Hey, I know you

Well what do ya know, you guys showed up again this morning! I like it when that happens. I feel like it build some sort of camaraderie that...hey, do you think "comrad" and "camaraderie" are related? If so, does that make us Communists? Wow, maybe I should rethink this whole thing.

In any case, a long time ago in UOPTA-speak (so, like, a month or two ago), I wrote about when my lovely wife and I went to Amsterdam. I failed to mention one thing of interest that happened. We were sitting in a restaurant, minding our own business, when I suddenly heard my name. I looked up, and it was our good friend Melissa, who was Amber's roommate at the time. We knew she'd be somewhere in Europe while we were there, but we weren't sure when her holiday of Holland days would be. The thing is, we weren't surprised to see her. We see people almost no matter where we go, so this was no exception.

A couple of years before that, we took a trip to France and Spain as a graduation gift to ourselves. While in the Paris subway system, I allowed someone to exit before me. "Hey," I said, "I know you." Sure enough, I did. It was a young lady with whom I had just shared an English seminar one week prior. The next day, we were on a train and someone caught Amber's eye. It was an old high school acquaintance, and they chatted for a while. When we went to the Louvre for all of the Louvrely things it houses, I saw a student who I had recently advised at UCSB walking around with her parents. Each time, we got less and less surprised.

A few days later, we had made it to Spain and seen a few of the wonderful cities there. We were almost done with our trip when I saw yet another person we knew. Walking out of El Museo del Prado, my friend Anna was there taking a picture. We chatted for a few, and I said that at this point I was shocked that I hadn't see our former boss Carolyn, who was somewhere in Spain with her family. "Oh, I saw them yesterday," she said. "They're having a great time." Naturally.

For years and years, my parents had one person who they would always run into: my pediatrician named Dr. Keer. Those kinds of things have a natural progression. The first couple of run-ins have the whole "Hey, funny meeting you here" vibe to it all. The next few have more of the "This is getting a little absurd; you're sure you're not stalking me, right?" feel. After that, it's generally just a lot of palms-up head-shaking that goes on, indicating the strange feeling of accepted disbelief. This is different than a "willing suspension of disbelief," in which I let it slide when the hot girl falls for the unpopular guy because his soul is beautiful and that's what really matters.

Sorry to get off on a tangent, but I can immediately think of a few times in tv or movie history when I just couldn't suspend my disbelief enough. First, there is no way in hell I can accept Denise Richards as a rocket scientist. I know it was a James Bond movie, and I'm practically agreeing to believe everything when I sit down for one of those, but that's too much. The same thing goes with Jeff Goldblum in "Independence Day" saving our entire civilization by uploading a computer virus to the aliens' ship. Ta-dah! There are more, and I implore you to email ptklein@gmail.com with the ones you think of so I can turn all of them into a post of their own. Great topic, but I need your help. Back to my story!

While in Spain, I thought I saw Dr. Keer out the corner of my eye and was about to lose my mind. It wasn't him though, and I told my lovely-then-girlfriend about the guy my parents always saw. She asked who it was, and when I told her, she said, "I know Dr. Keer!" I learned that day that we had yet another thing in common: our pediatricians shared an office. The Keer Connection struck again.

My parents actually have a new Dr. Keer now. Mark the Alarm Guy is everywhere they are now. When it's a sold out Dodger Stadium, it's not super weird since it is Los Angeles after all. When it's in Rome, walking up a little side street among thousands of people leaving a fireworks display, that's a different story. And that story is a little frightening if you ask me. How many times does it take for something to transition from "weird coincidence" to "spooky coincidence?" Five times? Can we vote on this?

Ok, gentle readers, I'm off. Please remember to email ptklein@gmail.com with those things in t.v. and movies that you just can't buy as possible. Thank you all in advance, and I'll see you tomorrow for a very special Wednesday post.

Fish out of agua

Much like Star Trek movies, Mondays keep coming back. So here we are gentle readers, and I hope this past weekend was good enough to sustain you until the next one. (Speaking of Star Trek, by the way, I read last week that the actor who plays Sylar in "Heroes" is going to play a young Spock in a movie due out Christmas 2008. That's a fantastic casting job in my opinion. I don't know if they've cast the young James T. Kirk yet or not, but I'm pulling for Will Ferrell. Sure, he might be too old, but how awesome would that be? "Very" is the only answer.)

Last week, I wrote about being an outsider in a situation. I talked about the positive experience I had at the Mana concert with my wife, being the sole gringos in our section and soaking it up. I made reference to a less-than-pleasant outsider experience I had, and today I shall tell that story.

Picture a world much like the one we know. The only difference is that in this world, the internets had not yet exploded into the phenomenon we know. Yes, gentle readers, this world is actually our own circa 1998. Back when we thought 2007 could still be filled with flying cars and the metric system. Not really, but it was a little while ago.

Way back in '98, I was still a student at UCSB and loving every bit of life. I was still double majoring in English and Spanish. Therefore, most of my days were spent reading and writing in either of both languages. My Spanish classes had an interesting trend as the quarters went by. In the Intro to Spanish Lit class, about half the students were native Spanish speakers and the other half of us were not. Intro to Spanish Linguistics was probably closer to 60-40 in favor of los hispanohablantes. By the time I got to 16th Century Spanish Lit (as in from Spain) or other upper division courses of that nature, I was one of the only gringos around. Usually this wasn't a problem, but "usually" tends to mean "not always."

Because of the extra attention I had to pay in these classes just to understand what the professor was saying, I was very quiet as I went about my class business. You can imagine my surprise when in my Modernism in Mexican Lit class, the professor stopped and pointed to me. "What's your name?" she demanded in Spanish. I answered, probably looking as startled as I felt. She then asked if I knew what a particular word meant. I didn't recognize the word, so I said as much. "Class, who wants to tell Peter what that word means?" she asked. After a second, a guy raised his hand and defined the word. The professor looked back at me with an odd look of triumph and told-you-so-ness. I slunk back into my chair and tried to remain even less conspicuous for the remainder of the class.

The very next class, a similar thing happened. We were discussing a novel we read, and completely out of nowhere the professor said, "Peter, what is the largest state in Mexico?" Still embarrassed but now a little pissed off too, I told her I didn't know. "Class, tell him," she said smiling. All together, the class muttered, "Chihuahua." I nodded as if to say, "Ok, I'll know that one next time you randomly ask me." I had no idea why she was picking on me in front of the class, but I had a feeling that talking to her about it would just exacerbate the problem. And my parents always taught me not to exacerbate in public places.

A couple of weeks went by without incident, and I was eternally glad for them. I didn't have the highest confidence in those classes, and while I usually had a few fellow gringos around me for study groups, I was practically alone in this one. (I say 'practically' because there was a white woman but she very rarely attended classes and knew the professor well from previous quarters.) Then we had an assignment on sonnets. Our task was to either write a three-page essay on a particular sonnet or write a sonnet of our own. The choice was clear for me, and I wrote the fourteen lines out, sticking to the specific rhyme scheme and syllable count found in Spanish sonnets. When the day came to turn them in, she asked us not to put our names on them and the class would vote for their favorites. She took the ten or so sonnets and taped them to the white board. After we all walked by them and voted for our favorites on secret ballots, she counted them up and announced that two tied for the most votes. Some guy's which was kissing ass by being about his love for Modernism in Mexican Lit and mine. She asked who wrote what, and when I raised my hand for mine, she looked as shocked as one possibly can. It was almost as if I'd told her that I memorized all the Mexican state capitals or something as ridunkulous as that.

"You wrote that?" she asked, extremely incredulously. "Yes," I told her, pleased that she may view me differently in the future. "Did somebody in the class help you?" she asked. That did it. I was pissed off now. "No," I said, still politely. She looked around the room to see if anyone would contradict my statement and admit that he or she helped me. When no one did, she looked back and me and nodded as if she would accept that as truth...for now. I was steaming though, and sometimes a guy just has to exacerbate when his blood is boiling like that.

