Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Rudeness, Stupidity, and Jerkiness Collide with Inspiration
I really need to come up with a new name for Rick. I’m going to be writing a lot about him. And the last thing I need is for him to come to my desk while I’m writing about what a jerk he is (which is today’s theme). Rick’s full first name is Richard. A great nickname for Richard is “Dick.” While fitting, it’s way too obvious. So, I’m going to start calling him by my favorite nickname for Dick, “Wang.” The added benefit is that it will constantly remind me of Caddyshack. (If you don’t know, I can’t possibly explain it.)
Anyway, Wang is a bit of a spaz. He’s also quite absent-minded. (Of course, he doesn’t have much to be absent from, so to speak.) Often, Wang will come to my desk to work on something. He never brings a pen with him. So if Wang needs to write something (which happens a lot), he’ll ask to borrow one of my pens. I grant his request against my better judgment. One of two things ends up happening.
The first possibility is that Wang ends up stealing the pen. He gets so spastic and forgetful that he just puts it in his pocket and leaves. While that’s annoying (because I have to constantly get more pens from the cabinet), it’s preferred to option two. This is where Wang chews on the pen or otherwise puts it in his mouth. And then leaves it on my desk.
Right now, I have one of those pens on my desk and I don’t know what to do with it. I should throw it away, but the conservationist in me won’t let me. It’s a brand-new pen, after all. Hasn’t been used more than 3 times. Besides, that’ll become an expensive option the more Wang does this.
I finally hit on a solution this afternoon. I’m going to leave Wang’s mouth-pen on my desk in plain sight. My goal is that the next time Wang comes to my desk in need of a pen, he’ll just take the previously-sullied pen with him. Thus my desk will be rid of his filth. Now watch, this will be the one pen that Wang doesn’t steal. But at least he won’t get his disgusting choppers on any of my other pens.
Anyway, Wang is a bit of a spaz. He’s also quite absent-minded. (Of course, he doesn’t have much to be absent from, so to speak.) Often, Wang will come to my desk to work on something. He never brings a pen with him. So if Wang needs to write something (which happens a lot), he’ll ask to borrow one of my pens. I grant his request against my better judgment. One of two things ends up happening.
The first possibility is that Wang ends up stealing the pen. He gets so spastic and forgetful that he just puts it in his pocket and leaves. While that’s annoying (because I have to constantly get more pens from the cabinet), it’s preferred to option two. This is where Wang chews on the pen or otherwise puts it in his mouth. And then leaves it on my desk.
Right now, I have one of those pens on my desk and I don’t know what to do with it. I should throw it away, but the conservationist in me won’t let me. It’s a brand-new pen, after all. Hasn’t been used more than 3 times. Besides, that’ll become an expensive option the more Wang does this.
I finally hit on a solution this afternoon. I’m going to leave Wang’s mouth-pen on my desk in plain sight. My goal is that the next time Wang comes to my desk in need of a pen, he’ll just take the previously-sullied pen with him. Thus my desk will be rid of his filth. Now watch, this will be the one pen that Wang doesn’t steal. But at least he won’t get his disgusting choppers on any of my other pens.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
So Smart, but So Stupid
I like to consider myself a smart guy. By that I mean, I’ve always done well in school and on standardized exams. So when “people” measure “smartness,” I tend to come out very well. As long as these people don’t measure common sense. The Wife is pretty smart too (if not smarter than me), but on Saturday, we both proved how stupid we can be.
We were talking to some people at the wedding on Saturday about our weight. Neither of us is thrilled with our weight. And lately, our weight has been bouncing all over the place. My weight has been fluctuating by about 5 pounds per week, seemingly with no relation to what I’ve been eating or when I’m exercising.
Being the intelligent people we are, The Wife and I explained that there’s probably something wrong with our scale. It doesn’t make sense for both of us to be going through this. Using the scientific method, we realized that the scale is the problem. We explained how upsetting this is because we really like this scale. The Wife bought it awhile ago, and it’s quite fancy. Not only does it weigh you, but it’ll compute your body fat (yeah, I want to see what THAT is) and several other things I haven’t figured out.
As I was explaining this to my friends, they asked if it was digital. Of course it is! How could an analog scale do all that cool stuff? And then to point out our stupidity, they asked if we checked the batteries. Shit. Batteries. Yeah, I guess those can run out of juice, can’t they? It makes a lot more sense than a minor fluctuation in the gravitational field occurring solely in our bathroom. Though I had to go through Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time to prove the gravitational field theory was unlikely. So yeah, for as smart as The Wife and I are on paper, sometimes we’re incredibly stupid.
