Mild Amusement

The last time I was out sick, I had to send my team an email that I wasn't going to be available. As I was typing up that email, some small part of me wondered if my team members were going to think I was a slacker. Now, it's not like this is a common occurrence. I miss work pretty infrequently, and I've probably taken something like four or five sick days for the entirety of the year. Still, I couldn't help but feel a small twinge of guilt for not being available. On second thought, though, I realized that it's a small miracle that I don't end up sick more often. Remember, my house turns into a day care during the day. That means that there are constantly little kids running around, getting their cooties all over everything. As a coworker of mine once said, "little kids are vectors of infection for the first few years. Then everyone involved builds an immunity, and things get better." You can clean as much as you want, but it's a losing battle...

A couple of years ago, I was on a trip with a friend to New York . During the course of the trip, I was leaving a restaurant when a doorman clapped me on the shoulder. My companions thought that this somehow implied a sexual advance or flirting of some sort. Well, that wasn't the last time I've had others read into a situation like that. I've been going out to eat lunch a lot more lately, largely because I get very restless if I don't get out of the office to break up my day. Eating at restaurants means dealing with waiters and waitresses, so I have had plenty of interactions with them lately. Somehow, though, the people around me have decided that this means that the wait staff is constantly flirting with me. The first example came when I ordered a burger. This particular establishment let you pick either thin-cut fries or potato wedges. I didn't have a strong preference, so I hesitated for a moment. Trying to be helpful, the waitress asked if I'd ever eate...

My friend was in town a little while back, so I spent an evening hanging out at her house. She actually wasn't around for very long, so she had invited a bunch of other people over in an attempt to see as many of them as possible. It was a very chill night, and I met several new people. Eventually, though, it started to get late, and people started to leave. That's when the fun began. One of the first guys to leave said his goodbyes, and then walked out. A few minutes later, though, he walked back in. Surprised, everyone looked up to see what had happened. Guy: "So, um, I have enough gas, but ... " He didn't actually trail off at that point, but I'm going to interject here. When someone starts a sentence like this, several thoughts can go through your head. For example, you might think: "Wait a second, does he want to siphon gas?" This was actually what went through my head, and I was not alone. At least one other guy later admitted he thou...

The other day, I got a call from a telemarketer. I politely listened to the lady, and then asked her to remove me from her list. Maybe it helped, and maybe it didn't. All I know is that all in all, it was a courteous transaction, so I had no real qualms with the exchange. As soon as I got off the phone, though, I realized that this lady got off easy. You see, my brother has something of a penchant for messing with those folks. He figures that if somebody is going to bother him and waste his time, he's allowed to mess with them. Sometimes, it's a very simple ruse. He will simply engage the person is as lengthy a conversation as possible without letting the telemarketer achiever his goal. When he use this tactic, he is super polite, but he engages the person as much as possible. He will frequently ask how that person is doing, ask about the weather, or otherwise make small talk. The real point is to just keep that person talking for a while. It's an eye for an eye , rea...

I have a fairly long commute, so I don't usually get home until late in the evening. This means that my car is now a good friend of mine, but for the purposes of this story, the important part is that I'm just not around when mail gets delivered. The result of that is pretty darn funny, I have to say. Remember, my house transforms into a daycare during the day. That means you cannot leave packages or mail just lying around. If you were to make that mistake, the toddlers who run around would quickly teach you the error of your ways. Heck, you can't even guarantee that placing those items up high is a good solution; we've got some climbers . Really, the only good solution to this is to put all the mail behind a closed door. So long as you make sure that the door is good and closed, the mail isn't going anywhere. Well, okay, you want to put the mail in a locked room. The whole reason why any particular room would be locked would be that you wouldn't want kids get...

On this latest trip, I saw six states, two countries, and one U.S. district, but I only took a total of 3 flights from start to finish. As you can probably imagine, there was a good amount of driving involved. And one of the interesting things that happen when you spend that much time in a car is that music quickly comes to play a role in the trip. I mean, you can be the best of friends, but it is very, very hard to keep a conversation going for that long. So, inevitably, someone turns on a radio or music player, and suddenly you're discovering all of these little quirks. For example, you might discover that your travel companion likes country music more than you do. I generally don't dislike any genre of music outright, but I wouldn't call myself a fan of country music by any means. There are a few songs here and there that make an appearance on my iPod, but that's about it. Also, there was plenty of music that I just flat out didn't recognize. I'm hardly a c...

One of the things you can never quite account for when you travel is the weather at your destination. I'd been planning on going on this trip for a few months, so I had no way of predicting that it would rain. Check that; I couldn't have predicted that it would rain a whole freaking lot during my trip. Put it this way: one of the local news stations was throwing around the word "historic levels" to describe the rains and the subsequent flooding. Now, I had checked the weather report before I left (I try to be responsible now and again), so I knew that I was in store for some rain. However, I like to travel light. I have never once taken an umbrella with me, so I figured that this was no time to start. Instead, I packed a light jacket that does a pretty good job of being impermeable and a baseball cap. Between those two items, I figured that I could survive a few drops of water. For the most part, this plan worked out well. I saw a few summer storms, the kind that ...