Golf Etiquette

I'm not much of a 'golf shirt' guy. Nor am I much for golfing. I only go about once every 5 years, and it seems it's always with the dad of the girl I'm dating. The last time I went, five years ago, the girl's dad gave me a detailed overview of where I should hit the ball when we were standing at the first tee. He let me know that the green sloped a certain way, so I wanted to hit the ball on that side since it would roll towards the hole. I was just hoping to make contact with the ball when I stepped up to it and swung the club. I thought about telling him that, but I knew he'd figure it out soon enough. I whiffed a couple times on that drive, and then on the second hole, a par 3, I chipped over the green four or five times. I finally just kicked the ball onto the green when he began clearing his throat loudly.

Questionable Food

I smelled lemon and felt spray settle on my arm while eating lunch. I peeked over my shoulder, and the proprietor of the Indian restaurant was cleaning the picture next to my head with Pledge. I could feel it on my entire forearm, so I had to assume that it had settled at least over that part of the table. I was nearly done with lunch, so the choice wasn't too hard. I skipped the rice from that part of the table and picked up a new piece of naan that would have been out of the spray radius. It was likely that some of the Pledge landed in my masala sauce, but I risked it. Pledge can't be much worse than most of the preservatives they use in food.

Chuck Eskimila Was Right

My old boss at the bike shop loved to argue, and the biggest point of contention was the stereo. I was a big Bad Religion fan, and argued that the band was good because they sang about high-minded ideas. My boss argued they were bad because all their music sounded the same. He enlisted a regular at the shop, a music professor named Chuck Eskimila with a huge curly mullet. Chuck argued that we were simply asking the wrong questions. Music isn't good or bad, it's just a matter of what you enjoy, so the entire 'is this band' good argument is moot. He was right, and not just about music. His hair was rocking. I thought it looked stupid back then, but now I realize he was the only guy with enough courage to have style.

High School Hardships

A young woman came to my friend Bill's 30th birthday party, and all of his old friends were telling her stories of their days together. This was my favorite: "Bill did really well on his SATs in high school, and his first year of college, he was across the hallway from our high school's Salutatorian. There's this legendary quote in our high school, and it's from Bill talking to our Salutatorian. 'You worked hard for four years; I worked hard for three hours. Same school.'"

Key Issues

I'm not a numbers person. So instead of using a combination lock at the gym, I use one with a small key. I worry constantly about losing the key. It wouldn't be a big deal if I lost it when I was working out, but if I accidentally locked it inside my locker when I was on my way to the shower, I'd have to walk to the desk in a towel and ask to borrow a bolt cutter. You'd think that the fear of losing my key would ensure that I'd stay sharp, but I know it won't. So see, every day before I ride my bike to work, I double check that I packed a clean shirt to change into once I arrive at work. Last week, I forgot to pack my shirt and had to bike back home for it. Twice.

Learning and Logic

It's not difficult to learn how to drive stick. Anytime I undertake learning a new skill like riding a motorcycle or learning to drive a car with a manual transmission, I reassure myself that the world is loaded with idiots who have managed to figure out how to do this simple task, so I should be able to get it down if I just apply myself for a bit. The one time that logic failed me was in learning to speak French, but it's very applicable for learning to drive stick. I only have one friend who doesn't know how to drive stick, and I'm pretty sure he gave up after killing the engine through three green lights while traffic lined up behind him on a single-lane road. His sister probably should have switched seats with him, but she was laughing too hard.

Dog Bars

I met a friend at the dog park, and then we walked uptown to a bar that allows people to bring in their dogs. Two ladies walked in, and one of them asked him to write a review for her website. She said she ran a website with reviews of dog-friendly bars and restaurants, and that all the reviews were written as if they were done by dogs. I did little to hide that I thought she was completely insane. The proprietor of the establishment came over and requested that they not write about the bar online in the interest of avoiding problems with the health board. The two girls left a few minutes later without finishing their beers, and then a minute later, we noticed my friend's sunglasses were missing. We're not sure who stole them, but I think it was the two girls. Here's way -- their idea for a website is so staggeringly stupid, that it had to be a ruse to draw his attention while they stole all the stuff he'd set on the bar. Going forward, I'll not only be wary of things that are too good to be true, but also things that are too stupid to be true.

