by a doctor. Okay, I gotta get going here. Okay. Okay, I’ll talk to you soon. Yes. Yes, you told me that, too. Okay, hanging up now…” (and repeat all that for 17 minutes).
I was on my residential street, almost home, when suddenly I saw the rotating blue-and-red lights. At this point my brain did what it always does. I map out the surrounding areas in my head, start thinking of the best routes to outrun this guy before radios and helicopters catch up, and then I talk myself out of it. I am not a criminal, so he was probably just stopping me to tell me how cool my car is.
This was a weird stop, though. I always drive super slow on my street, actually under the speed limit, because all my neighbors mingle and wander in the street like it’s an extension of their living room. You couldn’t go the speed limit if you tried, or else you’d hit a bunch of rednecks, kids on bikes, and a couple of hot moms. So why did he stop me?
The officer ran up to me, out of breath, and he was super pissy. Apparently I had led him on a brief chase. While I was listening to my mother’s repetitive stories, this officer lost me in cross traffic when I cut through my gym parking lot from the main road. He had to speed off the other way, stop traffic, and gun it across my neighborhood to find me.
Sometimes I’ll try to talk my way out of a ticket, but I knew from subtle context clues (the way he ran towards my car while unbuckling his gun holster and how he could only speak in shouting volume) that I wasn’t going to get off with a warning. For future reference, if this happens to you, don't tell him "Wow, man, you are really out of breath."
So I signed for my tickets – for driving 62 in a 45 and for cutting through a commercial lot. As he walked away, he wanted to leave me a little jab. “Hey man, next time I have to chase you, it’s not gonna be pretty.” So I replied “I’m happy to get a 62 in a 45. You would have caught me doing 90 if you had seen me earlier.”
the elderly internet explorer user
You find a laptop on a park bench. You're a kind person, so you decide to open it up and figure out whose it is so you may return it to them. You don't see any obvious contact info, so let's look for context clues to figure out who owns this thing.
Uh oh, looking like they use Internet Explorer. Gross. Let's up it up and see wh... oh my God, the whole top half of the screen is covered with random toolbars. How can she even see the screen? (Notice here that I've already assigned gender.)
I look at the homepage, and sure enough, it's AOL. I haven't seen anyone use AOL as their primary email since 1998. The bookmarks are recipes and sentimental blogs. The programs in the Start menu are the ones that came with the computer and the wallpaper is one of the stock choices from the original Windows install. All antivirus programs are expired and their icons are blinking for updates.
Obvious conclusion: The owner of this computer is a grandmother, possibly 70 years old, and uses this thing to share recipes, print church newsletters, and read websites about knitting. (No offense, Mema.) I think I have this thing figured out.
Nope, way off. The owner of this computer is the gorgeous, hip, young brunette that I'm dating. Somehow, in this crazy mixed up world, this same woman who has a closet full of sexy corsets and leave-on heels happens to have elderly computer habits.
The dichotomy is staggering. This otherwise-fashionably-hip gal uses a computer like an old lady. Diva Girlfriend's virus protection expired years ago and her external backup drive has been sitting in its original packaging for over a year. She is scared of storing any backup picture or music files on the laptop because using 5% of her available memory space "might mess it all up."
Luckily for the sake of her computer, she ended up dating me, and I am probably the biggest geek she knows. Here is how to make the world right without getting anybody upset.
1) Install Google Chrome or other better browser.
2) On her desktop, go into Google Chrome's properties and change the name of its shortcut to Internet Explorer. Then change its icon to the blue "E" that she's used to seeing.
3) Now you have Google Chrome installed, disguised as Internet Explorer.
If she's the type who needs this to happen, then she'll probably assume that a system update or something "got rid of all my toolbars." Just play along.
Now you may enjoy safer surfing and reduce your future tech requests. I don't know how to get a girl to switch over from an AOL email address to any other domain that people are using this decade. If anybody out there has women all figured out, please send me some kind of troubleshooting guide. I only understand these crazy computin' machines, and even then, just barely.
“s” sounds that I don’t like
Here are sounds that start with "S" that I don't like:
- The SQUISH when you're walking barefoot in the yard and find something that was recently deposited there by one of the pets. When it happens, you're almost afraid to look down and see the dookie landmine squeezed between your toes like some kind of demented Play-doh Fun Factory.
- The SKREEE that my car's brakes make due to the accumulation of brake dust. The fix is to get the car going quickly and do a fast stop to clear the rotors, but I always seem to be in traffic, or have my kid in the car, or have lots of loose objects that can bounce around in the vehicle. When I do finally get the opportunity, sometimes I'll do the fast stop at a red light and freak out whoever is waiting for the light there in front of me.
- The SIGH of any pissy woman. Even if she fires it off in another room, it makes it way across the house and hits you in the face like a heat-seeking missile of negativity.
- The SKTKTKT sound that one of those hologram plastic cups makes when you scrape a fingernail across it. Just thinking about that sound makes my skin crawl. Everybody has different sounds that make them insane, but this sound is worse than nails on a chalkboard or any other audible irritant to me.
- The SHRILLY VIBRATO style that is sung by some elderly choir women. You can usually tell which choirs have try-outs or who lets everybody in who wants to sing, because the latter will inevitably have one or two of these. When they sing, it sounds either like somebody is shaking them violently, or they're being electrocuted.
- The SLURP that Ralphie makes next to me on the couch when he's cleaning his puppy parts. I understand that he doesn't understand human manners, so I try to ignore these kinds of activities for the most part. But when I'm trying to sit on the couch and eat a burrito, I don't want to hear the sloppy wet cleaning of his brown eye while he leans against me. Go do that in the yard or something.
