Category: Life

At work we’ve had a new member join our team of geeks, and the better part is that she’s a woman. More importantly, she’s got a sense of humor and knows how to have fun. At one of our group meetings, I passed out cans of Flarp, which is a kind of putty that makes rude fart noises when you try to push it back in its container. She got one, and she uses it. Totally cool.

Valentines rolled around, and I thought it would be fun to send her a tongue-in-cheek valentine, just to poke fun at HR.

So, I opened Word, grabbed some clip art, and wished her a Happy Platonic Valentine’s Day, making her a custom card with a very strange graphic. The text read something along the lines of “You may have noticed this isn’t the traditional heart and red construction paper, which might convey the wrong message, so I’ve opted to send you a spleen on non-glossy typing paper.” In the middle of the page was a huge blobby spleen with gross veins sticking out — it looked like a medical journal sketch.

At the bottom I included a legal disclaimer that stated that my lawyer had advised me not to include any candy or presents with the card, as it may inadvertently be used as evidence in a class action law suit against me. I had even further added in small type a legal disclosure statement that indicated the originator was already happily married and that this card did not constitute an invitation for a relationship, advances, nor any emotional favoritism, and that such cards were only being distributed to close friends with a sense of humor, and the inability to hire legal council due to lack of financial backing.

They say it’s the thought that counts, and I discovered that it takes a lot of work to show none was put into it, but I managed.

You try to do a friend a favor, and you see where it gets ya…

It all started out with a visit to my good friend Laurie at the radio station today. I thought I’d drop in, say hi, see how she was doing, chat, and maybe go to lunch. Laurie was working the booth, and there were no other DJ’s around. The radio station isn’t large, but it’s fairly popular, playing contemporary rock and pop for the metro area. Laurie’s career had brought her here, and she was more of what we call a big fish in a small pond — enough to have her own show and loyal set of listeners. He radio wit can’t be beat. I got a tour of the station, a high level explanation of the mixing board, saw where the media was kept (which was new since much of it had been moved off of CDs and onto weird funky digital tape-like cartridges with high storage capacity), and Laurie even put me on the air and chat with a few callers.

This all happened in about the span of ten minutes, just before Laurie got the emergency call. I’ve never seen her look so worried. She was highly conflicted, as abandoning her post would surely get her fired, and the issue she needed to take care of couldn’t wait. She made the decision to leave. Yes, that’s right, leave a live radio station unattended. She apologized and took off, too worried to tell me where she was going, or to remember to take her cell phone which sat by the mic. She was gone in an instant.

Soft rock came over the monitors, and it was obvious that the song was about to end. Laurie had just inserted a new DAT tape a few minutes back while we had been chatting. I leaned over the mixer, hit the green start button, the tape started rolling, and apprehensively swapped the fader positions. It had worked!!! Dumb luck, or fantastic observation skills on my part, I managed to seamlessly transition from one song to the other on the air live. I was bursting with pride.

A new idea struck me. If I kept feeding tapes, I ought to be able keep things running semi-smoothly until Laurie got back, saving her job. It was risky, but I figured she’d had little to do. Laurie is one of these friends I feel very close to and would move heaven and earth for, without her having to ask, if it were in my ability.

My pride started to fade as I screwed up the next transition. I let one song completely end and cut into the next abruptly. A forgivable mistake, but I had to make sure that didn’t happen again. The next few songs weren’t as smooth as the first, but certainly not as bad as the next. I kept hoping Laurie would realize she left her phone behind and would either return to get it, or pull over and call. I suspect in the end that she figured I had left right when she did. Perhaps if she were listening to the station, she’d know someone was still manning the booth.

That’s when I noticed the FCC log. She had been casually filling this thing out, and I went into a mad scramble to figure out what had been playing for the last 20 or 25 minutes. I don’t know music, I was just shuffling tapes, and these things weren’t labeled.

In times of stress, time tends to distort, and it felt like hours — songs were ending faster than I could keep up. That’s when two things hit me. One, I hadn’t been playing any commercials, and two, I needed more DAT tapes. I was at the end of the last one.

I scrambled into the side room to the shelf where they were stored. Unfortunately, Laurie had mentioned that she was reorganizing them, and they were unlabeled, or at least to be fair, unlabeled from my perspective. I couldn’t read the writing, and many of them had numbers written on them identifying them in blue Bic pen. I was now on a mad dash for the master look-up sheet.

I never found it. I think she took it with her when she grabbed her purse on the way out. Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, that’s when I realized that about 20 minutes of silence had been coming from the other room. I was so focused on finding that sheet that I totally overlooked we were broadcasting a dead signal.

Certain I had just gotten Laurie fired, I grabbed a tape in the middle of the collection, ran back into the control room, jammed it in, and hit the green button. Christmas music started coming out of the monitors. Tinkly bell, slow Christmas music. I didn’t know if I should stop the song in mid-play and substitute something else, or whether I should let it roll and swap out afterward. I’m certain people were wondering why in the world holiday music was playing in February. Maybe it was some weird “Year of the Rooster” thing for the Chinese New Year. The whole experience was just horrible, and it kept dragging on.

All the while, I kept asking myself, “Where the HELL are the people who run this station and why aren’t they here?”

