Links upside your head

Sorry for so much potty humor lately, but I stumbled across this site, and HAD to share, as it actually calculates the amount of money your company pays you per year to do your... ahem... number twos during business hours. Click and calculate.

And, as long as we're on the subject, the best story I've ever read about number two. Don't worry, it's not graphic, just funny, sooo funny. Click here to read it.

Alright, enough of that. But there can never be too much of this (by which, of course, I mean a boy breaking up with a girl in public, on video, on Valentine's day (which happens also to be her birthday) with the help of a group of vocalists singing their rendition of "I'm not ready to make nice", by the Dixie Chicks. The link is to an Op Ed piece about it, but I can assure you that the moment I find the video on YouTube it will be up here, too. Unless you guys get to it first, in which case please just email my lazy ass the damn link, will you?

[UPDATE: Link is alive and well in the comments section, thanks to a helpful reader. Enjoy!]

Oh, and by the way, James Brown, dead since Christmas, still isn't buried, even though close to three million other people in the world have died between then and now, and they've all made it into the ground. Anna Nicole and Daniel Smith are still above ground, too.

It's like dying but remaining in a creepy unburied but embalmbed state (this is very similar to undead, I think) is Hollywood's new Scientology. According to my friend Z, this trend combined with the fact that 1) Britney Spears can procreate, 2) the war in Iraq is still raging 3) our country is writing checks to anyone who will take our money 4) unbelievably high home prices will likely keep a whole generation of 20-somethings in apartments until they're senile and 5) the toll MySpace is taking on American productivity all point to a near-term implosion of America (and, therefore, the world).

Z may be over-caffeinated, but he also may be right.

I, for one, am buying lots of canned goods and batteries.

The Note, Part II: Why I'll never write another

It was my first year of college. I was fresh and alone at a school far enough from home that I didn't know anyone. The campus, though only mid-sized, felt huge. I was awash with the power and excitement that comes with being anonymous in a brand new place.

I knew only one person at the university -- a girl I'd become friends with through sports in high school. She was a year older than me and I always looked up to her -- she was that girl who seemed to have it all figured out. Every high school boy with a pulse was simultaneously a little afraid of her and completely obsessed. She had gotten a scholarship to play ball at the university I attended, but during my first couple months at school I was busy getting settled in my sorority and breaking up with the then-love of my life (a whole 'nother story), so I hadn't seen her, though we talked occasionally on the phone.

One late weeknight a few months into school, I found myself in the campus library late, writing in a computer lab. There were people at every computer, which were laid out in rows with computers back to back. As I worked, the guy in the computer facing me caught my eye. He was tall, had hazel eyes and sandy blonde hair and rakish, crooked smile. He was a couple years older than me, I guessed, from all the muscles. Clearly an athelete, and brazen; periodically he leaned around his computer to catch my eye and sort of half-smiled and nodded.

I was flattered by his attention, but it was a computer lab and I was a goody-goody 18-year old who had had a grand total of one long-term, intimate relationship, like, ever! I pretended not to notice, all the while my thoughts were racing: what do I do? How do I act? Holy Christ! My life is AWESOME and TERRIFYING all at ONCE!!

Nobody was talking, so saying something clever wasn't an option (both because it was dead-silent and I was not clever in the least). And I was supposed to be working. I was in waaay over my head, but was determined to "sieze the opportunity" and "make the most of my college experience" and shit. And then, it came to me. A note.

A Note.

Discreetly, I wrote him a Note right there in the computer lab. It was too long, and went into too much detail about how I didn't know anyone here and what, hypothetically, we could get together and do, like maybe coffee or a movie or something. (I am SO cringing as I write this). Worse, I remember leaving TWO numbers at the bottom of the paper -- one to my room and one to my cell phone. TWO NUMBERS! Can you imagine? I might as well have left him a lock of hair, blood test results and a pee sample too, but I thought I was being verrrry cool.

I finished up at the computer, and, very smooth-like, stood up, walked around the table, and slipped my note into his Biology book on my way out.

