Wondering Woman

On my way to work, I walk through an area of the Minneapolis skyway that's currently undergoing significant construction. So I'm used to seeing signs about what the workers are doing that day, and how it might be dangerous.

Yesterday, I saw a new warning.  It read "Caution: Lasers in Use."

And it gave me pause. Because I know how to protect myself in case of "Hard Hat Area" or "Earplugs/Goggles Required" or "Respirator Use Beyond This Point." But . . . lasers? 

They can come out of nowhere, man, and I'm just not equipped to deal with that kind of threat.

The best defense I could come up with was this:

We're gonna need more than hard hats this time, people.

BYOB

I was reminded recently of something crazy that happened to a friend several years ago.

He was driving in a residential neighborhood when another car ran a stop sign from the side. Unable to hit the brakes quickly enough, he clipped the vehicle that had popped out in front of him.

After taking a moment to recover from the impact, the other driver emerged from his car . . . holding a beer. Just stepped out with his open can, arms wide, to have a casual conversation with a fellow motorist. Like, "Hey, buddy. You get it. These things happen when you're hammered and operating heavy machinery."

The man was adamant that nobody needed to call the police, no damage had been done, and no insurance information should be exchanged. Imagine that.

Recognizing that he was dealing with a heavily intoxicated person who might be unpredictable, my friend assured him that all was well. He returned to his car, took down the man's license plate, and called the cops as soon as the dude swerved off down the road again.

This wasn't exactly your run-of-the-mill accident story, but it didn't seem like anything too extraordinary until my friend pointed out one incredible thing.

"Cotonee," he said. "I hit a drunk driver!"

He had somehow reversed the heartbreakingly opposite trend and landed someone in police custody by plowing into them before they could hit anyone else. 

And how many people can say that?

You're Shittin' Me

Just before Christmas, my dad asked me what I'd gotten my sister for a gift.  I told him she'd requested a Squatty Potty.

"A what?"

I explained that it's a plastic platform you use to prop your feet higher when you sit on the toilet, and it angles your body more correctly for easier elimination. 

"Oh," he said. 

We didn't talk about it again until I was rearranging the presents in the living room the next day. He pointed at the biggest box.

"What's in that one? Is that your sister's . . ."

I watched him search for the right answer, and I was not disappointed.

" . . . Shittin' Buddy?"

This, I think, is a far better product name, and I intend to wage an aggressive social media campaign to change it.  I can't wait to see the advertising.

Pumped Up

A couple weeks ago, I stopped at a gas station to fill my car. As I stood at the pump watching my money slip away, I caught a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked to the right and saw a large, muscular man barreling toward me. Just running full steam in my direction. 

I was about a second from crouching down defensively when he pulled up short at the trash can next to me. And that's when I realized: He wasn't running at me. He decided he needed to throw something away so desperately that he was willing to brave 5-degree Fahrenheit temperatures wearing nothing but a teeny tiny tank top and shorts. He slammed his garbage into the bin, whirled around, and dashed madly back to his car. 

Turns out enormous biceps and numerous tattoos (no matter how badass) do not protect against Mother Nature's icy wrath. Only coats do that. And common sense. 

Titanic Shoutdown

A movie theater is not your living room.

I'll never understand why this concept is so hard to grasp, but it seems incomprehensible to many moviegoers that 100 other people did not pay good money to hear a stranger's running commentary on whatever they're watching.

Now, if I'm at a theatre seeing a live play, I will not hesitate to shush a bitch. Because that's a costly, one-time experience where the actors on stage are also affected by rude patrons. And if you're sitting close to a talker, other people are counting on you to save their night from ruin.

A friend of mine takes this responsibility seriously, even at the movies. "You WILL NOT talk during this show!" she once preemptively commanded a group of rowdy teenage boys during the previews.

And she does it with flair. She once shut down a guy who was chronically thinking aloud by calling him a "gaping windbag."

