Tag: humor

Confessions of a Water-Spiller

~ Laura ~ 26 Comments

I can’t deny it any longer: I am a water-spiller. I spill water. Not all the time, but more than most people. Not intentionally — but does that matter? If you’re sitting near me, and I have a glass of water, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Here’s what to expect, if you ever find yourself sitting across the table from me at a restaurant. One minute, we’ll be eating and chatting like normal people, and then, without warning, I’ll lose situational awareness* and make some random hand gesture that sends my water glass flying across the table, drenching you in the process. The entire restaurant staff will flock to the table with napkins and towels, and in a moment, the table will be dry, you’ll be somewhat damp, and I’ll be trying desperately to convince myself that no one noticed. Next comes the truly crazy thing: someone will bring me another glass of water, in what I assume is a wildly misguided demonstration of trust. Or a dare. Or some kind of test. Or maybe it’s an attempt at first aid — perhaps they assume that the water-spilling was the result of a loss of motor skills caused by severe dehydration**.

If you do find yourself sitting across from me at a restaurant, you may want to try one of these strategies:

  1. Switch seats with someone else (but not me, because that would defeat the purpose).
  2. Help me maintain water glass awareness by subtly working water-spilling into the conversation (“I love your blog. My favorite post was the one about how you’re always spilling glasses of water on people in restaurants. Oh, look! We’re in a restaurant! Ha ha. What a coincidence. Hey, did I mention that my spouse and I are considering having a baby at some as-yet-undetermined point in the future, and that if we do, we’ll buy several sippy cups for said baby? You know what’s great about sippy cups? If you knock one over, nothing spills out of it, which distinguishes it from a regular water glass — you know, like that one right there, just inches from your hand.”).
  3. Glare silently at me throughout the entire meal. This will make me so uncomfortable that I’ll refrain from making the sort of gestures that lead to water glass catastrophes.
  4. Preemptively spill your glass of water on me.

The vast majority of my water spills occur in restaurants, although I have spilled water onto laptop computers at home twice. And once, on an airplane, I forgot that I’d taken the lid off the water bottle I was holding and accidentally poured water onto the man sitting next to me. He was surprisingly nice about it.

*I first encountered the phrase situational awareness months ago, and I’ve been trying to work it into conversation ever since.

**According to the Internet, loss of motor skills is not a symptom of severe dehydration. But I don’t think you need to know that to work in a restaurant.

Should You See Contagion? This Flowchart Will Help You Decide

~ Laura ~ 23 Comments

Here’s a handy flowchart to help you decide whether or not to go see Contagion. One tip: if you see this movie with a group of people, one of whom is very germophobic, and the rest of you have a betting pool to guess how many minutes of the movie that person will be able to take, then you should probably pick a number less than 10.

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Another Time I Didn’t Kill My Next-Door Neighbor

~ Laura ~ 31 Comments

Several people have asked me lately whether I killed my next-door neighbor*. This topic of conversation reminds me of a time long ago when I didn’t kill a different neighbor.

My most prized possession.
I was in my senior year of college, and at the time, I drank approximately eight thousand cups of coffee a day. A friend had given me a mug that had “Caffeine” written all over it, and my Caffeine mug soon became my most prized possession (my second most prized possession would have been one of those t-shirts with a picture of a caffeine molecule and the words “better living through chemistry” written on it, if I had in fact possessed one of those, which I didn’t, which is strange, now that I think about it, because that’s exactly the kind of thing I would have worn all the time back then and would wear on occasion now, except I still don’t own one).**

One night I had an extremely vivid dream. In the dream, I lived with my parents in a house on a hill straight out of a Hitchcock movie, next to an old man who lived in a similar house. For some reason, I had to babysit the old man for the evening, which I didn’t feel like doing — so of course I poisoned him, because apparently for the purposes of this dream, I was a psychopath.***

It turns out I’d made several mistakes. I’d assumed my neighbor’s death wouldn’t be investigated because he was old and, hey, old people die. I’d used my Caffeine mug as the murder weapon, which a) could easily be traced to me and b) meant that the police kept it as evidence, so I was deprived of my favorite mug. And I couldn’t just get on with my life, because everyone knew that I like to read murder mysteries, which meant that if I didn’t appear to be fascinated by this case, people would get suspicious.

