Did you have an autograph book when you were little? I’m not sure if this was just something people in 1982 Texas thought was pretty cool, but I found mine the other night.

In case you’re wondering, I have always been exactly the same. I TRY to be warm and friendly, but I’m little prickly, a little too quick to clarify.

My subtle editing is pretty awesome on this next page. I’m not the type to scribble something out with a black Magic Marker. No, just a little bit of eraser does the trick.

1. In a conference call a moment ago, someone took offense at the meeting’s leader, James, using the term “e-commerce” (I know; for me, it’s up there with “fuck” as a verb) and pulled this move:

“First of all — I’m sorry, what’s your name again? Ok, well, JAMES, well what you need to know is…”

This rattled James to the extent that he said this, which made me ell oh ell.

“We don’t want to put the customer to sleep. I mean, um…not…not in a euthanization kind of way, I mean.”

He said it totally earnestly, as if anyone in the history of the universe would think that’s what he meant! Yes, well, my e-commerce plan is to MURDER THE CUSTOMER (and charge them for it).

2. At the Thai restaurant today, a dumb man said to the owner, who is Thai, “Hey, happy Chinese New Year! Do y’all celebrate that?” In case you’re wondering: yes, I died.

3. I started the year by reading Solar by Ian McEwan. In it, McEwan abandons his tried-and-true suspense-filled writing for an attempt at comedy, and ohjesus is it terrible. There is a four-page part featuring crisps on a train that is fantastic, but otherwise, please read a different McEwan book if you must. But not On Chesil Beach! Because that one sucks too (but for different reasons).

4. Now I’m reading Snobs by Julian Fellowes (creator of the Downton Abbey and the Gosford Park!), and it is pretty good, but yesterday my public library had The Night Circus, which I’m pretty anxious to read, and so I’m trying to rush through Snobs.

5. One of my favorite Twitter feeds is LarkinQuotes. Just a few lines of Phillip Larkin’s poems, a couple of times a day. It’s delightful to read a tweet about a sandwich someone just ate, a profane Rob Delaney tweet, and then read this:

“High above the gutter / A silver knife sinks into golden butter”

6. I got over being mad at The Good Wife. This week’s episode was particularly good, I thought, although I could be factoring in the fact that I listened to/watched it in my office at work while I was doing some sorting and cleaning.

7. I heard that Project Runway: All Stars has no Tim Gunn nor Heidi Klum. Must I watch? Please discuss.

8. Do you know about Munchies brand snacks? Not Munchos but Munchies, the snack with the unfortunate name. It’s pretzels, Doritos, Cheetos, and Sun Chips all living polygamously together in one bag. I recommend.

9. My friend Graham is in this band called Get Better, which has an EP you can download for a mere $2! That’s about the price of a big bag of Munchies. So for five bucks, you can listen to some songs and eat some chips. That’s…I mean, what else is there. I didn’t add a question mark because it’s not really a question.

10. Sometimes if I have a snack at my desk (ahem Munchies) and I get a little cheesy dust on my fingers, instead of getting up to wash my hands like a human being, I will lick my fingers and then wipe them dry on the inside of my pants leg. The inside! No one needs to know! (Except you.)

The other day I mentioned something about the dry cleaning place I use to a coworker and she said she might try it. She has this shirt that she spilled soy sauce on, and after she took it to her usual place, the stain was still there.

–And get this! Not only was the STAIN still there, it hadn’t even been cleaned! I know because I licked it and it still tasted like soy sauce!
–Oh, wow.
–I know! They just ironed it!
–I mean, oh wow, you licked your shirt.
–I actually licked it again after I took it to the SECOND dry cleaner and the stain was still there. Still tasted like soy sauce. Jerks.

Speaking of weirdos, my friend’s boyfriend recently had a Personal Family Tragedy, and because of this, she is hesitant to address unwanted behavior that her boyfriend is displaying for fear this will make him break down/think she is awful. I say “unwanted behavior,” but I really mean TOTALLY HORRIBLE AND DISGUSTING behavior. Case in point: apparently the man is fond of hocking loogies. Look, it happens. I am not personally a loogie hocker but I am close to those who are. So they’re in his car, she’s riding in the passenger seat, and he hocks a loogie. Then he rolls down HER window, leans over, and shoots the loogie OVER HER PERSON and out the window. I just have no words. What advice do you give a friend in this position? If you’re me, you just say ohmygodohmygod and give her a friendly pat.

