Seriously, baby...

It's not funny anymore. GET OUT.

Love,
Dad

Bathroom amenities

Since I know you've all been waiting with bated breath for me to talk about toilets some more, I won't disappoint. Here goes: tonight I was at grad school, heading to the bathroom again at the break, when I noticed my professor just ahead of me on his way there. Having no desire for us to become pee buddies (thank you, Scrubs), I decided to go to the second floor to search out alternate facilities. I found one pretty quickly, but as soon as I walked in I noticed something odd: the side wall had a small shelf with four hooks on it to hang coats off of.

Now, you may be thinking this is not so very strange. You may even be wishing more bathrooms would offer a place to hang your jacket while you're otherwise occupied. I couldn't agree with you more. Except for one tiny detail: it was a single bathroom. One toilet, one sink... that's it. So would someone please explain the logic to me of providing for four entirely different coats at once? Are they holding private faculty functions in there, or is it just in case of really, really, really cold weather?

Sometimes the mind boggles. Yes it does.

Crofting dialogue

(I know, that was terrible.)

One of the things I really like about the gym Ann and I go to is the Cardio Cinema. If your gym doesn't have one of these (poor, poor bastard), it's basically a dark room with a bunch of machines -- exercise bikes, elliptical machines, treadmills -- all facing a theater-sized screen, where a movie plays on continuous loop all day. They show a different movie every day, which does lead to the CC's biggest drawback, namely that it's a total crapshoot. One day you might stumble onto Die Hard and exercise until your legs fall off just to watch the whole thing, but then it'll be three straight days of chick flicks and Tim Allen movies, exiling you to the magazine rack for alternate entertainment.

But today the rack held nothing but muscle magazines and Vibe, sending me up to the Cardio Cinema to discover that the film du jour was Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. Hmmm... tough call, but the lure of possibly seeing Angelina Jolie in a fitted aqua green tanktop was enough to tip the scales slightly in that direction, and I reasoned I could always block out the dialogue with my iPod if it got bad enough.

Now, I only caught 20 minutes of the film, but two scenes stuck out at me. The first finds Angelina Jolie pensively staring off into space, probably wondering how much a hit on Jennifer Aniston would cost and whether it's tax deductible. She's clad in some kind of daishiki thing, the kind that shows exactly enough cleavage to make teenage boys think maybe they're about to see a glimpse of nipple that somehow eluded the team of 82 censors who pre-screened the movie. Sadly, this does not happen. (Although it would have made the movie five hundred times better.) Instead, her love interest, played by Gerard Butler, decides a bright idea would be to sneak up on this extremely angry, trigger-happy woman, as characters in movies so often think. So he steals up and touches her shoulder, whereupon Lara busts out some hardcore ninjitsu move that ends with her clamping his wrist and Gerard Butler on his knees in front of her, a situation I'm fairly certain is not the most unpleasant one Ms. Jolie has ever found herself in. He then says -- and this is true, I'm not making it up -- "You can break my wrist if you want to, I'm still going to kiss you."

At this point, naturally, I and the rest of the rational world get excited by the fact that she's clearly going to forcefeed him his testicles. But instead, she lets him up and kisses him passionately, like he didn't just utter the single most asinine seduction line in the history of seduction, or lines. And then it occurs to me that if this is the kind of crap repartee that flies with rich, attractive adventurers with British accents, well, I just might be willing to take that hit. Can anyone confirm this?

Anyway, the second stupid moment occurs a couple of scenes after that. Angelina has recruited the help of a native African tribe, as one does in such situations, to help recover the special treasure. To help lead her to it, she's got a special glowing orb thingie that doubles as a bowling ball on Thursday nights. She and the primitive African tribe who still think spears are a pretty good weapon are hiking toward the location of the treasure, and apropos of nothing, Angelina busts out with "We're getting closer." The Wise Old Black Man (WOBM) feels compelled to ask how she knows that. I feel that his sarcasm is implicit, but Angelina apparently doesn't pick up on it, because she responds quite matter-of-factly "I can feel it." Instead of laughing in her face, the WOBM just kind of nods sagely, but you can tell he's thinking, Uh, I think the reason you know we're getting closer is because we told you we're taking you to it, and we have, in fact, traveled some distance since we started. Ergo, yes, we are getting closer. Dumb bitch. However, since she's Angelina and him saying so would minimize the chances that she'll ever adopt him, he just remains silent.

So that was my experience with Tomb Raider. I doubt that I'll ever see the rest of it, unless someone can confirm that it ends with her coming across an empty cavern and a guardian who tells her that a rugged, stubbly archaeologist absconded with it over half a century ago, complaining about being too old all the while. That, I will pay good money to go rent.