I barely made it out of the library before being near-paralyzed with dread. I had been so confident a moment before, all hopped up on hormones and adrenaline -- but once I stepped outside the library into the night, the reality of the half-page long note I left for some random athelete in my new university library was enough to nearly break me out into cold sweats. If I could have burned the place down with him in it, I would have.

A few days went by and that Sunday morning, I got a phone call around 9:30 a.m. It was my old friend from high school on the other end.

"I had the craziest night! You'll never believe it..." she launched into a story about the night before, focusing particularly heavily on a handsome basketball player she met there. "So we went to his house," she continued. "No funny business, but this morning, I hopped in the shower with him." (At this point, I shriek as if my virginal ears just caught on fire. She SHOWERED with a GUY. Holy shit.)

"And when we got out," she continued, but at this point she starts laughing, so words are coming in bursts, "On the floor... by his wallet... was this crumpled up paper... and the handwriting looked familiar, so I... picked it up... and..."

I about died on the spot as she, between fits of laughter, essentially read me the note I'd left with my little library crush a few days before. She thought it was the funniest thing in the world, and, if his hysterics in the background were any indication, so did he.

"Wait a minute," I gasped, between my own horrified gulps, "You mean... you... took... a SHOWER with HIM?!!"

Yep, the only person on campus I knew not only beat me to my library crush, she SHOWERED WITH HIM, and then they, naked, read the most embarrassing note I have ever written. And then called me to replay the incident with me as their witness.

For the rest of my college existence, every time I was out, I inevitably ran into GooglyLibraryEyes and all his buddies, who mercilessly gave me shit, and somehow magically never fucking forgot it or cut me some slack. Let me tell you, by the end of my college career, he wasn't looking attractive anymore. I don't think. To be honest, I never looked at him directly again, afraid my eyes would be burned by the reflection of my own stupidity shining off him like a "neener-neener" beacon forever.

That was the end of my Note-writing career. Thank God I had a sense of humor or I mightn't have survived it.

Lesson: The Note gets read. Often. And by way more people than you intend.

So now its your turn to share hideous come-on stories. Can you beat this? I doubt it, but could really use a little morale boost now, so if you wouldn't mind trying...

:)

The Note (a tale of a misguided come-on tactic), Part I

[Before we begin, a note: I love how I can write about pretty much anything and elicit a response from y'all, but the day I actually get hit by a bus and write about that? Nothing. A couple emails along the lines of "are you okay? because that's pretty funny..." but other than that, radio silence. You guys kick ass.]

...

"So I'm having a little bit of a crisis," she said. "I tried to lick the company stamps, or whatever, and now I'm paying the price."

My best friend and I are sort of regulars at this little Mexican restaraunt near her house, where we meet sometimes once every couple weeks, sometimes a few times a week, to eat chips and salsa and drink beer with lime in it and talk about... well... everything.

Last week, the topic was Workboy. We'd run into Workboy a few weekends ago on a night out on the town. He'd recognized her as the girl who works in the office building next to him, and described her black Audi and where she parked in their small, shared parking lot. He'd bought her a drink and they'd laughed and flirted. He was doing that thing where you touch the other person when they say something funny. At the end of the night, they exchanged numbers and went their separate ways.

The following week they bumped into each other a couple times, talked about getting together again. So, in an attempt to keep the momentum they'd begun during the weekend, she wrote A Note to Workboy.

Now, the Note is a notoriously female move. And my friend, bless her heart, did exactly what every one of us known Note-Leavers does: First, she wrote The Note four days before she worked up the nerve to leave The Note somewhere for him to read. The Note was, though totally premeditated, intentionally a little sloppy and very short, in an attempt to look, well, not premeditated.

"...it was just very cool," she said. "I mean, very casual."

After obsessing for the obligatory three days about exactly what words should go in The Note, she finally worked up the considerable nerve it took to slip it under his wiper on her way out to her car one day after work.

