Athletic Supporter

A couple years ago, one of my friends and her husband bought their first house together. They then set about slowly getting to know all their new neighbors, usually while on walks with their young son. 

On one such occasion, my friend started chatting with a man who made no attempt to keep his casual racism out of the conversation. When my friend mentioned that the neighborhood seemed very nice, and that it was great to have a park nearby, he commented:

"Yeah, but that park has a basketball court." He gave her a knowing look. "And you know what those attract."

My friend stared at him incredulously. She simply replied, "Athletes?"

S-o E-m-b-a-r-r-a-s-s-i-n-g

The password requirements for my work computer have grown increasingly complex. A certain number of capital letters, numbers, and symbols, combined with a minimum character count that stops just short of supercalifragilisticexpialidocius. 

Think you've found the perfect password to fit this complicated bill? Great. Now change it frequently and completely. 

But don't write it down!

The last time I had to create yet another encrypted monstrosity, it was a stressful day. My new password reflected this state of mind, but I assumed it would be my little secret for the next couple of months. 

As it turned out, it was only private until I needed tech support a few weeks later. 

IT person: "I can fix that issue. I'll just need your network password."

Me: (pause) "You want me to just ... tell it to you?"

IT person: "Go ahead."

Me: "Um, okay. It's [a series of numbers and symbols], followed by s-o-d-e-p-r-e-s-s-i-n-g."

IT person: "Are those esses or effs?"

Me: "Esses ... like ... depressing."

There was a very long pause. 

Me: "I was in a really bad mood the last time I was prompted for a password change."

IT person: "Yeah. I can see that."

The web address for this moment begins with FML. 

Ghost Protocol

I watch a lot of scary movies. This wouldn't seem like the wisest choice for someone who lives alone, has trouble sleeping, and boasts an overactive, worst-case-scenario imagination. But I'm more afraid of aliens than ghosts, so I'm usually ok.

I didn't think twice about popping in "Ouija" at 10 p.m. on a Sunday night, mainly because it looked (and was) terrible, and actually a bit boring. I don't put much stock in that kind of thing, especially since my friends and I dabbled with a ouija board in college. On Halloween. At midnight. And we're all still alive to tell the tale. Although I did find out I have a spirit guide named Tikwu, for whatever that's worth.  So when the movie was over, I watched an old Simpsons episode and went to sleep.

I'm fairly certain my rude upstairs neighbor woke me up with one of his thuds around 4 a.m., which wasn't unusual.  What was different this time was that there seemed to be a ghostly figure standing next to my bed.

I stared for a moment, still groggy. When it became clear that this apparition wasn't going anywhere, I began to sit up . . . and then it went somewhere. It rose into the air, hovering near my wall.

Even in my bleary, myopic state, my mind held two thoughts clearly at the same time. Thought #1: You're having a bit of sleep paralysis. This is what it looks like when others see "shadow people" and it's a natural, albeit weird, phenomenon. Thought #2: I have to turn my light on or I'm going to fucking die!

And right at that moment, my eyes came into focus, and I realized that I was goggling at (and terrified of) the light filtering in through my bedroom window. Not only that, but I'd actually batted at it with my hand.

I've often wondered what I'd do if I experienced any of the horrors in these movies. As it turns out, my response to an imaginary threat like a ghost was emitting the weakest, most pathetic little "ahh --- ahhhhhhh" and pawing at the air like a newborn kitten.

I take a bit of comfort in this, since my real-life response to a legitimate threat like getting mugged was trying to kick the guy in the nuts while apparently screaming loud enough to wake all my neighbors.

You gotta do what you gotta do, people. Even if it's sleeping with the light on for awhile.

Reduce, Reuse, Redbox

A couple months ago, a friend came to my apartment for dinner, along with her husband and one-year-old daughter. We had a nice meal and then lounged in the living room, while the little girl toddled around.

As I don't have kids, I don't have a stockpile of toys, and I also don't have anything baby-proofed. But I really don't care what any visiting children play with, as long as there's no danger they'll get hurt. Read: I'm fine with broken stuff -- just don't stick anything in a light socket. Or drop one of my 5lb. free weights on your tiny foot. But that's another story.

So this little tyke, just getting her sea legs, motored around my whole place like a wobbly whirling dervish. Then she threw up on the couch. Then we laughed and her mom cleaned it up, and they left, and I went about the rest of my evening.

When I went to watch one of the DVDs I'd rented earlier in the day, it was nowhere to be found. My search of the apartment turned up only a couple of the kid's toys she'd forgotten. Figuring the movie had gotten mixed up in toddler stuff, I assumed it was probably mistakenly hitching a ride home with my friends.

I texted them, saying they could feel free to watch and return it after they unpacked. My friend immediately replied, "Check your recycling."

I wandered into the kitchen, where I keep a brown paper bag on the floor. Sure enough, crammed in between flattened boxes and soup cans was the DVD. I'm not sure if the little girl deposited it there on accident or as a judgment on the quality of the film, but I do know this: Parents are amazing.

Pinheads

I worked at a drugstore in my hometown for about 10 years -- after school and on the weekends while I was a teenager, and every summer during college. I did everything from cleaning and restocking to delivering prescription medications, but mainly I worked the till.

