2.5 Hours of Oddness

Chronological excerpts from yesterday:

5:40 p.m.: I pass an old truck in the parking lot as I'm walking to my appointment. An adorable little boy with a Shirley Temple moptop is sitting in a car seat while his dad (or some adult male) is going back and forth loading boxes. At this particular moment, the dad is not near the truck. I look in and smile at the boy as I walk past him. The boy says "Hey!" to me. I keep smiling as I walk away, and I hear him continuing to yell, "HEY! HEY! HEY!!!" Then I hear the dad say, "What? WHAT??" Hee! I don't know if the boy told him why he was yelling, but if he did, it would've been funny because I'd rounded the corner already, so it looked like he was shouting at no one. I could've stopped to chat with the boy, but I don't aim to look like a predator.

5:42 p.m.: Dialog with the receptionist before my appointment:

Receptionist: Hi!
Me: Hey there. I have a 5:45.
Receptionist: Ok, what's your name?
Me: Ning Ning.
Receptionist: Weren't you JUST in here???
Me: Uh, six weeks ago …
Receptionist: No, I thought you were JUST in here. You look so familiar!
Me: Hmm. Noooo. I was here several weeks ago, but not recently.
Receptionist: Oh, that's so weird. I could've sworn I JUST saw you.
Me: Well, you're here every time I come in, and we talk whenever I'm here, so maybe that's it? But it's been a good month and a half since I've been here.
Receptionist: Yeah, I don't know. It's just so weird.
Me: I've rescheduled this appointment twice, so maybe my name looks familiar?
Receptionist: No. Maybe. You just look so familiar! I could've sworn I just saw you in here!

At this point, my esthetician comes skipping out (literally) and escorts me to the room very jolly-like. She told me she loves it whenever I come in because I'm always so nice and happy. I told her I love the fact that she's always so chipper at the end of the day, which makes me happy. I'm always flattered when people remember me, and I have to say this particular experience didn't disappoint.

6:10 p.m.: I'm walking away from my car to meet my friend for dinner. Two homeless guys are sitting on the curb. As I'm crossing the street, I hear one of them call out to me. I keep walking because I assume they're going to ask for cash, which I don't have. Instead, this is what I hear, "Ma'am? Will you marry me?" I'm somewhat thrown, so I turn around to see if he's talking to me. He is, and I genuinely laugh because it's so unexpected. Then he says, "Will you, even with my better half here?" I continue laughing as I walk away.

6:15 p.m.: I decide to use the restroom while I'm waiting for my friend to show for dinner. As I try to lock the door, which comes complete with taped instructions on how to lock it, I discover that the lock is broken. I debate whether to skip the bathroom visit, then just decide to hurry up and hope no one walks in on me. As I'm washing my hands, the door flies open. Of course. At least my bits and pieces weren't on display. The woman, clearly startled, says, "OH! I'm SO sorry!" and quickly ducks out. I think she decided to use the men's room — not sure if she was too embarrassed and just jumped into the nearest room or if she just really needed to go.

7:45 p.m.: My friend and I amble down the street to grab a pint at Hole in the Wall. He decides to put his leftovers in the car, so I head to the bathroom while he's doing that. (I had soup for dinner, so frequent restroom stops were the theme of the evening.) The door looks closed, but it doesn't looked locked, so I push on it and it flies open. A woman is standing in the bathroom. I say, "OH! SORRY!" and back out. She quickly tells me it's her fault because she mistakenly thought she'd locked the door, but she obviously didn't. Good thing she wasn't displaying her bits and pieces then.

8 p.m.: Some guy walks past us, and he looks EXACTLY like a mutual friend. I point at the guy, and my friend says, "It's not him. I thought the same thing." We confirmed it was not our friend, but this guy had the same hair, same face, same earrings, same style, same walk — same everything. So, so odd.

So yeah. In the span of 2.5 hours, I experienced a child shouting at me, a mock proposal from a bum, two instances of mistaken identity and two instances of walking in on someone who's using the restroom. Fabulous.

Douchebaggery

True story.

Monday morning. I’m driving to work. It’s raining. Hard. With 5 minutes left of my waterlogged trip, I realize my laptop is still at home. Fuck. Now I have to turn around and drive another 30-45 minutes in the rain because I’m paralyzed without that darned laptop.

I slow down to exit so I can head back home. Big Chevy truck to my right slows down. I slow down more. Truckhole slows down, too. WTF? I look over. In the midst of the downpour, he’s got his window down and he’s trying to talk to me. WTF?? He’s all smiling and trying to flirt. In a downpour. At highway speeds. Operating heavy machinery. In rush hour traffic. W. T. F. ? ? ?*

I speed up, jump ahead of the line and exit as quickly as possible. I just don’t understand dudes sometimes. Who does that? And what can the take rate possibly be on douche moves like this??