Just after she did, she saw him come out of his building on his way to his car, and panicked, essentially sprinting to her car and racing off before he could read the note in front of her, the whole way home wishing she could go back, run him over, and snatch the note back out of his adorable, lifeless hands.

"Well," I nodded, "I think you handled that pretty well. So?"

"So he hasn't called. And it's been two weeks," she moaned. "And honestly, I'm dissapointed, but more than that, I'm completely fucked, because I see his car every day and he walks past my office every day, and we haven't spoken since, and it is the most awkward thing EVER!" Cue wailing.

I agreed. What? Well, she was right. It was a completely awkward situation, and after some discussion, we determined that not only was it awkward, it was totally possible he had a girlfriend who he showed the note to, in addition to everyone he works with and possibly also my friend's boss and co-workers. Which led to a whole 'nother bout of wailing.

And that's the thing about The Note. It always seems like such a good idea to us women, but the second you leave it, you realize the gravity of the mistake you've made in leaving it:

You hit on a man like he was a woman, and left cold, hard, physical evidence of your transgression.

It's like we take the biggest mistake men make in hitting on women (the pick-up lines, sometimes some grabbing and and hi-fives with the boys and a few pelvic thrusts) and do completely the opposite thing. We hit on men coyly and nearly anonymously in an attempt to risk as little as possible. Consider the fact that most women's repertoire of moves when it comes to attracting a man (mine included) borrow heavily from deaf, dumb and mute: we ignore them completely, believing this makes us more attractive to them. Nice.

Meanwhile, I suspect a man really wants us to come up to him unannounced at a bar, grab his junk, wrap a leg around him, press our chest against his arm and tell him his legs must be tired because he's been running through our sex dreams all night. But noooo. Instead, like the classy but clueless broads we are, we take the leave The Note angle, thinking it will be sweet and clever and mysterious. Which gets us into BIG trouble. Women want mystery. Men want exactly the opposite. I know this firsthand.

[Next, in Part II, how I know this firsthand.]

"Yeah, I hate gay people..."

Yeah, Tim Hardaway has the beating of his life a-comin to him, if it's possible to be beaten down by coach bags and the case to Madonna's Immacculate Collection CD. Okay, that was a joke, people. But really, wow.

I guess white trash now comes in chocolate?

...and I was all, like, "What the...??!!!" (Hit by a bus)

You know that thing that people do when something embarrassing happens to them in public? I know you know what I'm talking about. That thing people do, for example, when they randomly trip while walking down the street?

I'm not talking about the people who start running and try to play it off. (Those people are their own breed, requiring their own separate post. They're the type who do the thing where they raise their hand and wave to someone down the street, thinking they know them, but then realize they don't and instead use their hand to slick back their hair, all, like "What? I'm cool... just fixing my hair!". This is unacceptable behavior for anyone other than Guidos, and real Guidos only live in Little Italy and are drunk and fat and leacherous most of the time, anyway, so their bad judgment doesn't count. By the way, I'm part Italian, so don't call me racist.)

I'm talking about the other people. The people who get pissed. You know, when they trip on their own feet, but instead of laughing their clumsiness off, they stop, and turn around, and, like, glare and the sidewalk, all "What the...??!!" like it purposefully tripped them. Or they point, which is always funny. Or examine the street closely for the crack that obviously caused them to stumble. Or -- better yet -- they kick the curb. God, I love that. It totally ridiculous, because regardless of what they do afterwards, they almost just tripped, and nothing they do is going to make that go away.

Tara Reid is really good at this. Or maybe she's mostly good at just falling and being coked up and skanky. Either way, a photo, because I think it's funny (and hear it encourages you guys to continue reading... thank you, US Magazine):



Anyway, this "What the...?!" behavior didn't make any sense to me until this morning, when I was (wait for it...) HIT BY A BUS.

Yup. A huge articulated bus -- carrying what seemed like a thousand commuters -- ran a red light and met me in the middle of a crosswalk -- head down in the rain, minding my own business -- half a block from my office building.