In the dream, I was terrified that I’d be caught. When I woke up, I felt an overwhelming sense of remorse for what I’d done, until I realized I hadn’t actually done it. It’s hard to describe the feeling of relief that comes from realizing you haven’t murdered your next-door neighbor — it’s similar to the feeling you get when you’ve been walking around in uncomfortable shoes all day and then finally take them off, only more emotional, much more intense, and much less focused on foot pain.

Epilogue: a few days later, I went to one of my classes, and the moment I saw the professor, I realized he was the old man in my dream. You know that sense of panic you get when you run into someone you’ve recently murdered? I’ll never forget it.

*I didn’t. Some background can be found here.

**I’m thinking about entering that sentence in the Bulwer-Lytton contest.

***In real life, I’m not a psychopath. Trust me — I’d totally tell you if I were.

Errata and Clarifications to Recent Posts

~ Laura ~ 15 Comments

In the post Grocery Bag Dysmorphic Disorder (September 14, 2011):

  • The grocery bags were not made of unicorn skin. The unicorn is a mythical beast.
  • “Check out this week’s Dear Good Greatsby” was meant as a recommendation, not an order. I acknowledge that I am not in any way, shape, or form, the boss of you.
  • Getting the name of a blog wrong is not definitive proof that you are secretly in love with the owner of that blog.

In the post An Open Letter to a Guy Who May or May Not Be Named Dan, Regarding Our Recent Text Message Exchange (September 10, 2011):

  • Dan’s final text message (“sorry wrong number”) was omitted. I couldn’t bring myself to mention it; the feelings of anger and shame triggered by his assumption that I was too stupid to figure it out for myself were still too raw.

In the post Terror in the Skies: An Open Letter to Vance Gilbert (September 5, 2011):

  • The fork incident really occurred, but it was significantly less embarrassing than implied in this post. Also, the salad was very overpriced, not “kind of” overpriced.
  • Nail polish remover is not allowed on airplanes.

In the post The Door (August 15, 2011):

  • Mixing bleach and ammonia does not create “a simple explosive which can be used to blast through a blocked door easily and safely”; instead, it produces deadly cyanide gas.

In the post Lucky to Be Alive (June 31, 2011):

  • The “300 frenzied rat-like creatures running wild” were actually two docile gerbils in a cage.
  • The “raging inferno that almost cost us our lives” was a birthday cake with twelve lit candles.
  • The sound of “sirens of approaching fire engines, our last desperate hope for survival” was actually the sound of a small group of people singing “Happy Birthday” out of tune.

In the post Errata and Clarifications to Recent Posts (September 16, 2011):

Grocery Bag Dysmorphic Disorder

~ Laura ~ 19 Comments

Reusable grocery bags and I have a somewhat tumultuous history. For years, I spurned them in favor of disposable supermarket plastic bags, which played a critical role in my daily cat litter scooping routine. But then I switched to a different cat litter disposal strategy (I’ll spare you the details), broke free of my plastic bag dependency, and bought a couple reusable bags.

We got off to a great start, those first two bags and I. They came from Trader Joe’s, purveyor of fine foods and superior grocery bags. Approximately 92% of the reusable shopping bags you’ll see in Southern California are Trader Joe’s bags — I’m not sure how much of their popularity is due to actual bag quality and how much is due to the image they project. The Trader Joe’s bag is little classier than a regular supermarket bag, but less pretentious than a Whole Foods bag. It shows up in supermarkets, pet stores, and farmer’s markets. It’s Everybag.

My reusable bag honeymoon didn’t last long. I began to neglect the bags I’d once adored. I’d leave work at the end of the day intending to stop at the store on my way home, and then realize I didn’t have any bags with me. I’d postpone my shopping for a day — but then I’d forget the bags again the next day, and the next. Eventually, I’d run out of toilet paper or peanut butter or Sharpies or something, and I’d be unable to put it off any longer. In my despair and confusion I’d accept whatever bags they wanted to give me: plastic, paper, whatever. Once, I wound up with disposable bags made out of unicorn skins and industrial waste, assembled by 6-year-old girls working 18-hour shifts by candlelight in an abandoned coal mine. Clearly, something had to change.
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An Open Letter to a Guy Who May or May Not Be Named Dan, Regarding Our Recent Text Message Exchange

~ Laura ~ 34 Comments

Dear Dan,

Dan's hand has been pixelated to preserve his privacy.