*I did consider the possibility that my taillights were out and he was just trying to be friendly and warn me about that, so I went home and checked. The lights are working fine.

Why Must You Choose the Stall Next to Me?

There are five adjacent stalls in the bathroom I use at work. I generally choose stall 1 or 2 for a pit stop during the day. Though the room may be empty when I enter, someone usually comes in to do her business shortly after me. Unfailingly, that person chooses the stall DIRECTLY next to mine.

I'm not doing any dirty business, mind you (I think the unspoken rule to use stall 5 applies to that situation, and, if you recall, I mentioned I use stall 1 or 2, which implies I'm in and out in a jiffy), but can't people respect the bounds of personal space and move farther down the line? Or, even better, use the stalls on the OTHER side of the aisle?

Good god. Every single day this happens, without fail.

I guess, at the very least, I should be thankful women do not bring reading material from the lobby into a public restroom ...

Things I've Noticed About Football

Let me start by saying I love football. I really only love a couple of teams, but I love watching football on Saturdays and Sundays. Back in the day, I owned the Bruce Weber football books. And by "back in the day," I mean back in the day when Danny White was the Cowboys QB.

Anyway.

As I get older and watch more football, I notice things. I shall share, in the hopes that someone can explain these things.

1. Football announcers love homoerotic terminology. Forget the fact that large grown men jumping on top of each other and slapping asses is inherently gay. I'm talking about the announcers here. I can't count the times I've heard them say something squirted out, popped out, was driven into or came from behind. As manly as the sport is, the announcers are so much girly-manlier.

2. You can't make an ass in uniform look bad.Show me one player — just one — with a less than stellar ass. Something about shiny tight pants works. Take note, straight men looking to catch a girl's eye.

3. Every other player is named Reggie.Reggie Bush. Reggie Wayne. Reggie Brown. Reggie Williams. It goes without saying that if you hope your kid grows up to be a football star, name him Reggie.

4. If your name isn't Reggie, you'd better hope it's odd.Peerless. Samkon. Keyshawn. Alge. The only players who don't have odd names are the kickers. And, really, are they even players?

5. Token girl reporting from the sidelines is never categorically hot. What happened to Jillian Barberie? She at least was fun to look at. Now, it's like they brought in a bunch of butch females that are attractive to Joe Namath only.

6. Head coaches never look like just regular guys. Bill Cowher looks like the evil sensei from a future Karate Kid installment. Mike Holmgren or Andy Reid? I'm surprised they haven't been questioned for offering candy to kids they don't know. They also look like Santa Claus' younger brothers. I thought Lovie Smith made enough money playing J.J.'s dad on "Good Times" — I wonder how he finds time to coach AND star in "Men in Trees" nowadays. Jim Mora: Isn't he just a 'roided out August Busch XIVVIX from the Anheuser-Busch ads? And so on. Point is, they always stand out much more so than the players.

7. Ocho Cinco is pure entertainment.This guy needs to be the creative force behind a struggling ad agency. Need a new slogan? 85 is your man. Looking for a gesture that needs no words? Look no further than the Chad. He'll pump new life into anything, including that football in the end zone.

8. The only reason they moved Monday Night Football to ESPN is because Hank Williams Junior is too scary for the masses. I swear one day he's going to pull off his mask and reveal he's really Michael Jackson. Regardless, if your name is Hank Williams and "Senior" or "III" is not your suffix, you probably need to stay off of prime-time network television.

That's all (for now). Agree? Disagree?

"The Protector" — Makes My Jaa Drop!

This weekend I saw "The Protector," or, as I like to call it, "How to Break 297 Arms and Other Body Parts in 297 Different Ways."

Now, until I was standing at the box office staring at a picture of Tony Jaa, I thought this movie was the new Scorsese film, "The Departed," which I believe is the remake of the Hong Kong movie "Infernal Affairs." It's not.

What "The Protector" is is a thinly veiled remake of "Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior," except this go-round Tony Jaa is protecting an elephant instead of a Buddha head named Ong-Bak.

Same story line otherwise: Dirty men steal a prized village possession, causing Old Man Village Head to charge Tony Jaa with its safe recovery and return to the village.

I wonder if Thai films — specifically Tony Jaa films — search for the most obscure item, worthy of death and dismemberment to those who seek it, to recover. I fully expect the next Jaa movie to involve his quest to find the sacred vegetable sieve in order for the villagers to rinse their garden cucumbers again.

Either way, Jaa makes watching action movies fun again, from the minute he sets off on foot to faraway lands. And it really doesn't matter that he looks like he's always just finished a marathon through the desert. If he can do stunts without wire harnesses and CGI, he deserves to be greasy and sweaty at all times.

Thinking back, though, I can't quite remember how he got from a Thai village that uses elephants for transportation to Sydney, Australia. Hmm. Those would be some bloodied feet if he walked and swam across coral reefs ...

