Dollar Store Wine

My roommate had a visitor who decided to bring a gift of several bottles of wine. He proudly told everyone that he bought them at the dollar store. He seemed somewhat surprised that the bottles were still full when he left. ("I was trying to impress everyone with my thriftiness.")

The wine was from Africa and the bottle said it had hints of "gooseberries, green figs and asparagus."

Yes, asparagus.

I don't know anything about wine but I still think something is wrong with that flavor combination.

Dear Perverted Underwear Thief

Dear Perverted Underwear Thief,

Thank you for giving me an excuse to take time out of my busy schedule to go shopping. I thought I had a steady supply of underwear for the next 2 weeks but no, you've proved me wrong.

I'd also like to thank you for being considerate enough to leave behind a few pairs of old granny panties so I don't have to go shopping right away tonight. I know it must have taken a lot of effort to sort through two loads of laundry and take only the thongs, boyshorts and really nice stuff.

Oh, and by the way, the next time you stop the dryer to steal underwear, could you start it up again? My clothes were cold and wet when I went to get them and I didn't appreciate having to put another $1.50 into the machine.

Personally, I think $1.50 is quite a bargain in exchange for all the underwear you took. Don't be cheap.

Sincerely,
Someone Who Hopes You Gag to Death

Ridiculous Bathroom Part 3

This is the last potty post for now. Part 1. Part 2.

Part 3: The Orphan Toilet

It's not unusual to enter a restaurant bathroom and find a stall-less toilet. That alerts you to the fact that this is a one person bathroom, and you should lock the door behind you.

However, I was once stymied by a bathroom that had two toilets: one within a stall, and one not. Yes, in a multi-toilet bathroom there was one that was not enclosed. Questions raced through my mind.

Was I supposed to heed the call of the orphan toilet and lock the main door behind me, thus rendering the other toilet inaccessible and useless to anyone else? Why bother having a second toilet then?

What if I decided to call this a two person bathroom and use the toilet in the stall? Wouldn't it be terribly weird for someone to come in and realize they couldn't use the orphaned toilet? They'd have to stand there, looking forlornly at the toilet they could not use, while hopping up and down, mentally willing their bladder to control itself.

OMG! What if they were stupid enough to use the orphan toilet (or simply didn't notice me in the stall)? I'd have to yell, "Hey, I'm coming out! Is everything zipped up and buttoned out there?" to avoid seeing something I didn't want to see.

I ended up using the toilet in the stall and locking the main door.

Later my friend suggested the bathroom was designed for people who don't like to go to the bathroom alone.

"Um, like a mother and child?"

"Yeah, they can hold hands."

Ridiculous Bathroom Part 2

For another poorly designed bathroom: Part 1

Part 2: Hobbit Stalls

The usual bathroom stall dividers are tall enough to prevent you from seeing the people in the stalls (except for their feet) for obvious reasons.

However, I was once in a public restroom where the dividers only came up to about neck-level. I am not freakishly tall, so don't blame this on my physiology.

Although you couldn't see anything from the neck down (and thus the very private things remained private), it was still very disconcerting to turn to your right and suddenly say hello to your neighbor.

At least the stalls were reasonably wide. The only thing more awkward than seeing another human face out of the corner of your eye would have been to know that they were really close to you.

Hey contractors, did you cheap out on materials? Did you hire munchkin architects? Did you decide that women like an audience, like men at urinals?

Whatever it is you did, don't do it again. When I pee I don't want to see anyone else.

Ridiculous Bathroom Part 1

I've seen some poorly designed bathrooms, and I'm not referring to their choice of wallpaper. I mean they have structural aspects that seem . . . inappropriate. These include a stall with a big window in it, stalls not suitable for tall people and a naked toilet without a stall (in a multi-toilet bathroom).

Part 1: Bathroom for Peeping Toms

I once entered a bathroom stall and felt there was something a bit off about it. It was very well-lit, breezy and good god! had a giant 4 foot x 4 foot window in it. The bathroom was on the third floor of the building, and the big window was directly across the window of another building very close by. At least the bathroom was not on the ground floor, where every passerby could glance in.

As I puzzled over what moron would design a woman's bathroom this way I realized this was not the original design.

I came to the conclusion the building was old and the bathroom was not built to accomodate the disabled. Later, to bring everything up to code they had to make a wheelchair-accessible stall. The easiest way to do this was to make one of the stalls bigger. They achieved this by extending the stall along the wall until it happened to include the big window.

