Odd Phone Calls

The phone rang one Sunday afternoon, and it was an older man asking for my roommate. I turned it over and the guy asked, "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He went on at some length asking my friend who he thought he was, why he thought he could act that way, and if he thought he'd get away with it. The phone called turned out to be a follow-up to a stop we'd made at a gas station the day before. We'd filled up the tank and then wandered around inside the gas station choosing Combos flavors, arguing the merits of beef jerky vs. beef sticks, and picking sodas. By the time we paid for all our food we'd forgotten that we'd also filled up the tank, and we neglected to pay for the gas. The gas station attendant called the police after we left, and it took them a day to track us down after getting a look at the license plates off the security camera footage. My roommate promptly drove back to the gas station and paid, and he didn't get charged with any crime. It easily could have gone the other way considering the line of questioning the cop took. The most surprising part to me is that we didn't hangup on him four or five times before figuring out what he wanted.

Drug Interactions

My doctor friend was trying to make a point about drug commercials and drug companies in general. She said a teenage boy came in to see her to say he had trouble talking to girls, and he requested a prescription for Viagra. She was trying to suggest something about how the commercials are confusing, but she really should have considered our maturity level and picked a different drug to make her point. My friend Steve pointed out that the teenager would have a much harder time talking to girls if our friend had granted him the prescription. Hopefully he just ordered some online.

The Student Film

My roommate Dan kept talking about his student movie and how terrible it was. One of the guys he'd worked with on the project had moved to L.A. and was sending him a copy of their film. According to Dan, the script for their student film had been great, but filming constraints and limit to enough child actors made it difficult to shoot as they'd intended. They ended up rewriting during shooting, and in his opinion the final cut was pretty bad. The movie arrived in our mailbox one Thursday afternoon, and my other roommate Bill and I both got home pretty late that night. Dan was on the couch and kept talking about the movie, saying he was going to put it on. It was already late, and Bill had gone off to his room. Two hours on the couch with a terrible movie never sounds like a good time, but I understood I'd have to watch it eventually. Starting it Thursday late wasn't what I had in mind, and I was trying to find the words to let Dan down without hurting his feelings. Mostly, I didn't want to sit there for two hours. That was when Dan dropped that the movie is only 12 minutes long. Bill was still in his room and didn't overhear, and he walked out with about a dozen excuses for why we couldn't start the movie that night. I kept shouting, "It's only 12 minutes! It's only 12 minutes long!" but Bill was locked in and had to get off his chest why he couldn't stay up to watch Dan's film. Once everyone calmed down, we turned on the movie. It was bad, but Dan's running commentary on what it was supposed to be like was reasonably entertaining. Plus, it was only 12 minutes long.

Gas or Novocaine

When you go to the dentist to get your cavities drilled, the doctor will ask you, "Novocaine or gas?" meaning, "Would you prefer to have your gums numbed or your brain temporarily disabled to the point that the discomfort in your teeth will only confuse instead of hurt you?" The only correct answer to this question is, "Both." The dentist and his assistant will at first laugh at your answer, but if you lie on your back with a straight face there will be an uncomfortable silence for a moment, and then they'll give you both. After a few times, they might try to tell you that your insurance will only cover one or the other. Just tell them you'll pay the $20 for gas out of pocket. They rarely send the bill.

Turkey Day Traditions

My family tried to start a tradition of bowling after Thanksgiving dinner. The wheels came off after two successful years when no one brought it up and we just didn't go. The tradition got off to a rough start as well. We all piled into cars the first year and drove to the bowling alley. The families laced-up rental shoes and chose bowling balls. We must have been a couple frames into the first game when my brother-in-law's mom arrived. No one had noticed that she wasn't in any of the cars when we drove out, and she'd been left behind. Her husband didn't seem particularly bothered then, but I guess he was pretty upset when she forgot about him after they'd attended a play together at the performing arts center a few weeks later.

What was That Guy Thinking?

