As should be clear by now, I work in an office. This is the single worst possible occupation for me because I am the world's most easily distracted person. Yesterday, for instance, I got into work, got my morning cup of coffee, got my papers all organized and sat down at my computer ready to bang out some work that had to be completed by the end of the day. Within 15 minutes, I was on Wikipedia trying to find out if Mama Cass actually did choke to death on a ham sandwich.
It turns out she did not. She died of a heart attack in her London hotel room, but the London police investigating her death noted the presence of a half-eaten ham sandwich in her room, thereby unwittingly giving birth to one of the most persistent urban legends in the history of pop culture and turning Mama Cass' tragic and untimely death into a story that never fails to get a chuckle.
This got me thinking about other untimely, pop star deaths. (My work was, by this point, a distant memory.) I was wrong about Mama Cass, but (according to Wikipedia, at least) I was correct on the next two I looked up. Elvis Presley was found dead on his bathroom floor, having apparently died while sitting on the shitter, just as I had heard. I did not know, however, that Elvis was found in the floor in a pool of his own vomit. Nor, to be perfectly honest, did I really need to know that. Jimi Hendrix died by asphyxiating on his own vomit after a big night of partying, also as I had heard.
Which leads me to my question of the day. Why, when describing someone's messy demise involving vomit, do we feel it necessary to clarify that it was his own vomit that was the culprit. Are there any recorded cases of someone choking to death on someone else's vomit? If someone told me nothing more than that Jimi Hendrix had choked to death on vomit after a big night of partying, I would go ahead and assume that it was his own vomit, unless told otherwise. It's not like I would respond in frustration: "Who's vomit?!? For God's sake, be specific!"
Something distracted me before I got the chance to read up on Jim Morrison's death. I'll have to look that one up this weekend when I am in work to finish that project that was due yesterday.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Thursday, October 25, 2012
The Confessional
As a Catholic, taking a big, nasty dump has always reminded
me a little bit of going to confession, and I say that with nothing but the
greatest respect for the holy sacrament of reconciliation. Like walking into that quiet church on a Saturday
afternoon, I enter the bathroom at work with a sense of foreboding, more than a
little apprehensive about what I am about to do. After ensuring the coast is clear, I step
quietly into the little stall at the end and carefully secure the door behind
me. Then, after some opening formalities,
all the crap just comes flying out.
Bless me Father for I have sinned, I ate that entire bag of store-brand
oreos after the kids went to be last night.
I had four slices of cold pizza and a pop tart for breakfast and, it
appears, I had some corn along the way.
With Your help, I will sin no more.
After some concluding formalities, I step out of the stall feeling like
a new man: lighter, happier, filled with confidence in the human capacity for
self-improvement. There’s a spring in my
step as I make way over to the sink to wash away any last remnants of my
former, sinful life.
Check in with me an
hour later and you’ll find I have visited the vending machine in the break room. There’s a fresh Ho-Hos wrapper in my trash can
and my right hand is mostly hidden inside a half-finished bag of Cool Ranch
Doritos. Ah, the spirit is indeed
willing, but the flesh is weak.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
A Husband's Lament Upon a Cruel Deception
My dear, sweet petunia,
More precious than life.
My partner, my companion,
My sweetheart, my wife.
Many years ago now,
We two became one.
We've stood, hand-in-hand,
And watched the years run.
And with each passing year,
Our love, it has grown.
We've reaped bountiful harvests,
From the seeds we have sown.
I've toiled every day,
But looked forward each night,
To return to our homestead,
And your welcoming light.
And each eve as I came,
To our doorstep at last,
You welcomed me in,
To a hearty repast.
Both famished from labors,
We've sat down to dine,
On the beasts of the wild,
And the fruit of the vine.
But now you have stung me,
Though no words you have spoken
Our love, it is crushed,
Our trust now is broken.
My intolerance for dairy,
O'er the years, has grown stronger,
Until milk, cream, and butter,
I can abide no longer.
This aversion to dairy,
Is well known to you.
You've heard and you've smelled,
What that stuff makes me do.
But you try now to trick me,
And present me, instead,
With this strange new concoction,
To spread on my bread.
You tell me it's fine,
Even good for my heart.
It won't clog my arteries.
It won't make me fart.
You think me a fool,
But I can tell you right now,
That this smooth preparation,
Must have come from a cow!
This cruel hoax, my dear,
Has sent my heart all a-flutter.
I struggle for words.
I stammer. I stutter.
I bellow, I howl,
I spout and I sputter!
I will not, I can not,
Believe it's not butter!
More precious than life.
My partner, my companion,
My sweetheart, my wife.
Many years ago now,
We two became one.
We've stood, hand-in-hand,
And watched the years run.
And with each passing year,
Our love, it has grown.
