Dude, where's my underwear?

Well this is definitely the post you've all been waiting for. As the title implies, I recently had a problem...with my underwear. Sunday is the day I typically do the family's laundry. I sort, launder, dry and fold while watching NASCAR or some other manly type sport. (Sorry to tell you I no longer pre-treat, though I know I should). Anyway, I completed the laundry that night. The next morning when getting dressed I noticed that my prodigious supply of underwear seems thinner than it should for a Monday. But I didn't think a great deal about it. However, by later that week I was starting to really run low. Given my inventory, combined with my Sunday laundry schedule, this should not be happening. Something was definitely amiss with my underwear.

I checked the dryer. Nothing there. Nor in the washer. I checked my son's supply of underwear. All far too small for me. Perplexed, I was forced to conduct an off-schedule laundry cycle for my underwear. This was most distressing.

About a week later I got my dry cleaning. When I opened it up what do you think I found? That's right, about six pair of neatly laundered and pressed men's underwear hung with care. Not since the Spring of 1987 had I enjoyed such a pleasant change of underwear.

Please file this under the category of Too Much Information!

Beware the Druken Dude

So I had a business trip recently out to Denver. Love Denver. Could picture myself living there...or at least owning a nice condo up in Summit County (dream large, right?!). Anyway, I had a connecting flight through Charlotte, NC. It was a Boeing 737 so the set up in coach is 3x3. And of course, I drew the middle seat (blech!) But there was hope because the aisle seat next to me was still empty as the stewardess...excuse me..."Flight Attendant" was going to close the cabin door. Well wouldn't you know some bozo comes stumbling in right about then and as all the passengers watch him work his way down the aisle, oblivious to the fact that the entire plane is waiting on HIM, he dumps his stuff in the seat next to, you guessed it, me.

Of course he doesn't just quietly take his seat, he has to struggle to arrange all his crud in the overhead storage bins which are obviously full. After a few minutes of futile struggle the stewar...Flight Attendant helps him find a place for his stuff. She then has to remind him to sit down so the plane can, you know, LEAVE! He sits, and then takes out his cell phone (mind you, the door to the plane is now closed at which point all electronic devices should be in the off position) and calls what I deduced was his girlfriend. He spews all sorts crap to her about how he can't wait to see her again...blah, blah, blah. All the while I'm wishing the Flight Attendant would come flick him in the ear and tell him to get off the freaking phone.

After the obligatory safety briefing which says nothing about how much I'm going to have to pay to get my midget-sized portion of stale trail mix, the guy starts chatting me up. "Dude, I almost missed the flight, do you believe that? Dude!" I feel the blood leave my head when I realize what's happening. I've got a chatty drunk sitting next to me! This is bad. Next to an angry drunk, the chatty drunk is the worst thing for a slightly anti-social person like myself to encounter in a small, assigned seat, extended confinement situation.

Right after take off he starts in, "Dude, what do you do?" "I'm a project manager" trying to keep my answers short and close-ended. "Dude, that's cool. I manage golf courses. Dude, you play golf?" "No." Please leave me alone, I thought to myself. "Dude, you ever heard of (fill in name of golf courses here)?" "No." "Dude, its sweet. I get paid to get people to build golf courses." Great. In the name of all that's holy and decent, shut UP! "Dude, what's up with that stewardess, she wouldn't let me buy any drinks yet. You believe that dude?" "Life's a jip." Where is the nearest emergency exit? I might need to fling myself through it before we get to Denver.

Since my close-ended answers weren't having the desired effect I switched strategies; I put on my headphones, turned up the volume and started making demonstrative jiving and grooving motions with my head and hands. Clearly, I'm into my music, i.e., leave me alone. Then I see him turn toward me and his mouth is moving...and moving...and moving. I keep grooving, eyes forward. Not responding. His mouth moves some more. I continue to groove feverishly. Eventually he stops.

When I grew tired of the music, I didn't want to let my defenses down, so then I feigned sleep. Eyes closed, head tilted, little bit of drool coming out of the corner of my mouth. Very convincing, right? "Dude, after I go to Denver I'm gonna meet my girlfriend in Vegas. You ever been to Vegas, dude?" "Are you talking to me?" "Oh, sorry dude, were you asleep?" Would it be considered self-defense at this point to slap this guy in the face with my laptop? "Dude, here's my card. Let me know if you ever want to build a golf course." "I'll cherish it always."

Mercifully, at this point the Flight Attendant comes by and he breaks into a 15 minute conversation / negotiation with her about how many drinks he can buy at once. So the lesson here is, beware the drunken dude!

