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July 25, 2003

I was taken to the circus a few times when I was a kid, but I never felt like it was a real circus. Well, I barely remember the circuses I went to, but I do remember that everything was nice and happy, with elephants that marched around in a circle, horses that galloped around in a circle, a tightrope walker who wore a safety rope, and clowns that drove a station wagon and encouraged everyone to brush their teeth. What it wasn’t was the sort of circus I read about in Ray Bradbury short stories, a circus run by a mysterious and sinister character who obsessively stroked his long black beard while talking about his travels to the Orient and biting the heads off live salamanders. No circus I ever went to had sideshows where wolf boys ate live mice on stage or bearded ladies were put on display next to illustrated men, hunchbacks, and syphilitics. I feel deprived by never having witnessed this sort of depravity. (This raises an interesting question, though: if depravity is depraved, then if you’re deprived is that really deprivity? But I digress.)

I suppose we have our modern equivalents of these spectacles – they’re called reality television and rock concerts – but in old stories the circus, for all its ominous ambience, was something unhappy children could run away and join. I wasn’t an unhappy child, but it would have been nice knowing that, if I had been, there was a circus out there somewhere. When I really stopped and thought about it I’d get depressed for as much as half a second because I knew that even if I were a hunchbacked albino Siamese twin there wasn’t a circus out there that would take me.

There is something sort of like a circus near where I work. It’s called Church Street, and it has an interesting and constantly shifting variety of acts that I see, usually when I’m walking to work in the mornings. For instance, there’s Segway(TM) Man, able to make 90-degree turns on two wheels, then there’s the parade of Dostoevsky look-alikes. The real star, though, would have to be the guy who argues with neon signs. The other day I saw him arguing with an OPEN sign about, I think, his latest investment in the stock market. The only problem with this circus, though, is it’s not exactly the kind of thing anyone would want to run away and join.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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The following short quiz consists of 4 questions and it will tell you whether you are qualified to be a professional. The real trick is to stop laughing. Scroll down for each answer. The questions are NOT that difficult, but they will make you wonder how most of the professionals you know got to where they are.

1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?

The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.

2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

Did you say, "Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator?" (Wrong Answer)

Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.

3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend except one. Which animal does not attend?

Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there. This tests your memory. OK, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.

4. There is a river you must cross but it is inhabited by crocodiles. How do you manage it?

Correct Answer: You swim across. All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting. This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.

According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong. But many preschoolers got several correct answers. Anderson Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four year old.

July 18, 2003

When I was growing up (having now passed the peak I’m now on the rapid downhill slope to death), swimming was an essential part of summer. In fact I even spent one summer on a pool swim team, even though I was absolutely terrible at it. Oh, I can swim, but when it comes to doing the crawl competitively I’m the guy you’d rather have pushing the opposing team to stuff themselves with hot dogs less than an hour before their match.

I have no idea why I stuck it out, especially I hated getting up every morning at the crack of nine just so I could go to the pool, dive in to freezing water, and be verbally lashed by a displaced Scandinavian for developing hypothermia. Tennessee’s air is like a sauna in summer, and it usually rained overnight, so the water would be good and chilly, which made the mandatory dive-in exactly like that Finnish tradition of sitting in a hot steamy room for an hour then diving into the snow. This is an essential part of Scandinavian summers, where it’s referred to as "svjmmjng".

But I digress. The problem with going swimming was I never knew what to call those, well, shorts with the sewn-in mesh underwear. There’s a variety of terms: "swim trunks" was unattractive because wearing "trunks" suggests either that you’re carrying around a deformed elephant or that what you’re wearing is so huge you, like a humpback whale, have a thick layer of blubber, although this would have made diving into cold water a lot easier. And "swim suit" suggested that it was a suit, and it wasn’t enough fabric to make a suit even though what I wore was significantly larger than the strap the Scandinavian coach wore that was so tight around his waist it severely cut the blood flow to his brain. You might as well have called the things a "tuxedo", although that would have been appropriate those summers at Boy Scout camp when I and my fellow campers would gather at the edge of the pier out over the lake like a group of penguins.

Unlike a swimming pool you never automatically dive into a lake. Instead we did what penguins do: we edged closer and closer until somebody fell in, and if he wasn’t eaten by a sea lion or a giant squid or one of the cafeteria workers then we’d all gradually follow, even though the lake thermostat was always set to "Reykjavik". At least we did some fun things in the lake, like life saving class. We were too young, too small, and too affected by hypothermia to learn to save anyone else’s life so we learned to save ourselves. One class involved jumping into the water completely dressed in jeans, shoes, and a sweatshirt, just in case we ever found ourselves in a Rudyard Kipling novel, or some other circumstance in which we’d be likely to fall, fully dressed, off an ocean liner. Blowing bubbles into our shirts so they turned into life vests was not only fun, but we didn’t have to worry about what we were wearing.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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Some questions for the week

Why does a gynecologist leave the room when the woman gets undressed?