Potty talk

Last night I was in class, and at the 8:00 break I headed to the bathroom. Nothing out of the ordinary there, except no sooner had I gotten into position when the professor of the class came in and stood at the next urinal over. (In his defense, there were only two.) Thankfully he obeyed the Code of Silence throughout, but the entire time my mind kept frantically wondering: what if he doesn't? If he starts talking, am I obliged to try to make conversation? That's weird enough with friends, let alone someone who's going to be grading me. (On my classwork, perv. Mind out of the gutter.) So the question I pose to you, dear readers, is this: what would you say to your professor while standing at the urinal/sitting in a stall next to them?

I'll get you started:

-Whew... good thing this divider's here, huh? I hate accidental sightings.
-Well, I THOUGHT I had to go.
-So speaking of finance, did I mention how glad I am these aren't pay toilets?
-NARF! [See what he does.]
-Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?
-For extra credit, I will never speak a word of this to the class.
Etc.

Shine yer [bleep]in' shoes, guvnor?

I went over to a friend's house to watch the Phillies game tonight, and while I was there, he insisted on playing for me this new Ashlee Simpson song he's got stuck in his head. (Yes, he's kind of a girl.) Anyway, the main hook of the song consists of Ashlee singing "L-O-L-O-L-O-L-O-Love" eight gazillion times. But it's the way she said it that intrigued me, like the word "'ello" spoken in a Cockney accent. To test my theory, I mentioned Lily Allen's song "Smile" to my friend, how sultry she sounds throughout the entire song but especially when describing what her boyfriend did to the girl next door. He agreed, and came back with a comment about his trip to Brazil last year. Apparently one of the numerous people he met down there was an English girl who smoked and had an unimaginably filthy mouth, so even though she was only moderately attractive, she became the most desirable person there in his mind. (I have to assume he was also drinking heavily, but still.) Anyway, we both arrived at the conclusion that while we don't exactly know why, there is something about that type of accent that makes swear words unbelievably hot.

So if there are any English chicks... sorry, "birds" out there who'd like to record themselves cursing randomly into a microphone for an hour and send it along, well, that would just be swell.

A letter to my daughter

Baby - we need to talk. Or rather, since you're still in the womb, I'll do all the talking and you can just listen. But as your father, I do expect you to listen closely, even if it sounds a bit burbly.

See, that's the problem: you're still in the womb. This is not ideal. Your mother and I have gone to great pains to get everything ready for you ahead of time. In fact, not to brag, but I'm pretty sure we've had everything prepared for over two months. Now, that may come naturally to your mother, but for me it's a feat of nigh biblical proportions. I'm not looking for accolades, but it would be nice if you could recognize the lengths to which we've gone and cooperate by, you know, vacating the premises.

And yes, I know what your response would be if your lungs weren't full of amniotic fluid- that it's not time yet, it's not technically forty weeks until October 20th. This is true. And maybe that excuse would fly if you were just my child, since I'm constantly late. But you and I both know your mother is perennially early to everything, gets mildly peevish if it looks like we'll be a full 30 seconds late to work, and eats lunch and dinner at times normally reserved for blue-haired Florida retirees. So you can't tell me you don't have any early genes in you, and while God knows I'm glad to know you have some of my traits too, this is one instance where I'd really be happy to have you take more after your mother.

Understand, I'm not asking this purely out of impatience. I mean of course we're eager to meet you, but there are some important logistical factors involved too. For instance, your grandfather is being honored for his contributions and years of service to the high school as a track coach by being inducted into the hall of fame. This is a big deal, with a ceremony and everything. Daddy is attending, along with your aunt and grandma and even your great-grandfather, but Daddy would really like to have Mommy there too, and maybe even you if you're old enough. But see, the ceremony is taking place in early November, so if there's even going to be a chance of that, you really need to get on the ball and get born as soon as possible.

And then there's Mommy's friend who's getting married in early November. This friend has been extremely accommodating and is letting Mommy wait until the very last minute before RSVPing, but the sooner you're born, the greater the chance Mommy might feel comfortable attending. Otherwise Daddy may have to attend alone, and while he's always a fan of an open bar and no one around to make him be reasonable, it would not be in anyone's best interest for Daddy to be at a wedding where he only knows 3 people and spends the entire night drinking alone. This is how episodes of COPS start.

So you see, baby, it really would be better for everyone if you could arrive sooner rather than later. Your mother and I are ready, no thanks to Daddy, your nursery is set up, the bags are packed, Daddy has practiced with his video camera and is pretty sure he can keep from accidentally recording 30 minutes of his shoes... everything's taken care of. And let's face it, your living space isn't getting any larger; things have to be pretty cramped in there. So let's get a move on, huh? I promise, there's a great big, wonderful world out here that's full of people waiting to meet you.

And only some of them are Jehovah's Witnesses.