We were talking to some people at the wedding on Saturday about our weight. Neither of us is thrilled with our weight. And lately, our weight has been bouncing all over the place. My weight has been fluctuating by about 5 pounds per week, seemingly with no relation to what I’ve been eating or when I’m exercising.
Being the intelligent people we are, The Wife and I explained that there’s probably something wrong with our scale. It doesn’t make sense for both of us to be going through this. Using the scientific method, we realized that the scale is the problem. We explained how upsetting this is because we really like this scale. The Wife bought it awhile ago, and it’s quite fancy. Not only does it weigh you, but it’ll compute your body fat (yeah, I want to see what THAT is) and several other things I haven’t figured out.
As I was explaining this to my friends, they asked if it was digital. Of course it is! How could an analog scale do all that cool stuff? And then to point out our stupidity, they asked if we checked the batteries. Shit. Batteries. Yeah, I guess those can run out of juice, can’t they? It makes a lot more sense than a minor fluctuation in the gravitational field occurring solely in our bathroom. Though I had to go through Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time to prove the gravitational field theory was unlikely. So yeah, for as smart as The Wife and I are on paper, sometimes we’re incredibly stupid.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Weddings Are Always Fun
I’ve long subscribed to the theory that all weddings are fun. No matter who’s getting married, how I know them, where it is, nothing matters. They’re always fun. Of course, a large part of that is attributable to my date for the vast majority of the weddings I’ve attended: The Wife. As much as we might fight at home (which is usually over stupid things, like kitty litter removal techniques (“You use a side-to-side motion? What the hell’s the MATTER with you?”)), we get along wonderfully in public. Probably because we feed off of each other and find each other very amusing. (Note, we’re usually the only ones that find us amusing.)
Anyway, Saturday was our third wedding of the summer. My former roommate, Chris, got married. All of my friends were there. (And so was a contestant from The Bachelor. More on that later.) Weddings with my friends are even more fun than other weddings because I don’t seem to hang out with them as often as I used to. (It’s almost as if there’s a 16-month-old walking-talking parasite living in my house that drains me of all my energy.)
Because of babysitting issues and conflicts, we had to skip the actual wedding ceremony, which was quite odd for us. The Wife and I haven’t missed a ceremony in, uh, ever. Not that I ENJOY wedding ceremonies. I generally hate them, in fact. (I spend most of the time commenting to The Wife about where they could have trimmed some time out of the ceremony.) But I feel like I have to go them. So when The Wife and I were trying to figure out how to resolve all of our scheduling conflicts and who would take care of Luke, it never occurred to me that we could just skip the ceremony. When The Wife mentioned it, my heart skipped a beat. Then I smiled and realized it was the best solution ever. So, big apologies to Chris and Jen for skipping the ceremony, but it made our life SO much easier, I can’t even explain it.
The big news of the wedding was that Shiloh, of The Bachelor in Paris fame, was there. I think she’s friends with the bride somehow. I don’t know. I don’t watch The Bachelor. (Not that I’m above it. I used to watch it. And I enjoyed it. I just don’t have the time for it.) I really don’t have much to say about her. She did try to steal my seat at dinner though. You see, we were all trying to sit down at Table 13, and there seemed to be a shortage of place settings. After much stress, Shiloh looked at her table number again. Turns out that she was supposed to be at Table 14. Understandable mistake. I get 13 and 14 confused all the time. They look so damn identical, I don’t know why we even have BOTH numbers!
One thing I realized during the night is that we (The Wife and I) must look pretty pathetic. I’ve been to weddings and sat with parents. They always look tired and they seem happy to just be “out.” That’s how I felt on Saturday and I’m sure that’s how people thought we looked. The Wife and I didn’t even step foot on the dance floor all night. (Usually, I’m being asked to leave the dance floor. And it’s usually by the paramedics after I’ve knocked another person unconscious with all my flailing.) But we were at a table with all my friends, exchanging stories. It was almost impossible for us to get up because we were having so much fun chatting. Again, it’s just fun to talk to people who know more than 10 words and can pronounce and use them correctly.