If a person owns a piece of land do they own it all the way down to the core of the earth?

Why can’t women put on mascara with their mouth closed?

Is it possible to brush your teeth without wiggling your behind?

Why are they called stairs inside but steps outside?

Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?

Why does mineral water that ‘has trickled through mountains for centuries’ have a ‘use by’ date?

Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp no one would eat?

Why can you now buy peanut butter and jelly mixed together? Who thought it was too much trouble to have them in separate jars?

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, ‘I think I’ll squeeze these dangly things here and drink whatever comes out’?

July 11, 2003

The other night I was watching a television show about plastic surgery, and all the insane things people do to make themselves look better. One guy – I’m not making this up – had silicone implants inserted into the calves of his legs. Now, silicone implants aren’t anything new. Silicon Valley may be in San Francisco, but if it were to dry up Hollywood could supply the computer industry for at least another two hundred years.

But why put implants in the calves of your legs? Men are obviously superficial – the very invention of implants shows that – but how many women look at a guy and say, "Well, I’d never date a guy with such skinny calves"? By the way, at the end of the program, when they did a follow-up months later, the guy was still single. I’m just guessing, but his stated belief that he was a "total package" and any woman would be lucky to have him might have had something to do with this.

But I digress. Silicon implants, of course, pale in comparison with the new trend of people having botulinus toxin (cleverly renamed "botox", which sounds so much more appealing) injected into their faces to reduce wrinkles. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but believing that botox is good for you must be in the eye of the boneheaded. I’m actually starting to long for the not-so-long-ago days when tattoos went from being the exclusive province of bikers and high school janitors to being hip. Now tattoos have become passe, and so have piercings – although with those it was only a matter of time. Once you’ve pierced your ears, nose, tongue, lip, and eyelid, the only place to go is down, and that understandably only appealed to a limited clientele who weren’t afraid of being arrested for indecent exposure every time they wanted to show off their latest piece of jewelry.

People have so much stuff sucked out of their bodies only to have other stuff put back in that it’s enough to make you wonder if anybody’s real anymore. I briefly thought this was a modern trend, but then I remembered all those classes I had in school called "social studies", but which should have been called "let’s make fun of other people who are different". South American tribal men put big plates in their lips, apparently because South American tribal women believe you can tell a lot about a man by the size of his lower lip. Some Burmese women extend their necks with brass rings.

The forms of modification – to put it politely – go on and on, but I’ll stop now in case you’re eating right now. I can’t begin to explain why we do this to ourselves, or why we’ve apparently been doing it in one form or another for millenia. Maybe one person started doing it and everyone else went along. After all, Liszt’s students tried to grow hair on their faces to mimic their master’s warts. If he were alive today, his students would get facial implants. Or maybe they’d realize how hard it is to pronounce "Liszt", and say, "Forget this, let’s go down to the bar, pick up some girls, and get Bizet."

One thing’s never changed: beauty’s not in the eye, it’s in the brain of the beholder, and in a complex society you don’t necessarily have to have bigger calves or a nine-pound piece of carved acacia through your scrotum. If you’re the type who thinks anyone else would be lucky to be with you, it’s your personality that needs radical alteration.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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THINGS IT TOOK OVER 50 YEARS TO LEARN

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."

3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

5. You should not confuse your career with your life.

6. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.

7. Never lick a steak knife.

8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.

9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

10. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.

11. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above-average drivers.

12. A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)

July 4, 2003

"Everybody should believe in something. I believe I’ll have another drink." – W.C. Fields

Maybe I’m missing something, but nobody I know goes out for a drink anymore. And people rarely offer each other drinks. I’m not sure when exactly this happened, but if you look back at old movies from the Forties and Fifties, the men always wear fedora hats and everyone seems to drink large amounts of, well, it’s rarely named, but if the film is in black and white then it’s either clear liquid in a bottle or it’s dark liquid in a bottle.