Road Rage Experiment

We had to conduct a psychology experiment in high school as part of our final project. I was partnered with a woman named Gretchen, and we settled on a road rage experiment. We'd sit in a car at a red light, and then not go anywhere after it turned green. We'd wait until people honked before going through the green. We would time how long they waited before laying on the horn. My hypothesis was that people would be more impatient the later it got in the day. We eventually gave up the idea since we didn't want to be confined to a car all day, and we ended up gluing money to the floor and timing how long people tried to pry it off the floor. Our study added nothing to the scientific community, but it was pretty fun.

Most Clever Spam Ever

I get a lot of spam comments on my blog. They're left by bots and link back to pills that offer promises of arousal or weight loss. These spam comments would never be mistaken for real comments by any human moderating them. But the other day, I saw one that might make it past a few people. It started with the usual link to pills online, then in parenthesis it said, "I'm being held captive by the Russian Mafia, and they're making me post spam comments on blogs! Please post this to your comments and help." Then that was followed by more links to pills. It's a bit clever. I suppose someone does have to write these comments. Maybe I should have helped that guy out. It's the most clever spam I've ever read, well, besides this blog post.

I Didn't Even Go to 8 Years of Medical School

Some guys get really upset if you refer to their wife as their girlfriend. I never understood that. It's the same reaction that doctors have when you use 'Mr.' instead of 'Dr.' as their title. "Son, I didn't go to 8 years of medical school to be called 'mister'." My mistake, I thought you went to medical school so that you could go into mountains of debt and get a job healing people. Doctors are the only civilians who get to show off their status in society with a title. Lawyers get to be called 'esquire,' but let's face it, that doesn't really impress anyone.

Lost Ideas

I had a Google Document with about 100 ideas for posts. I'd had the same 100 ideas for about two years, and any day that I couldn't come up with something, I'd spend 10 minutes floating through the list trying to find something that I could turn into a passably amusing anecdote. Then one spring day, I purged my Google Docs page, eliminating everything that I have no need for. It wasn't until a week later, when I couldn't come up with a blog post idea, that I realized I'd deleted my master 'idea list.' When you accidentally delete a short story or don't write down an idea and later can't remember your logic, it's at first not much of a big deal. Then a day or two passes, and those ideas begin to seem like that had real gravity -- like this new stuff just isn't measuring up. Then a month later, you realize that you could have spun the next Great American Novel and an award-winning Bud Light ad campaign out of those notes -- what a loss for humanity. I just hope those ideas are never recovered and I'm proven wrong.

Meal Replacement

I was in rush to get to a train and knew I wouldn't have time for dinner, so I stopped at a store looking for a Pro Bar or Larabar. They had neither so I grabbed something called a Full Bar and ate it in the next 2 minutes. It tasted like a rice cake and lacked the substance I was looking for, and it left me feeling really thirsty. I had nothing to drink on hand, so I chewed some gum. I made it to the train with 10 minutes to spare and picked up a tallboy of Budweiser for the ride. My friends on the train were talking about missing dinner, and I mentioned that I'd grabbed some sort of meal replacement. Then the conversation turned to these new meal bars that you eat and then drink a glass of water, and they expand in your stomach to make you feel full. It took a few moments, but then someone remembered they were called 'Full bars.' It explained why I was so thirsty after eating the rice-cake-style bar, and thankfully I'd had the Budweiser to wash it down. Mmm, rice-cake-soaked Bud sitting like a fruitcake in my stomach. No wonder I'm still not hungry.

Donated to Science

Mosquitoes were biting through my pants and socks while hanging out in Minnesota last weekend, and I was doing everything I could to keep them away without slathering on the DEET. I finally relented and rubbed a bit of the bug spray on my face after getting a couple bites on my neck. My friend didn't seem bothered by the mosquitoes at all, and when I asked why, he said that he's among the few rare people who are not allergic to mosquito bites. He has no reaction if one of them feeds on him. I'd never heard of this before and said so. Then I asked why he was out walking around and not being studied by scientists so they can develop some kind of serum that makes mosquito bites not bother people. And then it dawned on my why he must not tell too many people about his rare condition -- if the Minnesota state government ever found out, I'm sure they'd send their version of the CIA to scoop him off the streets and study him for science.