Speaking of loogies, have I ever told you about the time I was housesitting for my neighbor, watering plants and the like, when I spotted some trash in their backyard? Because I was all of 12 at the time, I didn’t merely pick up the trash and put it in an appropriate receptacle. Oh, no. Instead, I picked it up, and tossed it over my neighbor’s OTHER neighbor’s fence. Ha ha! Instant trash pickup! So a few days later, I noticed a Coke can out there. I trotted out, picked it up, and tossed it over into the other neighbor’s yard. (Yes, again. I wasn’t very bright.) I stood there feeling pretty proud of my solution to littering when SWOPPPPP! something flew over the fence and hit me in the eye. Now, I wore glasses at the time, so getting something in the precious space between face and glass is pretty impressive, but do you know what it was? It was a loogie. Warm. Viscuous. Loogielike. In my eye.

AND THAT IS WHY I DO NOT LITTER.

Bedtime is rough for Spike. I suspect it is rough for most kids, and that the angelic sleepers I read about on Facebook are just wishful/hateful thinking intended to fill others with jealousy and bile. We have a list of threats posted in the hallway of things we will take away from him if he gets out of bed (first, the toy he’s sleeping with, then dessert the next night, etc) so instead of getting out of bed, he now requests our presence often so that we may fix imaginary life-threatening problems, like tigers on the walls. Once I sprayed the tiger spray around the room, but apparently was overzealous in my duty, as he ended up weeping because I sprayed the GOOD tigers as well as the bad.

So last night he was in his bed pleading. Mommy. Mommmmmmy. MOMMY! I finally went in.

–What is it, darling?
–Mommy, come here. I have to tell you something.

I put my face close to his.

Boogers, he whispered.

I really did think of doing some special 2012 challenge, like posting every day, or doing a random act of kindness each day and then bragging about it, but yesterday (after I gave a saleslady a piece of gum AHEM) I went to the park with Spike and there were terrible people there and now I’m going to tell you about them.

Two cars pulled up at the same time. The second the doors opened, the noise started as well. There were loud talkers, and lots of them: grandma, grandpa, two sets of married people, and four children. First, they were loud and I was annoyed. Then I noticed that they smelled like smoke, and then I noticed that Grandma was smoking. Look, I don’t mean to be a dick about smokers, but this is a park for children, ok? Just finish your cigarette and we’ll move on. Oh, no. Grandma finished her cigarette and HAD ANOTHER, way too close to precious unclogged baby lungs for my taste.

Then they got closer and I had no choice but to pay attention to them, because I have a disorder called Whoever is Loudest Gets My Attention.

Redneck woman: Hay baby! Whuts this thang called, this rope thang.
Redneck man: Ats a zip lon.
Redneck woman: Well it don’t work rot. It stops in the middle.
Redneck man: Well they put it up wrong.
Redneck woman: Ats too bad.
Me (silently, in head): IT HAS SOME SLACK SO THE CHILDREN DON’T SLAM THEIR BODIES AGAINST THE POLES AT EITHER END.

Spike stood holding my hand, mouth agape, staring at them.

We moved on to the slide, to the swing. The rednecks approached. Redneck woman hollered “hay baby” again and asked her beloved what the ground cover was. She had a lot of questions, but I got the impression that they were in performance mode.

We went over to the riding toys–there’s a whale, a frog, and a car. The other set of married people were encouraging their son to ride the whale. WHEEL! WHEEL! he said. ATS RIGHT, said the man, THERES A WALL AND A SNALL. HAW HAW WALL AND SNALL! Spike looked up at me and said quietly, Mommy, there’s a whale and a FROG. (He is totally my child.) Spike got in the car and the man said HAY LOOKIT THIS CAT’S IN THE CAR! Spike gave me a look.

We were on the fire truck using the wheel as a makeshift sit and spin. It’s near the big xylophone/glockenspiel kind of contraption. Redneck man approached and said, HAY BABY LISTEN TO THIS. He played with it for a moment and then found a melody and began to sing, a little stilted as he found each note.

Cal i forn ia girls we’re un for get table
Dai sy Dukes bi ki nis on top
Sun kissed skin so hot
We’ll melt your pop sic le
Oh whoa oh oh oh

Then they all cracked up. YES, I knew what song he was playing, but NO, I don’t think it was a cute thing for a 35 year old redneck to do. 15 year old boy? Absolutely!