The stuff was everywhere. If you watch the old show "Leave It To Beaver" it’s astounding how many time’s you’ll see Ward, the father figure of the program, sitting in his study with a large martini explaining to Beaver why it’s wrong to stick your tongue out in a family photograph. I suppose there are still a few remnants of this old tradition. Once in a while you’ll go into a bar and see a guy at one end wearing a fedora and a brown suit that’s two sizes too big hunched over a glass of gin. If he speaks at all it’s to ask for another drink or to explain to his napkin why it’s wrong to use your milk money to buy a moon pie.

But chances are you don’t go into bars that often, or if you do they’re the sort of places that serve those weird, mutant martinis that come in every possible color and flavors that should never accompany alcohol – like chocolate or strawberry or salmon roe. Call me old fashioned (or mix me an Old Fashioned, if you know how, although I’m the sort who prefers his bourbon straight in a small glass over ice) but I think the only time you should have an aqua-colored drink is when you’re within ten feet of the ocean, or at the very least in a place with a lot of fish tanks. (Be warned, though: it’s not a good idea to drink in a pet store, even though what you’ll wake up next to won’t necessarily be any scarier than what you’ll encounter in a singles bar. But I digress.)

I think the problem, though, isn’t the cocktail, although with its highly suggestive name it could be seen as the beginning of deviant alcohol consumption, but a whole zoo of bizarre ways of consuming alcohol. Put away those shooters, slammers, hammers, zappers, poppers, and gobstoppers and anything made with gelatin or served in a test-tube. Alcohol’s for adults, so drink it like an adult. If it’s filled with more sugar than a Jamaican plantation and is intended to be consumed in seconds rather than sips, it’s not a "drink". It’s an alcohol delivery system that’s made to make you think being surrounded by hooting idiots is, by any standard, fun. If it promises to get you drunker than you’ve ever been before, think back to the last time you thought you were drunk, which was probably when you surreptitiously downed four glasses of champagne at an unknown relative’s wedding when you were sixteen. Alcohol delivery systems are guaranteed to make sure you get relieved of your wallet later on while you’re relieving yourself against a wall in an alley. It’s unfortunate that they give alcohol a bad name. Alcohol was once associated with sophistication and appreciation of life. Now it’s associated with frat guys in comas and burning port-a-johns.

Call me naive (or mix me a Naive, which is eight ounces of wholemilk, two tablespoons of malted milk powder, and four tablespoons of butterscotch sauce) but if you’re my age you probably watched "Cheers" before you could legally drink alcohol. Didn’t you wish for a place where you could have a drink and everybody knew your name and occasional zaniness occurred? Ironically when "Cheers" was still running and parachute pants were still in alcohol had already begun it’s decline, and its place was being usurped by coffee. Coffee’s not bad in itself, it gets you going in the morning or keeps you up all night, and you can’t have Irish Coffee without it, but coffee shops are creating newer and weirder "designer coffees", which are basically just caffeine delivery systems. Look for mocha-flavored gelatin – with enough caffeine to keep you hanging from the office ceiling all day – to be the next big thing. What really bothers me, though, is when I go to a coffee shop and everyone has either a laptop or a cell-phone and nobody’s really communicating. I think I’d rather go to a bar, even if it’s just to order a cup of coffee, but bars have become so passe I’ll only have my napkin to talk to. Come on, let’s get a drink. Have a beer or a martini or a Manhattan or a Tom Collins or sangria or a lemonade if that’s your poison – or if you happen to be driving. The first one’s on me.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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South African Tourism

These questions about South Africa were posted on a South African Tourism Website and were answered by the website owner.

Q: Does it ever get windy in South Africa? I have never seen it rain on TV, so how do the plants grow? (UK)
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.

Q: Will I be able to see elephants in the street? (USA)
A: Depends how much you’ve been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Durban to Cape Town – can I follow the railroad tracks? (Sweden)
A: Sure, it’s only two thousand kilometres take lots of water…

Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in South Africa? (Sweden)
A: So it’s true what they say about Swedes.

Q: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in South Africa? Can you send me a list of them in JHB, Cape Town, Knysna and Jeffrey’s Bay? (UK)
A: What did your last slave die of?

Q: Can you give me some information about Koala Bear racing in South Africa? (USA)
A: Aus-tra-lia is that big island in the middle of the pacific. A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe which does not…oh forget it. Sure, the Koala Bear racing is every Tuesday night in Hillbrow. Come naked.

Q: Which direction is north in South Africa? (USA)
A: Face south and then turn 90 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we’ll send the rest of the directions.

Q: Can I bring cutlery into South Africa? (UK)
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys’ Choir schedule? (USA)
A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is… oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Hillbrow, straight after the Koala Bear races. Come naked.

Q: Do you have perfume in South Africa? (France)
A: No, WE don’t stink.