The Jeremy Cut

I biked back to my old neighborhood to see my barber. We've been together about a year; when I find one I like, I stick with them until one of us moves. I sat for a few moments waiting for her to finish up with the person before me, and then when she dusted off the chair, she looked at me and said, "Your turn Jeremy." 'Jeremy' sounds a bit like 'Rocky' on the phone, so I assume the person who took down my appointment wrote my name incorrectly. I didn't correct her, but sat down and she said, "Same thing as last time?" I decided to see how 'Jeremy' gets his hair done, so I said, "Okay, but a bit longer," just in case Jeremy likes it buzzed. Turns out Jeremy prefers a bit of a mini-mullet. I'm trying to embrace my new look, but might be trying to find a new barber closer to home next time around.

The Huffy Toss

On a Saturday evening at the bike shop, after a long day of a very successful sale, we toasted our success with a few cans of Pabst in the parking lot, and then we found an old Huffy to throw around. The Huffy Toss is essentially the same as the shot put, but instead of a shot, you throw a bike. By the time we'd gone on a few more beer runs to replenish the supply, the bike had become an unrecognizable hulk of metal. Both wheels had fallen off, and we were rolling the only near-circular one back-and-forth in the parking lot. It got away from us and careened towards a parked car. At the same moment a man walked into our field of vision, also heading for the same car. He put the key in the door the moment the wheel hit it. But luckily, the bike wheel hit his tire and didn't do any damage. We were all trying to act casual, except my co-worker Rob who didn't notice the disturbance. He had kept busy the whole time picking up the Huffy frame and repeatedly bashing it into the asphalt. It's likely Rob had a lot to do with the driver not complaining about his car getting hit.

False Memory Syndrome

This morning I was getting ready for work and the thought occurred to me, "Did I lock up my bike last night?" I paused for a moment, and then I recalled pulling it inside and throwing my U-lock through the frame and locking it to the handrail anchored to the wall. I've done this hundreds of times. Then I walked into the living room and saw my bike sitting there. I thought for a moment and remembered how I'd brought my bike upstairs so I could adjust the brakes that were getting a bit squishy. Then I tried to remember if I'd gone to work yesterday, and if I had, did I spill a mug of coffee into the copy machine, or was that someone else?

I Totally Get. You See, I'm Crazy Too

I had the experience today of overhearing what a crazy person was saying on the street and completly understanding what she was talking about. She was on a corner standing astride an old rusty beach cruiser when a BMW blew past her. I was pulling up to the corner, and it took her a few moments to get her thoughts together. After the BMW was far down the street, she addressed it as if it was a person who'd been rude to her, and she wondered what it could be in such a hurry for. It was such a logical thing to say that I actually thought she might be a poetry professor making a mental note for later. Then she turned to me and asked how to get to Houston. I said, "Houston?" and she said, "Mmmm, Hudson." I began explaining to her how to bike there, but she started riding away in the direction I pointed before I could even get going on the directions. So then I stood there on the corner by myself, yelling directions at her back, in my own little version of crazy for someone else to observe.

Pressure Drop

I tested my blood pressure at a drugstore this afternoon. While I was sitting at the machine with the band around my arm, an older woman walked up and stood over me watching. She made no attempt at concealing the fact that she was reading my blood pressure. When the machine was done and I'd received my reading, she muttered, "A little high," in that tsk-tsk voice grammar school teachers use to demean you. I was wondering if she would sit down to have her blood pressure read, and I was not disappointed that she took a seat and kicked up the machine. I sat on her lap waiting for that reading to come up. Unfortunately, this old woman's blood pressure was at much healthier levels than my own, so I couldn't even shove it in her face that she'll die much sooner than me.