Turns out the answer was that they have a fairly hefty commute, and the later shows actually sleep on a different schedule, so with the morning backup they couldn’t have gotten there if they wanted to, and in reality, they weren’t aware of the problem in the first place. Laurie was senior enough not to need that kind of supervision. Crap. Crap. Crap.

The guy who -was- supposed to show up called in to call in a favor of Laurie, asking her to take his slot. And so did the chick after that time slot as well. How did I know? The answering machine went off and I heard it from the manager’s office, which had the door open. I couldn’t get to the phone, and never figured out how to open the mic on the desk to let listeners know what was going on.

Seems that the two following hosts were dating, went out to eat, and managed to get food poisoning or the flu or something. The girl didn’t sound well, and left no explanation, while the first caller was a little more graphic (though polite) in his description. Apparently there’s this bug going around which causes you to feel rotten and you’re throwing up all day.

So, recapping, I’m now working a triple shift (that’s 9 hours), for a radio station I don’t listen to, on equipment I don’t understand, playing unlabeled music, for a friend I’m extremely worried about, all so that she can keep her job.

This dragged on for hours and hours in the most painfully detailed way you could possibly imagine. And the guy who was supposed to show up (at least according to the schedule) was late — possibly stuck in traffic.

Some days it just pays to stay in bed.

And there’s the problem: I was in bed. Laurie hasn’t worked in a radio station for years, to the best of my knowledge. It was all fiction.

The whole friggin’ event was one of the most detailed and realistic dreams I’ve had in my life. I’ve been graced with ever so few, and it just turns out that the day before our big demo at work, for which I have to get up for early, I had one.

That’s right. The alarm goes off, and my brain has already worked a stressful 9-hour day. My body was physically exhausted. What should have been a refreshing night’s sleep left me totally drained. I had dark rings under my eyes.

I was now fifteen minutes late for leaving for the office by the time I showered and left the house. By this time the high school kids are on the corner, which means the buses are screwing up traffic. This morning’s commute is going to be longer and uglier than normal.

Leaving the house was a bad omen. I sleepily kiss Tamara goodbye, she asks if I have my scanner, and I show it to her, get in the car, start it, …and I open the car door. I go up, the door is locked, and my keys are in the running car. I ring the doorbell, and Tamara answers it quite concerned.

“I forgot my cell phone,” I explain, as I go inside, take it off the charger, and return to the car. I close the car door, pause it, and get back out.

I ring the doorbell, as the front door is still locked, and Tamara answers, this time too kind to say anything.

“Forgot my bag,” and walked past her to the kitchen table where I snagged the bag of books and media I needed for the demo today. I go back to the car, get in, close the door, pause, too tired to think up a decent explicative, and get back out.

I ring the doorbell. Tamara’s poised at the door.

“Forgot my DVD,” and walked past her to the kitchen table where I picked up the data disc I had burned the night before.

Back to the car. However, this time I see Tamara laughing her ass off through the storm door window. Oh, she might have been feigning politeness, but deep down she was getting an amusing chuckle out of this. By now so much amusement had built up that she was bursting out in laughter.

Mornings and Walt don’t mix well. Or wait, was that Walt doesn’t mix songs well… no wait, that was the dream.

When I got to work we had far more people running through our demo area than expected. I ended up having to edit a proposal with some technical content. And even though the pacing was better than yesterday, the day felt just as long.

When it was over, our boss took us out to a happy hour. Now don’t get me wrong, I sincerely appreciate the gesture of appreciation. However, I don’t drink, and I don’t enjoy secondhand smoke, and there was certainly enough of both. I was getting a headache, partly due to the chemically enriched tobacco, and partly because I had had little to eat.

Jumping ahead, Alan came over afterward to go out to a steak dinner. Long Horn was selected, primarily because of great food, great prices, and great service.

Obviously, because I’m still writing, you can expect that at least one of those three criteria weren’t met.

Our waitress, who was new to us, indicated that she recognized us as regulars. This was a good start and was about to bump her up to the 20% tip bracket.

She took Alan’s order, then Tamara’s, and Tamara asked about splitting the check, and then the waitress split. She never took my order.

Curious to see how this was going to play out, I waited for her to return. I’d waited at the fictitious radio station, I waited all day during the demo, and now I was waiting to see if I was going to get to eat.

She came back, put a salad in front of Tamara and myself, and Tamara mentioned that I’d really like to order now. Some how she equated splitting the check as sharing a meal.

I gave my regular order, and to keep things simple, asked for Thousand Island dressing. She took two steps away from the table, literally, and asked me again, double-checking the Thousand Island dressing.

A lot of time passes, some proxy drops off the salads, and you know enough by now to guess that my salad had nothing on it that resembled Thousand Island dressing.

So, I didn’t touch it, and waited even more for her to come back and refill drinks (which never happened the whole night), and to ask how our food was. By this time my steak arrived.

The manager came over to see how we were doing, and I filled him in on what was going on. Nothing major, but this wasn’t the consistent service we normally get. He offered to fix my salad, and I accepted.

The new salad arrived, and I asked for A1 sauce for the steak. And after a long while, I heard A1 being delivered to the table across the partition from us. They, confused, apparently didn’t order A1.

It showed up at our table along with an explanation that our shrimp would be out in a little bit.

You should instantly be asking yourself if we ordered shrimp, because that’s exactly what we did. We informed the proxy waiter that we didn’t order that. He went off in a mad scramble to cancel the order with the kitchen.