Q: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell me where I can sell it in South Africa? (USA)
A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather.

Q: Can you tell me the regions in South Africa where the female population is smaller than the male population? (Italy)
A: Yes, gay nightclubs.

Q: Do you celebrate Christmas in South Africa? (France)
A: Only at Christmas.

Q: Are there killer bees in South Africa? (Germany)
A: Not yet, but for you, we’ll import them.

Q: Are there supermarkets in Cape Town and is milk available all year round? (Germany)
A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of vegan hunter-gatherers. Milk is illegal.

Q: Please send a list of all doctors in South Africa who can dispense rattlesnake serum. (USA)
A: Rattlesnakes live in A-meri-ca, which is where YOU come from. All South African snakes are perfectly harmless, can be safely handled and make good pets.

Q: I was in South Africa in 1969, and I want to contact the girl I dated while I was staying in Hillbrow. Can you help? (USA)
A: Yes, and you will still have to pay her by the hour.

Q: Will I be able to speek English most places I go? (USA)
A: Yes, but you’ll have to learn it first.

June 27, 2003

According to the film "2001", by now we should have a computer that’s so smart it can hold a conversation, appraise drawings, and kill at least four people, either by unplugging the refrigerators where they’re being stored or by ripping out their air hose in their space suits. I think "2001" is the reason why no space suits are designed with air hoses that loop around behind the neck – although engineering may have something to do with that too. And I think it’s also the reason no one gets frozen when they go into space. Even now space travel is unnerving enough without having a "Best if used by" date printed on you.

Most glaring, though, is the lack of a computer like HAL 9000. Why haven’t we achieved this yet? Well, obviously approximating human thought has proven to be a lot more difficult than was assumed, but I’m afraid the technology revolution may soon come skidding to a halt because of something a computer programmer said to me the other day. Don’t get me wrong. I think most computer programmers are doing a wonderful yet thankless job writing programs and creating new technologies to make life more interesting for the rest of us – interesting like in the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times", but then most times before computers were pretty interesting too, with the exception of the early 1950’s and the late Victorian period.

But I digress. The other day I asked a computer programmer a simple question, something like, "Why can’t I type zeroes into this spreadsheet cell?" And he replied, "Why would you want to do that? Ha ha ha ha." He walked away before I could come up with an appropriate response, such as, "Ah, now I know why you live alone." Luckily I don’t actually work with this guy – he just works for the company that designs some software I use, so therefore he’s immune from any criticism from someone so small and insignificant as one of his customers. Maybe the guy’s just a jerk, but what if this is a sign of things to come in the technology world? Imagine if you called up someone in a computer customer service department and got that answer. Imagine saying, "I can’t print something!" and getting the answer, "Why would you want to do that?" Even without the condescending laughter it’s annoying. What if this is a virus that’s spreading? "Help, my toilet won’t flush!" you say, and your plumber replies, "Why would you want to do that?" All human progress will come to a skidding halt.

I think this may be the reappearance of a mutant gene that first popped up on the plains of Africa tens of thousands of years ago. A hominid said, "Fire made when lightning hit tree, but must learn make fire without lightning to survive." Another hominid, wearing a badly woven toupee of wilted ferns and a couple of pieces of polished quartz over his eyes (they didn’t help him see better–he just thought they made him look smarter) said, "Why would you want to do that?" Then a big black rectangular box fell over on him and killed him.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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Hello, and welcome to the mental health hotline…..

If you are obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly.

If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you.

If you have multiple personalities, press 3, 4, 5, and 6.

If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want. Stay on the line so we can trace your call.

If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will be transferred to the mother ship.

If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a small voice will tell you which number to press.

If you are a manic-depressive, it doesn’t matter which number you press, no one will answer.

If you are dyslexic, press 9696969696969696.

If you have a nervous disorder, please fidget with the pound key until a representative comes on the line.

If you have amnesia, press 8 and state your name, address, telephone number, date of birth, social security number, and your mother’s maiden name.

If you have post-traumatic stress disorder, s-l-o-w-l-y & c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y press 0—0—0.

If you have bi-polar disorder, please leave a message after the beep or before the beep or after the beep. Please wait for the beep.

If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9.

If you have low self-esteem, please hang up. All operators are too busy to talk to you.

If you are menopausal, hang up, turn on the fan, lay down & cry. You won’t be crazy forever.

If you are blonde don’t press any buttons, you’ll just mess it up.