We've reaped bountiful harvests,
From the seeds we have sown.
I've toiled every day,
But looked forward each night,
To return to our homestead,
And your welcoming light.
And each eve as I came,
To our doorstep at last,
You welcomed me in,
To a hearty repast.
Both famished from labors,
We've sat down to dine,
On the beasts of the wild,
And the fruit of the vine.
But now you have stung me,
Though no words you have spoken
Our love, it is crushed,
Our trust now is broken.
My intolerance for dairy,
O'er the years, has grown stronger,
Until milk, cream, and butter,
I can abide no longer.
This aversion to dairy,
Is well known to you.
You've heard and you've smelled,
What that stuff makes me do.
But you try now to trick me,
And present me, instead,
With this strange new concoction,
To spread on my bread.
You tell me it's fine,
Even good for my heart.
It won't clog my arteries.
It won't make me fart.
You think me a fool,
But I can tell you right now,
That this smooth preparation,
Must have come from a cow!
This cruel hoax, my dear,
Has sent my heart all a-flutter.
I struggle for words.
I stammer. I stutter.
I bellow, I howl,
I spout and I sputter!
I will not, I can not,
Believe it's not butter!
Monday, October 22, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Guilty Pleasures vs. Dirty Litte Secret
One of the pleasures of blogging is passing along little nuggets of wisdom that I pick up along life's path and helping you, my dear reader, avoid some of life's pitfalls in the process. Here's a little wisdom I picked up at a dinner party last night. It was a dinner party at a friend of a friend's. None of the guests really knew each other all that well and so, once we were all seated for dinner, the host started trying to stimulate conversation amongst the strangers. She hit upon the idea to get everyone to confess a guilty pleasure. I like to think of myself as the life of the party and, as no one was really chomping at the bit, I volunteered to get the ball rolling. I then proceeded to tell the assemblage about a Hustler Magazine that I keep down at the bottom of my sock drawer and what I like to do with it when the wife and kids are out of the house. To me, this seemed to be a perfect example of a guilty pleasure. It certainly gives me pleasure but I must admit I feel kind of guilty about it, especially right after the pleasure part.
Although my example certainly seemed to fit the literal definition of the phrase "guilty pleasure," I could tell by the reaction of the dinner guests that, when it comes to the common understanding of the phrase, my example may have missed the mark. Pretty soon, though, someone else jumped in to my rescue and told about some t.v. show she enjoys. Next, a gentleman admitted that he likes 80's hair metal bands. Another woman confessed she enjoys reading cheesy romance novels. In spite of the fact that these people didn't seem to feel all that guilty about these things at all, the reaction from the guests seemed to indicate that these are much closer to what are commonly understood to be guilty pleasures.
After the ice breaker session was over and everyone was engaged in conversations with their neighbors at the table, the nice lady sitting next to me cleared things up a little. It turns out that, if it is something you kind of enjoy, like a hobby, but that you feel a little sheepish about for some reason - that's a guilty pleasure. But if you get an inordinate amount of pleasure out of it and/or if you feel really, really sheepish about it or even wonder about its legality, well, that's what's called a "dirty little secret." Those are best kept to yourself. Recognizing that this was an excellent topic for a blog post, I ran a couple more examples from my life past this lady to ensure I had the distinction clear. Picking your nose and eating it is also a dirty little secret, as is scratching your bum and then sniffing your fingers. After that, the lady insisted that I seemed to have the distinction clear in my mind and that no further illustrations were necessary.
So, there you have it. The next time I am asked about a guilty pleasure, I am not going to mention that thing I do with my toenail clippings. That's a dirty little secret.
Although my example certainly seemed to fit the literal definition of the phrase "guilty pleasure," I could tell by the reaction of the dinner guests that, when it comes to the common understanding of the phrase, my example may have missed the mark. Pretty soon, though, someone else jumped in to my rescue and told about some t.v. show she enjoys. Next, a gentleman admitted that he likes 80's hair metal bands. Another woman confessed she enjoys reading cheesy romance novels. In spite of the fact that these people didn't seem to feel all that guilty about these things at all, the reaction from the guests seemed to indicate that these are much closer to what are commonly understood to be guilty pleasures.
After the ice breaker session was over and everyone was engaged in conversations with their neighbors at the table, the nice lady sitting next to me cleared things up a little. It turns out that, if it is something you kind of enjoy, like a hobby, but that you feel a little sheepish about for some reason - that's a guilty pleasure. But if you get an inordinate amount of pleasure out of it and/or if you feel really, really sheepish about it or even wonder about its legality, well, that's what's called a "dirty little secret." Those are best kept to yourself. Recognizing that this was an excellent topic for a blog post, I ran a couple more examples from my life past this lady to ensure I had the distinction clear. Picking your nose and eating it is also a dirty little secret, as is scratching your bum and then sniffing your fingers. After that, the lady insisted that I seemed to have the distinction clear in my mind and that no further illustrations were necessary.