So, that's understandable. But couldn't they have at least frosted the windows?

Webcam Losers

I have a vice. I like to read personal ads and giggle. The internet has made this very, very easy. To those of you who post online dating profiles: I would like to offer you a bit of advice in return for the hours of amusement you have given me.

Dear Participants in Internet Mating Rituals,

Do not use webcam photos.

They're rarely flattering and often make you look like you have a giant forehead or chin, but most importantly, they make you look like a loser who has no friends.

Are you really sure you can't ask your buddy, roommate, sister or neighbor for 2 minutes of their time to take your photo? Is it really that hard?

Please, use a photo taken by someone else other than you and somewhere else other than in front of your computer. It demonstrates that you leave your room every so often. It's nice to have hobbies and places to go, and having non-webcam photos helps convince us you're not a drooly moron lacking social graces.

Sincerely,
Someone Who Reads Your Profile and Has No Intention of Dating You

P.S. Mug shots are not good, either.

Students and Thugs

I had a professor who grew up in Russia. He said his college was in a seedy part of town and occasionally there would be altercations between the students and the local street toughs. After the police broke up a fight they had a clever way of separating out who was a student and who was a gang member. They asked each person a math question: "What is the integral of e to the x?"

Please Leave Me Out of Your Love Triangle

I spend little time on AIM because it seems every time I surface I get sucked into someone else's drama. Maybe I should stop being polite. An example:

I get a message from a screen name I don't recognize, saying "Hi." I ignore it until the person says "It's Dave."

I know several Daves and I think it may be one of them so I ask, "Which one?"

Dave: "The Mexican one!"
Me: "Sorry, doesn't ring a bell."
Dave: "Are you messing with me man?"
Me: "No, sorry I think you have the wrong person."
Dave: "This isn't Tom?"
Me: "No."
Dave: "No way!"

Eventually I convince Dave I am not Tom. The very next day I get a message from Rob, who also thinks I am Tom. I politely tell Rob to check with Tom, who seems to have sent his friends the wrong screen name.

Rob: "Who else have you talked to?"
Me: "Some guy named Dave."
Rob: "Dave is a pimp!"

Rob seemed a little jealous of Dave, and proved difficult to convince I was not Tom. Unfortunately it took a little while for the real Tom to spread the word about his correct screen name.

Two weeks, four or five separate messaging attempts from Tom's friends, and several miscellaneous comments later, I piece together the story.

Now I can tell people, "Yeah, I once had two guys fighting over me, but that was when they mistook me for a gay man from Illinois."

P.S. The reason I didn't block Tom's friends from the get-go: Once a poor chap mistook me for his girlfriend and became rather distraught when I ignored him.

Water Water Everywhere

During my weekend travel I passed by a religious organization called the Living Water Bible Church.

Next door, housed in the same building, was Premier Pool Supply.

I wonder if the Church goes next door for baptisms?

Google Search What?

I was curious to see what sort of Google search terms lured unsuspecting victims to my blog. Some search terms made a lot of sense because I had blogged on the same topics: "truffles disappointment," "national clandestine service," "responses to inappropriate questions," etc

Then there was "cheap women" which I realized was understandable because the 1 Man + 6 Women = Fear post contains those words, although not together.

The search term that really confused me was "ladies in stages of undress."

My first reaction was "What? I don't have any photos on this blog. I don't think I've even ever talked about naked ladies." Then I realized "various stages of undress" appears in the post about my roommate's boyfriend.

Giggle. Pervy people are stumbling onto the blog, looking for racy photos and reading "when we all wear bathrobes and such we can pretend we're civilized."

And given the phrases in this particular post I think there will be more frustrated individuals in the future.

Vain or Stupid

Where I live it's rather cold right now. Despite wearing a turtle neck angora sweater and a down jacket with a fleece lining I was aware of this while waiting at the bus stop.

There was another girl at the bus stop who was shivering and also well aware of this, especially since she was wearing some thin shirts and a thin little hoodie jacket.

She was wearing pink gloves and was therefore aware of this before she left the house.

She apparently was not aware of the fact that she might have been less cold if she bothered zipping up her jacket or putting the hood over her head.

As I stood there, staring at the flapping jacket I wondered whether she was vain or stupid.

Then I realized she was both.

The jacket was too small to zip up.