June 20, 2003

Summer is finally here. According to the people who decide such things, "Summer" was officially here about a month ago. Spring started sometime close to the end of February. I have no idea who these people are, but I think they’re the ones who go around putting mulch on children’s playgrounds. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Now that I’m an adult Spring is when I can turn off the heat during the day and open the windows. Summer is when I stop turning on the heat entirely and have to close the windows during the day and turn on the air conditioning. Why is heated air called "heat" while cooled air is called "air conditioning"? Ask the people who decide when Spring and Summer "officially" begin.

When I was a kid, of course, Summer was marked by one important event: the end of school. We could tell it was getting close because we’d have Field Day, which was an entire day when the teachers didn’t have to work and we were pitted against each other in hundred-yard dashes, tug-o’war matches, and pipe-wrench fighting. One year we had an unofficial contest on Field Day to see whose whose notebook produced the most smoke when burned. But I digress.

At some point before or during Summer I would hear an adult, usually an adult who would punctuate his remarks by taking out his cigar with his false teeth still attached to it and shaking it at me, talk about "the good old days." These were a brief Edenic period during The Depression, The War, or The Black Plague when children were carefree, happy creatures who were content to play with a forked stick and a ball of twine and didn’t talk back to their elders. Personally I never talked back to these prelapsarian creatures, mainly because they scared the heck out of me by occasionally barking, "Don’t talk back!" At the time I believed the good old days really were good, and that I was somehow missing something in my childhood, but now I realize they were doing me a service. They were trying to make me appreciate how good I really had it.

Summer was perfect when I was a child. I realize I’m barely old enough to say this, but they really were the good old days. What do children have now to look forward to? Cartoons are now aimed more at adults than kids, ditto for movies about superheroes or creatures from outer space, parents are paranoid about the dangers of sugar and dairy products, which not only wipes out candy but makes life hard for the ice cream man, kids get dysentery or exposed to toxic runoff playing in creeks, they get hookworms from running barefoot, and old abandoned light bulb factories–one of the greatest places to play "follow the leader"–are strictly off limits for reasons that are incomprehensible. Firecrackers, which used to be so small you could hold one in your hand and watch the fuse run down until the last minute when you threw it to your feet, now carry enough firepower to blow up a carport and are more unpredictable than a crazy old man talking about the good old days. Camp counselors can’t let kids sing copyrighted songs or they’ll have to pay for them, and pet prairie dogs carry monkeypox. Okay, that last one shouldn’t even be brought up.

When I was a kid we were happy with hamsters, gerbils, garter snakes, frogs, turtles, and black widow spiders as pets because you could keep these things in a jar or large aquarium. Any pet that requires that you plant half an acre of sagebrush isn’t worth keeping. And if you’re my age or older, you remember the one kid in your class with asthma, and the one kid with allergies – and usually they were the same person. It was that pigeon-chested kid with the glasses made from the bottoms of soda bottles (back in the days when soda came in glass bottles, and using a broken bottle to take out opponents in the hundred-yard dash was "part of the game" instead of "a reason to see the school counselor"). He was the kid who sat on the edge of the playground while the rest of us played kickball. And playgrounds were covered with sharp gravel, whereas now they’re covered with fungus-laden mulch, while half the kids have asthma and the other half have allergies, and no one plays kickball because balls are too dangerous, too expensive, and the rubber contains arsenic. What I’m getting at is that the good old days really were the good old days–and that’s even more frightening than me with my cigar.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they drew. She would occasionally walk around to see each child’s work. As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was? The girl replied, "I’m drawing God." The teacher paused and said, "But no one knows what God looks like." Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, "They will in a minute."

The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture. "Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grownup and say, ‘There’s Jennifer she’s a lawyer,’ or ‘That’s Michael. He’s a doctor.’" A small voice at the back of the room rang out, "And there’s the teacher, She’s dead."

A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make the matter clearer, she said, "Now, class, if I stood on my head, the blood, as you know, would run into it, and I would turn red in the face." "Yes," the class said. "Then why is it that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position the blood doesn’t run into my feet?" A little fellow shouted, "Cause your feet ain’t empty."

The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. the nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray: "Take only ONE. God is watching." Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies. A child had written a note, "Take all you want. God is watching the apples."

June 13, 2003

Some time ago I took an Internet quiz that was supposed to tell me what my gender was. Now, all I have to do is look down and I know right away that I have a Y chromosome, but this quiz was sort of the Internet’s version of the guess-your-weight booths at the county fair, so I thought I’d let it tell me what I am. And it told me I was a woman.