What the hell was that guy in Chinatown doing with a Mogwai to begin with? I know the dad wanted to get something different for his son, but getting his kid a Mogwai when all the other dads are giving puppies is like buying your son a hand grenade when the other dads give out BB guns. The Chinatown proprietor's kid didn't even come close to giving adequate instructions with the animal when he sold it. He was like, "No water, and no food after midnight," then he stressed some kind of vague bad thing that would happen if the Mogwai ate after midnight. You know what he should have said? "Don't feed it after midnight, or it will turn into a demon straight from hell that will terrorize the mall, kill dozens of people, and cause millions of dollars in property damage." Not that it would matter. People in Chinatown are always telling you their watches are real Gucci and their candy doesn't contain lead. But Mogwai aren't knockoff handbags; they're serious business.

Three Immutable Laws of Robots

I recently bought a book called "The Robots of Dawn" by Isaac Asimov. It cost me $2 and spent three months on The New York Times Bestseller List in 1983. As you might have guessed from the title, it's about robots. It takes place in the future and deals with Roboticide, the murder of a robot. I never skip to the last page of any book I read, but occasionally I'll know how the story is going to end. You don't read "Romeo and Juliet" or "Into the Wild" for the ending. You read it for the stuff in between, so the stuff in between better be good. I know the ending of The Robots of Dawn, not because the murder of a robot on the planet Aurora in the distant future is something widely reported in the news, but because the summary on the back of the book gave it away. Now here's the real problem. The book is about a guy trying to solve this murder, but instead of blasting robots apart with lasers and ripping the humans limb from limb, he worries about the danger of space travel and tries to get to the bottom of the mystery with quirky logic and drawn-out interviews with robots. It's like Earth sent Woody Allen into the future to solve robot mysteries. I bought a thrift store book about robots in the future should be blowing stuff up in space, not arguing for ten pages about which of the Three Immutable Laws of Robotics takes precedence. And now I know the ending, too? Come on.

Zombie or Robot Uprising?

Let me pose a philosophical question: Would you rather fight a zombie or robot uprising? I think the fight with zombies would be easier, especially if you were fighting Night of the Living Dead zombies and not the super fast/aggressive ones from 28 Days Later. Also, killing zombies is well documented, while robots can adapt and have a much broader reach than zombies. How would we effectively fight robots? Block out the sun to prevent them from getting solar power? Viruses to cripple software? Time traveling teenagers? So far nothing's worked. Another consideration is that all humanity would be united in the fight against robots, while battling zombies means that you're fighting what used to be normal people. So it's really more of a question of whether you're more afraid of technology or other people.

French Jobs

I briefly held a job in France where I was teaching assistant of Conversational English. I only worked about 10 hours a week, and the French government gave me a stipend and medical insurance. It sounds wonderful, but the job was a nightmare. In spite of passing a general proficiency test at my university, I couldn't understand a god damn word anyone said. I lived way off the train line, and when I asked the person at the bus station if buses ran on Sunday, he looked at me like an alien had flown out of my skull. The worst part was that the French teachers all tried to take advantage of my inexperience and little classroom by sending their entire class to me every day even though they were only supposed to send six students. About halfway through the first semester I got so sick of it that I insisted that they all only send 6 kids. A lot of the teachers grumbled that they would tell my supervisor, but I was so over the whole mess that I didn't care at all. They all acquiesced except one teacher who demanded she would send her entire class. The conversation ended with me telling her not to send anyone, and she said she would talk to my boss. It was one of those rare situations where you've completely given up and don't care about any consequences, so the upside is that there are no negative repercussions to telling everyone exactly how you really feel. I began taking her class as a free hour, and after about three weeks my route to the teachers' computer lab took me past my old classroom. She'd still been sending the entire class, but they were only standing outside my room for the entire period. I panicked for a moment and thought about running to the room and letting them in, but instead I went down a level, crossed the hall, and went up another flight of stairs. Like I said, you reach a breaking point.

Socrates Hair

Bill and Ted really did it to me with their Excellent Adventure movie. I can't see the name Socrates without my internal dialog ticking off, "So Crates, make sure your robe doesn't get stuck in the escalator." It's a good thing I don't often have cause to use the name Socrates, because I would certainly have to humiliate myself several times by calling him So Crates before I relearned the word. I thought of it tonight because the new hair place (salon?) across the street from my house is named Socrates House of Hair, which I thought was odd since Socrates is bald in the movie Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. That movie was easily Keanu Reeves best role since it played off his oafish aloofness so well.