Open Wedding Season

I attended a wedding last weekend and had a strange bathroom encounter. I noticed that someone before me had dumped red wine all over one of the urinals, which is a bit sloppy but nothing of a shocker, but then when I was washing my hands I noticed a belt buckle resting in the drain of the sink. It wasn't an oversized, rodeo-trophy, but one that looked like it came off a belt you'd buy from a normal clothing store. I glanced in the trashcan on my way out of the restroom and didn't notice a belt on top of the trash. Whenever I met someone new that night, I'd take a quick glance to see if they'd lost their belt buckle. If I saw the person who lost it, I planned on putting my foot on his hip, pulling the belt out and giving him a good smack with the thing. No particular reason for doing so. I'm just happy it's wedding season again.

It Arrived One Day

My friend received a puzzle in the mail. It sounds like a nice gesture, but it was a bit odd. There was no return address, and it was in a large, lumpy envelope mailed from within the same city. She did criminal defense for awhile, so she thought it was anthrax before even opening it. She took it to the police and asked if she could open the package at the precinct. They gave an okay over some deli sandwiches, and she opened it to find it was a puzzle. So she sat on the precinct floor and put it together enough to see that it was a puzzle of the David sculpture in Florence. Then the hunt began. She called practically everyone she knew, and thought she had it nailed down when a friend's cousin said he 'didn't know' if he'd mailed the puzzle. Turned out to be from some friends who were heading out of the country and thought she would figure it out right away, but what weirds me out is the guy who told her he wasn't sure if he'd sent it. It seems like mailing a puzzle in a suspicious package is something you'd recall pretty easily.

Renting vs Buying

At some point, it becomes economical to buy a car instead of renting one. This economy is on a sliding scale based on what kind of car you would consider drivable. My friend is heading back to Minneapolis for a week-and-a-half, and he plans on paying about $500 for his rental car. A quick scan of Craigslist gives him some $500 options. He could ride around on a motorcycle for that week, and then when he moves back to Minneapolis in October, there's a free motorcycle waiting in the garage for him. Or if he spends just a little bit more -- say the amount it would cost to add insurance to his rental car for that week-and-a-half -- there's at least one sweet V8 Jaguar he could get into. Plus if he crashes one of the cars he bought, then he wouldn't have to worry about paying the rental agency for it. It's hard to believe anyone still rents cars these days.

Food That's Out to Get You

If food tastes disgusting, it better be healthy for me. There's plenty of so-so tasting food that lives in the middle ground. I'm not a fan of some Indian dishes, and I can't quite figure out whether bagels are that bad for you if you don't get cream cheese. The one food that really bothers me is grits. They taste like butter-flavored tofu with the consistency of a blended corn margarita. And get this -- grits are terrible for you! If you're going to bring that awful flavor, you better be doing something for me, grits.

The Airplane Jinx

I'm not terribly superstitious, but when it comes to flying I don't like to take any chances. I would prefer it if pilots avoid the jinx on our flight. The 'jinx' comes when they get on the mic about 10 minutes before you land to say, "Thanks for flying with us...welcome to San Francisco." The truth is that you're not in San Francisco yet -- you haven't even cleared San Leandro. Take-offs and landings are the most dangerous part of the flight. Don't get too cocky up there pal; let's save the welcoming committee for when we pop the plane's door open at the gate.

Heat Waves and Alien Invasions

It's been really hot lately, but if you only listened to the news and didn't know it was hot, it would be easy to think that we'd been invaded by aliens. The media is freaking out. They tell you to 'stay inside if at all possible,' and 'lie down on the floor where it's cooler.' They also say to 'drink plenty of water,' though I guess that last one makes less sense regarding an alien invasion. It makes me wonder how the media will react if there ever is an actual alien invasion for them to cover. I'm not sure that we'd find out since they'd likely work themselves into such a fit, that they would be among the first casualties of the invasion.