Since Quentin Tarantino presented this movie, I suspect the gore and bloodshed was amplified from its original intention. Think Kill Bill, specifically that scene with the schoolgirl and the chain, except without all the special effects and twice the queasy factor.

At one point, Jaa takes overdrive to a whole new gear by breaking the arms (and other body parts you never knew you had) of at least 40 idiots who just keep coming after him. The crunch-break noise, repeated over and over and over and over and over, was much like that of stepping on a stack of Pringles. I intend to start working on my own low-budget sound effects after an impromptu stop at the Quickie Mart.

Oh, and yes, I did have to close my eyes for a brief minute or two when the tendon slicing of the beefcakes began. Doesn't help that we'd just finished dinner at the hibachi grill, where slicing and dicing is an artform, much like Muay Thai in general. Hmm, and our hibachi chef was named Tony, now that I think of it. Seriously. He threw shrimp at inappropriate places that were not my mouth, too, but that's a different blog.

So, point is: Tony Jaa is a stud. I'll watch the same damn movie plot 50 times if I can watch him practically fly and kick people through doors all day. "The Protector" is standard Jaa fare, but I gotta say, I give it two big elephant bones strapped to my forearms. Well worth the adrenaline rush.

Why Every Company Could Use a Brand Consultant

Michele and I were driving back from Target today, and I looked at the truck stopped next to me. The magnetic sign on the truck door said "Johnson Erection Company."

The Femmes Concert: Better Than People Watching at the Airport

Several people have asked that I post this recap to my blog. So even though the concert happened back in March 2006, I just found the recap in my mail. Memories last forever.

Many of you know Andrea, Stephanie and I attended the Violent Femmes show last night. Not just a show. A 25th Anniversary Tour. Completely sold out. Sardine-packed fans of middle-aged beer bellies, male pattern baldness, and even a mullet — on a female, no less!

The show was classic, not just for the incredibly simple rhymes and three-part music we all remember from the 80s and 90s, but for the spectacular crowd. I've never been to a show where, for the entire two hours of play time, you could hear the crowd singing just as loud as the band. It's what I imagine heaven sounds like, without references to burying your loved ones in a deep black well or asking for just one f*ck.

I learned a few things last night — a few things I'd like to share since most of us are Femmes fans from way back when. So join me on my journey, won't you? I discovered that ...

• I was a minority because I didn't know every single lyric to every single song. Our Guinness-shirted, ski-capped friend was practically traumatized because none of us knew which one "Country Death Song" specifically was until we actually heard it. He gave us a booster by saying, "If you see me convulsing on the ground, that's the song." OK.


• It's ok to dance like the devil and the Holy Spirit are warring within you ... because everyone else is possessed, too.
  
• It's ok for heterosexual men to sing, "Why can't I get just one kiss?" to each other and not be considered homosexual.
  
• Strange men shimmying down a "pole" (in this instance, I was the "pole") is acceptable behavior because you're so caught up in the Add-It-Up moment. It was ... horridly amusing.
  
• The Maggie Gyllenhaal look-alike made an inappropriate toast that was somehow considered funny because we were at a Femmes show! "To getting drunk and hopefully molested!"
  
• Andrea's a really good dancer. And not in a possessed sort of way ...
  
• Andrea has an uncanny ability to get everyone around her talking. She acquired a wingman, the drunken Michelle, who was determined to get five men to buy her a birthday drink. Didn't matter that Andrea kept saying she didn't find them attractive. Michelle was on a mission.
  
• Apparently Michelle and I are going to Memphis together this weekend. At least, that's what she shouted to our crowd neighbors. That was right before the show started, and right before she almost got into a brawl with someone. Security talked to her and calmed her down, though. Whew.


• Inexplicably, mosh pits — actual, mean mosh pits — form at crucial points, like when "Black Girls" comes on.


• Crowd surfing also begins, though you don't have far to go before you're in the hands of a bouncer. This WAS at the corporatized House of Blues, after all ...
  
• It's rather endearing when the previously mentioned Guinness Ski Cap Man would predict the next song, then throw out the disclaimer that he has no control over what his body does if that song actually is played. He was definitely a flailer. A good one, though — considerate not to accidentally beat his neighbor with his limbs.


• It's not cool, Stephanie, to tell a rotundish drunk man in his mid-40s that your friend is a bigger party animal than you are, simply to deflect him. Good thing I was holding water while you were holding a beer. He knows what he saw, Stephanie. Or should I say, Paris Hilton ...


• It makes complete sense to keep giving all manner of "fives" — high fives, low fives, uncategorized fives — to a strange guy for no apparent reason except we're at a Femmes show. Between me and Stephanie, we had to have handed out 20 of those blasted fives.

Ah, the Femmes. Doesn't matter that it was all potbellies and middle aged adults reclaiming their youth for a few hot minutes. These people haven't forgotten what a good time is. Oh no, no way ... : )