So, there you have it. The next time I am asked about a guilty pleasure, I am not going to mention that thing I do with my toenail clippings. That's a dirty little secret.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Tips for Today's Professional on Dealing with Smelly, Problem Gas in the Workplace
Lunching on the "Double Deuce" burger at Tommy's Grill is an experience with a lot of upside and not much of the opposite. But if there's a downside - it's the farts. Those two patties and the side order of fries pack a lot of grease and, for me at least, greasy equals good, but greasy also equals farts. The greasy food produces a reaction in my system that is kinda like the well-known "silent but deadly" category of fart, except that, in place of the word "silent," substitute "foghorn." This makes for an awkward afternoon at work. So, what to do. Here are a couple of solutions ranked from most to least effective for dealing with loud, stinky, problem farting for today's office-dwelling professional.
1. (Most effective.) Go home. Open all the windows. Go to bed for the afternoon.
2. (Temporarily effective.) Go to the bathroom, sit on the toilet, and fart to your heart's content. This is a phenomenom I will never understand. Where I work, my personal office is my domain. The restroom, on the other hand, is a place of public resort, which I share with all of my coworkers of like gender. Yet, I can befoul this place of public resort with the most ear-piercing of trumpet blasts followed by smells that will curl your nose hairs, and my coworker standing at the sink would never dream of making mention of the show I just put on while he was trying to dab a coffee stain off his tie. But if I do the same thing in my office - my domain, remember - as sure as the sun rises in the East, my neighbor in the next office will poke his head in my door and suggest "Dude, why don't you go take a dump?" Regardless of the reasons, if you've got to blow some excess pressure out the old spider button, the best place to do it is in a stall. The problem, of course, is that, unless you've got an afternoon's worth of work that you can accomplish while sitting with your pants around your ankles in a sparsely furnished, 2'x3' tin box, this is only a temporary solution to what is going to be an hours long problem.
3. (Not half bad.) One of the immutable laws of nature is that, if you close your door and let loose a real stink bomb, within the next 30 seconds, a coworker will walk into your office with some urgent matter that absolutely requires that she (it's always a female) sidle right on up next to you so you can both read a document together. Then, after the first inhale, all of the urgency will depart the coworker's voice, the coworker will suddenly lose all interest in the matter at hand and, instead, become very interested in something else that requires her to be anywhere but standing next to you in your office. As she makes her excuses and leaves, she will forget all about the until-recently-urgent document, leaving you holding it, humiliated, desperately pretending to be so engrossed in whatever is on the sheet of paper that you don't notice her stumbling, half-conscious toward the sweet, fresh air on the other side of your office door. Listen to me and listen good: Do not, under any circumstances, close your office door to break wind. If you want to gamble, go to a casino. Unless you want to hear everyone in the breakroom tittering every time you walk in there for the next six months, do not do this.
The good news is, there's a variation on the above that actually has a pretty good success rate. Before you close your door for a toot-toot, hang a sign on your door that reads in large, bold letters: "CONFERENCE CALL. DO NOT DISTURB." Then, even if someone does walk in, you can start talking into the speaker on your phone urgently while waving them away. Studies have shown that this works with about 90% of coworkers and the other 10% are such jerks, who cares if they receive a shot to the olfactories capable of stunning a young moose.
4. (Don't do this ever.) The covering cough. Here's the situation. You've really gotta let one fly, but there are people within earshot, so you figure you'll just fake a tickle in your throat to distract them from what is the most recognizable sound in the world coming from your other end. So, so lame. Here's a couple problems. First, just because you're coughing doesn't mean they can't hear your farts. They can, dumb ass! Instead, you just sound like a popcorn machine with a cold. Don't bother coughing louder, either. The louder the cough, the louder the fart. It's a biological rule. Another biological rule is that the farting and coughing always happens in perfect synchronization. Three coughs? Three toots. Now you sound like you rehearsed this disgusting little act. Don't be surprised if your coworkers break into sarcastic applause.
5. (This should get you fired.) The phrase "excuse me" is for burps or for when you bump into someone. Not for farts. Everyone gets caught by surprise every now and then. Either make a joke about it or ignore it, but don't frickin excuse yourself. Once you have interrupted your boss mid-sentence with the sound of digestive gases escaping your anus, you have lost the moral authority to excuse yourself. Don't do it.
1. (Most effective.) Go home. Open all the windows. Go to bed for the afternoon.