I found it funny too how many of my friends are trying to get in shape right now. We’re all in our 30’s and most of us are out of shape. Not that we’re fat (well, I am, but nobody else is), we’re just don’t look like we did in high school. At one point, a few of us were exchanging stories about trying to get back in shape. It was nice to know that I wasn’t alone. You see, I started running recently and it’s doing quite a bit of damage on my body. My feet, ankles, knees and legs are all sore. It turns out that I’m too fat to work out. So ironically, I have to lose weight before I start working out. Anyway, it was funny to hear that my friends feel the same way. And of course, everyone had a story about how they were doing well losing weight. Then they come home from working out only to find out that their woman had made 4 dozen cookies because she wanted to eat 1 of them. So, 3 dozen and 11 cookies later, all exercising for the past 2 months had been rendered useless.
Anyway, it was a great wedding and I’d like to wish Chris and Jen good luck. Oh, one last thing. Chris and Jen had a scrapbook for everyone to write comments. I smiled and looked at my wife. (She knew I wanted to write something inappropriate.) She told me I had to write something nice. I thought a minute and then came up with the perfect entry: “Congratulations. May your marriage be filled with all the wedded bliss that we enjoy.” I’ll leave it to Chris and Jen to determine whether or not that’s intended to be sarcastic.
Anyway, Saturday was our third wedding of the summer. My former roommate, Chris, got married. All of my friends were there. (And so was a contestant from The Bachelor. More on that later.) Weddings with my friends are even more fun than other weddings because I don’t seem to hang out with them as often as I used to. (It’s almost as if there’s a 16-month-old walking-talking parasite living in my house that drains me of all my energy.)
Because of babysitting issues and conflicts, we had to skip the actual wedding ceremony, which was quite odd for us. The Wife and I haven’t missed a ceremony in, uh, ever. Not that I ENJOY wedding ceremonies. I generally hate them, in fact. (I spend most of the time commenting to The Wife about where they could have trimmed some time out of the ceremony.) But I feel like I have to go them. So when The Wife and I were trying to figure out how to resolve all of our scheduling conflicts and who would take care of Luke, it never occurred to me that we could just skip the ceremony. When The Wife mentioned it, my heart skipped a beat. Then I smiled and realized it was the best solution ever. So, big apologies to Chris and Jen for skipping the ceremony, but it made our life SO much easier, I can’t even explain it.
The big news of the wedding was that Shiloh, of The Bachelor in Paris fame, was there. I think she’s friends with the bride somehow. I don’t know. I don’t watch The Bachelor. (Not that I’m above it. I used to watch it. And I enjoyed it. I just don’t have the time for it.) I really don’t have much to say about her. She did try to steal my seat at dinner though. You see, we were all trying to sit down at Table 13, and there seemed to be a shortage of place settings. After much stress, Shiloh looked at her table number again. Turns out that she was supposed to be at Table 14. Understandable mistake. I get 13 and 14 confused all the time. They look so damn identical, I don’t know why we even have BOTH numbers!
One thing I realized during the night is that we (The Wife and I) must look pretty pathetic. I’ve been to weddings and sat with parents. They always look tired and they seem happy to just be “out.” That’s how I felt on Saturday and I’m sure that’s how people thought we looked. The Wife and I didn’t even step foot on the dance floor all night. (Usually, I’m being asked to leave the dance floor. And it’s usually by the paramedics after I’ve knocked another person unconscious with all my flailing.) But we were at a table with all my friends, exchanging stories. It was almost impossible for us to get up because we were having so much fun chatting. Again, it’s just fun to talk to people who know more than 10 words and can pronounce and use them correctly.
I found it funny too how many of my friends are trying to get in shape right now. We’re all in our 30’s and most of us are out of shape. Not that we’re fat (well, I am, but nobody else is), we’re just don’t look like we did in high school. At one point, a few of us were exchanging stories about trying to get back in shape. It was nice to know that I wasn’t alone. You see, I started running recently and it’s doing quite a bit of damage on my body. My feet, ankles, knees and legs are all sore. It turns out that I’m too fat to work out. So ironically, I have to lose weight before I start working out. Anyway, it was funny to hear that my friends feel the same way. And of course, everyone had a story about how they were doing well losing weight. Then they come home from working out only to find out that their woman had made 4 dozen cookies because she wanted to eat 1 of them. So, 3 dozen and 11 cookies later, all exercising for the past 2 months had been rendered useless.
Anyway, it was a great wedding and I’d like to wish Chris and Jen good luck. Oh, one last thing. Chris and Jen had a scrapbook for everyone to write comments. I smiled and looked at my wife. (She knew I wanted to write something inappropriate.) She told me I had to write something nice. I thought a minute and then came up with the perfect entry: “Congratulations. May your marriage be filled with all the wedded bliss that we enjoy.” I’ll leave it to Chris and Jen to determine whether or not that’s intended to be sarcastic.