I'm okay and everything. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to admit that it's not like it plowed me down, it just sort of met me. The moment it was less than 10 inches from my right shoulder, I looked up and stiff-armed it while jumping sideways, effectively pushing off its front left corner before it knocked me down.

The first nanosecond after the bus hissed to a quick stop, the first moment I knew I was going to live, I was embarrassed, convinced it was all my fault, because who gets hit by a bus unless they're doing something idiotic? What the fuck? I thought. I am so oblivious to the world that I just almost got hit by a bus? I mean, how embarrassing! Surely, I thought, I must have been jaywalking. But when I looked up at the crosswalk, I was stunned. No red STOP hand. Instead, a bright green WALK man. And this one was animated. His legs were moving. He was, like "WALK! LIKE ME!! SEE? DO IT!"

Just like that, (I snapped right there, in real life, while typing the word "that". So please, when reading this, snap, so you can get the full effect of my enthusiasm for this story.) Just like that (thank you), my embarrassment turned to anger.

How in the fuck does a BUS run a red light and almost hit a GIRL who clearly has every right to WALK in that crosswalk, with her legs moving and carrying her across the street just like the blazing green WALK man? That WALK man was suddenly my shining beacon of right-ness. And, to add to my anger, I noticed that on top of the sign, there was a speaker playing piped-in audio instructions for the blind. The piped-in audio woman was saying this, still, even in the seconds after my near-death-experience:

"Walk signs are on for all crossings. Walk signs are on for all crossings. Walk signs are on for all cross..." etc. etc. etc.

God damn that bus! Now I was really pissed. My bright young life was nearly smeared across the bumper of a public transporter, and it was totally not my fault.

I was going to show that effing bus driver.

Yeah, I was.

I was gonna.

Show him.

That effer.

So you know what I did? I'll be damned if I didn't, almost instinctively, do that thing.

I stopped, mouth open in shock as I realized the audio and visual signals were all telling me to walk and the bus to stop at the moment of near-impact, and gave the driver the "what the...??!!!" look, with my forehead all scrunched up like he was an idiot, then pointed to the green WALK sign, then pointed back at the bus driver, shaking my head and again doing the "What the...?!" face before disgustedly throwing my hands down at my sides and marching the rest of the way across the street, shaking my head.

You could almost hear the spectators crowding the sidewalks giggle and whisper. I actually saw a few point. I was that girl. Doing that retarded "What the...?!!!" thing.

But I didn't care. It felt good. Not as good as swearing at the driver, but good enough to satisfy me as I stomped across the street and into my building, brushing my hair back all cool and calm. All, like, "What? Nothing! I'm cool, and stuff. Just fixing my hair..."

____________________________________________

A tale of two come-ons is coming... but forgive me, the bus incident took precedence today, as it was practically a near-death experience. Have a good day, and please--look both ways.

Lameness.

It's oozing out of my pores. I have about a million stories for you but somehow have had zero time to write. Which means you suffer. And I remain lame, a lame-ass girl lamely working her lame self to death, occasionally making it back to her lame house to lamely go straight to bed, where I drift off to restless sleep while wallowing in my lameness.

Apologies.

In the meantime, I need you to do me a favor and recall the single most embarrassing experience you ever had attempting to pick up or hit on a member of the opposite sex. It is important that you are prepared with stories of your own failure, as I am about to share some incredibly lame tales of my own (and my friends', too, though they don't know it yet)... and we will all need the support.

Deal?

Thanks.

Oh, and happy Valentine's Day. Laaaammmmeee.

(Just kidding, I got flowers and presents already, suckers.)

(And for once I'm not going to tell you whether that is the truth or a big fat exaggeration... you'll just have to wonder. Good day.)

Anna Nicole Smith: death of an All-American girl

In case you didn't hear, Anna Nicole Smith collapsed in a Florida hotel this afternoon and died. It's sad, really. She was such an all-American girl, you know?