Although I think such judgments are highly subjective, supposedly 60% of my answers were the sort a woman would give. So that Y chromosome is only 40% of me, right? Sure. It doesn’t matter. I still feel incredibly uncomfortable in the women’s underwear department of the mall. I guess most guys do, and yet, those of us who dutifully accompany our wives, girlfriends, or partners on shopping trips will have to, at some point or other, be stuck waiting in the underwear department while she – whoever she may be – goes to the changing rooms.

In the old days there were chairs where a guy could sit down, but even then they didn’t give you a magazine or a newspaper. Now they’ve even gotten rid of the chairs – except for the one chair that faces the door leading to the changing rooms, and, let’s face it, when we already feel like perverts for being in the women’s underwear department in the first place, having to avoid eye contact with every woman coming out of the changing rooms isn’t easy. The best we can do is hover around the rack of shampoos that come in day-glow colors and are made with hemp. When did hemp shampoo become something women buy with their underwear? For that matter, who was it that discovered that a tough, fibrous plant was good for washing hair, and what was that person smoking?

But I digress. The hardest thing about hanging out in the women’s underwear department, aside from trying to avoid eye contact with the women coming out of the changing rooms, or trying to avoid eye contact with the models in the oversized underwear ads, is avoiding the hawklike women who prowl around the department sneering at weak and idiotic men who weren’t smart enough to say, "Dear, I’ll be in the sporting goods shop at the other end of the mall," before our significant other disappeared into the vast depths of the changing room. Admittedly these women probably understand what we’re going through, which is why they don’t ask The Question: "May I help you?" A guy would have to start trying stuff on or drinking the hemp shampoo before they’d ask him that. Still, I dread The Question. For some strange reason I feel like an idiot when I say, "No, thank you, I’m just waiting for someone." I feel like I have a big flashing neon sign over my head that says, "Pervert." I always think, "May I help you?" is just their way of saying, "I just wanted to get a closer look at you before I went to check the catalogue of sex offenders I have next to the register." After only a few minutes my nerves are so frazzled that if I did get The Question I’d probably do something really stupid, like scream, "I’M JUST WAITING FOR SOMEONE, OKAY? I FORGOT TO ASK IF I COULD MEET HER SOMEWHERE ELSE LATER ON, IS THAT ALL RIGHT YOU UGLY OLD PRUNE?" At that point Mrs. Prune would probably say, "Well, I was going to show you to our Sensitive Men’s Waiting Room, complete with pool tables, pinball machines, a bar, and chairs where your wife, girlfriend, or partner could page you when she’s done, but clearly you’re not sensitive enough to appreciate such a place." Then there really would be a big flashing sign above my head, and it would say, "Idiot."

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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GREAT SAYINGS

You know "that look" women get when they want sex? Me neither." Steve Martin

"Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand." Woody Allen

"There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL." Lynn Lavner

"Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope." Camille Paglia

"Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant." George Burns

"Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake whole relationships." Sharon Stone

"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." Jack Nicholson

"Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place." Billy Crystal

"According to a new survey, women say they feel more comfortable undressing in front of men than they do undressing in front of other women. They say that women are too judgmental, where, of course, men are just grateful." Robert De Niro

"There’s a new medical crisis. Doctors are reporting that many men are having allergic reactions to latex condoms. They say they cause severe swelling. So what’s the problem?" Dustin Hoffman

"There’s very little advice in men’s magazines, because men think, I know what I’m doing. Just show me somebody naked." Jerry Seinfeld

"Instead of getting married again, I’m going to find a woman I don’t like and just give her a house." Rod Stewart

"See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time." Robin Williams

June 6, 2003

They say the best part of any trip is the journey itself. This should confirm that They is an idiot. Of course you should never trust anyone who’s named after a pronoun anyway, but even if you really love to travel, you know that the best parts of any journey are, in order of descending greatness, the actual moment when you arrive at the place you were going to, before you’ve had a chance to be disappointed because it’s not nearly as great as you thought it would be, the moment when you get home, before you realize you’re too exhausted to unpack even though you really should because if you don’t do it right away you won’t be able to find your toothbrush in the morning, and the first twenty minutes after you’ve finally managed to get out on the road and on the way to your destination.

Even though it’s last, that first twenty minutes has a special kind of exhilaration that you can only get after you’ve gone back at least five times to make sure that the toaster is unplugged. There’s an old Chinese saying that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step – and that step is usually into the bathroom, because if you’re going a thousand miles you want to make sure you go one last time.

After twenty minutes or so you get into the worst part of any trip, especially a road trip, which is the long, monotonous void when you pass a sign that says, "Next Exit-3 Miles", and after what seems like a day and a half but is really two days you pass another sign that says, "Next Exit – 2 Miles".