Fortunately, her office hours were right after class. I trailed her there, but not close enough that she noticed. I sucked it up and went in, under the guise that I wanted to chat with her and see if I could break through the icy exterior and become friends. The first thing she said after I came in was, "Some people find me intimidating, but I don't think so." We talked some more, and when I couldn't explain myself as well as I wanted to in Spanish, I switched to English. Her demeanor completely changed in front of my eyes. As she tried responding in English, she became sheepish all of a sudden. She stammered a little, and mid-sentence asked me in Spanish what the English word for something was. It all clicked right then and there. Her own English insecurities working at an American university caused her to react negatively to the lone gringo in her class. She almost even admitted as much, and asked me a couple of English grammar questions before I left.

From that day on, she left me alone in class. There was only a week or two left, but it still made a difference. I made a point of thanking her in English after the last class, just to childishly feel like I had the upper hand in the relationship. (She hadn't given me a grade yet, so I wasn't very accurate.) Still, I will never forget her tone as she asked the class to inform the poor outsider as to the biggest state in Mexico. It was an eye-opening experience, and I hope I took the brunt of her insecurities so that los gringos who followed in my footsteps had an easier time.

So there you go, gentle readers. That's my more negative outsider experience. I could make some grand general statement about people treating those unlike them poorly because of their own fears and insecurities, but it's not that kind of blog. Have a great day, and I'll see you here tomorrow. As always, ptklein@gmail.com is just sitting there in front of you, making puppy dog eyes and asking you to play with it.

FUF #24

Good morning, my friends. In honor of the final Harry Potter book coming out last weekend, today I wish for the Sorting Hat to place all of us in FUFflepuff. I realize that means absolutely nothing to many of you out there, but that's never stopped me before. 'Tis Friday, and 'tis a glorious feeling to say that. Not only do we get the standard two days off from work, but my lovely wife and I are spending those days in our old stomping ground of Santa Barbara. I can't wait; it's always nice to be up there. Yes, always. In typical Follow Up Friday fashion, I shall ramble about random things for a while before launching into Car Watch. Like the Hokey Pokey, that's indeed what it's all about.

"Stomping ground" is an interesting phrase, no? I just let it roll right off my fingers without considering it at all first. In actuality, I rarely if ever stomped there. I occasionally stomp now, but that's usually reserved for playing around with my nephew or my pup. Neither was ever with me while I was living in SB, so it could be wholly inaccurate.

I was thinking (uh oh) about other words this morning as I sat in traffic, because that's what I tend to do. Somehow the phrase "pomp and circumstance" entered my brain, and I started thinking about the words individually. If someone only used "pomp" in a sentence that would normally have the whole phrase, I'd still know what he or she was talking about. Just using "circumstance" wouldn't get the point across though. "Circumstance" is a strange word, and now it looks and sounds completely made up to me. I hate it when that happens.

Time for more word stuff, for that is how I roll. You know what's a very interesting word to me? "Weather." Not the noun about atmosphere and shit like that, but its other uses. Something (or someone) looking weathered is a bad thing, like it's been unprepared to handle the elements to which it's exposed. But "to weather" something is good. We weather storms and crises, and emerge from something that was difficult or dangerous. I find those usages both contracditory and fascinating, while you might find them neither. That's fine by me; I would never assume that others think like me.

Getting away from words for a moment (although not really since I'm still using them), my favorite brother called me a week or two ago with a question I wasn't expecting. "How many french fries do you think there are in a large order from Carl's Jr.?" he asked. Being from the same gene pool as me, he'd decided to count for some unknown reason. I first told him that I didn't know because I boycott Carl's Jr. for reasons stated in earlier posts. Then I pictured a large order of fries (I pictured a McDonald's one) and counted as an imaginary hand took imaginary fries out one by one. After about ten, a sizeable chunk was gone from the fry holder in my mind's eye. My first thought was 36, but I kept picturing about a third gone, so I went with 30 instead. "88!" he said. That shocked me, because 88 of them couldn't fit in my imaginary one. He admitted that a couple might have broken in half and been counted twice, but that number was very close to accurate. 88 fries is a whole lotta fries. What would you have guessed, gentle readers?

And lastly before the Car Watch, I have two baby announcements. First, my cousin Kelly and her husband Jeff had a little boy named Rio this week. I've seen one adorable picture so far, and I can't wait to meet him in person. I have no idea what type of cousin he is to me, but I hope "twice removed" is in there because it's the name of my favorite Sloan album. Second, my good friend Suzanne and her husband Andrew had a pretty little baby girl named Keira this week. I hope to meet her soon as well, and not just so I can point out that the words Klein and Keira have some noticeable similarities.

Are you ready for some Car Watch action? I can't hear you! No, seriously, sound doesn't travel through the internets, so I'm unable to hear you. I'll assume that you all said yes.

My friend Dave saw "CALME DR" on a license plate. I saw that and immediately thought, "Call me doctor." Dave saw three possibilities: "Call me doctor," "Calm doctor," or "California medical examiner doctor." Yes, I think that's reaching a little too. Dave does that.

Sacky Kevin wrote in saying that he saw a license plate frame on a new Dodge Viper that read, "I am burning the gas you are saving." I understand that this guy's probably trying to come across as an asshole, and he's being successful. Technically, I think the gas I'm saving is still in my tank, but let's not read too deeply into what was probably a very shallow thought.

Loyal reader Rockabye saw a plate saying, "HIHWRU." Cute, but I don't think he or she really cares. Does the person really want me to pull next to him or her, roll down my window, and yell, "Fine! A little tired but hanging in there! Thanks for asking!" I really don't think so. Insincere questions posed by license plates really grind my gears.

Rockabye, who spends more time in his car than anyone else I know, saw a bunch of other things as well. There was a plate that said "IM TRBL," which would cause me to make my "Ooh I'm scared" face. Except Rockabye pointed out that it could be "I'm terrible" also, which would instead cause me to make my "Aw, keep your chin up" face. There's an understanding nod involved in that face.

He also saw "IBUUBME" on a plate. If I accept the first part of that plate as truth, then I guess I'm bound to accept the second due to the reflexive property, right? ('Property' is all on the top line of the keyboard, by the way.) The thing is, I don't buy the first part. That person isn't me, and it's pretty damn egotistical to be telling everyone on the road that you're one in the same. Even Chaka Khan only thinks she's every woman.

Lastly, Rockabye spied "DNT LOOK" on a plate. Fine, don't look at my finger as I pass you then.

That's it, gentle readers. Have a great weekend and know that I'll be having a fun and relaxing time in SB, thinking of strange things to bombard you with. I can't help it; it's my nature. That said, I still desperately need your help to keep UOPTA going. Please write to ptklein@gmail.com with any thoughts, questions, stories, jokes, etc. and we'll keep this shindig a rockin'.

Looking in

Hey look at that, it's Thursday already. No complaints here; I like it when the days stick to their traditional order. Seriously, how weird would that be if it were a variable thing? I guess if it had always been that way it wouldn't seem weird at all, but if it happened suddenly, then it would be one of the strangest events of my lifetime. You know what else is strange? My mind this morning. It's not quite functioning normally, so I'll try to hone in on a story and see if that rights the ship.

There are many awkward social situations that we find ourselves in fairly often. We've all been trapped in long conversations with boring people, wondering if we'd ever see our families again. We've spent hours painfully trying to remember from where we know someone who looks really familiar, and we've debated internally whether we could say anything about the food stuck in an acquaintance's teeth. A highly underrated awkward social situation is that of the outsider in a close-knit group.

I have a very tight core group of friends, and unless you're visiting UOPTA for the first time, you can probably name a few of them because they're so prominent in my stories. We speak our own language, one made up almost entirely of inside jokes and movie quotes. (By the way, "Inside Jokes and Movie Quotes" could easily be the name of this blog, now that I think about it. It's catchy, no? IJMQ doesn't have much of a ring to it though.) In fact, I've often said that I'm not sure that anything that comes out of my mouth at this point is original, because every intonation seems to recall a story or character. (That last sentence made me think of quoting both "Rush Hour" and "Private Parts," for example.) It's a sickness.

