Last year, I wrote about how distraught I was to see a mother duck lead her ten chicks across the parking lot of my apartment building, mainly because it meant I'd need to watch out for them all summer long.
This year, I'd hoped to avoid the responsibility of worrying about yet another family. So you can imagine my consternation when I walked outside last week and saw this:
Dammit.
Perhaps I'll take the order number as a sign that I should limit my fast food intake.
Last week I had the opportunity to visit Sedona, AZ, where I spent a lovely afternoon eating and browsing cute little shops with my family. What I didn't know was that Sedona is also home to several energy centers, or "vortexes," which are supposed to be spiritual power centers. While I won't comment on the validity of this notion, I will post the picture I took in a gas station bathroom. It seems to express their views quite clearly.
I'm growing increasingly aware of the need to avoid judging books by their covers.
I used to ride the bus with a rather large man who would sit and talk with the bus driver for the entire trip, trading lines from movies and comedy specials. If I hadn't heard him joking around, I might have been terrified by the size and sound of this guy. He had one of the deepest, most sonorous voices I've ever heard. Everything about him seemed scary and powerful . . . until he told the following story.
Several years ago, he was awakened in the middle of the night by some noises on his front lawn. When he looked out the window, he saw a group of teenagers toilet-papering his house. Guessing that they were his son's classmates, he decided to give them a scare.
He exploded out the front door in his pajamas, bellowing like a crazy person. When the kids piled into a van and took off, he chased them down the street. Apparently they were also struck by the depth of his voice, because he could hear screams from inside the vehicle: "Darth Vader's gonna kill us!"
Finally, the van managed to outdistance him, and the frightened teenagers escaped into the night. That was when he realized that he'd rushed outside with no shoes on. And, because he hated being barefoot, he was forced to hop gingerly back to his house. "Imagine what those kids would have thought," he laughed, "Seeing Darth Vader tiptoeing down the street!"
Of course, this was also the guy who said that, after watching the movie Candyman, he was huddled in his bed with "all the lights in the house on AND a flashlight."
Dark Lord, indeed.
I recently read an article online about the number one thing that men should never say to women during an argument. The answer came as no surprise: "Calm down." I can think of few things more infuriating in an already tense situation. So that's not the interesting part.
When I scrolled down to read the comments on the article (manifested as ranting in varying degrees of coherence as always), I saw numerous other suggestions for taboo phrases. And then I came across this comment: "Don't ever tell a man he has a tiny ***er. That can stay with them for the rest of their nature lives."
What caught my eye wasn't the typo in the second sentence, though I enjoyed it. The interesting part was the number of asterisks in the self-censored word.
Because I spend my days paying attention to details like these, I was soon stymied. It couldn't be wiener or pecker. Too many letters. Maybe it wasn't dirty after all. Hmmm. What do men have that they don't want in a small size? Diner? Anger? Nope. Too abstract. Buyer? Biker? No, size wouldn't matter. Boxer? Maybe, if it's referring to underwear.
And then it hit me. I had been overlooking one of the most out-of-date, hilarious examples of sexual innuendo (and in one case the oddly acceptable name of a teenaged boy's best friend on an 80s sitcom). Boner. Of course!
Now I can ***ep tonight.
Last year, just before St. Paddy's Day, I walked out of my apartment to find this sign taped to the building's main entrance. While I think it was a helpful warning, I'm not sure what disturbed me most:
1. That the party was slated to last exactly 11.5 hours.
2. That "St. Patrick's Day" was in quotes.
3. The use of the word "probably."
This weekend, a friend was telling me that she's frequently out of the loop when it comes to knowing certain slang terms. While her husband claimed that he found this endearingly innocent, my friend lamented that she sometimes embarrasses herself by being behind the times. Case in point: she once loudly announced in mixed company that she didn't understand what "twat" meant.
To help her out, her husband and I ran down a list of euphemisms that she should be familiar with. I'm not sure whether that speaks volumes to our worldliness or to our trashy viewing habits/acquaintances, but in the end, I think it's knowledge worth having.
A couple years ago, my mom emailed me a similar question. This was back in the early days of the conservative trainwreck known as the Tea Party, before they had legitimized their batshit craziness and were commonly referred to as "tea baggers."
My mom had heard on TV that "tea bagging" was actually a sexual term, and she wanted to make sure she didn't use it improperly. Inexplicably, her first fact-finding mission sent her directly to me.
What I wanted to write back was "Mom, this is what the internet is for." Because it is. The Web exists largely to spare us the indignity of asking for enlightenment about potentially embarrassing things. However, I had a small panic attack when I imagined the search results that might populate if my mother googled "tea bagging." There might be pop-ups. There might be videos.
When I was a kid, my parents managed to avoid having "the talk" with me by leaving an educational book about sex outside my bedroom door. So I did what any loving daughter would. I sent her the link to the Wikipedia page.
Every so often, I'm an unwilling participant in the phenomenon that I refer to as the Unisex Name Drop. What is this intriguingly named yet undeniably real event? Here's an example:
I'm ready to pay for something at a store or a restaurant, and the cashier looks down at my credit card and cannot resist commenting that he or she has a family member or a friend or an ex named Courtney. Of course, the Courtney they know is a guy, which makes them chuckle good-naturedly while they relate this story.
I realize that the person is probably just trying to make small talk while waiting for me to sign a receipt, but I'm absolutely baffled regarding how I'm expected to respond. There's nowhere to go from "I know a man with that name." I usually end up forcing a polite smile and saying something like, "Yeah? That's interesting."
But you know what? It's really not. People who have unisex names (even rarely used ones like mine) are fully aware that there are human beings of the opposite gender running around with the same moniker. And when you bring it up, it's awkward. There's nothing relevant to say because it's a completely irrelevant comment.
Unless, like me, they're sometimes mistaken for the opposite gender by myopic people who can't understand that some women have short hair and are 5'10". In that case, it's a bit of an insult, since you seem to be comparing us to your nephew or your male cousin or your brother's best friend.
If you're ever tempted to broach this topic with a complete stranger, may I suggest using any one of the following phrases instead: 1) "That's a nice name." 2) "Have a nice day." 3) Nothing at all.
I once asked a friend what he thought I should say in these scenarios, and he gave me the most hilarious quip I could have wished for. I have it in reserve as my standard response.
CLERK: "Huh. I have a nephew named Courtney."
ME: "Yeah, I know. I'm named after him."
Take that, name droppers.