2. (Temporarily effective.) Go to the bathroom, sit on the toilet, and fart to your heart's content. This is a phenomenom I will never understand. Where I work, my personal office is my domain. The restroom, on the other hand, is a place of public resort, which I share with all of my coworkers of like gender. Yet, I can befoul this place of public resort with the most ear-piercing of trumpet blasts followed by smells that will curl your nose hairs, and my coworker standing at the sink would never dream of making mention of the show I just put on while he was trying to dab a coffee stain off his tie. But if I do the same thing in my office - my domain, remember - as sure as the sun rises in the East, my neighbor in the next office will poke his head in my door and suggest "Dude, why don't you go take a dump?" Regardless of the reasons, if you've got to blow some excess pressure out the old spider button, the best place to do it is in a stall. The problem, of course, is that, unless you've got an afternoon's worth of work that you can accomplish while sitting with your pants around your ankles in a sparsely furnished, 2'x3' tin box, this is only a temporary solution to what is going to be an hours long problem.
3. (Not half bad.) One of the immutable laws of nature is that, if you close your door and let loose a real stink bomb, within the next 30 seconds, a coworker will walk into your office with some urgent matter that absolutely requires that she (it's always a female) sidle right on up next to you so you can both read a document together. Then, after the first inhale, all of the urgency will depart the coworker's voice, the coworker will suddenly lose all interest in the matter at hand and, instead, become very interested in something else that requires her to be anywhere but standing next to you in your office. As she makes her excuses and leaves, she will forget all about the until-recently-urgent document, leaving you holding it, humiliated, desperately pretending to be so engrossed in whatever is on the sheet of paper that you don't notice her stumbling, half-conscious toward the sweet, fresh air on the other side of your office door. Listen to me and listen good: Do not, under any circumstances, close your office door to break wind. If you want to gamble, go to a casino. Unless you want to hear everyone in the breakroom tittering every time you walk in there for the next six months, do not do this.
The good news is, there's a variation on the above that actually has a pretty good success rate. Before you close your door for a toot-toot, hang a sign on your door that reads in large, bold letters: "CONFERENCE CALL. DO NOT DISTURB." Then, even if someone does walk in, you can start talking into the speaker on your phone urgently while waving them away. Studies have shown that this works with about 90% of coworkers and the other 10% are such jerks, who cares if they receive a shot to the olfactories capable of stunning a young moose.
4. (Don't do this ever.) The covering cough. Here's the situation. You've really gotta let one fly, but there are people within earshot, so you figure you'll just fake a tickle in your throat to distract them from what is the most recognizable sound in the world coming from your other end. So, so lame. Here's a couple problems. First, just because you're coughing doesn't mean they can't hear your farts. They can, dumb ass! Instead, you just sound like a popcorn machine with a cold. Don't bother coughing louder, either. The louder the cough, the louder the fart. It's a biological rule. Another biological rule is that the farting and coughing always happens in perfect synchronization. Three coughs? Three toots. Now you sound like you rehearsed this disgusting little act. Don't be surprised if your coworkers break into sarcastic applause.
5. (This should get you fired.) The phrase "excuse me" is for burps or for when you bump into someone. Not for farts. Everyone gets caught by surprise every now and then. Either make a joke about it or ignore it, but don't frickin excuse yourself. Once you have interrupted your boss mid-sentence with the sound of digestive gases escaping your anus, you have lost the moral authority to excuse yourself. Don't do it.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Introduction
"So's your butt."
Never has there been a a more effective come-back, a snappier put down, a more unassailable retort. Whatever deficiency you have just attributed to me is one shared by your own rear end. I'm dumb? So's your butt. I'm fat? So's your butt. I am an individual thoroughly unconcerned with the plight of those less fortunate? So's your butt. Why don't I shut up? So's your butt. That doesn't even make sense? So's your butt. You're leaving? So's your damn butt.
Effective. Snappy. Unassailable. That is exactly what this blog aspires to be. In it's advice, it's criticism, it's poetry, it's art, and certainly in it's central concern (the human caboose), this blog aspires to be as effective, as snappy, as unassailable as that legendary rejoinder.
What's that you say? This all sounds really stupid? Well, that may be so, my good sir. And so's your butt.
Never has there been a a more effective come-back, a snappier put down, a more unassailable retort. Whatever deficiency you have just attributed to me is one shared by your own rear end. I'm dumb? So's your butt. I'm fat? So's your butt. I am an individual thoroughly unconcerned with the plight of those less fortunate? So's your butt. Why don't I shut up? So's your butt. That doesn't even make sense? So's your butt. You're leaving? So's your damn butt.
Effective. Snappy. Unassailable. That is exactly what this blog aspires to be. In it's advice, it's criticism, it's poetry, it's art, and certainly in it's central concern (the human caboose), this blog aspires to be as effective, as snappy, as unassailable as that legendary rejoinder.
What's that you say? This all sounds really stupid? Well, that may be so, my good sir. And so's your butt.
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