It would seem to be a harmless, victimless sickness if no one ever infiltrated our circle. Being friendly and sociable people though, we put the drawbridge down over the moat around us to welcome someone's friend or visiting cousin to hang out with us when we're together. We trust each other's choices of company, and the more the merrier. Whenever that's the case, I try as hard as I possibly can to stray from inside jokes. We've all been there, right? Someone from their high school comes up, and you politely smile as they laugh about who said what in which class. You pretend that the story is still just as entertaining to you, even though you weren't there. And then someone brings up another person in that class, and half an hour later, you've long abandoned that polite smile. I actively try to avoid that when there's a newbie hanging out with us. The problem is that it's frickin' impossible with my friends. Try as we might, we shift back into our comfort zone and spew out the ridiculous crap we normally talk about.

Still, I want to be clear that I try to be sensitive to the plight of the outsider. For I have been the one on the outside, gentle readers, and I feel their pain. I have two examples of such times that are a little different than what I explained above. I'll give the positive one first, and then the not-so-positive on Monday. That ok with you?

There's a Mexican rock group called Mana (accent on the second 'a', but I don't know how to do that). I'm a huge fan of their music, and I have been since my favorite brother bought me a cd of theirs in '95. I'm so white that it's not fashionable to be seen with me after Labor Day, but I do speak Spanish fairly well and truly love their music. So when they came to Santa Barbara, my lovely wife and I were thrilled to go to the concert. I owned every album including the double live one, so I was pretty confident that I'd know every song they played. Sure enough, as the concert went on (and totally rocked), I was singing along and enjoying every minute of it. Amber had listened to a bunch of their music, but didn't know it as well as me, so she'd turn to me every time an unfamiliar song would start. "Un Lobo Por Tu Amor," I'd say, "Second song on 'Suenos Liquidos.'"

Near the end of the concert, a few chords of a new song started. I looked up in the air and turned my head a little, trying to place it. Then the crowd erupted. Every single person around us started cheering and singing along to something I'd never heard before. It was a larger reception than any other song had received so far, and it perplexed the hell out of me. I turned to a stranger near me and asked what it was. He said the name of a song in Spanish, and upon seeing my confused face, he said, "It's a traditional Mexican song." So we sat there, surrounded by thousands of people all smiling and singing, feeling like the only two people in the world who didn't know the lyrics. And it was wonderful. It was such a rare experience for me to be completely outside of a group that I relished it for what it was.

So that was the positive outsider experience. Like I said earlier, I'll get to the not-so-positive one next week, after tomorrow's thrilling FUF installment. Please email me at ptklein@gmail.com with anything you've got for me. After all, everyone's doing it and you don't want to be left out, do you?

Oh what a Knight

'Tis Wednesday, my fellow humans. You are all humans, aren't you? Whew, that was close. I almost made an ass out of 'u' and 'mption.' In any case, I'm glad to have you here. I usually reserve Fridays for everything having to do with license plates that I spy, but one from last week made me think of something that I'd like to share with you.

The car's license plate said "LEN LEVY" on it. I caught a glimpse of the guy, and I'm pretty sure that's his name. He looked like a Len Levy. It immediately reminded me of an interaction from one of my favorite movies, "Real Genius." Chris and Mitch saw that their rival Kent had his name on his plate, and this dialogue followed:

Chris: Kent put his name on his license plate.
Mitch: My mother does that to my underwear.
Chris: Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?

For those of you not familiar with "Real Genius," it's one of the greatest 80s movies of all time. It's about a bunch of super intelligent teens that have to face the stresses of their school, social interactions, and the fact that they unknowingly built a military weapon that can vaporize a human target from space. Pretty standard stuff really. I don't remember the first time I saw the movie, but I remember watching it dozens of times, so it must have been in some basic cable channel's rotation. It's held up remarkably well too, and my lovely wife and I probably still watch it once every year or so.

The movie had a profound impact on me, which is something not usually associated with teen comedies from the 80s. Chris Knight, played by Val Kilmer, was someone I wanted to be. It was the first time I remember seeing a main character of something being both incredibly smart and with a lightning quick wit. I could watch "The Jerk" with Steve Martin daily, but I'll never want to grow up to be like Navin R. Johnson. With Chris Knight though, I wanted to model my sense of humor exactly after his. I know this is beginning to sound like a man-crush on a fictional character from 22 years ago, but hear me out. He was quite literally a genius (working with frickin' laser beams, nonetheless), was hysterically funny without resorting to slapstick, and he was super smooth with the ladies. In other words, of course I wanted to be him.

I apologize to all of you, because I'm not sure how entertaining the rest of this post is going to be. I'm going to list some of my favorite Chris Knight lines and conversations in an effort to illustrate my earlier point. Imagine 10-12 year old Peter watching this character on screen, and I think it will be clear (crystal clear, in fact) why I've idolized this guy for so long. It doesn't matter how many bad movies Val Kilmer may have made after this or what an asshole he may be in real life (as reported); he can't ruin this for me. If you haven't seen the movie, I'll be ruining a lot of good lines for you. If you have, please enjoy this recap. (Thanks to our friends at Wikiquote for making this incredibly easy on me.)

I'm going to start with a brief scene in which Chris is flirting with a young lady:

Chris Knight: No seriously, listen...if there's ever anything I can do for you, or more to the point, to you, you let me know, okay?
Susan Decker: Can you hammer a six inch spike through a board with your penis?
Chris Knight: Not right now.
Susan Decker: A girl's got to have her standards.

I'm about to break a major rule of comedy and attempt to explain why something is funny. Here's the thing about that interaction for me: on the surface and upon viewing it once or twice, Susan has the funny lines in it. To me though, the fact that Chris didn't say "No" but instead said "Not right now" is golden. Not fazed at all by her unexpected question, he managed to work another funny in there under the radar and I loved it. He has an amazing amount of witty retorts of that nature throughout the movie. Here are a few more:

Prof. Hathaway: (coming back from jogging) You still run?
Chris Knight: Only when chased.

(Sidenote: Dusty actually has a similar retort in his repertoire. If someone asks if he smokes, he says, "Only when I'm on fire." Usually that's met with confusion, but I happen to like it quite a bit.)

Professor Hathaway: You know, when I first brought you into this school I thought you'd become another Einstein. And you were well on your way. And then?
Chris Knight: I got a haircut.
Professor Hathaway: You're disappointing me, Chris.
Chris Knight: And you, me Jerry.

Dr. Dodd: Why is that toy on your head?
Chris Knight: Because if I wear it any place else, it chafes.

Mitch Taylor: Something strange happened to me this morning.
Chris Knight: Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?
Mitch Taylor: No.
Chris Knight: Why am I the only person that has that dream?

So those are some scenes in which he uses his sense of humor in a more reactionary way, and that always-ready-with-humor quality was something I really craved. And believe me, I left quite a few more of them out in the interest of trying to keep your attention. Chris Knight didn't just react with wit though, he proactively brought it to scenes. Here are some of my favorite interactions and lines in that category:

Chris: Do you mind if I name my first child after you? "Dipshit Knight" has a nice ring to it.

Chris: (to a girl at a party) Don't eat that. Don't you know that eating that can give you very large breasts? Oh my God, I'm too late!

Chris: Moles and trolls, moles and trolls, work, work, work, work, work. We never see the light of day. We plan this thing for weeks and all they want to do is study... There was what, no one at the mutant hamster races and we had one entry into the Madame Curie look-alike contest and he was disqualified later. Why do I bother?

Chris Knight: Did you touch anything?
Mitch Taylor: Uh, no.
Chris Knight: Good. Because all of my filth is arranged in alphabetical order. This, for instance, is under 'H' for 'toy.'

Chris: (to a frustrated Mitch) Ok, calm down, let's just take a step back... No wait, take a step forward... Now take a step back... And a step forward.. And now we're Cha Cha-ing.

I realize that I should probably bestow all of this adoration on the writers of "Real Genius" instead of the fictional character, but I wasn't sitting there as a kid thinking, "Man, I wish I could write like that!" I wanted to be him, while some of my peers were probably feeling the same way about Maverick or Rambo. Chris Knight gave me hope that one day, no matter how smart I might become, I could still be funny and score with chicks.