I looked around for someone to comically bug my eyes out at, but I couldn’t be sure that the other parents weren’t part of the annoying party. The only dad who I know was there before the loud party arrived stuffed his baby back into the Baby Bjorn and left after Grandma, her cigarette close, made some chitchat with him.

Around this time a bunch of other families showed up, along with a wayward band of preteens who immediately set upon climbing a giant pile of mulch and trying to propel each other off of it. The rednecks had a better audience for their hijinx and left Spike and me alone. He almost fell asleep in the swing, and then fell asleep in the stroller on the way home.

In other words, 2012 is going to be awesome!

I.

In line for the plate lunch at the grocery store:
Woman in front of me, loudly: Don’t you just LOVE their fried chicken?
Me, normally: I do. It’s the best.
Woman, loudly: My husband just adores it. He was raised by a black maid, you know, and says it reminds him of her.
Me: (examines fingernails)

II.

I know someone who does impressions. He thinks he’s really good at it — “I’m really good at impressions,” he says — but all he does is talk in various dialects. If he’s doing an impression of any black person in the universe, it’s standard black dialect (no matter what kind of dialect the person may or may not have). Personally, even if you are just the best black person dialect impressioner, I think you should just shut your mouth. Hone your talent in your home if you must, perform to your audience of one in the bathroom mirror, but please just do not release that into the air, the precious air that the rest of us must breathe.

So the other day this person was talking trash about a lady we know — and look, she is annoying, I was joining in and all — until he said something like “Oh and I bet after that she was like, “‘Where de fried chicken?’” Cue the record scratch sound that is now as outdated as TALKING ABOUT HOW BLACK PEOPLE LIKE FRIED CHICKEN. “Oh, that wasn’t necessary. That’s actually racist,” I said. “No it’s not,” he protested. “Look, you don’t know how it is! Every single day my next door neighbor brings home a box from Popeye’s!”

I can’t tell you how depressing it is to be around someone whose master defense of why he made one black person talk about fried chicken is that this OTHER black person likes fried chicken. I unbuckled my invisible seat belt, got out of the invisible car we were riding in, and drew a line through his name in my head.

1. Let me paint a portrait of the annual Dirty Santa game in which I participate:
• No one remembers the rules from year to year.
• I must explain the rules, using examples from the crowd. If HE opens a gift, then SHE steals it, then the other HE over there steals it again, no one else can steal it. Get it?
• No one gets it.
• There is hooting.
• Also, hollering.
• People who must not get enough attention in their lives take 400 hours to select a gift. Then an additional 400 hours to open the gift. Sometimes they stop halfway through, peeking into the gift bag and standing there laughing. “Oh, y’all!”
• Unfortunately, the people who take a collective 800 hours to get through one gift are inevitably the people who open the handful of decent items, and thus their items are stolen. And thus, we must endure their 800 hour routine again.
• This makes me hoot and/or holler.
• What I’m hollering: “STOP STEALING HER PRESENTS WE WILL ALL DIE HERE OH GOD”

2. I forgave The Good Wife for the kidnapping/baptismal switcheroo.

3. What people with oversized underchin neck areas do not need to wear: mock turtlenecks. Man I was in a meeting with yesterday, I think you wanted to look hip, but not only are mock turtlenecks NOT hip, they create the illusion that your head is resting directly on your shoulders. But maybe that’s what you were going for! Maybe you thought it made you look menacing, like a giant block of person, and that this was good for business. “Buy this database, capice?” I will tell you one thing, mock turtleneck: you brought excellent snacks.

4. My Man Jeeves is available for free on the Kindle. FYI in case you think things like this are funny: “I was so darned sorry for poor old Corky that I hadn’t the heart to touch my breakfast. I told Jeeves to drink it himself.” OH WODEHOUSE YOU SCAMP!

5. I used to work with a lady who was in a P.G. Wodehouse Fan Club. Also a Jane Austen Fan Club. She also had a series of notebooks where she wrote down every book she read and movie she saw, and as she was older and single, I actively tried to figure out a way to ask for it when she died. I never came up with anything.

6. Speaking of old people and notebooks, when I was in St. Petersburg last month, I saw a man who had made a little homemade 2″x3″ notebook that had this printed on the front in Comic Sans:

Pocket Notebook Series
Number 125

Then it listed his name, address, phone, and email. Man oh man. I really want to get my hands on numbers 1-124.