From there on out, the meal went fine. It wasn’t until we asked for our check that the insanity resumed. Prior to that time, we had little to no contact with our server, the would-be recipient of our tip.

It seems that there was a problem getting the shrimp removed from our check. And this process took about 20 minutes to coax the computer to do it. The manager solved the problem by subtracting the amount of some other food item we also didn’t order. As a result, the tab had one ‘Lucky Lunch’ removed from the total.

Now, both Alan and Tamara had credit cards in their hand when they were given the bill. But this didn’t stop the waitress from running off again.

Tamara had enough time to finish her drink, hit the restroom, and return for me to tell her a story.

The story was that when we went out to Red, Hot, and Blue the night before, I went to the restroom. As I was in the stall, a dad came in with a little girl and they entered the adjacent stall. She was complaining that she had to go pee, but didn’t want to do it in the boys’ bathroom. Her dad assured her that no one was watching, and when that failed he went into a nice explanation about gender differences and why dad couldn’t go in mommy’s restroom. Turns out the complaint from the little girl had nothing to do with either, it turns out our amenities weren’t as nice as the girls’ bathroom. Our toilet paper didn’t have flowers on it. HA! And you thought I was joking in my last posts; here’s a child exposing the elaborate pampering the female gender gets. Equality my foot.

Eventually the waitress returns, collects the credit cards, and we spend another wait getting them back.

All in all, I’m ready for this day to be over. I look at the clock, and it’s not even 7:30pm yet. The night’s still young, and Hell has a treasure trove of experiences waiting for me. What next? Already TiVo recorded a show that the super bowl stomped on and I had to manually reschedule. I’m afraid to touch anything.

I just want to crawl in bed in the fetal position and wait for midnight to pass.

So in reflection, Laurie dear, in many ways this crappy day is your fault for abandoning me in a world that never really existed. If I didn’t care so much about you to save your fictitious career as a high profile DJ, I might have actually gotten some rest and been able to cope. Should you fall asleep tonight, please swing by and pick up your cell phone …which should have been a major clue to me, as you don’t have one of those either.

Argh!

As I’m sure you’re well aware, corporations have discovered that by combining sick time and vacation time into one pool, they can actually save money in the short term, while creating the illusion that you’ve got more paid vacation days.

In the good old days, you got something like two weeks of honest to God vacation — it was yours, you _earned_ it, and if you left the company you got paid for it. In addition, you had unlimited sick leave, the catch was, you had to prove you were sick if it lasted for more than three days or you had quite a number of days off compared to everyone else. When you weren’t feeling well, you’d stay home, the office wouldn’t be affected, you could return sooner, and companies were more productive over all. Then HR and CEOs got involved.

Now all that sick time comes out of your pocket. Sure, you get three weeks of combined sick and vacation, and if you don’t get sick at all (highly unlikely), you can, in theory, make out with an extra week. However, in reality, it doesn’t work like that. You get sick, your kids get sick, your car breaks, and all of the sudden these things start eating into your vacation time. The greedy corporate world loves it, because the more you’re sick, the less you are on vacation later.

But, what happens next is almost as predictable. Employees not wanting to burn their vacation time on sick leave come into the office coughing, sneezing, pushing elevator buttons, opening doors, and infecting everyone. The net result is that far more people get sick and start passing infections back and forth, so just as you start to get well, but have your immunity down, you catch it all over again. Productivity suffers, and usually HR and the CEOs are so out of the loop as not to notice.

Whenever I’m at death’s door, I always make sure to put on my best game face and wander the executive halls, shaking as many hands as possible before the Grim Reaper finally takes me. I figure if the people making the decisions are affected by their decisions, perhaps they’ll change the policy.

As an aside, I worked at a health care company that employed a lot of statisticians — these are the guys who could calculate projected profits and losses. We had unlimited sick time, but it was rare for people to use it. How did they pull this stunt? Easy. They put a water cooler right near our offices. It was easier to get a glass of purified water than it was to walk down the hall and get a Coke. It was cheaper for us, and we thought we were getting special treatment. Then I talked to HR. Nope. For the few bucks they paid to have water brought to us, keeping us healthy and hydrated, they more than made up for it in unused sick leave. In fact, by making us go home if we didn’t feel well, we were more than likely to return the next day. I got to see the statistics once, first hand; through common sense, cold-hearted calculations, and the willingness to spend a little now, the company managed to save hundreds of thousands. Very clever.

Needless to say I do not work for a health care company full of statisticians at the moment, which is why I’ve been dragging when this winterly cold weather front moved in two weeks ago. Sure, you might like global warming with the 70 degree weather in the middle of December, but when it alternates with 30 degree weather, it’s enough to put congestion in one’s sinuses. And that it did.

I’m not sure why our sinuses are designed the way they are. One minute you’re having a pounding headache where your brain is trying to claw its way out of the front of your skull, and the next they want to flush in the middle of a conversation. And, the problem with that flushing action is that if you blow your nose, it all clogs back up. You have to let it gently drain like water. It’s as if the mucus wants to do things on its own time or not at all.

Even sleeping has its creative side. You can feel fine during the day, but when the sun goes down, you feel like crap. You wake up in the morning and your throat is dry, sore, and raw. Post nasal drip, something you think would be moist and comforting, gags you, keeps you up all night, and irritates your throat to the fullest extent.

