email Ms. just got at work

That burning smell in the main kitchen that some of you may have noticed was due to an employee deciding that drying their socks in the microwave was a good idea. Unfortunately it didn’t quite work out and the burnt sock was subsequently thrown away by the freight elevator in an attempt to hide the evidence.

Something this silly shouldn’t even need a comment, but as the smell was noticed and the building got involved, I need to remind everyone that drying one’s clothes, particularly socks, in a microwave is i) obviously a serious fire hazard and ii) offensive as microwaves are most frequently used for cooking people’s food.

I now have the offending sock in my possession bcs the building brought it to me to make their point.

Anybody wishing to claim it can stop on by.

It's Christmas dinner, and I'm probably around 8 years old. We're all at my Grandparents house, and Christmas Dinner/Thanksgiving Dinner is like my Grandma's Super Bowl. Every year she tries something new, just to spice it up for the rest of the family.

This year it's an experiment with the salad, straight from the Betty Crocker cookbook (I think). You have to understand that my Grandmother was the librarian at Thomas Payne Elementary in Urbana, and about the sweetest... most naive woman ever. So it didn't occur to her that this would be a bad idea:



Me and my 28 year old Uncle are sitting at the table when Grandma brings them out.


Well, my uncle and I have about the same maturity level... and there was no way this was going to go well. And when my grandmother made her version, rather than whipped cream she used a yogurt/sour cream dressing that dribbled down the banana. My Uncle and I are howling. And it's not long before the rest of the table is howling. Everyone except grandma. She turns bright red, and grabs all the salads and throws them away. I don't think she was angry... just really embarrassed.

To this day, she makes the mistake of coming to the table and rhetorically asking if she's forgotten anything. This usually gets a, "Candle Salad" response, by either me or the Uncle.

FOUND! (warning: Younger, angrier)

Her Email:
-hey! Sorry it has taken so long to get back to you. This week has been insane with work. Thanks again for a great time on Sunday night! It was really nice to finally meet you. I have to be honest. I think you are a great guy - obviously hilarious, nice, attractive (hello?! that dimple is too cute), and fun to hang out with. I just didn't feel that illusive and indefinable "spark" of chemistry. I don't want to lead you on or give you the wrong impression, so I wanted to upfront and honest with you. I am really sorry, because like I said, you are a great guy. I do wish you the best in the ol' game. If you can handle yet another friend, I am here too, but I totally understand if that's not what you are looking for right now. All the best Jane

My Response:
Jane,

Hey, sorry to hear about your hectic week, but thanks for taking the time to write the email. It was kind of really patronizing actually, but overall pretty well done. Actually, I've even cut and pasted it into a Word document to use as a template for letting future girls down easy:

Dear (insert woman's name here),
Sorry it has taken so long to get back to you. This week has been insane with work. Thanks again for a great time on (fill in night of date)! It was really nice to finally meet you. I have to be honest. I think you are a great gal - obviously hilarious, nice, attractive and fun to hang out with. I just didn't feel that elusive and indefinable "spark" of chemistry. I don't want to lead you on or give you the wrong impression, so I wanted to upfront and honest with you. I am really sorry, because like I said, you are a great girl. I do wish you the best in the ol' game. If you can handle yet another friend, I am here too, but I totally understand if that's not what you are looking for right now.
All the best

..so hey, I'm leaving this with more than I came into it with...so I see that a big win for *this guy*

BTW, feel free to add whatever my major malfunction was to your "short" list of deal breakers.

Knock 'em dead out there

Back when I was in 2nd grade, I hated music class.

Our music class consisted of one of two things. Either we sat around and sang church hymns while Mrs. Brennan lead us on an old piano that was wheeled into our classroom by some lucky older boys, or we marched down to the public school to be taught by a real music teacher. That year, in preparation for a fancy recital, we walked the 3 or 4 blocks down to the public school for about 8 weeks in a row. Sister Dolorita led us along the route, with strict instructions not to talk, play with dogs or pick up anything along the way.


Our music class was in a tiny room above the gym. Until that year, I had never been in the room, but I knew it existed because we often climbed up the fire escape chute that led from the room. When we were older, on those wonderful days when we didn’t have school but the public school kids did, we sometimes climbed up the chute and banged on the little door to the room, thinking it would be funny to disrupt some music class. It turns out that the room was only used by either the Catholic kids from down the street or basketball referees.


Our class had been assigned two numbers for that famed recital, and I’d never heard of either of them. The first was “Hello Dolly” and the other was “Whistle a Happy Tune”. I should be clear that I hated music class, and there was no way I was going to sing in front of a gym full of parents and grandparents. We learned the songs quickly. The music teacher was especially proud of the part where we all whistled along. Of course I couldn’t whistle, so she told me to just pucker my lips and no one would ever know.

I don’t remember much of the performance itself. Too traumatic, I guess. I never opened my lips to sing, and never puckered up to fake whistling. I just stood there, alternating between staring at the floor and staring at the basketball hoop that had somehow been raised to the ceiling. My mom was furious. On the way home, she told me that she was never going to another school recital again if all I was gonna do was “stand there like a retard”.

When I got home, I hid in my closet and cried, while humming the words to “Hello Dolly”.

I gave this guy a non-nominal fee yesterday

I felt entitled to take lots of the candy from their reception area Halloween basket. Whoppers!!!!

So I guess my attorney knows my daughter's hott principal

Yesterday I was meeting with him (the attorney, not the hott principal) and he said that he'd seen me dropping off J-Train at her school recently. Then he says, "Yeah, [hott principal] is a friend of mine."

I guess what happened next is that I reflexively uttered some type of groan whose meaning was unclear to the law-talker, who said, "What, has there been a problem?"

Realizing I didn't want to explain that the groan meant "WANT," I smoothly start stammering and blushing. "No, I just mean...he, uh..." And my attorney, who's a pretty smart guy, recognizes what's going on and just laughs. "Well, he's married, you know." YES I KNOW THAT, JUST BECAUSE I CAN'T HELP BUT NOTICE HOW PAINFULLY HOTT HE IS DOESN'T MEAN I'M TRYING TO ONE-UP HIS WIFE, KTHXBAI.

Chances this comes up in conversation the next time attorney guy runs across hott principal guy? 1000%

Wait--unless attorney-client privilege covers revelations of embarrassing adolescent-style crushes?