I'm sure that says a lot about me, and that's mainly why I wanted to share this with you, gentle readers. Now I turn to you: what fictional characters did you idolize as a kid? Whether it's Hawkeye, Han Solo, Joanie, Papa Smurf, Wally Cleaver, or Gidget, I want to hear it. Comment away, my friends. As Chris Knight would say, it's a moral imperative.

The odd-ition, part 2

Happy Tuesday morning, friends. This might not mean anything to some of you, but every single time I call you "friends," I think of Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers. He calls us "friends," and I honestly think he means it. I mean it too, but it helps that I actually know most of you. Enough with that, let's get back to the story I began yesterday.

As a minor recap, I joined my friends Jon and Margot on an audition for a show that was supposed to be like Monty Python. After much ado, we found the place and met the guy leading the thing ("Jerry"). He walked us through a couple of his ideas for the show, and they were far, far away from what we had expected. Everyone still on board? Great.

In the comments section yesterday, my mom asked if I then got up and left the audition. Oh no, mother, that would've been rude and reflected poorly upon my family. I would never bring dishonor and shame to the Klein clan like that. Also, I wasn't the one who drove there. So we all stayed there, smiling and nodding, pretending to the best of our abilities that Jerry's ideas were super awesome ones. He clapped his hands and broke us up into pairs for "an activity." I was praying that the activity wouldn't be praying, and I was right. Jon was my partner, and Jerry handed us photocopies of a two-person scene from a compilation book. He told everyone that we had the next five minutes to practice these scenes privately before we were to do them in front of the group.

We randomly selected who would be which character and read through it aloud. The first thing we noticed was that it was a very serious scene and as un-Monty Python as his "Baggage and the Lord" example. I don't remember what play it was from, but I remember it having something to do with the military because I think my character's name was something like "Sarge." I give off a strong, military, drill-sergeant vibe naturally, so this was a good fit. After running through it a few times, Jerry announced with great pleasure that it was time to perform.

A man and a woman went up to the front and started acting out their scene. When they were almost done with the scene, Jerry cut them off in the middle of a sentence. "No, no, no," he said. He walked up on the makeshift stage. "It should be more like this," he said, and he took the photocopies out of the guy's hands. He then proceeded to do the same scene with the woman, but injecting as much "man-I'm-a-serious-actor" vibe as possible into every line. When it was over, he looked up at all of us with a little smile as if to say, "Yes, that's how it's done."

The next two went up, and the same thing happened. Jerry took over, channeled Shatner, and showed us the real way to act. I had the distinct impression that he'd spent a lot of time reading both parts aloud in his bedroom. Whether that bedroom was in his parents' house was still up for debate. Then it was time for me and Jon to perform. We read our scene, and Jerry watched intently. We got all the way through it without interruption, and he made some comment about how we really needed to commit more to the characters. We did it again with a little more feeling (i.e. imitating him), and he just sort of shrugged and called the next group.

This went on for a while, with Jerry inserting himself into the majority of the scenes to teach us the right way to do things. I stuck it out, waiting for the chance to break into some improv games or do some comedic scenes, since I thought that would be more relevant to the premise of the show. That never happened though. Instead, he said, "Ok, that's it. So just write your names and phone numbers on that piece of paper over there and I'll call you guys."

I wandered over to the line, confused and wondering how that was all he needed from us. Jon was in front of me in line, and we were carefully avoiding making eye contact, for that would've been enough to make us bust up laughing. When I got to the sheet, I saw that Jon had given a fake last name. I think he was afraid that "Lichtenstein" sounded a little too Jew-y. I put my real information down, but I'm not entirely sure why. As Margot, Jon, and I walked to the door, Jerry stopped us and thanked us for coming. "I really think we have a good group here," he said with an eerie smile. "Yeah, this is going to be good. I'll call you all." We politely thanked him for the opportunity and walked out of the Reality Room.

Margot's white Explorer was only 20 feet away, but I found myself saying aloud, "Hold it in until you get in the car; just hold it in, we're almost there." We almost broke into a run for the last five feet, unable to hold it in much longer. As soon as the car doors slammed, we all erupted into variations of "What the fuck was that?" The ride home (and the rest of the day), we took turns imitating Jerry's serious acting and re-telling his ideas for sketches. I must have pantomimed putting baggage on Jon a hundred times that day, and it never got old.

Neither Margot nor I ever heard anything from Jerry. If I had to guess, I'd say that no one from the group ever did. I think it's entirely possible that he was just a lonely guy who thought he might have an in with some public access station. He used that hope to bring people in and show off his acting skills, only to have nothing ever materialize from it. Either that or he was a serial killer and we narrowly escaped with our lives. One of those two.

That's my brush with potential fame, gentle readers. It was strange and very awkward, but those things also tend to be memorable. I hope you enjoyed, friends. Got anything you want to share with me? If so, ptklein@gmail.com is the place to do it. See you tomorrow.

The odd-ition

Hello and good morning, everyone. I hope the weekend treated you all well. As I've mentioned over the past couple of weeks, I'm running out of some things to write about. That's led me to finally write about some things that have been waiting in the wings for months. I hope you enjoy today's offering.

I've written about it here before, but I'm not loathe to repeat myself from time to time. My second half of high school, I participated in school plays and the improvisational comedy team. I enjoyed them thoroughly, but at the same time, I knew for absolute certain that I didn't want to continue in that field in college. I wanted something a little more stable as a major and possible career, so my eventual choice of English didn't make much sense at all.

In any case, my friends Jon and Margot were both very talented and continued their drama studies in college. I got to live vicariously through them by attending their scenes and plays throughout the quarters. One afternoon in the Spring of our freshman year, Margot had news for us. There was a sheet up on the audition board saying that someone was starting a new show and was looking for actors. It was going to be "a sketch comedy show in the mold of Monty Python and Saturday Night Live." She and Jon were definitely going, and after going back and forth in my head for a while, I decided to join them.

The sheet of paper told us when and where to meet. In addition to the address, it said to look for "an Ecolab van." We thought that was a strange landmark, but this was going to be awesome so it didn't matter. The day came, and I was pretty excited to see what it was going to hold. I'd decided that even if nothing personally came from this, it would be cool to see a show in this stage of development and be able to tell people that I auditioned for it.

We hopped into Margot's car and headed off to the audition. We followed the directions, but the last couple of steps were very vague. It was somewhere around where we were, but which building in particular was up in the air. We parked and got out, hoping to see a crowd of other actors showing us the way. Some conversation off in the distance reached our ears, so we set off to find the bodies that the voices belonged to. After entering a nearby set of double doors, we were greeted by a woman. "Hi, is this where the audition is taking place?" "Yes," she said, "Oh wait, audition you said? No, bar mitzvah. It's a bar mitzvah. Are you with the band?"

As we walked out of the wrong place, I was starting to get nervous. I may have a couple of time issues, so seeing that the audition was starting in one minute and we had no idea where didn't sit too well with me. I was all set to resign myself to the fact that we weren't going to find the right place, and I could sense that the others were almost to that point as well. Before we made it back to the car, we stopped to let a speeding vehicle zoom past us. On its side in big letters, it read "ECOLAB." "Follow that van!" we yelled.

We sped after it for just a minute before it quickly pulled into a parking spot nowhere near the main entrances to any of the buildings. A man stepped out and said, "Sorry I'm late." He walked to a door in the middle of the back wall of building, took out his keys, and opened it. My first impression of the room was that it held either youth groups or group therapy sessions, possibly both. The man introduced himself, but I don't remember his name. I'll call him Jerry unless anyone objects. Going once...going twice...Jerry it is.

Jerry asked us all to have a seat, and then he said, "Welcome to the Reality Room." At first I thought that was going to be the name of the show, but then I saw the word "Reality" painted on one of the walls in five-foot high letters. I looked around and noticed that there were only about a dozen of us there, which surprised me. Jerry continued: "You're here because you saw my ad, but I want to tell you a little more about my idea for the show."