Cats don’t seem to be plagued by the same diseases we humans do. My cat, Nova, is sporting quite the attitude with me. I’m watching something on TiVo, feel my sinuses break into labor, and I go running into the restroom before my water breaks. There’s Nova lying on the sink, which is filled with water so he can help himself.

I come running in, flip up the toilet lid, and dangle my head over it. Right on cue, my nose starts leaking this clear stream of stringy liquid. Nova stares at me. The next nostril opens up. Two strands start flowing. Great, now I’m choking, it’s seeping down the back of my throat. I open my mouth, and now I look like this hellish pez dispenser dribbling goo from all holes in the front of my face. It’s like clear, melting silly putty drizzling under it’s own weight.

I’ve never seen a cat do this, but he cocked his head sideways at me, shook it gently from side to side, and had this expression on his face that clearly said, “Dude, can I tell ya something? That’s friggin’ gross…”; and with that, he cop’d an attitude, slid down from the sink, and walked out the door in the “yeah, like I can drink anything while you’re doing _that_” flip of his tail.

I don’t know whether to laugh that I just grossed out my cat, or be offended my own cat just knocked me down a peg. In all seriousness, I did the only thing I could, face streaming with goo. I yelled out to him, “Oh yeah?! Well you lick your ass!”

I suppose it’s an event like this which makes my wife think she has to drug me without my knowledge and haul me away for a week, which by the way, I think you need to know a little something about Ms. Andretti:

We’re coming down I-66, the popular hangout for cops that have finished their donut break, and we’re coming over a hill and there’s an authorized vehicles only sign — a major indicator of speed trap potential.

She starts out at 55, but as time goes on, the car starts creeping faster and faster until 60, 65, 70… and about this point I start to say something when the ticket goes from speeding to reckless.

Oh, and I’ve learned, too. You can’t say “sweetheart, you’re speeding” — that’s wrong. First of all, it’s direct and accusatory. I thought maybe I’d have to share in the blame, “we’re speeding.” No good. “Oh hell, we’re gonna die!” is right out. And “Slow Down!” sounds like I’m telling her what to do, even if preceded by a “please”, or a “please, dear God,….”

No, the correct course of action, I’ve been told, is to casually say “check your speed.” Which allows her to look at the speedometer and decide just how many MPH’s she wants to shave off, if any. I raise her awareness level, but am not a prick about it when said in this manner.

So, back to the story, we’re cruising down this hill, the flux capacitor is about to trigger, and I say ‘check your speed’ as we are doing 87. Her foot comes off the gas, and the needle drops to 85. …as we pass the police cruiser parked on the median pointing the radar gun up our engine block.

“Oh, you are *so* busted.” And I’m looking behind us for the flashing lights.

Nothing.

“What?!?” I’m looking back there, he must be waiting for break in traffic.

Still no lights.

“See?” My wife explains, “I’m driving safely. He’s not gonna get me.”

“Safe?!?” I’m still trying to mentally process that comment as I’m analyzing what in the world is going on. “Crap. He’s radioing ahead. Slow down before this next hill. There’s probably a cop car there.”

“I am slowed down,” she said as we crested the hill, the car actually leaving the pavement for a split second.

“You’re doing 75!” And, still, no lights behind us, no cops in front of us, no drag nets, and no swat team pulling in from helicopters.

“Told ya,” she insists. “It’s not like I’m driving all in and out of traffic, changing lanes, and besides, there’s no one around.”

“No one around?!?” My mouth drops open, and I point to the six cars in front of us. “Who are they?”

“I have a car’s length, maybe two.”

“You drive like this when I’m not here?” which was probably the wrong question to be asking at that moment.

“Nah,” she tries to comfort me, “I’m careful when you’re in the car.”

When I’m in the car?!? Hell, she’s the most precious thing to me, and I learn that she takes her life into her own hands just for the sporting thrill of it when I’m not around? Egads!

Then it dawns on me what happened.

“He saw you were a chick, that’s why he didn’t come after you.”

“He did not know I was a chick.”

“I bet he did. He saw me, figured red hair, nice smile, awesome bod, had to be a chick.” For guys, we don’t even have to be in a car to get a moving violation. Cops just like to play mind games.

You know those electronic signs on the side of the road that say ‘POLICE — YOUR SPEED IS’ and then it flashes your speed? You, however, are so certain a cop is going to jump out if you’re one mile over the speed limit, and write you a ticket. So you go real slow. MIND GAME. The real purpose of those devices is to measure the average flow of traffic on the road because the state is required to update the speed limits in accordance with traffic flow. However, the population sees those signs, slows down, and each year the speed limit drops lower and lower. What you should be doing is accelerating. This throws off the curve, and if enough people do it, they have to raise the speed limit. When they put them up in my neighborhood and side streets, I make multiple passes with a higher than average speed to push the bell curve to what’s reasonable.

“So you’d tell the cop that? That there was no one around, and that you were driving 85 safely.”

“Yes. Why yes I would.”

“It’d probably work, too,” I grumbled to myself. “Oh, you see officer, I had to speed, my breasts fell out of my bra and I was trying to adjust myself to put them back in, would you be a sweetie and go get me a crow bar? I may need a hand. Oh, what large hands you have,” I mocked in a deep southern accent.

“He didn’t know I was a chick!” my wife insisted.