But one of the funniest movie exchanges I can remember (aside from the time I heard a theater employee kick the broken projector and call it a "fucking slut"), was when I saw Titanic with my sister and her friend in high school.

This may or may not have been the time someone snuck a pizza-sized dessert cookie into the theater in the waistband of their pants. Who can say.

There had been several outbursts from a woman behind us during this film. But when the epic scene arrived where Kate Winslet is lying, cold and blueish, on the board in the ocean, the commentary kicked up a notch.

"Oh my god, do you think she's dead? She looks dead. Is Rose dead? Did she die?"

My sister's friend just snapped. She whirled around and yelled, "Of COURSE she's not dead, she's TELLING THE STORY! Now SHUT UP!"

It pays to follow the narrative. Sometimes it will even answer your questions before you need to ask them.

Delight in Delay

In honor of the many (possibly frustrated) Thanksgiving travelers, I share this story. 

Last spring, I took a trip to the Grand Canyon with my sister. We flew into Phoenix and then rented a car for the drive to the rim. 

After grabbing a shuttle from the airport, we found the lobby of our rental company absolutely overflowing with people. There was a "take a number" station at the entrance, and my small slip of paper said 52.

The number displayed on the digital sign above the clerk's counter was 11.

It was a disheartening gap, but luckily my sister and I share the same roll-with-it attitude about travel. We nabbed a couple seats and pulled out books and phones for the wait.

However, I soon found a much more entertaining way to pass the time. I started watching newcomers pull their own terrible numbers from the machine.

I honestly wish I had a video of all the reactions to those little tickets. They ranged from shock and disbelief to utter dismay and defeat to outright anger. One guy simply glanced up at the service counter sign, threw his number to the ground, and walked away.

Is it schadenfreude if you're in the same predicament? I don't know. But it was great. If I learned one thing, it's that it's physically impossible to hurl a 2-inch piece of paper downward with a force equal to the amount of anger a person is feeling.

An hour later we had our vehicle, and I had run the full gamut of human emotion with my fellow grumbling customers. And although none of them seemed to realize that we'd shared something special, I was truly thankful that everyone takes low-stakes bad news differently.

Shaken, Not Stirred

Apologies for the recent lack of posts. My mom has been hospitalized since the end of September.  But I'm jumping back online to share one of the few moments of levity I've experienced during the last two months.

I decided to stop for fast food on my way to the hospital one afternoon. I ordered a sandwich for me, a sandwich for my sister, and a chocolate shake for us to share.

When I pulled ahead to the window, the guy working the drive-thru took my money.

"Here's your food," he said, handing me a bag.

"And your chocolate shake," but he was holding nothing. He simply had his hand extended.

I just looked at him, confused. 

"Here's your chocolate shake," he said slyly, moving his hand up and down. And then the joke clicked. He was black, and he was offering me a shake.

Laughing together, we clasped hands in a hearty hello.  I didn't get a chance to tell him what it meant to have such a cheerful exchange right at that moment, or how many giggles the story brought to worried, exhausted friends and family. But kudos to the dude in Sioux Falls who served me ice cream in the cleverest way possible and brightened a small corner of my day.

A Streetcar Named Revenge

On my drive to work a couple weeks ago, I was stopped at a light. I watched a huge group of pedestrians amble across the street in front of me. When the signal turned green, there were still a few stragglers making their way through the crosswalk, so naturally I just waited.

The guy in the car next to me, however, jerked forward and literally gunned his engine, seemingly as a warning to the people blocking the street ahead.

The question I would have loved to ask him is this: What were you threatening to do, exactly? Run them down in cold blood? Because you realize that, even if they happened to be crossing against a light, it's still MURDER, right? Like, there are general traffic laws, and then there's deliberate vehicular homicide.

A friend of mine touched on this topic recently, albeit much less seriously. We were talking about his daughter's ne'er-do-well ex-husband, and I asked if he really hated the guy.

"Well, no. I don't hate him. I mean, he's a person."

I thought this a very considerate, measured, even magnanimous response. Then he added,

"But I could easily hit him with my car."