I hope you don’t mind if I call you Dan – your first text was “hey this is dan”, so I’m guessing that’s your name. And I’m sorry I didn’t respond right away, but I just kind of assumed you’d somehow magically realize it was a wrong number. I was wrong.

Your second message took me by surprise. As a general rule, I don’t welcome unsolicited photographs of strange men’s body parts, but I wasn’t offended at all by yours. That’s probably because the body part in question was your hand, it was next to a package of felt-tip pens, and the accompanying text was “these are the biggest sharpies they have. will they work or u want bigger?”. Sure, someone with a junior-high mentality could interpret “or u want bigger?” as some sort of crude innuendo, but I don’t think you meant it that way.

I’m not sure why I responded the way I did. I’m sorry. I just wrote the first thing that came to mind. “I don’t know anyone named Dan” was a lie, and a pretty transparent one at that. Of course I know people named Dan. Dan is a very common name. But all the Dans I know are either distant acquaintances or friends I’ve drifted away from over the years; I can’t think of a single Dan that I’m on Sharpie-buying terms with. To be honest, I’m not sure I’m on unconditional Sharpie-buying terms with anyone. There are people who’d buy me Sharpies if they happened to be going to the store anyway, but I can’t think of anyone I could call at 3am to run out and buy me Sharpies immediately, no questions asked. They’d all ask questions, Dan. Questions like “Do you know what time it is?” or “Can’t it wait until morning?” or “Did you say Sharpies?”. What’s wrong with me, Dan? Why do I fail to inspire that kind of loyalty and trust? Is it because my text messages are filled with lies and half-truths?

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Terror in the Skies: An Open Letter to Vance Gilbert

~ Laura ~ 8 Comments
He may look innocent, but how do we know he doesn't have a book hidden in that guitar?

Dear Mr. Gilbert,

I read your recent blog post and several other articles all over the Internet about your experience being pulled off an airplane and questioned about the book you were reading. Much of the debate has centered on the issue of whether you were the target of racial profiling, but the fact is, this incident isn’t about race, or security theater, or overzealous airline employees, or post-9/11 paranoia. It’s about procrastination.

You really need to work on your time management skills. Your flight was less than two hours long; that’s just not enough time to read up on aircraft design, formulate an evil plan, and carry out that plan. You should do all your reading and planning in advance, and then gather all the materials you need before boarding the plane.

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The Door

~ Laura ~ 29 Comments

So this is it, I thought. This is how I’m going to die.

A few years ago, I was working on a project that involved visits to several earthquake engineering labs across the country. Earthquake engineering labs are dangerous places – huge, cavernous rooms with specially-reinforced floors and walls, where tremendously strong, often violent forces are applied to specimens constructed from thousands of pounds of concrete and steel. But I wasn’t facing near-certain death because I was trapped beneath a pile of rubble in an engineering lab; in fact, I wasn’t in a lab at all. I was at home.
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Land of the Free (Ad-Supported)

~ Laura ~ 15 Comments

One approach to reducing the U.S. federal deficit is to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. This seems like a reasonable approach, but is it really fair to ask the super-rich to give up their tax cuts and get nothing in return (except for a more functional economy, which they’d have to share with everyone)? I don’t think it is. That’s why I’ve come up with this proposal, which will raise revenues by rolling back the tax cuts, but will make the rollbacks more palatable by providing incentives for those who pay the most.
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South California: Most Likely to Secede?

~ Laura ~ 20 Comments
Map of South California
The green part is South California (map created with the map utility at http://monarch.tamu.edu/~maps2).

You may have heard by now that a California county supervisor has proposed that several counties secede from California and create the new state of South California, based on the principles that taxes and illegal immigrants are bad and that state legislators should work part-time. It’s pretty clear that he didn’t really think this through: “South California” is a terrible name for the state he’s proposing, for a couple of reasons:

  1. Parts of regular California would be south of large sections of South California.
  2. Geography was never my strong suit, but I’m pretty sure there’s a state called South Carolina. People are always going to confuse the two, especially when addressing envelopes, since South Carolina already has the “SC” state abbreviation.

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