“Well, I do,” and with all this sexual tension building from running from the cops, she was lookin’ pretty hot I might add. Luckily, I was feeling much better from the week long vacation, and could do something about it.

Unfortunately, for me, I now had to pee like a race horse.

We pulled into the drive way, I unlock the door, and go running into the bathroom. Nova’s sitting on top of the toilet reservoir as I run in, flip up the lid, and start to whip it out. He looks at the lid, my belt, and slowly draws his face up to meet mine.

His concern is obvious: ‘Oh, hell no. You are not pissing on me, I’ve seen what comes out of your face.’ Again, he snuffs me as he leaves.

Originally this was going to be a reply to mozaic_rubie, but due to reply limitations with Live Journal, it has become its own entry since I’ve obviously violated the 9,620 character limit. Here’s a point by point answer to all your questions MR. Make sure you’ve read this entry before continuing.

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Oh why not let all the secrets out…> From our perspective, it is rather strange to see contraptions
> on the wall on one side and then on the other, the stalls.

You’d think the answer is efficiency, that one has to do #1 more than #2 (which is still way more often than #3). The answer, however, is cost — it is cheaper to put in a urinal than a stall. The TOC (total cost of ownership) is lower too, if you don’t provide toilet paper, people can’t use it, no one using it means no demand, which means the cost for supplies is zero.

> When I was a mere child, it confused me to no end as to why
> the boys had to stand up to take care of business.

And little boys wondered why women wanted to lie down to have sex. Things are a different elevations apparently.

> Why shake and not use TP?
Because, for the most part, there is no splatter. There’s no mess. Given that the shut off valve is located more toward the base than the front, any extra that’s still in the pipes can be coaxed out and you’re done. It’s rarely more than a single drop.

On an amusing note, I worked with a guy who would go into the rest room, wash his hands, take a whiz and leave. I asked him about this, and instead of getting the “In the Marines, they teach us not to piss on our hands” response, I got something entirely different: “Look, I know where my d_ck has been all day, it’s my hands that I have no idea what they’ve touched.”

That made me think (though not adopt his behavior), if one takes a shower, puts on clean underwear, and keeps things packaged all day, just how unsanitary is it really? Anyhow, I digress.

> And then there is the whole rearranging thing that takes place too.
Either something sensitive is being pinched, squished, or a hair is being pulled from it’s root. There’s the downside of being external.

> I had one boy friend that had little body movement when putting
> the lil guy back.
This may be some kind of retraction back through the underwear, while attempting to avoid shredding it on the teeth of the zipper. And oh yes, it happens. Rarely. You usually get one or two good ones in childhood before your brian says, “ah ah ah… never again.”

> How does a young boy learn the do’s and don’ts of the
> sandbox?

Sadly by trial and error. Often taught to pee by their moms, the goal is to not miss the target.

Moms, if you’re out there, stop trying to teach little boys to go like little girls. We can’t [easily] just sit and go — the sheer biological mechanics required are such that there’s an out then down, which creates a crimp, and therefore prevents the physical action from taking place. That’s why you’ll see little boys who are trying to pee from a sitting position bending over. Otherwise, they’ll be spraying the towel rack. And we know that’s wrong — even though everyone knows they’re not for the “guests” but decoration.

> Dad teaches the routine and then the kids in kindergarten or
> pre-school?

Dads want nothing to do with this. It isn’t sports, television, or beer related.

> In our stalls , no one really knows what the other person
> is doing, but in a mens stall…well that can only mean
> one thing. Bad beef burrito.

Pretty much. Well, there is one other thing, but the social ridicule of getting caught is enough to discourage that.

> In a womans bathroom, there is a kindship of sorts.
This never happens. Even distasteful bragging jokes are prohibited.

> Women talk to each other from one stall to the other.
Remember, men like to do one task at a time — multitasking in this capacity is beyond our capabilities and desire. Recall that when men talk, it isn’t to shoot the breeze, it’s because there is a necessary communication. We don’t have “just listen to my problem but don’t fix it” moments, we’re solid hard core fix it people. For a man to say anything in the bathroom implies that he’s in dire need of assistance and has only done so at the expense of his last shred of dignity. Even if it’s fallen off, we’ve fallen in, and shattered our hip, we’d much rather wait for everyone else to go home from work and crawl out by our fingernails with our soiled underwear down at our knees than ask for assistance. Hell, even Elvis died sitting on the John. There was a man of honor to The Code.

> Sharing TP is also a known thing to happen from time to time.
Men are assholes. It’s a dog eat dog world out there, and if you were dumb enough to enter into a stall without checking supplies first, well, you deserve. Improvise. That’s why they had McGuiver on television. It’s like leaving the toilet seat up — who in their right mind sits down bare bottomed without checking first?

> No walls, just side by side johns where we could see each other.
Oh, it gets better. Often in areas of higher security, they remove the doors. While you don’t have lateral viewers, you DO have front on viewers. Ever notice why men take the news paper with them? We’re not reading, it’s a visibility shield from onlookers — of course we can’t *say* that, so we’re “using time efficiently.”

> One thing I still don’t understand it when someone goes into
> the stall, the first thing they do is flush it once maybe
> twice before they pull the paper covering to use. What the
> hell is that about?
Remember, men are engineers and that provides us with valuable insight. Also remember, men do not want to ask for help or admit their own stupidity. Consequently, this is a dual purpose defense mechanism under the guise of sanitation.