No matter who you’re travelling with or how much music you’ve brought to fill those long gaps when the radio won’t pick up anything but static, the repetition of trees, fields, billboards, and the occasional glimpse of someone who looks eerily like Tolstoy standing on the side of the road with his thumb out gradually turns your brain to oatmeal. The only bad thing about travelling with another person is that on any trip of more than three hours you both know it’s only a matter of time before you fall into long silences broken only by the occasional, "Hey, look, we’re only ten miles from Red’s Reptile Ranglin’ Ranch."

When you’re on a long road trip and have to keep your eyes on the road, there are basically only two things you can do to keep your brain occupied: count the number of state license plates you can spot, and play the alphabet game. Looking for different license plates is not only educational (how would you know Utah was the "Beehive State" if it weren’t on the license plate?), but also gives you some idea of where you are. When you start seeing a lot of Illinois license plates, you know you’re in Illinois, when you start seeing a lot of Missouri license plates, you know you’re in Missouri, and when you start seeing a lot of Quebec license plates, you know you’re in Florida. The alphabet game, if you’ve never played it, works like this: you look for the letters of the alphabet, in order, on billboards and signs. The rule is, one letter per sign. And if you have played it, you know the letters you think you’ll get stuck on – the ones that give you the most points in Scrabble – are the easiest. To find Q, X, or Z, all you have to do is look for a Quick Stop, an Exit, or a Zoo, or drive through Xenia, Ohio, Quincy, California, or Zavalla, Texas. It’s always the letter you think will be easy that you get stuck on – something simple, and common, like B. And you can’t move on if you get stuck on a letter. You have to find that letter, and soon it will become an all-consuming obsession that will make the miles and hours slip away until that magic moment when you arrive at your destination – and find it’s right next to Big Bertha’s Beds, Bottles, and Boomerangs. That’s the kind of thing that can make the worst part of the trip one of the best – and vice versa.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of the dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Broni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the shepherd, "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?" The shepherd looked at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looked at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answered, "Sure." The yuppie parked his car, whipped out his IBM ThinkPad and connected it to a cell phone, then he surfed to a NASA page on the internet where he called up a GPS satellite navigation system, scanned the area, and then opened up a database and an Excel spreadsheet with complex formulas. He sent an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, received a response. Finally, he printed out a 130-page report on his miniaturized printer and then turned to the shepherd and said, "You have exactly 1586 sheep."

"That is correct; take one of the sheep." said the shepherd.

He watched the young man select one of the animals and bundle it into his car. Then the shepherd said, "If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my animal?"

"OK, why not," answered the young man.

"Clearly, you are a consultant," said the shepherd.

"That’s correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required," answered the shepherd. "You turned up here although nobody called you. You want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you don’t know crap about my business. Now give me back my dog."

May 9, 2003

All names in this story have been changed. Normally this is done to protect the innocent, but in this case it’s being done to protect the guilty, including myself. So, for example, I’ll be calling myself Ralph so no one will know Ralph is me – even though I just told you who Ralph is. And when I say, "Phil" I really mean Roger Splint, who currently resides at…but I digress.

Every Spring when the rains come Easter candy, especially chocolate, is passed around and, thanks to the rain, there’s a lot of mud which can look a lot like chocolate. I hope I haven’t turned anyone off of chocolate, but I doubt a simple thing like that will cause anyone to turn down chocolate. The paintings of Salvador Dali, on the other hand…but I digress.

When I was eight years old my best friend Phil and I pulled a prank which, considering the fact that we didn’t have either the Internet or cable TV at the time, was pretty clever. For some reason we decided we were going to play a trick on my former best friend Carl. I don’t remember why he was my former best friend, only that all eight-year olds have a best friend, a second-best friend, a third-best friend, all the way down the list to their "worstest" enemy, who is usually ranked slightly above "ugh, girls." Carl was somewhere in the middle on that particular day, although within a week I think he was back to being my best friend and somewhere in there Phil went from best friend to worstest enemy then to second-best friend. You can learn a lot about international relations by studying children, and vice versa.