Lost Cause and Subway Prophets

It troubles me a little that the people waving religious pamphlets on the sidewalk never bother talking to me. Today I was walking behind a short, heavyset woman with long black hair who was going in the same direction. Our destination took us across three guys waving religious pamphlets, and they all went after her like my friend's dog goes after an untended grill. They would crouch down to be at eye level and walk backwards waving the religious literature in her face. The same three men looked right through me. I didn't want their stuff and would have politely declined the material, but I find their profiling troubling. It was obvious that the guys had experience finding the right people to take their wares, and something about the cut of my jib was a signal that I was a lost cause. Oh well, I shouldn't really complain about not getting harassed.

Falling in the Shower

Falling down in the shower is tough one to explain. It really makes you take stock of your age and fitness level. It's one thing to complain about how you're out of shape after a jog around the lake, it's another to contemplate your physical fitness after falling down while trying to see if the water's too hot. But it's something that you can't lie about. If you go to work with a big bruise above your eye, you can't tell people it happened when a mugger hit you with an empty can of King Cobra. You have to tell the truth, because no matter what ridicule you avoided at work, you would have to admit to yourself that you had sunk so low that you would lie about falling down while trying to climb into the bathtub.

My Way, by Frank Sinatra

I can't listen to the song My Way by Frank Sinatra with a straight face unless I've had a few drinks. It's one of those songs you really shouldn't listen to without a martini in hand. When I hear the song on the radio in the afternoon instead of over a bar karaoke machine manned by a guy propped with a bar stool, I can't help but look around with a nervous smile. It's kind of like watching reruns of Saved by the Bell or Fresh Prince--I'm embarrassed for the people around me. And it's not just the outrageous content of the song. Even after a couple light brown whiskey and Cokes, I still cringe when Sinatra rhymes "my way" with "shy way." I think the only guy besides Frank Sinatra who could seriously sing My Way is William Shatner, but only because he's insane.

Don't Bring Any Inappropriately Sized Items to a Gunfight

My friend Jason came over for a football game last week. We went over the beer situation on the phone while making plans. I had four beers and so did he. One beer per quarter is usually a good fit for me when it comes to the Sunday night or the Monday night game since I need to function at work the next day. I told him to arrive about 15 minutes before kickoff. This way I could get some work done before the game and I wouldn't have a beer before I started drinking, which means that the four I had in the fridge would suffice. Jason arrived about a half-hour before kickoff (he lives four blocks away), so we decided to walk to the store to pickup reserve beers. We found a couple extra large bottles of Sierra Nevada and Heineken, and put in a to-go order at the place downstairs so that I wouldn't have to interrupt the game with ordering and picking up food. When we got back upstairs (15 minutes to game time), Jason cracked one of his four beers he'd brought from home. They were all 24oz cans of Bud. Well played my friend, well played.

Injury Recovery

Little kids can bounce back from almost anything. They'll crash bikes into walls or run into goal posts and pop up feeling fine. During a game of Capture the Flag at summer camp one year, an 8th grader was running full tilt with a flag and looking over his shoulder at his pursuers. A baseball backstop right in the middle of the poorly designed Capture the Flag course caught up with him, and he ran into at full sprint with his head turned. He broke his arm and knocked out three teeth. Once you hit a certain height and body size you can't bounce back from those accidents like really little kids do. A dangerous lag in human development exists between when your body is big enough to get hurt and when your brain knows you shouldn't be running as fast as you can with your head turned around.

Respectable Theft

I was behind a guy in line at the store who was buying some butter and toilet paper, and he only had enough cash for one so he got the butter. I respect his bold choice. One of my roommates several years ago stole one of those massive rolls of toilet paper that restaurants have and brought it home. We had plenty of money leftover for butter for weeks. Stealing toilet paper speaks to a place I haven't been in awhile. People would take it from bars at the end of the night after they'd spent their walking around money on booze, and it's tough to imagine greater humiliation in shoplifting if you'd get caught. If I worked in a bar and caught someone, I would certainly let it slide as long as they'd left a respectable tip.