As men, we know that on a cost savings toilet, you get 1.6 gallons per flush. While this is enough to wash away liquid, it doesn’t cause enough vacuum to always remove all solid matter. Thus even though the water MAY look clear, we’re aware that if we were to sit, plop, and get splashed on the toosh, we could be picking up someone else’s doo doo.

Given that the guy next to us only hears one or two flushes before we start, he’s left to assume the prior occupant either didn’t flush, or the toilet didn’t get it all. He’s happy because HIS toilet didn’t have this problem, and he gets an instant ego boost for making the right decision of which stall to choose.

Meanwhile, what’s really going on is a systems check. I’m aware that if the toilet starts to backup with clean water on a flush, I should move to another stall. The next person to use the stall will see the high water level and implicitly not use it.

If a toilet survives two flushes, this is about 3 gallons of water, which is enough to dislodge any solid materials from the pipes. That way we know that when WE flush our solid matter, we will not be greeted with over flowing pooh, and then have to go tell building maintenance of our stupidity. Plunger Bubba would come up, make a snide comment about the size of the load, the smell, what we had for lunch, or why we used so much paper — ensuring the toilet won’t overflow not only is a matter of public convenience, but insures that we won’t be publicly humiliated by someone’s job it is to carry a brush.

It’s liberal water conservationist thoughts like this that cause home toilets to overflow only during parties. Hold the plunger down until the tank is dry and gasping for air for Pete’s sake! As an American, whose God Given Right it is to be wasteful and thumb the world, I ask you which costs less — the extra 1.6 gallons of waste at 2 cents per flush -or- the $175/hr plumber with a 2 hour minimum charing overtime and has no spare parts in his truck with the added cost of getting shag carpets dry cleaned of human feces?

One final observation is made before putting that paper down — how far the back splash is. Some toilets actually flush so violently they spurt on the seat, floor, or on the departing occupant. This way we know if the puddle on the floor is piss or H2O, same for the seat. We know to stand to the side, flush with our foot, and how quickly to depart after triggering a flush.

This is why men HATE auto-flushing toilets. When you lean forward to pee (see above), it thinks you’ve left, and when you lean back it thinks there’s someone new, it goes to give them a fresh bowl, and in the process created a horrific vacuum sucking your ass into the void.

> We think things when we see others in the bathroom even
> though we don’t say them.

Like what?!?

> And you men never think anything about the other men……
> hmmmmm if you guys did I’m sure you wouldn’t admit it.

Okay. Let me be real clear about this. I don’t want there to be any misconceptions, errors in communication, or mistaken messages read between the lines.

HELL NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NADA. WE DO NOT THINK ABOUT MEN. WE DO NOT LOOK AT OTHER MEN. WE DON’T ACKNOWLEDGE OUR OWN REFLECTION. NOTHING. NO WAY. NEVER. NO HOW. PERIOD. NADA.

… EVER.

> I wonder what it is like in a mens room in a bar, where for
> example, all the men in there were looking to get a little
> something something to go home with and it is the survival
> of the fittest persay…intersting thought.

The code is universally the same, whether you are in a bar, dorm, at work, a concert, Wolf Trap, or stuck without facilities in the middle of nowhere on a nature hike with Danny.

Keep this in mind — drunk men can’t aim. And that means a mess. Now you know that men won’t say anything, not that they made the mess, nor that they observed one. As such, it is rank in there.

Men are too cool to use mulch and dead flowers to cover the smell.

Want to know why public restrooms are so horrific? Because anyone with any sense of non-emergency condition waits until they can get home. It’s all the people with troublesome bowels who’ve waited until the last possible minute who use those places. From that image alone, you can imagine what happens behind closed doors… assuming you have any.

You might think that the news papers in front of urinals are informational. No. Their secondary purpose is to keep your gaze focused away from another man’s weiner. But their real purpose is in the “in case of emergency, break glass” variety — you may need access.

> But if they were to do that all the time out…..then I guess
> they would be considered a wussy or something?

You got it. Anytime a guy consistently runs for the stall, you gotta wonder what his diet is, or why he’s such a momma’s boy.

Ever notice in the battle for equality of the sexes how one gender comes out more equal than the other? When it’s your gender, it’s alright because it’s a needed exception, when it’s not, the difference is dramatic.

Take for instance the time my wife and I visited a church, and we both had to use the restroom. She was not just motioned to the doorway a mere 15 feet away, but they offered her free transportation, and if that wasn’t good enough, they’d call out for a construction crew to move the entrance closer if she’d like. Meanwhile, my own directions involved several hallways, climbing through a broken window, descending a rickety staircase, traversing a labyrinth, and fighting a dragon only to find the “Sorry, Out of Order” sign had been vandalized.

My wife describes her experience as two doormen holding the door for her, in which a red carpet guided her into the gilded waiting room. There were rocking chairs, benches, cable television, and 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound for the church service. Beyond the oak laden walls which were filled with shelves of hand crafted reading material, was the actual bathroom decored in fine marble and tapestries depicting the Ascension of Christ woven by John himself while on Patmos. Soft music was piped in, along with the aroma of rose petals. Each seat was made out of china and was prewarmed by infrared laps suspended from the ceiling above. Instead of toilet paper, an array of silk worms spun the softest cloth. A waitstaff was there to wipe one’s bum, and if constipated, will even go for you. When my wife returned, she had made several new friends, explaining that they had met over the intercom system that granted total privacy, if desired, but was quite useful for party lines — each stall had it’s own extension.