"Part of the process will be coming up with the scenes together, but there are a couple that I've already written." He then switched to full pitch mode. "First, there's a couple sitting on a park bench and they start kissing. Quickly, it flashes to that same woman pregnant and looking frazzled. Then it flashed back to the bench, and they start getting more into it. Then - bam! - it shows the same woman trying to cope while taking care of a baby alone. Back to the park bench, and they're really getting it on, you know? Bam - it flashes to the woman looking like she's at the end of her rope and considering suicide. And then on the screen, instead of Nike's 'Just Do It,' it says... 'Just Think About it First.' So that's one of my ideas."

We all sat there, smiling and nodding, doing our best acting jobs to make it seem like we were picking up what he was putting down. I distinctly remember thinking to myself, "Well that's neither a sketch nor comedy; this isn't quite what I was expecting." I suppose it actually was a sketch, but one that would be impossible to do live without twins playing the same woman.

But Jerry wasn't done yet. Still in pitch mode, he said. "Then I have another idea. There's this guy, right, and another guy walks up to him and gives him these two huge suitcases and walks away." He raised his eyebrows at us and nodded inquisitively, as if to ask if we understood the concept so far. We nodded back, admitting to having the capacity to picture both people and suitcases at the same time. "So the first guy tries walking through a doorway but, but, he can't fit through," he said, smiling and clearly pleased to share this idea with us. "And then someone else come over and piles more baggage on him. He tries to go through the doorway again but just can't manage. Then a THIRD person comes over and stacks MORE baggage on him. Now he can't even come close to fitting through the door!" He gave us the look again, and we acted enthusiastic to hear what could possibly happen to this man and his baggage. Jerry paused dramatically. "And then," he said with a serious tone, "A man walks up to him and takes the baggage away one by one. He turns to the first man and says, 'I'll show you the way to the Lord, my son.' And they walk through together. So that's the other idea I've been kicking around. Any questions so far?"

Let me assure you, gentle readers, that it's quite hard to simultaneously smile and think, "Oh boy, what the hell have we gotten ourselves into?" And with that, I think I'll stop here and conclude the story tomorrow. Please remember to write to ptklein@gmail.com with anything about anything, and hopefully I can keep this blogging thing going a little longer. Enjoy your Monday, folks.

FUF #23

The Cure knows just how UOPTA feels: "I don't care if Monday's blue, Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too. Thursday, I don't care about you, 'cause Friday I'm a FUF." Yes, gentle readers, it's another Follow Up Friday, complete with the usual assortment of random things and the mindboggingly awesome Car Watch.

In yesterday's post, my title and topic referred to some things getting my goat. Years ago, my lovely wife once asked me if I knew where "getting one's goat" came from. I made up some long story about these farmers who formed baseball teams from their animals for a weekly pick-up game they played. One of the farmers really liked having his goat on his team, even though he wasn't a very good player. The other farmer knew this, and so he always drafted the goat in the first or second round, even though he was more like a 6th-rounder talent-wise. He did it just to piss his fellow farmer off. Hence, that phrase came to mean any time something really pushes someone's buttons. About a year later, Amber bought me a book with the origins of phrases, and the bookmark was waiting for me at the "getting one's goat" page. Predictably, I wasn't right with my guess. It was really something about how race horses used to be kept calmer with a goat around or something like that. I could look it up, but I'm feeling lazy. I'm sure we have other phrases in our everyday language from pick-up farm animal baseball though.

As you may know, I think about words. This morning in the shower, I thought about the word "predict" and the lack of its opposite. I guess "postdicting" something would be using hindsight, right? Or is it just stating that something happened after it obviously already did? Tough call, but one thing is for certain: "postdict" is fun to say.

So, yesterday I complained about "Fast Taco" in my post. Then my co-worker Rob and I went to lunch, and walked past that restaurant to find that their sign was down. At first I got a little scared that I had something to do with it. They were still open though, so I guess they're just getting a new sign. If the new one says "Not Especially Fast But Tasty Nonetheless Taco," I'm really going to freak out.

Speaking of tacos (hey, a transition!), there was a little taco stand in Santa Barbara near where I lived with my buddies. It's since changed names and probably owners too, but at the time it was called "Taco of the Town." This killed me and Dusty. Come on! You were so close! "Taco the Town" is brilliant, "Taco of the Town" is stupid. How can you come so close to understanding the pun but end up botching it? I was almost as upset when I learned that Kevin Costner's movie was "For Love of the Game" and not "For THE Love of the Game." People and their silly use or lack of use of small words really get me.

Last thing before Car Watch: Some post way in the past (2/19 to be exact), I wrote the following: "I've often thought that it would be a good idea for a downtown section of a larger city to name the streets on a grid in the same order as the presidents. That way, people would grow up knowing that Truman was right before Eisenhower. Or maybe the states in alphabetical order or by year they became a part of the Union. Yes, I know that teaching history via street names is nerdy, but it's not like I'm asking for the elements on the periodic table. I'm trying to help people learn a little more about the country without them having to try - is that so bad?" Well, gentle readers, my dream is one step closer to becoming a reality. Our friend Sarah's sister may be taking a city planning job, so I had a soundboard for my ideas. Oh sure, I also suggested that streets be created to spell out "Peter" if viewed from a satellite, but I'm willing to take a back seat in order to help other people learn. I know, I'm so selfless.

And now, let's shimmy on over to the Car Watch.

My mom saw a license plate frame that read, "Who Needs a Man When You Have a Cat?" That's really sad for two reasons in my book. First, she comes across as someone who has been so unlucky in love that she's almost convinced herself that she's better off just having a pet instead. Second, a frickin' cat? They're alright I guess, but come on. With apologies to my Aunt Lynn, as far as companionship goes, a dog is a hell of a lot closer to having a partner than a cat. Warmth, love, the ability to cheer someone up - not things that make me think "cat."

Sacky Christi saw a frame that proclaimed, "I Drive Better Than I Putt." At first I thought that was cute, but then I thought more about it. I should hope that would be the case. What's the measure of driving somewhere successfully - not crashing? For someone to putt better than he or she drives, that would require either 100% putting accuracy or way too many accidents. Hmmm, I liked it more when I just thought it was cute.

I saw a frame stating, "Legal Secretaries Keep You Pleading." I guess that's a variation of the "(Blank) Do It (Blank)" stickers, and a slightly scary one at that. It's no "Makeup Artists Do It on Your Face," but not everything can reach that level of success.

A couple of days ago, I saw a bumper sticker that said, "Baby's on Board!" I would've given this person the benefit of the doubt, but the sticker included two stick figures, so it was definitely supposed to be plural and not possessive.

Yesterday a car cut me off on the 101. The plate: "DIFICLT." Yeah, no shit.

Usually, I stay away from political messages here to avoid offending any of my 8-10 readers, but I've made exceptions for new or creative ones. Rockabye saw a sticker that said, "I need to find a florist who can send two Bushes to Iraq." That was definitely different from the regular "I don't like this politician" type ones, so it warrants a mention.

Lastly, I passed a car on the 405 that had this plate: "DD * FAKE." Maybe I'm just being overly male, but I immediately took that to mean that she has huge fake boobs. If so though, why put that on your license plate? What else could that mean, gentle readers? Naturally, I sped up to pass her. I caught a glimpse of dyed blonde hair, but that was it.

Ok, that's it for now. Hey, not enough of you have written to ptklein@gmail.com with misheard song lyrics yet. I'd love to get one or two posts out of those, but I need some more ammo. Don't be shy, folks. Have a great weekend, and I'll see you all back here on Monday.

Some real goat-getters

Greetings and salutations on this Thursday, my friends and friends-of-friends. I spewed forth a great deal of anger in my posts over the last few days, and even though I don't enjoy being angry, I guess that'll be my unofficial theme for this week. Much like the passing of bad gas, anger seems to linger a little longer when it's unwanted. Man, I'm so deep. You can quote me on that one.

Ok, so I've got three things to write about that piss me off. None of them are related to each other, so fasten your seatbelts as we traverse the rocky trail of Peter's transitionless prose. I'll get the one that might bore some of you out of the way first.