7. Can you tell I have something due today and should get back to it now?

8. Ok bye.

1. Man to Salvation Army bellringer: Man, there’s just too many of y’all.

2. Rankin county tag: GORR JUS
(I made a panicky phone call to the Hinds county Gorjus, who had already heard about it.)

3. Books I Have Recently Given Up On:
Ready Player One by Ernest Hines
An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

4. I have a long history of abandoning tv shows that I previously wrote long love letters to in my heart. Grey’s Anatomy, Brothers and Sisters, Survivor — the list is long. I just would rather see nothing than the characters I used to love do stupid things while Ingrid Michaelson songs play in the background. It is with a heavy heart that I tell you that I think The Good Wife and I are about to break up. Yes, it was never on my super love list, but I enjoyed it in a CBS (dorky, chaste) way. This last episode had just the worst case of CBSing I’ve ever seen. We are lead to believe a kid has been kidnapped. Instead, she has SNUCK AWAY TO GET BAPTISED. I just…I’m done. I’m sorry, Kalinda! Maybe I’ll still record the show just to see your hot leather outfits.

5. I was having breakfast at Spike’s school the other morning when he suddenly said to his teacher, “Ms. Brown! Ms. Brown! My mommy doesn’t have a winky!”

If you listen to the radio at all, you probably know all the words to the Adele song “Someone Like You” because it is played incessantly. Don’t get me wrong: I listen every time! I sing along lustily, much to the chagrin of my child, who wept as he begged me to stop singing the other night! This is much better than my usual relationship with popular music, which is thus:
1. What is this crap.
2. Why would anyone listen to this.
3. I’m going to continue to listen to try to figure out why humans would enjoy this.
4. (Twenty listens later)
5. Singing along: Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy…
6. (Twenty listens later)
7. OH GOD PLEASE PLAY SOMETHING ELSE, RADIO!
8. Repeat 1-4, replace lyrics in 5 with HAY SOUL SISTER AIN’T THAT MR MISTER ON THE RADIO STEREO ET CETERA

So I am delighted that I enjoy the Adele song, as it could be worse (see above). Although it could be made better if she weren’t a super creepy stalker lady in the song. All she needs are a roll of duct tape and an adult diaper to get herself arrested.

She starts out ok: she’s heard that the dude has settled down and gotten married. I can sympathize with this segment because even if you didn’t even like someone you dated all that much, hearing that they’ve gotten married is rough. I’m with you, girl. Then things turn weeyid. She says, “Old friend, why are you so shy? Ain’t like you to hold back or hide from the light.” Hmm. Sounds like she’s standing in front of the dude wondering why he’s not saying much. Surely she’s not, like AT HIS HOUSE or anything, right?

Then she sings this part (this is the best part to sing, btw):
I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited
But I couldn’t stay away, I couldn’t fight it.
I had hoped you’d see my face and that you’d be reminded
That for me it isn’t over.

Oh. Oh, girlfriend. So you’re at his door? Face to face, wigging him out with that certain gleam in your eye that makes adrenaline pump through one’s body in the manner of those who are about to be kidnapped? Well, no fucking wonder he’s shy! He’s trying to signal to a neighbor to call the police.

Then thankfully, she doesn’t sing any verses about how she chopped him up in little pieces; she changes her tune and sings the chorus: Nevermind; I’ll find someone like you, I wish nothing but the best for you, etc. Things are looking up for old Adele’s sanity here. I like to imagine she delivers this part and then goes and gets back in her car to leave. The happily married boyfriend then locks the door, sets the house alarm, and tells his wife she and the dog can get out of the safe room now.

I further imagine that maybe when she repeats the creeptastic verses about wanting him to see her face and realize that she is still a psychopath that she’s just singing it to herself as she drives away. Maybe at this point she will call me so I can tell her she DEFINITELY did the right thing by leaving without murdering anyone. As she crosses the train tracks, we see the police arrive, responding to the neighbor’s 911 call where he reported “some British lady is singing to my neighbor and he was raising his eyebrows in Morse code and I’m pretty sure he spelled out S-O-S but it might’ve been M-O-M because I’m not that good with Morse code and all.” Happily, Adele gets away, leaving her able to release another song in a month or so that I will soon learn all the words to and sing along to while my child cries in the back seat.