I, on the other hand, had a communal trough in the center of the room with rancid water slowly swirling around. A hole existed in the floor at the far side of the room. There was no sink, paper towels, or toilet paper. Suffice it to say, socks can serve a number of useful purposes when one is pressed.

But women don’t get it — it’s like group urination is a social event that can’t be missed.

Men, on the other hand, have to abide by: The Protocol.

Women, here’s your chance to get a good look at what goes on inside the mind — and bathrooms — of men. Pay attention; should you ever decide to get a sex change, you’ll need to know these things, because rarely will someone ever explain them.

Inside a men’s bathroom are usually three urinals, and if you’re lucky, there are dividers — often not. This poses the technical problem of trying to obtain privacy while surrounded partially naked strangers. Each person can’t go because of the anxiety caused by the presence of the person next to them — now you see why we return so quickly.

The presence of another person invokes the proximity rule. You need to be close enough to not allow a good view of the thing sticking out, but you don’t want to be so close that you get back spray. Years of training allows one to control the rate of speed, based upon the distance from the urinal and the curvature of the drain. This is why men don’t let toilet lids slam — even a slight startle causes a contraction that ricochets the wrong way and wets your knees.

There’s a sense of empathy for the older men who don’t even try anymore. Some will go right up to the urinal, hug it, almost crawling in. Others go into a police-frisk stance. Some hang on for dear life, making that wheezing sound like all they’re getting is dust and air coming out. It’s the men that like to repeatedly flush while jiggling themselves that whig me out; it’s like they’re trying to teach their member by example. Arrogant pee-ers have no place; these are the ones that stand proudly like Superman, one fist on each hip, and pretend they are putting out a Colorado forest fire. All in all, the exceptions are few, but when you see one of these tale tell signs, that’s when you Break the Protocol and use a stall instead of a urinal.

Of the three stalls, the one at the end is usually the handicap one — instead of being crotch high, it’s small and a foot or two off the ground. I guess people got tired of holding up midgets.

The first person who enters has totally free selection, but part of The Protocol says that you are to always avoid eye contact, conversation, and proximity. Thus, one usually takes the end urinal.

The second person to join though is faced with a dilemma: wet socks from the tiny toilet or encroach on the other occupants’ territory?

If you guessed wet socks, you’d be right. The Protocol stipulates that two men voluntarily peeing next to each other is a threat to both’s manhood. Wet socks can easily be covered up by turning on the sink faucet too quickly, adding additional overspray, which one then blames on building maintenance.

Only upon the entrance of a third person is it permissible to be elbow to elbow, yet under no circumstances what so ever are first names ever used. In a bathroom, especially a public one, even long lost dearly reunited brothers will deny knowing one another. Discussion is forbidden.

The Secondary Clause to The Protocol is based on the fact that not all people finish at the same time. In fact, the two end guys may high tail it outta there, leaving one person in the dead center when you enter the room. Waiting is not an option, as men first of all don’t like to be in the restroom more than absolutely necessary, and secondly, one doesn’t want to get accused of watching another guy go, even if from the back.

At this point, it is the direction of the sinks that matter, believe it or not. Whichever direction they are in dictates the direction the current user is going to rotate. This lets you know which side to go on, and thus adhere to the primary rule of avoiding eye contact.

At this point, the cycle resets itself to a predictable state, and thus it is this that accounts for men being able to get in and out so fast.

There’s another aspect of sociology that plays an important role. Ventilation systems seem to be an unnecessary perk for men’s bathrooms; the expense saved is used on the lavishments within the women’s prime real estate.

We’ve all seen the woman’s line extend to the vanishing point. The problem is, the accommodations are so lush, that after having stood in line for so long, women actually slow down once inside, take their time, as if staking out their claim. Sure, it takes the same amount of time for both genders to go, but there’s a self-fulfilling prophecy going on: it takes so long to get in, that the female visitor is reluctant to give it up so quickly.

In fact, you can observe this phenomenon yourself, no matter what your gender. Wait for a lady to leave a grocery store, get in her car, and start her engine. As she is walking to her car, turn on your blinker signal as if waiting to take the parking space she’s about to vacate. Watch. Her pace will slow, and once in the car, a rigorous primping ceremony will begin. Anything that delays the departure. For, as you see, she earned that parking space — and it will be up to her to decide when she’s done with it, regardless of public demand. And so it is with the lines to the restroom, only compounded.

Last night I had the pleasure of spending the evening with some friends that I don’t normally get a chance to hang out with. We’re busy. They’re busy. And, it just so happened that our calendars fell in sync for the moment, so we thought we’d get together. One of the most treasured parts of these get togethers is hearing what will come out of their two daughter’s mouths — both are relatively young, but quite articulate.

The evening started out with a special service at their church. Both of their daughters, who as I’ve just pointed out, hadn’t seen me in a while, were quite insistent about sitting with me, not their mom. And when I say me, I don’t mean on either side. No, I mean like each one crawling into my lap. One on each leg. So, when the service starts, there are empty seats all around, and this pile of girls sitting on an guys lap — don’t think it didn’t go unnoticed. I saw how the speakers looking at me.