As I've mentioned before in this space, I joined a bowling league that started last week. The goal in any bowling league is to continually do better and better, thereby raising your average every week. The more pins over your average in a given game, the more likely your team is to win that matchup. Make sense? Good. Well, there's always the temptation for some to purposely do poorly in the first week of a league to ensure that they don't establish averages that are too high to maintain. I don't subscribe to that method, and I think it's pretty cheap to do so. What pisses me off about this? Two things, actually. First, there were people bowling against us who spent the entire third game doing trick shots. Granted, their trick shots were amazing, but they were pretty blatantly tanking. Their averages ended up being significantly lower for the week because of these methods, and I don't approve of that.

Second, I bowled the best three-game series of my life. That really, really angers me. It felt good to be setting personal bests, but I knew that every strike or spare was increasing the likelihood that my team would lose many of our next games. I couldn't bring myself to purposely miss spares, and my team will end up paying for it starting tonight. Going into the league, I expected to average anywhere between 155 and 170. Instead, I ended the first week with a 198.67 average. I'm not a 190+ average type of bowler, and I'm mad at myself for setting the bar so high. That means that if I average a very good (for me) 170 tonight, I'm still almost 30 pins below my average per game. We're going to lose every game unless I get back up near 200 or my teammates pick up my major slack. I'd ask you to wish me luck tonight, but I can't decide if that would mean hoping for high or low scores. Grrrr, this is supposed to be fun.

Ready for item number two of what really gets my goat? Last week, I was walking around at lunchtime to find something to bring back to the office. I passed a couple of places and then knew that my feet were probably leading me to the Subway nearby. My feet knew what they were doing too, because a six-inch Roasted Chicken Breast sandwich was totally going to hit the spot. As I got closer though, I saw that the line for Subway was literally out the door. I quickly surveyed my options: wait in a long line or see what else is nearby. Directly next door was a place called "Fast Taco." I can eat Mexican food daily, so I went for it. No one else was in line before me, but I could tell that a few people were waiting for their numbers to be called. I asked what came on the tacos, and the lady told me that it was just meat and lettuce. I ordered two steak ones, paid for them, and then filled up a container of salsa at the little bar. I ask you, gentle readers, for a place called "Fast Taco" in which there's nothing much to said tacos, how long should I have waited before they were ready? How much time needs to elapse before I can rightfully call them liars? Well, it took 8 minutes. 8 minutes! I know that's not a lifetime by any means, but it's "Fast Taco" we're talking about. 8 minutes to put meat and lettuce on tortillas seems way too long for me. The tacos ended up being quite tasty and I'll probably go back again in the near future, but the false advertising really grinded my gears. They should change their name to "Not Especially Fast But Tasty Nonetheless Taco."

The third Angry Peter story of the day takes us back a few years. At UCSB, there was the department of Chicano Studies. Similar to Asian American Studies, Black Studies, and Women's Studies, the department offered many interesting classes about the experience of that particular group through the media of literature, film, and occasionally music. At some point, their flyers started referring to the department as "Chicano/Chicana Studies." I understood what they were trying to do, but understanding how the Spanish language works, I found it unnecessary. It's not very gender-equal, but if there are ten girls and one boy in a group, they are called "muchachos." All girls, and they're "muchachas," but just the one male and the masculine form takes over. Therefore, I thought "Chicano Studies" covered both "Chicanos" and "Chicanas" just fine. It didn't piss me off though. That came later, when I saw the department listed as "Chican@ Studies." "What the hell is that?" I asked my co-worker Alicia. She said that it's the "a" inside an "o" and therefore combined the two letters. At that point, my ire was sufficiently induced. "How do you even pronounce that?" I asked, clearly agitated. "Do you still say 'Chicano and Chicana Studies?' Is it 'Chicanoa?' Do you say 'Chican-at' instead? Are they just trying to be as confusing as possible?" She didn't have any answers for me, but we spent the rest of the year saying "Chican-at" and shaking our heads at least once a day.

Ok, I'm calming down now. I'll return to Jovial Peter for tomorrow's FUF piece. Please remember to write to ptklein@gmail.com with anything about anything. Thoughts, Car Watch items, jokes, things that piss you off - whatever strikes your fancy. Personally, I'm fancy-free, but I won't judge you. I'll stop now.

Molasses, emphasis on the beeotch

As we rise to meet the hump in the middle of the workweek today, we also aim to complete the tale of Doris. I make no promises of course, because I thought this thing would be wrapped up on Monday. But no, she was ridiculous enough that she can not be confined to one or even two days.



I've got two more stories before I get to the real heart of the matter. First, we'd have monthly potluck lunch parties in the office. Usually they'd be for "all of the January birthdays," for example, but sometimes just for fun. The first time we were having one of these after I started working there, a sign-up sheet started going around for people to write down what they were bringing. Being a recent college grad with no discernible cooking skills, I put my name next to one of the blanks for "Chips and Dips." I passed the sheet over to Doris, and she studied it for a minute before saying, "Mmm hmm, I'm gonna make That Damn Crab." I learned that day that Doris always brought the same thing to these parties: a dish she called That Damn Crab. She explained it to me, and I had to stop myself from making faces. She made a big pyramid out of cream cheese, covered every inch with imitation crab, then dumped a bottle of hot sauce over the top of it. Ta-dah! I only like one of those three things (hot sauce), so I stayed the hell away from it. Every month that followed, I was treated to the sights and smells of That Damn Crab, and it never got easier. Some people liked it I guess, because it kept disappearing. It just looked so hideous that I had zero desire to try it out and see if it was actually any good.


The second story took place about a year and a half after I started. We were concluding our weekly staff meeting, and the dean asked if there was anything else before we adjourned. Slowly and mega-methodically, Doris said, "There is an announcement that I would like to make. I will be retiring from Letters and Science in May." After a beat of silence, Twilight said, "It's May right now," maybe a tad too eagerly. "Oh no, next May," Doris said smiling. The general consensus was, "Oh, ok, thanks for telling us." I realize that she had been there for 30 years, but seriously, who does that? A year in advance? I can see a teacher or professor doing that so the following year's classes can be scheduled, but all this did was set everyone up for an entire year of "this is my last _____" statements. Those got old realllllly quickly.



The funniest part about her early announcement was that by the time she got around to retiring, Twilight was in grad school in New York and I was working for another office on campus. They had a going away party for her, but I was somehow left off the invite list. It's too bad too, because I know what I would've said in a speech: "Hi everyone, I'm Peter and I sat next to the retiree for two years at Letters and Science. For the first six months, I actually thought there were two people named Doris at the office. Every day, I kept hearing, 'Oh hold on Doris,' 'What's that, Doris?' and 'Ooh watch out, Doris.'" It would've been roast-like without being outright mean-spirited.



Despite all of the annoyances I've mentioned so far, I haven't gotten to the thing that pissed me off the most about working with Doris. She was threatened by how easily things came to both me and Twilight, and our efficiency with those new-fangled computers made her feel like a dinosaur. (I could say "something like an Assosaurus," but that would be out of line.) This fear manifested itself in an unfortunate way. Our mutual boss at the time was simultaneously very good friends with Doris and very bad at knowing how to supervise people. Her only insight as to how we were doing in our jobs was from her conversations with Doris - not observing us, asking us how things were going, or having any kind of interaction past "Good morning" with us. That's the crux of this whole thing, gentle readers. Since Doris didn't like how we worked, my boss thought I was doing a poor job. In actuality, I must say that I was doing a very good job and received tons of positive feedback from those who actually observed and knew what the hell was going on.



Just by going off of what Doris told her, it sounded like Twilight and I chatted with each other all day while purposely interrupting other people's attempts to get work done. "It's been reported to me that you and Twilight are distracting to others out there," my supervisor once told me. "Why doesn't Doris just talk to me if she has an issue?" I asked. "Oh no, it's not just Doris," she replied. Smell that, folks? You guessed it: bullshit. The fact that Twilight and I each did at least three times the work that Doris did was irrelevant; Doris couldn't concentrate with how easily the job came to us, and for that we needed to be reprimanded.



