Mild Amusement

Lewis Black has this really funny bit about how he knows what causes aneurysms ( starting around 1:35 ). Now, for this to make sense (or be funny), you have to realize that modern medicine doesn't claim to know what causes an aneurysm. However, this guy swears he knows what causes them: those facepalm-worthy things you hear in passing. The words rattle around in your head, causing you all sorts of consternation, until suddenly, you have a sudden bursting of your blood vessels. Remember that as you read the rest of this. Now, I am a very curious person. If I'm waiting in line to board a plane, I'm going to look at the controls to the little extending deck. If there are construction workers standing around discussing something, I try to guess what they're working on, and what their plan of attack will be. If someone says they know how to do something I don't, I start asking questions. You get the idea. Sure, this sort of thing can happen just about any time, any...

A while back, I went out to grab drinks and some dinner with a few friends. It wasn't a particularly special occasion, but more than a few people had agreed to meet up. Unsurprisingly, several people were late. So, those of us who had shown up earlier than the rest ordered drinks from the bar. We had alcohol and good company to keep us entertained, though, so it was hardly a hardship. When the rest of the party showed up shortly thereafter, we made our way to our table with unfinished drinks in hand. That's when the fun began. When we sat down, I went to put down my drink. By this point, there was a bit of condensation on the glass, so I looked around for a coaster or napkin on which to set my glass. Noticing that I wasn't the only one to do this, the waitress brought over some napkins. These would serve as coasters, and all would be right in the world. However, she didn't bring enough. The pile was quickly distributed, but I still did not have a coaster-like object...

I have a quirky sense of humor, so I will usually give people a wide berth when it comes to oddball comments. This sometimes leads to some questionable conversations . Most of the time, it's fine. I play along, we all share some laughs, and we call it good. Sometimes, though, these types of conversations blindside me with shenanigans that can get me in trouble. The ones at work are the worst, since I have to mind my p's and q's then. Of course, knowing my luck, I've been seeing a sharp increase in the latter kind lately. And the worst part of it all is that it's largely due to a single person. She's out to get me, I tell you. It's not even like I spend every day chatting this person up, so this is all coming from a relatively small sample size. I repeat, I think she's out to get me. Now, I know you're probably thinking that I'm exaggerating. Or maybe you suspect that I am partially to blame for this. Somehow, I should be doing more, or sayin...

Remember how I recently wrote about my penchant for anonymizing (I know that's not a real word, but it should be) my stories? Well, it turns out that some of my earlier writing had not followed this rule. I clearly didn't remember some of these posts at the time when I wrote the linked post. Worse yet, I actually wrote that people had permission to smack me if I started doing so. Crap. Well, that wasn't good. The real question, though, was what to do about it. Overall, these posts were a tiny minority of the blog. I could just ignore the discrepancy, and hope that no one would notice. The odds that someone would actually do so were pretty small, so it's not like it'd be a huge risk. On the other hand, I could go back through all of my writing and make sure I edited out the names. This second plan would obviously take more of my time, and it would be far more tedious. Maybe a recent "This American Life" episode about a retraction influenced my thinkin...

For the most part, I'm fairly coordinated. I'm not an Olympic level anything, but I'm not scared to step on a basketball court or wield a hammer in my back yard . I think the funniest way anyone has ever described this was, "you were one of those kids that sprinted outside for recess as fast as possible, weren't you?" And heck, that person was right. I was one of those kids. Basically, I'm lucky to have that going for me. Well, most of the time. For whatever reason, there is one place that seems to completely undo that ability in me. And boy, when it goes wrong, do some very embarrassing things happen. The first time, I was over at my friend's place when she was assembling some furniture she'd ordered. It was one of those shoe rack things, so it wasn't meant to be super complicated. Seeing as how I wasn't doing anything else (we were waiting for her husband and another friend of ours to come over), I started to help. The diagram and the...

Remember how I said that every now and again, the people around me like to give questionable dating advice ? Some of these folks are at it again. This time, however, they have decided to switch up their tactics. Rather than simply giving me advice, they've stepped their collective games up. Allow me to explain. For example, my sister-in-law has decided that she was being too passive in the whole process, so she is now on wife watch for me. I kid you not, those are the words she used: "wife watch." What exactly is wife watch, you ask? Well, she will scope out women on my behalf, and then point them out when we are out in public. It's not even a shared activity; she just does it on my behalf. We were out one night having dinner, when she started checking out the women at the table behind me. I had my back to these people, and I was busy actually having dinner, so figuring out if any of the women were attractive was quite probably the last thing on my mind. My sister...

I've mentioned before that I like to play loose with language . It's not like I'm lying to people or even deceiving them; it's just a way of livening up the stories being told. Plus, it allows me to be more of a smart aleck, so I'm all for it. Really, it's just a way to add some laughs to the world. That's all good and dandy, but recently, I've found myself in the position of making other people's stories more interesting. This takes a little more effort, but the pay off is no less fun. Take my sister-in-law. I was talking to her recently, and I asked how her weekend had gone. She told me, "oh, didn't do anything, my life's boring." I knew from my brother that she'd spent the better part of a day shopping with her mom, so I decided that this just wouldn't do. In fact, I told her that from now on, the story of her weekend would be, "shopped till I dropped with my mom. Good thing [my brother] wasn't around to see t...