things that should be put away before guests come over

A few of us met over at my friend Craig’s house for some Yuletide poker…because there’s nothing like losing money to get you into the holiday spirit.

Craig, while being a nice enough guy, is very into the whole ‘fantasy role playing’ lifestyle and all of the stereotypes that come with this label. I didn’t know Craig in high school, but I think it’s a relatively safe bet that he played more than his fair share of Dungeons and Dragons throughout his teenaged and college years.

His is the only apartment that I know of which is adorned with various types of swords and daggers, all shined to a high gleam and mounted upon his walls. He also has quite the collection of action figures…from classics like He-Man to more obscure muscle-laden heroes and villains…all of which line his bookshelves. And, on occasion, he’ll forget and leave one of his sketch books open on a table, revealing within a wide array of elves, warlocks, and female warriors. Warriors who are not your average, everyday female fighting machine. Craig’s female warriors come complete with twelve inch waists, ample breasts, and skimpy little outfits that no woman could reasonably expect to do any type of butt-kicking in.

Craig also has a state of the art digital cable system, his television having long ago been upgraded with the maximum number of channels…containing somewhere in the neighborhood of 42 different HBOs, Starz, Showtime, and of course Cinemax. And, perhaps as a research tool in sketching his latest breastified warrior, he’s a frequent viewer of the Cinemax at night variety of programming…entertainment which consists of boobs galore but remains light on plot. Boobs that Craig can ogle any time of day or night since, having subscribed to the Ultra-Platinum Plus Package choice for his cable viewing pleasure, he can simply select any number of Cinemax at Night movies from the On-Demand screen.

As we all sat down around the table, Craig dealing out the cards, I noticed a new piece of décor which had been added to the room. The other three players shortly noticed the same thing that I had spotted…namely, a bottle of Jergens Hand Lotion which was resting on the coffee table right next to the remote control.

After several curious glances from the bottle, to Craig, and back again, he looked innocently up, shrugged, and said, “My hands get chapped a lot. So what?”

Because, obviously, remote control wielding can rapidly speed up the skin de-moisturizing process.

why i need a self-changing vcr

Last week, I finished yet another business class…a class which I took with the hope of earning yet another degree…a degree I’m trying to earn with the hope of getting yet another job. A better, more lucrative job. A job which, I’m beginning to think, doesn’t exist.

The final for this latest class consisted of watching a video taped interview and applying all of the valuable insights that had been gleaned over the course of the class and summarizing these insights into a tidy little report. The tape was handed out the week before the final class and, ever the studious student, I stuck it into my VCR that same night. Visions of A+s danced through my head…visions which lasted only 20 minutes, because at this point the video tape bored me into an early slumber upon my couch.

The tape sat forgotten in my VCR until that weekend when, once again, I decided to revive the dancing A+ visions and try to get through the entire thing. I hit the rewind button to account for the lost minutes which I slept through, and pressed ‘play’. Much to my surprise, the video taped final that I would be graded on was not what appeared on my television screen. Rather, I found myself watching the last few minutes of that week’s episode of Lost.

And it dawned on me that I had forgotten to replace the tape of my final with a different video tape. My VCR, being set to tape Lost every week, just wasn’t smart enough to figure out that I had the wrong tape inside and replace it with a different one.

Truthfully, my patience with the television show Lost is wearing thin, and I’m about ready to scratch it off my TV show viewing list. Yet, every week I tape it in the hopes that something will be answered…or, at the very least, that something will happen. Nothing ever does, but still I continue to tape.

Knowing that a report on my feelings for the show Lost would most likely not get me that A+ on my final, I watched the remaining 30 minutes which had been spared, and constructed a paper with a pretty good beginning, a decent ending, but that was mysteriously vague on the whole middle part. And as I wait for my grade to arrive in the mail, I worry less about the missing middle part of my report and more that the professor found out that one of his video finals now had an episode of Lost inserted into it.

And, in the event that he didn’t, I’m quite certain that someday, some other student will be watching, and fervently taking notes, when suddenly their final is replaced by a bunker in the middle of a jungle. They’ll probably pause to wish unspeakable tortures on the idiot who taped over their final. Though, I’m willing to bet, that they too will have a middle-less report.

a rinse-cycle related death

It’s been a week since I got my little odometer for the 10,000 step program that our company’s ‘wellness committee’ has adopted in the hopes of keeping us all well. Though I’ve been told by the office know-it-all, that the device clipped to all of our belts is not an ‘odometer’ as I have been calling it, but a ‘pedometer’ since ‘odometers’ are for cars and ‘ped’ means foot. Personally, I’d quite enjoy sticking both my ‘pedometer’ along with my foot, up this person’s ass…but then I’d would be unable to gauge just how many steps I take during the course of a day, thus I have been refraining myself.