It got worse. Our normal probation periods of six months were extended by an additional three. That really angered me, because I knew I was doing a good job. So I pushed my nonconfrontational nature to the side and asked my boss for more information. She told me that my "youthful demeanor" made it difficult for others to concentrate. That wasn't good enough for me. Here's how that conversation went:



Me: "Youthful demeanor?" Can you give me anything concrete to work on?
Her: Well, geez, it's just your...your youthful demeanor.
Me: Is it the way I dress? Because Doris wears sweatpants every day, if you haven't noticed.
Her: No, it's not that.
Me: Is it my language? I try to avoid being too casual with the students but if that's the problem-
Her: No, your language is fine.
Me: Can you give me anything specific whatsoever? I do my job and I do it well, so I'm frustrated to have something in my file telling me otherwise without anything concrete to go off of.
Her: It's really just your youthful demeanor.
Me: (finally beginning to lose it) I'm young! I can't change that any more than I already am. I'll continue to work on that every day by virtue of aging, but if that's all there is, then I find this extremely unfair.

That wasn't all there was, and the other things pissed me off just as much. Apparently someone whose name rhymed with Boris thought that I "roamed aimlessly about the office." I remember vehemently stating, "I am not a buffalo," and adding that if anyone had ever asked me why I was away from my desk, they'd find a very real and very logical answer. But no one asked, so I must be grazing or something.

On the bright side, at least my letter wasn't like Twilight's, which basically called her a whore for wearing something too low cut once. We both got out of that situation as quickly as we could and moved on to bigger and better things. Neither of us would've survived that ordeal without the other there (especially since Twilight's roommate eventually banned her from talking about Doris). If you can't tell, it still pisses me off that Doris would use her friendship (coupled with her friend's nonexistent supervisory skills) to discredit the good work we were doing to help students. I can handle people having oddities - hell, I live with myself just fine - but someone like Doris purposely messing with my occupation was on a whole different level. We must have really scared her by being fast-moving, intelligent-sounding, non-That-Damn-Crab-eating, computer-literate, normal-assed people. Mmm hmm, that's right Peter, you don't need to take that shit anymore. Ooh oh, hold on now Peter, calm down now.

See you tomorrow, folks.

Molasses, emphasis on the mole

Good morning, gentle readers. I'm back on this lovely Tuesday morning to continue the story that had been waiting patiently to be told for six or seven years. Yesterday, I wrote mainly about the annoying yet relatively harmless things that my former co-worker Doris used to do. After all, it's not entirely her fault that she was slow at walking, talking, and generally doing anything. Today though, I will illustrate that she maintained her ire-inducing nature in matters that were fully in her command.

First, one more petty annoyance: out of courtesy, when one of the four of us would go to the restroom, we'd tell the others so they'd know where we went. I had no problem saying, "I'll be back in a second" as I was heading out. Doris took a different approach though. She'd stand on the opposite site of the room and whisper one of our names until we heard her. Usually that would be about four or five times. When we'd register that the sound was her, we'd look up, only to have her start mouthing something. Keep in mind, it didn't matter if there was anyone else in the room, she just always did it this way. "What?" either Twilight or I would ask. She'd mouth the words again. "I can't hear you," I'd say in a tone that I generally don't use with people. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom," she'd whisper with accentuated enunciation. I know this sounds like a minor thing, but imagine that scene playing out a few times a day and you tell me how long before you'd snap. Twilight and I got through it by using our Doris voice to make euphemisms. "Twilight...Twilight," I'd whisper until she looked. "I'm gonna go drop some kids off at the pool." "Peter...Peter...I'm gonna go give birth to a brown baby boy." (I wonder what I did before "South Park" gave me so many useful phrases.)

Doris made some interesting choices in the workplace. First off, we had a common fridge and freezer that everyone in the office used. Most people brought that day's lunch or possibly a couple of frozen meals with their names on them. Doris though put the largest bag of shredded cheese I'd ever seen in the freezer. It was huge, and it stayed there taking up most of the freezer untouched for months. If she ate it regularly and it shrunk in size, that would've still been weird but ok with me. But she didn't, and the other 30 or so of us had to see it every time we opened the freezer door.

We also had a common table in the breakroom, and every once in a while, someone would bring something from home for anyone who wanted it. Often, this was an old printer or picture frame that we'd give each other a shot at before giving it to Goodwill. Doris didn't seem to understand this concept, because she brought...slightly different things in. It was strange but possibly reasonable to bring five old purses in and leave them on the table. I think it's a little out of line to bring half-used bottles of body lotion. I think it's totally out of line when they're from the Kama Sutra brand. Yes, used Kama Sutra lotion - free for anyone who wants it! Honestly, who in their right mind thinks that's ok?

As I spent more time around Doris, more stories started to come out that made her go from "annoying" to "a little crazy" in my book. (You should see this book of mine; most of you are in it somewhere.) Here's one that you'll enjoy. Somehow the topic of dermatology came up between Doris and someone else. Since our office area was somewhat small, everyone heard everyone else's conversation. I wish I could un-hear this one. "You see this mole on my face?" she asked. "I was thinking about having it removed. I used to have a pet bird, and he would sit on my shoulder and peck at it all the time." "Really?" the other person asked in a tone that I recognized as both fascinated and disgusted. "Mm hmm, he'd just sit right here and start pecking away like he thought it was a worm or something." If I hadn't been rendered speechless by that conversation, I probably would've yelled, "You've GOT to be fucking kidding me!" Maybe it's good that I was grossed out into silence.

As you might imagine, Twilight and I weren't the only ones who Doris annoyed in the office. As we soon found out, her antics had been going on like this for all of the years before we were there too. "You guys know about the cop in Chicago, right?" "No, who's that?" "Oh, this is a good one." It was a good one. Apparently, Doris read an article about a police officer in Chicago who did some nice and/or heroic deed. She thought he was incredibly handsome and sounded like an amazing person, so she flew to Chicago. Somehow, she got his home address and actually went and knocked on his door. It turned out that he had a wife, so she come back the next day. If I had been working there when that happened, you better believe I would've sneezed the word "stalker" around her on a daily basis.

The guy who told us the story went on: "You know that framed picture on her desk? That's him, from that magazine article." We always thought that was an ex-husband or other relative, but no, it was a framed picture on her desk of the stranger she stalked. Every once in a while, I'd hear a student say, "Oh, is that your husband?" Doris would reply in her normal, slow tone, "No, that is just a friend of mine," and Twilight and I would try to hold back our giggles.

Oh, I have some glorious news. I haven't even touched on the problems that Doris caused both me and Twilight as co-workers. I still have a few stories about her oddities and some rants about being her colleague, and I am gladly rolling those over to tomorrow. Another trilogy in the hizouse! Tune in tomorrow, my friends, as I conclude by complaining about the inimitable Doris. Have a great day, and good luck getting that image of a bird pecking at a mole out of your head.

Molasses, emphasis on the ass

Good morning, and welcome back to UOPTA on this fun-filled morning. I hope you had a lovely Bastille Day with all of the appropriate...accoutrement. I'm here, and I'm ready to tell a story that has been sitting on the "one day" list since I started this blog.

My friend Twilight told me recently that our former colleague Regina had started reading UOPTA from time to time. If you're reading this now, Regina, enjoy this trip down memory lane and welcome aboard. This is the story of Doris, and it pleases me to say that no names have been changed to protect anyone.

When Twilight and I started working in the academic advising office at UCSB together, we had not yet officially met. We knew some of the same people, but the biggest thing we had in common was our age. I had graduated college just six months prior to starting there, and Twi had a year or two on me. There were two other people in the same position as us. One was a very nice woman named Wendy who I couldn't say a single negative thing about. The other was Doris, and I don't have that problem with her. To say that this was "a clash of styles in the worst way possible" is an understatement. My now etched-in-stone friendship with Twilight was largely formed in the early years by our mutual displeasure for that woman, so I guess I'm somewhat thankful for her.

Doris had been working in that office for 30 years when I arrived. To put that in perspective, my very being didn't hit 30 years until six years after I stopped working there. A lot had changed in that time, and the use of computers was probably the most significant to that job. She was completely lost on these machines. You know those blonde jokes about putting white out on the screen? Well she actually put tape on her monitor to cover where something she wasn't supposed to click used to appear. Seriously. And no, she's not blonde.