This could get slightly boring on your average Thursday night, and we invented myriad ways to keep ourselves entertained. I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say I lost several "who has the lowest blood pressure" competitions and know exactly how much my arm weighs according to the Russell Stover bulk candy scale.

One day, when I "had time to lean, so I had time to clean," I found a small action figure, maybe three inches tall, on the floor. It was a little plastic man wearing a shirt, jeans, and a turban. Since we didn't have an official lost and found, I set him on a shelf behind the front counter. Weeks passed with no claim. I named him Raoul.

At some point, on a particularly dead evening, one of my coworkers and I decided to have some fun with Raoul and the key-making machine. I think we sawed his arm off. I'm not proud of it, but that's what happened. Then my coworker suggested we glue a pin back on him. That also happened. I wore him to the company Christmas party that year on my lapel as my date.

Several more weeks passed, and Raoul became a fixture of sorts at the service counter. Until a little boy pointed up and cried, "Hey! That's mine!"

No kidding. After verifying that it was, indeed, his long-lost toy, I reluctantly handed it over.

"Here you go. His name's Raoul now," I said, awkwardly. "He's missing an arm. Sorry about that."

The kid frowned but took him anyway. As he exited the store, I remembered something critical.

"Oh! He's a . . . pin now!" I yelled after him. "So . . . be careful with that, I guess!"

And that's the story of Raoul, who came into my life for a brief but meaningful time, suffered some indignities due to teenage boredom, and then likely went on to injure an innocent child. So it goes.

Where's the Teeth?

I share an online calendar with a friend of mine. He works three jobs, and I try to stay social with my peeps, so it's just easiest to do a quick schedule check when we want to make plans like buying tickets to a show.

Last week I was sitting in the waiting area of my dentist's office when I got a text message. Here's what it said:

"You'll love this: I went in to my dentist appointment today at 2pm, only to discover that the appointment on my calendar was YOUR dentist appointment."

We were in separate offices across the city, but due to a misreading of a poorly color-coded time slot, only one of us was actually supposed to be there. 

He got hearty chuckles from the receptionist. I got my teeth cleaned. 

Diamonds in the Rough

At some point in our lives, we've all worked at jobs that were, politely put, less than stellar. When I first moved to the TC, I worked retail at a boutique gift store. It was intended as a short-term gig, a place to land while I got my bearings in a new city. Six months, I reckoned, would do the trick.

Over a year later I was still there. I worked weird hours and could barely pay my rent, but I'd met such wonderful people. My coworkers were so bright and funny that they occasionally made me forget my aching back and the last customer who'd treated me like dirt.

There was a guy in a band who would write little songs, such as his ballad about the Loomis truck driver called "Armored Car of Love." There was a woman who would twirl rolls of wrapping paper like batons, tossing them up in the air with a flourish. There was a girl who would work late nights during the Christmas rush, and we'd dance outrageously to a techno version of Bing Crosby after the store closed.

But the story that makes me laugh without fail involves another girl who was (and is) utterly delightful. We'll call her Heidi.  Because that's her name.  For a few months, we were selling personalized bracelets. You could buy a simple leather band and choose individual "diamond"-encrusted letters to thread on in any combination that suited your taste. 

On one particularly slow afternoon, Heidi decided to do a little shopping. She announced that she was going to make a bracelet for her sister, and proceeded to carefully pluck sparkly pieces out of the trays. She finally turned, quite seriously, to display her creation.

"Do you think she'll like it?"

I'd expected her sister's name, perhaps, or initials, or an inspirational word that held special meaning for them both.  What I saw instead, spelled out in glittery diamond letters, was "POOP."

It was ridiculous. And genius. And still one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

I eventually left that job, partly due to a poor change of management, and partly because having to call 911 after skateboarders threw lit firecrackers into the store didn't seem worth $8 an hour. I was too young and dumb to realize that you shouldn't burn bridges, because I frickin' dynamited that one. But I was lucky enough to know a few real gems, and that's worth a lot.

Drink. Click.

Over the holidays, I went home to South Dakota and spent a week eating my weight in goodies and generally trying to return to my natural vegetative/hibernating state. 

One night I heard my dad shout that he was watching slides in the basement. I roused myself from beneath a heated blanket and made my way down, where I found him clicking through a tray of my parents' wedding pictures from 1974.

I was well acquainted with all the images, since I'd painstakingly scanned, edited, and archived them several years before. But I'd never had the accompanying commentary from a happily buzzed father. 

"Look at that. Look at your mom. She looks like a freakin' movie star!" 

Drink. Click. 

"I never really noticed how pretty that dress was. With the lace on the sleeves and neck ..."

Drink. Click. 

"Whoah! Someone put a lot of work into those streamers."

Long pause while it slowly dawned on him after 40 years. 

"You know, I bet when all of us guys left and went out to the bar, the girls stayed behind and decorated!"

At that moment my mom arrived to confirm, with an amused smirk, that he was correct. Then she joined him on the couch to fill in the rest of the blanks, and they both looked back on each other as if for the first time. 

Drink. Click.