I mean, isn't it just the classic story of the girl next door?

Girl is born to inbred family of six children, girl works in fried chicken before deciding she makes more money slinging her own breasts, which she does with great bleached-blonde gusto until the fateful day she rubs all up on an octegenarian who she later finds out is worth some cool 400 million dollars. Girl marries bag of bones, poses in Playboy and lands Guess Jeans deal, bag of bones dies, girl feuds with b.o.b's family for inherritance, b.o.b's family dies, girl gets paid, stars in reality TV show, hooks up with her own lawyer, gets hugely obese, gets bogus diet pill promotion deal, loses weight and more brain mass, gets knocked up, gives birth to child with no baby's daddy in another country, girls oldest son dies in hospital room once girl gives birth to daughter, girl gets involved in bitter paternity dispute, then crazy eviction suit, then bunk diet pill promotion suit, finally collapsing in the a hotel room at age 39, dead.

*sigh*

Gives us dreamers something to aspire to, really.

I've started an office pool on how long before an Anna Nicole tell-all biography hist the shelves, followed shortly by a movie based on her life and a made-for-TV special. And can't you just hear conservative midwestern mothers everywhere barely holding back the "serves her right"s and "i told you so"s while their Twinkie-eating daughters stuff themselves into designer jeans and wail in anguish?

The real brainteaser is how long until little Dannilynne becomes a promiscuous, addicted child star/stripper? I give her eleven years, tops... and that's only if somebody can keep Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan's hands off her before then.

Poor girl. What a legacy. On the upside, she'll almost undoubtedly be filthy rich, right?

Or, you could just wear your shirt...

I have talked to two different men in the last week who say they take off their shirts when they go number two.

Yep, I know. Bizarre, right?

And they both say this isn't restricted to just their homes. Public restroom? Shirt off. Work men's room? Yep. Porta-Potty? (Actually, I didn't ask either about a Porta Potty, but now I wish I would have. Meanwhile my general rule is to stay a minimum of .25 miles away from Porta-Potty's at all times, no matter how badly you have to pee. As for the other function? No way. )

This clothing removal thing disturbs me for two reasons. One is the basic concept. WHY would you remove clothing to use the bathroom? It's unnecessary, and the mental picture is so icky. Also, this is totally inconvenient. Imagine a man in a shirt and tie: he enters the bathroom, removes his tie, hangs it on that little hook on the door, unbuttons seventy million buttons (and those ones around his wrists), takes off his shirt, then his undershirt, and hangs those both over the door. He's now been in there for 4 or 5 minutes. People are coming and going and watching his clothes be flung over the stall door. He then sits down on the sani-paper, a weird, pasty-white man with his shirt off in a cold work bathroom, and does his deed. (Both shirt-removers are white, so by default, that's my mental picture. But a brown man shirtless on the pot is just as icky). Then, when he's done, he reverses the process. Clothes go back on. Does he tie his tie in the mirror with all the other guys watching? Do they know he just disrobed? And if he's taking off his shirt, why not go the whole way and get rid of the pants and socks, too?

[Actually, come to think of it, I think I did have an ex-boyfriend who took his shoes off when he went number two. I feel like I remember him saying something to this effect, and I just didn't ask more questions because it was weirding me out. Then again, this is also the ex who ate lasagna in the bathtub, so maybe the whole relationship was weirding me out, truth be told. But I digress.]

What's worse about my discovery of this strange male behavior is that I heard about it twice in one week from two different and unrelated men, which makes me believe it stands to reason this isn't a rare occurrance at all. Is it possible there are lots of men out there doing this? Or--gasp--women?

And why were both these guys -- one of whom I barely know, who made this revelation in a big group of people out on a Saturday night -- so willing to share this perverse and private detail?

It's like i'm in the twilight zone. Anyone?

"I think we're alone now" is the best karaoke song ever.

And this weekend, I intend to prove it, irrefutably. I'll let you know how it goes.

Happy Friday!