1. “I grew up eating ham and pigs, and then 30 years ago I moved to Mississippi and learned to love pizza!”– Mennonite man on a tractor

2. The award for Best Meta Vanity Tag goes to:
THE TAG

3. You should probably go on and read A Good Hard Look by Ann Napolitano. Flannery O’Connor is one of the characters — if that appeals to you, awesome! If that makes you roll your eyes, WAIT. It’s very well done AND there is bonus grostesquery. And peacocks!

What you should not read: The House at Riverton by Kate Morton. Have you ever wanted to rip out the last page of a book so that future readers won’t have to endure the stupid ending, and can instead imagine that everything went a different way? If you haven’t, feel free to read this book.

And have we already talked about Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton? The first part — Blood — is good. Great, even. Perfect? Maybe. I was feeling a little woozy and starry-eyed about how much I was loving it, and then I started the middle section and wow. SOMEONE gets an MFA in creative writing and plays around with narration and WOW COMES OFF AS A HUGE JERK FOR THE REST OF THE BOOK. You should get it from your public library just to read the first part.

Last week, you may have read, a guy live-tweeted a couple’s argument at Burger King. While this is something I read with gusto and endorse a million percent, he did something I would not do: take and post their photos. It may seem like TALKING about weirdos and SHOWING some weirdos are the same thing, but I diasgree. Without a photo, it could be anyone. A few weeks ago, yes, I wrote about a little weirdo I keep seeing at discount and craft stores, but no, I didn’t post her picture (just a poor drawing! of her from the back!). Somehow this feels at least 7% less mean. I may be wrong.

I took a work trip to Florida a few weeks ago and encountered a bunch of interesting folks: a guy with gigantically baggy pants that were tight-rolled! a woman singing the Mr. Big song “To Be with You” to herself in the bathroom! a woman taking her photo over and over again with her laptop camera! a lady wearing brown suede fringed short shorts and matching booties! a man who simultaneously sucked his teeth and hummed! I also encountered two weirdos who got me thinking where the line is between the weirdos I find delightful and the ones I want to destroy with the power of my hate-filled mind.

On the way from Atlanta to St. Petersburg (did you know that it is some kind of LAW that you can’t go anywhere in the south without first going to Atlanta?), I was busy hating the teeth-sucking humming man, who was sitting in the aisle seat of the three-seat row where I was in the window seat. I should have known that thoroughly despising him was only going to make the universe give me something worse to worry about, so it was sort of no surprise that a big old Gomer Pyle-esque guy in his 60s wedged himself over the sucking hummer and into the middle seat. He had a Diet Pepsi in his pocket; when he sat down with a great harrumph the bottle was tilted roughly 100% upside down.

I hope that lid’s on tight! I said.
What? he said.
Your Pepsi. I hope the lid’s on tight.
Oh. Yeah. Me too, he said.

He sorted out his seat belt, and then he said, So are you a schoolteacher or what?
What makes you say that? I said.
He was a little taken aback. He looked at me. Then he said, Well, you’re wearing glasses.

After I admitted that ok, fine, I’m actually a research emporiumist, he then proceeded to tell me everything he knew about libraries, to ask a million questions about ebooks and cataloging, and to list all the various times he visited Mississippi. Talking about Mississippi reminded him of all the other states, so he told me about them, too. When he turned his head to ask for a Coke AND a water, I noticed a scar that went from behind his ear down his neck. His hair was military-short and he had retired from the Marines. He had seen Old Faithful eight times. He had seen Stone Mountain three times (once when it was just a mountain, once when it was in progress, and once when it was done). He had been to Niagara Falls a bunch of times. It impressed him every time.

His fingernails were long, and he kept using the edge of his index finger’s nail to draw things on the back of the seat in front of me: diagrams of where he lived in relation to cities I recognized, the shape of a state highway sign as opposed to a federal highway sign. His hands were puffy. There was another scar on the inside of his left wrist. The reason he had seen all 50 states, he said, was that after his breakdown, the chaplain at the VA hospital told him to take his money and do some traveling. So that’s what he did.

He was on his way to visit his two sisters in Florida. One of them, he said, was trained to be a hairdresser but her husband was a plumber so now they run a nursery. This seemed like a perfectly logical turn of events. (It occurs to me now that it IS logical if you just omit the “so” and change where the “but” is. She was trained to be a hairdresser and her husband was a plumber. But now they run a nursery.)

Several times, he got quiet enough for me to pick up my book. Then he would start talking again, usually about another state monument or attraction that I should make it a point to see. My favorite thing he said during our brief relationship was this, appropos of nothing:

“You know what you’d like? Moo goo gai pan.”