Here’s what Phil and I did: we took some leftover Easter candy, chocolate, of course, unwrapped it, split it, then made a ball of mud that looked exactly like the candy and wrapped it in the candy wrapper. Looking back I’m amazed by how expertly we did this. If we’d been Leopold and Loeb, we could have handed out poisoned candy instead of using a chisel, but we didn’t want to hurt anybody. We just wanted to make Carl eat dirt. Carl’s father answered the door when we knocked. Carl was in his bath, so we gave the candy to Carl’s father and asked him to pass it along to Carl. Two days later Carl’s father got sick, and, when I asked him, Carl never saw the candy. Now, I’m not exactly into geophagia, but I’ve gotten dirt or dust in my mouth on enough occasions to know it doesn’t taste anything like chocolate. Did Carl’s father eat dirt candy? Well, he did work for the post office, and you know how smart those guys are. I guess the best I can say is, maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t. Either way it was Ralph’s idea.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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THINGS THAT ARE DIFFICULT TO SAY WHEN YOU’RE DRUNK

Indubitably 
Innovative 
Preliminary 
Proliferation 
Cinnamon 

THINGS THAT ARE VERY DIFFICULT TO SAY WHEN YOU’RE DRUNK 

Specificity 
British Constitution 
Passive-aggressive disorder 
Loquacious Transubstantiate 

THINGS THAT ARE DOWNRIGHT IMPOSSIBLE TO SAY WHEN YOU’RE DRUNK

Thanks, but I don’t want to have sex 
Nope, no more booze for me. 
Sorry, but you’re not really my type. 
Good evening officer, isn’t it lovely out tonight? 
Oh, I just couldn’t. No one wants to hear me sing.

May 2, 2003

Various advertising executives have suggested a plan to put advertising in books. A couple of years ago Fay Weldon wrote an entire novel with product placements paid for by a jewelry company, but what’s being suggested now is much less subtle: direct advertisements stuck in books themselves. The argument goes that putting glossy ads and perfume samples in popular novels will lower the price of books. Actually what will happen is that the price of books will remain the same and the average 300-page novel will be 1000-pages.

And why limit it to novels? The poems of Dylan Thomas could be filled out with ads for whiskey, the complete works of Sigmund Freud could contain alternating subscription cards for Cigar Smoker Magazine and donation pleas from various cancer societies. Even better you could…Excuse me, I had to go kill a wasp. I hate wasps. "Evil" is not a word I use lightly, especially when describing the natural world, because even the ugliest, slimiest, most unappealing organism has its place. Except the wasp. Skinheads were wasps in a past life. The guy who didn’t hold the elevator for me this morning was a wasp in a past life. John Wesley Hardin, the gunslinger who once shot a man for snoring too loudly, is now a wasp. Whoever it was that invented automatic flush toilets was or will in a future life be a wasp. Wasps are the only living thing that contribute absolutely nothing of value. And they eat spiders. Maybe you think this is a good thing, but spiders are very useful because they eat insects. If, like me, you were profoundly influenced by the book "Charlotte’s Web" as a child, you know that if it weren’t for spiders insects would overrun the planet. How many insects do spiders eat? According to a statistic I just made up a single spider eats in one year enough insects to equal the weight of customers who go to McDonald’s in one day. We’re talking metric tons. And Charlotte the Spider was the epitome of coolness. She was the kind of woman you wouldn’t want to be in an intimate relationship with because if she got mad at you she could liquefy your internal organs with one bite, but she was the kind of person you’d want to hang out with.

An interesting little-known fact about that book is that E.B. White wrote and then discarded a chapter in which a wasp named McCarthy comes buzzing around the barnyard looking for spiders. He also criticizes Wilbur the Pig and Templeton the Rat for a food-sharing program which he considers a form of socialism, but that’s really another part of the story. Even White, who had this profound pantheistic vision, thought wasps were evil. And wasps don’t just eat spiders. They torture them in hideous ways. In South America there’s a species of wasp that lays one egg on a single spider. The wasp larva then burrows into the brain of the spider and makes the spider build a wasp nest, all while slowly eating it from the inside. Imagine: one creature completely takes over the brain of another and forces it to participate in its own destruction. If E.B. White were alive today he’d probably write a whole book about wasps, and they’d all work as advertising executives.

Enjoy this week’s offerings.

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HOW TO BATHE A CAT

1. Thoroughly clean toilet.

2. Lift both lids and add shampoo.

3. Find and soothe cat as you carry him to bathroom.

4. In one swift move, place cat in toilet, close both lids and stand on top, so cat cannot escape.

5. The cat will self agitate and produce ample suds. (Ignore ruckus from inside toilet, cat is enjoying this)

6. Flush toilet 3 or 4 times. This provides power rinse, which is quite effective.

7. Have someone open outside door, stand as far from toilet as possible and quickly lift both lids.

8. Clean cat will rocket out of the toilet and outdoors, where he will air dry.

Sincerely,

The Dog