Unfortunately, the only thing that this whole wellness activity has taught me is how very little I move each day. While others around the office constantly check their ped-o-dometers and revel in the number of steps they take each hour, I remain woefully lacking in my own step department.

Even Kristi, the recent college grad and smoker, steps more each day than I do. “Here I always felt guilty about smoking,” she told me one day right after checking her step progress, “but now, I find that I take more smoke breaks throughout the day because it makes me walk more. Who would have thought that smoking was making me more healthy?”

Meanwhile, my underachieving legs atrophy more and more every day, and I have my trusty little ped-o-dometer to thank for bringing this to my attention.

Last Friday after work, I headed out to meet some friends at a nearby bar. And, for fear of looking like an idiot for wearing a little step counting gizmo into a place where all the cool inanimate objects hang out, such as alcohol, I hid the little device in my pants pocket.

And this is where it remained all weekend…from bar to hamper to washer to dryer. And what I found is that, while Timex watches may be able to take a licking and keep on ticking, little gadgets that count your steps do not.

As I pulled out my ped-o-dometer from the bottom of the dryer, having apparently fallen out during one of the drying cycles, I flicked open the cover to see if it had any life left in it…which it did not.

Although, having apparently mistaken all the spinning and tumbling for steps, the number 11,074 was frozen on the little digital face plate of my no longer functioning step counter.

Naturally, I was saddened by this turn of events…because losing a piece of technology, no matter how stupid and worthless it may be, is always a cause for despair. Still, a smile crossed my face.

I had finally reached my 10,000 step goal!

taking steps

At the suggestion of my employer’s health insurance company, a ‘wellness committee’ has been formed. I’d like to think that the wellness committee is dedicated to the overall ‘wellness’ of the employees, but I can’t help but think that there were promises of reduced group insurance rates if the company tried to healthy us all up.

I have no desire to participate in any committee sponsored activities, but when told that the first wellness event was going to be a ’10,000 Step Challenge’ I was intrigued. Not because I enjoy walking…which I personally consider to be a very antiquated activity ever since cars were invented…but because I got a free odometer.

And since getting this odometer, I simply don’t know how I’ve lived this long without it. The information it provides is invaluable…such as the exact number of steps it takes me to reach the bathroom from my couch (11), and how many steps I save by parking in the very first parking spot at work as opposed to the very last spot in the parking lot (77).

I realize that I could just as easily count the steps myself as I walk, but this type of mental activity while walking could easily blow out an important neuron. Besides, it makes me feel very technologically savvy to have a little box clipped to my belt do the counting for me.

Better still, I’ve heard that there are promises of gift cards for those people that meet the 10,000 step goal. And being that the whole program is being run on the honors system, I’m a guaranteed winner.

Because, since I’m not a professional walker by trade, I plan on giving myself a 9,500 step handicap.

cold enough for ya?

This morning, I joined several other tenants in some early morning car scraping activities that the cold weather has brought about. I started the ignition and, like the other twenty people who were already slowly moving around their cars, brushing and scraping as they went, I grabbed my own scraper and began clearing off a small circular portal which I was hoping would reveal enough of the road in front of me to provide safe passage to work.

One of the main things I hate about this time of year is the forced small talk that you have to engage in while scraping away at your windshield. As is often the case, a fellow scraper enters into your politeness zone, the area at which it becomes rude to ignore someone, and you’re forced to acknowledge them.

And, while scraping away the layers of ice from your car, the small talk is always a variation of the same theme. “Boy, isn’t winter fun?” or “Cold enough for ya?” or “I can’t wait until summer!” A non-English speaking driver could learn only these three phrases and be readily accepted in our parking lot during the months of December through March.

This morning, as I scraped my way around to the passenger side window, a young lady who was scraping her way toward the driver’s side window of her car passed into my politeness zone. I sighed, resigned myself to another five second weatherish conversation, and glanced over at her.

But she surprised me by looking over her shoulder and saying, “you know, sometimes late at night, I lie awake in my bed and question the existence of God.”

Completely caught off guard by this transgression from the norm, I said, “well, it’s impossible to scientifically prove the existence of God, since He doesn’t exist in the material sense of ‘being’. Rather, the concept of a higher power lies more in faith, because it’s really the spirit of God we’re all searching for…not the physical presence.”

We paused and stared at each other amidst the drifting snow and rising exhaust fumes, until she finally broke the silence by saying, “boy, isn’t winter fun?”

“I can’t wait until summer!” I told her. And giving a final scrape across the window, I climbed into my car and headed off to work.