He told me his name and we parted as friends.

HOWEVER.

On the way back, in the Atlanta airport, I sort of laughed that there was a Krystal among the 10,000 food options, and then when we were boarding, a woman grunting into her phone clutched a bag of them. Ugh, I thought, whoever sits next to her is in for a treat. It did not occur to me that thinking this thought would seal my fate as her seatmate.

She fought with getting her suitcase in the overhead compartment (it’s tough while talking into a phone and clutching a bag of steamy oniony hamburgers). She plopped into her seat. She argued with me about whose seatbelt was whose. Oh, and then she started eating. Still talking on the phone. There was a lot of grunting. To free her hands for more food-cramming, she put the phone on speaker. It sounded like the other person was grunting as well. Your grandaddy laid the concrete at this airport, she said. Then she read aloud all the signs she could see through the window. Ter-min-al A. Del-ta At-lan-na’s Home-Town Air-Port. (Is this a function of old age? My grandmother used to read every road sign she saw, which drove me absolutely crazy.) They weren’t having a conversation; they were just saying words to each other.

The Krystals disappeared at a rapid pace. Then it was time to take off, thank god. But after she got off the phone, then she got comfortable. She sat with her legs spread wide, Larry Craig style, and set about pulling the money out of her bra and counting it. She had a lot, y’all! I tried not to look but spotted at least one $100 bill! Then she fell asleep and snored the whole way.

When we landed, she tried to get up and get past me when there were still at least 10 rows of people in front of us and I had to sternly tell her that that’s not how it works and that we had to wait our turn and she sat down and asked me if my book was good and then I felt bad that I had been kind of mean to her.

So here is your assignment: figure out why Weirdo A didn’t annoy me and Weirdo B did. Both were physically kind of gross, both were about the same age, both were up in my grill. What made the difference in my annoyance level?

(Later, at the baggage claim, I saw this tall guy picking up at least 5 pieces of luggage. A week later, he and his wife were touring a school Larry and I were touring, and yes, I am enough of a weirdo myself that I said HAY WERE YOU ON A FLIGHT FROM ATLANTA LAST FRIDAY? I didn’t mention the luggage.)

It is worth confessing that I ate at McDonald’s for lunch today in order to tell you about the things I saw there. Look, I do these things for you.

–You can now purchase, and I am not making this up, a 50-count Chicken McNugget meal. To be fair, it comes with two giant fries and two giant drinks. It is $15.99 if you’re interested.
–A lady with a baaaad scar across her cheek (my non-expert opinion is that it got there via a broken beer bottle) was wearing an airbrushed tshirt that said “What’s a Goon 2 a Goblin?” on the back, only the way her body was shaped it was really hard to read goblin. (I am old and just Googled it to find out it’s a Lil Wayne lyric. The lady is now redeemed in my eyes, as I thought it was an inside joke airbrushed on a tshirt, and somehow that is way worse than a tshirt with a favorite song lyric on it.) (Also I double checked to see if it was Lil’ or L’il or ‘Lil or god forbid, Li’l, which looks Hawaiian, but it’s just plain old Lil.)
–A lady fighting with a McRib. The McRib was armed with itself and the lady was armed with her teeth. The lady won, but it was a valiant battle. That McRib don’t play!
–The man behind me in line had a lot of awesome questions, like “What comes with a Big Mac meal? Is there a Big Mac meal that comes with a small fries? What’s the price difference between just ordering the Big Mac and then a small fries and drink and the Big Mac meal?”
–A lady eating some Chick-Fil-A nuggets. The nearest Chick-Fil-A is 5.1 miles away. I checked!
–Ok, I actually overheard someone say this at a store this weekend, but I’m lumping this in here: “If it turns out to be a boy, I’m going to name it Semaj — that’s my daddy’s name backwards.”