The Backup's Backup

It's nice when a friend calls at the last minute to offer you a spare ticket they happen to have to a concert. I like to tag along for an impromptu get-together, but sometimes I'm too deep into my night to drop everything and go to a show. I usually feel a little guilty for not having a more adventurous spirit and going along, so I'll suggest someone who might be interested in joining them for the show. If you and I are ever in this situation, don't say, "Oh, he can't go." And then if I suggest another person, definitely don't say, "Yeah, she's busy, too." I'd prefer to just keep on thinking that I was your first choice when you got your hands on that extra ticket.

A Parent's Signature

When my friend Sam was a little kid, his neighbor's parents built a mini ramp. They said that any of his friends could skate it, provided that their parents would sign a liability waiver. Sam's parents refused to sign the waiver. Not because they wanted to be able to sue, but because they didn't want Sam to injure himself skateboarding. At first I thought it a bit sad that lawsuits have gotten so out of hand that neighborhood kids need to sign waivers, but now I think it was pretty smart of the parents who built the mini ramp to require them. Not so much because they would hold up in court, but because the type of person who refuses to sign a waiver is likely the same type of person who would bother taking you to court in the first place. As for kids like Sam who simply don't get a signature because their parents want to discourage risky skateboarding, well, they'll just get really good at skating street.

Firework Cleanup

I've always thought that 'garbage man' would be a good fallback career for me. I like working outside and hanging off the sides of trucks. Plus you get to throw garbage bags around and keep any good things you find that people are throwing away. Getting up at 3am for work would be rough, but it'd be nice to hitting the noon happy hour when you got done with work so early. Then today I cleared about 10 pounds of exploded and half-exploded fireworks off the lawn and tossed the whole mess in the trash. If everyone on the block does the same, that garbage truck will have enough unexploded gunpowder in it to leave a crater in the road four feet deep. They should probably hang "No Smoking" signs on the side of the truck for that one day.

Your Daily Fishing Report

During my newspaper internship in a small town in Minnesota, I was tasked with writing daily fishing reports for the paper's website. It was one of the joys of my job. I've made something of a career of finding different and engaging ways to say the same thing over and over, and these fishing reports were great practice. Fish in a small chain of lakes don't change their behavior much, so the fishing report was more of a daily recap of the weather report with some news about how the fish would act. At first they 'weren't hitting' or they were 'nearly jumping into boats,' but by the end of summer, Muskies were 'laconic' while sunfish were zipity-doo-dazzling. I can't believe no one ever called to cancel their subscription to the paper. I'm pretty sure it's because no one ever visited the website.

The Spy Business

I've been following the news of the Russian spy ring in the U.S. with interest. You see, I once considered going into the spy business. The fact that I only speak one language counted against me in the CIA hiring process, and I suspect that there's very little need for white guys with Midwestern accents to conduct overseas clandestine operations. I suppose I should sue the CIA for discriminating against my lack of job skills, but I don't want to deal with all the paperwork.

Cable TV and a Line in the Sand

My parents wouldn't steal cable when I was a kid. I was a strong advocate of getting some kind of TV top box that would give us all the channels without us paying. My mom said that it was the same as stealing. I suppose she's right, but you have to draw the line somewhere. I, for one, may not steal cable, but I'll happily steal your internet. And I expect the same from you. If I don't have my wireless internet password protected, come right in and use it to download music illegally or read the newspaper legally. At our old place, we found someone had tapped into our Apple wireless setup, and we let him be. It wasn't until he was sharing our iTunes library and changed a couple songs we were listening to on the stereo hooked up to our wireless that we had to crackdown. You have to draw a line in the sand at some point.

How to Creep Someone Out

One of my friends received a puzzle in the mail. This might seem innocuous, but she's worked as a public defender in New York and worried for her safety once or twice. It arrived in an envelope with no return address, and I think someone drew a skull and crossbones on the outside. She took it to the police station and said she thought it was poison. So she opened it and asked if she could put it together on the precinct floor. They acquiesced, and she spent some time before figuring out that it was a puzzle of the sculpture David. Then she took it home and began the hunt. Random brother in law? Former client? All signs pointed to no. It turned out to be from a friend who'd sent it right before going abroad. Life lesson: If you want to creep someone out, send them a puzzle with no attached explanation.