From here to eternity

OK, I'm going to go Andy Rooney on you for a bit. No, I'm not going to grow my eyebrow hair for 80 years without once trimming it resulting in the appearance of two highly distracting, shrubs above my eyes. I am however going to lodge a curmudgeon-like complaint.

What's the deal with receipts these days? They're getting longer and longer. One of the worst offenders I've noticed is my local CVS pharmacy. I went in to my CVS recently to buy a small electric fan. I purchased only the one item for $14.99 plus tax. Sounds like a small transaction, right? Wrong!

The receipt for this seemingly innocuous transaction was long. So freakishly long, in fact, that I was compelled to measure it. Upon doing so I found the menial retail documentation to measure 29.875 inches long. Nearly 30 inches! For one item! That's longer than my left arm! Can you imagine the length if I had gone on an over-the counter medicine shopping spree? At this rate of paperization, if I had purchased, say 50 items, the receipt would have measured 124 FEET long! 100 items would have been 248 feet. Nearly a football field! I could wallpaper my freakin' bathroom with that.

What possesses companies to do this? Are they trying to prove their worth by the length of their receipts? Perhaps they're compensating for something, I don't know. In this case, I say less is more.

Am I becoming (gasp!) social?

Those who know me know that I'm hard to get to know. When one first meets me I can come off as aloof or disinterested. By nature, I am not highly social. I typically keep myself to a small group of friends. But once one does get to know me then my true, zany, movie-line-quoting self comes out. Back when I worked at Capital One people would sometimes ask if I wanted to go to lunch, to which I would almost always reply that I had already eaten or had brought my lunch. And this was true. Yep, sometimes I can definitely be a loner.

So during my recent career transition, I had to do a lot of networking. Needless to say this was somewhat less than comfortable for me. But many folks wouldn't recognize me. I was out having lunch with all sorts of people. In fact, I was ASKING people to go to lunch with me! This is madness!

Now that I'm in a new job I thought my sociability might decrease. And while I am back to having most lunches at my desk, I have sought out lunches with various friends. What is this world coming to?

Am I "SAD?" Part II

So here's another socially awkward situation. Someone goes to hold a door open for you. Normally, this is a nice and courteous act. However, some people do this nicety to the extreme. For example, I'm approaching a door and someone is going through that door holds it open for me. However, I'm a good 20 to 30 paces away from the door. What's up with that? Now, I either have to conduct a sudden burst of acceleration to get to the door and acknowledge this kindly act or be thought a jerk.

But why does someone do this when the other person (namely me) is so far away? It leads to this awkward situation where the "nice" person is contorting their body, two steps past the door, leaning back in a sprawled position, holding the door with the tip of one finger while balancing their lunch in the other hand, teetering in an off-balance position, waiting / expecting me to accelerate from half a block away to come to the door that I would have gotten to about 30 seconds later.

Just keep walking. I can open my own door!

Am I "SAD?"

So, am I "SAD?" No, I don't mean down in the dumps and crying. And I don't mean suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder (i.e., the winter blues) though I did get that every winter I lived in Chicago. No, I mean Social Anxiety Disorder. Some social circumstances cause me angst and I wonder if I'm the only one that feels this way.

For example, you know that situation where you enter a long corridor or hallway and there is someone else coming toward you from the opposite end - only they're a long way off? Then you've got that highly awkward stretch of space and time to cover where you're both converging on each other. Then the anxiety in me begins to build:

• Do I look at them?
• When do I look at them?
• Where do I look at them?
• If I don't look at them where DO I look?
• Do I acknowledge them?
• When do I acknowledge them?
• What if I acknowledge them and they don't acknowledge me?
• Do I know their name?
• Did I used to know their name but have forgotten? (Highly likely for me.)
• What do I do with my hands?
• Do I play with my Blackberry?
• Do I walk faster to get the awkwardness over with sooner?
• Is my fly zipped?
• How can I check if my fly is zipped without looking stupid?
• Is THEIR fly zipped?
• Are there some elevator buttons nearby that I can push to pass the time?

On and on it goes and the anxiety builds until, at last, we pass each other and I'm free to be myself again. Unless someone else enters the hallway! AAAAAGH!

Look at me! I'm modern!

Hey! I made a blog! Now aren't I modern? At the request of numerous friends and family members, I am taking a step toward some day creating a syndicated column a-la Dave Barry. On this blog you'll find me writing about almost anything - from the mundane to the profound but almost always injected with a healthy does of humor, sarcasm, righteousness, indiginity and more.

I invite you to read and share with your friends and family.