YOU’RE WELCOME

From John McPhee’s “Travels in Georgia” (New Yorker, April 28, 1973), about Carol Ruckdeschel and Sam Candler, who work for the Georgia Natural Areas Council. Oh, and they also pick up roadkill, preserve the pelts, and often eat the meat. In this passage, Carol is dismantling a weasel and drinking Scotch:

“I used to love to take clocks apart,” she said. “To see how they were built. This is the same thing. I like plants and anmals and their relationship to the land and us. I like the vertebrates especially.” The weasel’s tailbone was still in the skin. She tugged at it with her teeth. Pausing for a sip [of Glenlivet], she said that sometimes you just had to use your mouth in her line of work, as once when she was catching cricket frogs. She had a frog in each hand and saw another frog, so she put one frog into her mouth while she caught the third. Gradually, the weasel’s tailbone came free. She held it in her hand and admired it. “Some bones are real neat,” she said. “In the heart of a deer, there’s a bone. And not between the ventricles, where you’d expect it. Some animals have bones in their penises –raccoons, for example, and weasels.” She removed the bone from the weasel’s penis. It was long, proportionately speaking, with a hook at the penetrating end. It was called a baculum, she said, which meant “rod” in Latin. She would save it. Its dimensions were one way to tell the weasel’s age. Baculums are also involved in keying differences in species. Sam said he kept a raccoon’s baculum in his wallet because it made a great toothpick. He got out his wallet and displayed his great toothpick.

1. Let’s say you were in Big Lots.
2. If you think you’re too good for Big Lots, chances are you have not been to Big Lots.
3. Fun fact: Big Lots used to be called Macfrugals.
4. See? It could be worse.
5. Ok, you’re back in Big Lots.
6. Oh, PS: before Macfrugals, it was called Pic-n-Save.
7. In high school, I stole this notebook from Pic-n-Save that said DUMB THINGS I GOTTA DO on it.
8. Then a year later I heard the They Might Be Giants song “Put Your Hand Inside the Puppethead” and I died.
9. (1:25)
10. Ok, anyway, you’re at Big Lots.
11. You’re in line for an incredibly long time.
12. The lady in front of you is about 70 years old, 4’11″, and looks like this from the back:

13. Do you take a picture of her?
14. I did.
15. And yes: of course I muted my phone first! I’m not an animal.
16. A few weeks later, let’s say your friend gets a new iPhone.
17. You text her: “Hey new iPhone haver!”
18. She replies: “I haven’t synced my contacts yet. Who is this?”
19. You say: “This is a photo of me” and send this:

20. She immediately replies: “Hi Sally.”
21. Are you offended that your silliness is so transparent?
22. A few weeks after that, you’re in Hobby Lobby.
23. Please.
24. Are you going to pretend you don’t go to Hobby Lobby?
25. What about Michaels?
26. No, I checked. There’s no apostrophe.
27. And while we’re at it: Victoria only has one Secret.
28. Ok, so Hobby Lobby.
29. You’re buying some iron-on letters to make your son a shirt that says SUPER SPIKE.
30. Do you know that when I told this story to someone at work, that she said “Ugh…I didn’t know you were so crafty”?
31. I ironed my FIST on her FACE!
32. Anyway.
33. Hobby Lobby. Cruising around. Looking at stuff. Fondling the pom-pons.
34. Seriously, it’s spelled pom-pon.
35. You turn a corner, and who do you see?

36. Do you take a picture of her?
37. I did.

Someone has been peeing in my bathroom. This would not be a problem if the someone were a) using the appropriate appliance and b) not a cat. It took me a long time to come to terms with this fact because I didn’t always smell it. Sometimes I could smell it while sitting down (ahem). Sometimes I could smell it while I was in the tub.

On Saturday my neighbors were coming over to babysit Spike (only he thought they were just coming over to play because they’re his friends) and I just could not bear the thought of them discussing the mysterious cat pee smell that may or may not have been wafting into their nostrils. So I mopped. I Lysolled the walls. I cleaned the tub. I was pretty sure I got it! Cat pee, defeated! The neighbors came, they played, they left.

The next morning, I smelled it again.

Have you ever seen Charade? It’s a movie with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. Audrey’s husband has been killed over some buried treasure he dug up but was supposed to split with his army buddies. The army buddies are after Audrey Hepburn and are all “hey lady where’s the money” and she’s all “uh, I don’t know” and they’re all “Ima kill you” and she’s all “please don’t.” It’s set in Paris, she wears awesome clothes 100% of the time, and the soundtrack is by Henry Mancini. I won’t spoil it, but there is a moment when everyone realizes where the money’s hidden — and it is somewhere very obvious where they’ve all looked before. There are extreme close ups to everyone’s faces and some na-NA-NA-NAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! music to indicate “hey y’all we got it figured out!”

Anyway. Sunday morning, when I smelled the cat pee anew, I thought of that na-NA-NA-NAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! moment because it turns out the culprit peed on the rug, which I had been standing on as I very creepily sniffed the wall.

Fin