Drug Testing is the Only True Egalitarianism

I took a drug test years ago (for a job, not court ordered) and asked the lady who gave me the cup to pee into whether she had to take a drug test for her job. She said she didn't, but she'd been working there for 18 years so they might require them now. No place on earth is quite as egalitarian as the waiting room in a drug testing facility. It reminded me of the time I donated plasma. At the plasma place they treated everyone like unwelcome employees, which felt odd and misshapen in the hospital-like environment. I understand that donating (selling) plasma is a necessary reality for a lot of people, so I'm just going to point out that selling blood feels a little dehumanizing but at least you get paid for not having any real skills. It also really makes you think about how you're going to spend the $20 they just gave you; in my case it wasn't on orange Tic Tacs at the gas station. Anyway, drug testing. There was something great about seeing all the guys in nice suits treated like criminals, just like all the truck drivers and food service employees also waiting to get drug tested. In the end I passed the test, but I'm pretty sure my new coworkers thought I was less cool for it.

Running a Robotic Bull

I stopped at a bar that housed a mechanical bull and ended up sitting next to the bull operator at the bar. We spoke for a few minutes, and I learned that the regular mechanical bull operator also works as a guitar tech and tours with bands, so the bartenders all have to take turns manning the bull when he's gone. I suppose it makes sense that a person who sets up guitars would have the skills necessary for running and maintaining a robotic bull, and he'd be used to working in an excessively loud environment and dealing with drunken idiots the whole time. In fact, I bet the hours are even about the same. Really, it's the ideal marriage of job and part-time job, and it's recession proof.

Taxidermy Class

In 8th grade there was an initiative at my school to create a progressive mindshare where teachers could pass on their passions for certain learned disciplines in special class sessions. One teacher taught a class on chess and another gave one on video game design. The most popular class was "Sundaes on Friday" where a portly teacher showed students how to best make ice cream sundaes. I had the first pick of what to attend among my classmates, and for reasons that I still don't understand today, I chose the class in taxidermy. I could have been elbow deep in an ice cream bucket, but instead I was cutting up ducks and trying to recreate lifelike postures with their corpses. I don't remember the actual embalming process or peeling out the guts, but I remember finding the bone on the duck's stomach where we would start the slice. Maybe I thought taking the class would be funny. Isn't slicing up animals one of the early warning signs of sociopath behavior? I can't believe they were allowed to teach that in school.

Keeping Your Cash Safe

I've never been pick pocketed, but whenever I go overseas I always move my wallet to my front pant's pocket. It's pretty awful because about every 10 seconds I reach for my wallet in my back pocket and then freeze in sheer terror when I find it's missing. A split second later I'm back to normal, but my heart probably skips a beat every time I think I lost all my cash and credit cards. Maybe I'll start just carrying my wallet in my hand so I don't have to compulsively check for every 10 seconds.

Catching Up on the Old Gang

It's great when you have the opportunity to catch up with a one friend from an old group of acquaintances. That friend can fill you in on everything that's happened over the last couple years as if it all happened on one day. "So-and-so quit his job, someone got beat up in a bar, then another person got a dog and gave it away a week later". All the boring parts are edited, and it's like everything fun happened on one super action-packed day. It's the only upside to being bad about keeping in touch with old friends.

Medieval Torture Museum

I never really thought that TV and video game violence had much of an effect on me until I went to the Medieval Torture Museum and came away feeling unimpressed. It's really just one of those naive things I do, kind of like looking at the marketing budget for a company like Nike and then thinking that their marketing has no impact on me. I alone am impervious to all the Nike ads, stores, and athlete sponsorships. This ends with me buying a pair of Nikes in a color I don't even like.

The Pitcher is Half-Full

During my childhood neighbor's wedding reception, my dad asked me to go to the open bar and refill a pitcher of beer. I must have been in around 3rd or 4th grade at the time since it was before my family moved and got new neighbors. The happy couple was getting married in a VFW Hall. It never occurred to me or anyone else in Wisconsin that I was doing anything illegal. After all, I was simply getting a refill for the table; it's not like I was going to crawl under the stage and drink it myself. The ladies working behind the bar didn't see it that way. They looked at each other when I asked for beer. Their hesitation was lost on me. They asked why I wanted the beer and I said it was for my dad. In their VFW Hall wisdom, they agreed to fill the pitcher up halfway. I did not leave a tip, and everyone at my parents' table was confused when I returned with only half the pitcher.