Were you aware that if you put two happy siblings next to one another, they can always find something to fight about? NOt an all out brawl, but more of the subtle goading and edging that escalates into mom going “shh” from the row in front. It’s the kind of thing that you feel you should have been able to control, or at least seen coming.

Each girl had new shoes, but one pair of shoes was shinier, so that made them better, and so the subtle kicking started. It may have been a game, but my shin was absorbing the full recoil of the return swing. With each girl sitting on a knee, the only way to get them to stop kicking each other was to move them out of leg distance from one another. Turns out I didn’t have the flexibility and range of motion required for that, given their leg length. It also turns out when you do the horizontal splits in church while balancing to young girls on your knees this can cause some speakers to lose track where they are. Who knew? Both girls thought this was part of some game or bouncing pony-ride and to show their approval took turns repeatedly giving me butterfly kisses on the cheek. One’s precious, two’s cute, but a deacon actually left the room and came back with a very threatening looking baseball bat.

As a quick distraction, I gave them programs to look at. The youngest one starting flipping through the program and made a brilliant connection. “It matches!” she announced loud enough for all to hear. The cover of the program was identical to a picture hanging on the wall across the room.

The elder one leaned forward and asked her mom, “When are we going to sing?” “In a bit,” was the reply. She leaned back against me to tell me her secret, “I like it when we sing, cause I’m gonna do this…” to which she wildly starts flailing her arm around, mimicking a choir director with a bad hangover conducting Flight of the Bubble Bee. This was enough to get more looks passed my way.

The youngest one, wanting to prove she trusted me even more, confessed her deepest darkest secret to me: “I just poo’d my diaper, don’t tell.” And sure enough, I noticed there was a familiar smell growing stronger.

In the Bible, the High Priest, upon entering the Holiest of Holies, would have a rope tied around his leg. If he was struck down while entering that part of the temple, at least the others could drag the corpse out, without incurring the same fate. I looked down at my unbound leg. Perhaps there was a secondary purpose, for situations like mine.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a wonderful service, and the kids were really quite well behaved. I just happened to be sitting at ground zero. My wife, who was sitting right next to me, claims she didn’t notice all this was going on. Right. That’s why she’s my wife — she knows how to turn a blind eye when needed.

The service ended, and afterward refreshments were served. Pretty much every kind of cookie known to man kind was there. There must have been some bake-off rivalry between the wifes.

The little girls ran off to get a cookie, and then another, and in the act of child like sweetness, brought me one, unprompted. I wasn’t aware that one should discuss limits at the first act of generosity. The children were thrilled to obtain acknowledgment, approval, and affection by simply fetching cookies one at a time. They seemed to have an infinite supply, which is more than I can usually eat.

Like a good family friend, instead of saying that’s enough, thank you, I did what you’d expect… I directed them to mom, just to see what would happen. I got distracted by something, because by the time I got over to mom to engage in conversation, she had four cookies in each hand, wedged between her fingers like a ninja with throwing stars on the defensive.

Now it was catch-up time, and the littlest one told me about what had happened to her since I last saw her. “I dressed up like Minnie Mouse, got randy, and my butt kicked.” It’s those kind of sentences that make you take pause.

“What?” “I got dressed up like Minnie Mouse, got candy, ‘n my but’ kick’.”

It was at this point, I wanted her to point out the kid that hurt her, and good old Uncle Walt would turn them into a smear on the pavement. Then I pondered why she might be dressing up in an outfit that would get her butt kicked. “Was this for Halloween?” “Yes!!!” she replied. -Now- we were communicating. “Did you get candy in your BUCKET?” “Yes!” she explained excitedly, “in my buttkicked.” “Buck-et.” “Ohh… bucket.” Somewhere an imaginary bully’s life just got saved.

The evening ended with going out to dinner. Since it was a big night, we were going to Red Lobster. Lobster was going to be the big meal. Problem was, when you ask for a non-smoking table of 12 at 7:PM on a Saturday night, it comes with a two and a half to three hour wait time. No wonder it was called the Last Supper, no one wanted to go out again.

So, we changed plans on the fly and went to Long Horn. They at least have lobster tails. Party of 12. Two hours.

Chinese it is.

On the drive over, I heard the older little girl lamenting. “This is the worst day of my life… I don’t get to a lobster.”

In the parking lot, I shared that amusing detail with her dad. It’s hard not to chuckle, because I remember what it was like back at that age, these kinds of things are important. Quite often, it’s not the act itself, but following through and living up to expectations.

“Tell you what,” her dad said providing comfort. “I’ll get you a lobster, and we’ll cook it at home.” The little girl’s eyes widened! “Cooooool!” Dad smiled. “You like that idea?” At this moment she decided to stake her claim: “Can -I- *K*I*L*L* it?” I can’t find the text decorations to even emphasize the delivery and emotional sense of power and satisfaction the words were said with; think of Ming the Merciless on a day where everything was going to plan. Her dad didn’t beat an eyelash, “sure.”

Dinner was wonderful, and we caught up on old times. The kids didn’t eat as much as expected; we thought at first it was because they’d stuffed themselves with cookies. Nope. We learned why as we were leaving. At the end of the table, the kids had discovered sugar packets. They thought it was pixie stick candy — that’s what they’d been eating while we were having dinner, hiding the wrappers.

This must have made for an interesting bedtime later that evening.