Worse yet, she tried training some of the student workers on the programs. I'd hear her say, "Ok now, just click that little x thing in the box thingy there to make the other thing go away." "You mean close the window?" the confused and frustrated student would ask. I sat very close to her, and those interactions always made me want to pull my hair out.

There were many more things that had that same effect, let me assure you. This woman did everything slowly. EVERYTHING! Student would come in to make appointments, and here is how it went when they came to my desk:

Me: Hey, how's it going? Can I get your Perm number please?
Student: Sure, 4628492.Me: Great. Can I get your name?
Student: Yeah, Michael Hernandez.
Me: Ok, Michael, you're all set. See you then.

Pretty straightforward, no? No, actually, not with Doris at the helm. Here's how the same conversation would go with her playing the role of advisor:

Doris: (slowly enunciating every word) Are you an undergraduate in the College of Letters and Science?
Student: Yeah, I just want to make an appointment.
Doris: Can I please have the first six digits of your Perm number?
Student: Sure, 462-
Doris: Oh, oh, hold on there. 4...6...
Student: 28492
Doris: 2...8...what else now?
Student: 492. 4...9...2.
Doris: Ok, let's see here. Can you please spell your last name for me?
Student: Hernandez. H-e-r-n-
Doris: Oh, hold on now. H...

I shit you not. When we had a long line of students to help, I would usually help 3 or 4 in the time it took her to do the same exact thing with one.

Oh there's more, my friends. There were four of us up there, and we'd typically take turns answering the phones. The problem was the one of the four was super duper slow in doing this. I want to be clear - the slowness she exhibited had nothing to do with her age. She was only about 50, which is not near old enough to make people move like molasses. It was self-induced slowness on Doris' part. She didn't like picking up the phone receiver and talking into it, so she had a headset. No problem, right? Wrong. She didn't keep it plugged into the phone or even on her head. The phone would ring, and the three of us who had answered the last ten calls would sit and wait. After the third ring, Doris would start saying, "Ooh ooh, Doris, hold on," as she'd fumble to plug in the headset, put it on her head, then push a button to answer the phone. Normally this resulted in the voicemail getting the call before her.

When she did get the phone though, she answered it like this: "Letters and Science Doris!" Why? Because the Dean had asked us to say "Letters and Science" and then state our names. While most of us added a "this is" or "speaking" to our greetings, Doris took the decree quite literally, and it always made me laugh.

And yet there's more. Ladies and gentlemen of the UOPTA readership, please know that I'm being sincere here. Some of you may have some body issues and feel that your rear ends are a little on the big side. I would bet a nice sum of money that the ass of my largest-assed reader is only half the size of Doris'. Normally that wouldn't interfere in the workplace, but it did in this case. We had a hallway that we walked down every time we needed a student's record from the file room, and that ass made it impossible to go around her. It was kinda like an extra wide Lincoln Towncar taking up a lane and a half of a two-lane road. There was one difference though, and while infuriating at the time, it's quite comical to me now. If Doris noticed that someone was behind her and couldn't pass that ass, she'd try to speed up. For her, speeding up consisted of saying, "Ooh ooh, hold on now, ooh" and moving her arms twice as fast while her legs maintained the same rate. It was truly a site to behold. It got so frustrating that if I needed to go to the file room and she had already started to do the same, I just sat and waited for her to finish before even beginning down the path.

You know what? I just looked at my list of Doris-related things that I wanted to talk about, and I'm glad to say that there's a Part 2 in the future. This is just so much fun that I'm pleased as punch to be able to extend my shit-talking to another day. I realize that most of my complaints have had zero to do with her personality or anything seemingly beyond her control. That ends tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of today, gentle readers, and I'll see you back here soon.

FUF #22

It's Friday, homies and homettes, so it's time to rock the cradle of FUF. Yes, the cradle of FUF don't rock easily, it's true. But that's what I'm here to help with.

As is customary, I will attempt to follow-up on some things that didn't make the cut in this week's original posts, talk about some random stuff, then head off to Car Watch Land, where everything is bright and cheery. One problem with today's FUF: I don't really have anything to add to this week's posts. I have random stuff to talk about, but I pretty much put everything I wanted to in the posts. Maybe it's the whole Friday the 13th thing that's messing me up, or maybe it's all a part of the circle of life. In either case, I'm going to be more random with some stories before an extended Car Watch. Sorry/Enjoy.

Last week, I wrote quite a bit about people interpreting things in different ways. I guess that does tie in with the whole miscommunication thing. Anyway, in the first Austin Powers movie, Dr. Evil has one of the greatest monologues in cinematic history. He is talking in the group therapy session about his childhood, and it gets progressively weirder and funnier. For shits and giggles, here it is from our friends at Wikipedia:

"The details of my life are quite inconsequential.... Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with
low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize; he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament... My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon... luge lessons... In the spring, we'd make meat helmets... When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds — pretty standard, really. At the age of 12, I received my first scribe. At the age of 14, a Zoroastrian named Wilma ritualistically shaved my testicles — there really is nothing like a shorn scrotum — it's quite breathtaking... I suggest you try it."

So many parts of that speech became permanent parts of my group's vocabulary. We all agreed that it was sheer brilliance, and the only bone of contention that arose had to do with a line that's almost lost in all of that: "In the spring, we'd make meat helmets." It was probably a year after we'd all seen the movie about fifty times that the subject of what "meat helmets" looked like actually came up. As it turned out, we all had images in our heads, but they really didn't match up. I encourage you to stop and think about this for a moment, picture your own meat helmet, hold it there, and now continue to read. I want to know how it compares with the three styles you're going to read about.

Most of my friends pictured three different cuts of meat. One on top of the head and one on each side. Steaks, really, and tied to one another with the kind of string that butchers would use. My lovely wife pictured more of a big flank steak molded around someone's head like a wig. And I pictured a rounded meat helmet formed from ground beef. Sadly, scarily, I found more options on the internets. If you're bold, check out http://www.hatsofmeat.com/ to see what I mean. The "base-bull cap" is the closest I see to my own vision of the meat helmet. I was particularly inspired by the "Brisket Yarmulke," and I know you will be too. So, comment away. When I said to picture a meat helmet, what did you see in your mind's eye? I truly am interested.

Speaking of interpreting things in a couple of ways, I had written about my misunderstanding of Mr. Bob Marley's songs. There's another song that I can see meaning one of two things: "Copacabana" by the one and only Barry Manilow. I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this one now, but humor me. When he says that the club is "the hottest spot north of Havana," I get two possible meanings. He could either be saying that it's the hottest place around, excluding everywhere geographically south of the city of Havana. Or, I hear it as him maybe saying it's the hottest place in the region that's located just north of Havana. I only know one thing for sure: don't fall in love there; you just might get yourself shot. Bad idea.

My homey Rockabye wrote me and asked about the "tentional" in "intentional" and "unintentional." I'm feeling lazy, so I'm not going to look anything up. I will say that I do find it interesting to think about intent vs. extent and how they're not antonyms. They both have something to do with doing something, but that's about it. It would be fun to start using "extentional" in place of "unintentional," but it doesn't feel right. Yes, I'm just thinking aloud through my fingers at this point.

And now, let's boogie on down to the Car Watch.

Sacky Christi wrote in her blog about people misinterpreting her vanity license plate. Here is what she had to say: "Now, the plate is not that cryptic - GO WNGZ. I even have the Detroit Red Wings license plate frame around it to help out those who don't get it on first pass. But, I have been asked some really strange things regarding that plate. I think the weirdest was - 'So, you must really like Minnesota. Right?'" I feel your pain, SC. I had "M V PETE" for several years, and I got dumbest comments of all time on that. Granted, not everyone is familiar with "MVP" since it's technically a sports phrase, but that's no excuse for what I got. "Oh, I get it. Move Pete!" "Oh, like Envy Pete but NV was taken, right?" "That's funny, like Motor Vehicle Pete." No, no, and hell no.

Speaking of plates, I saw "NT GIL TI" on one yesterday morning on my drive into work. That falls under the "a little too defensive" category for me. And no, it wasn't a certain former NFL player. I looked just in case.

My mom saw a license plate frame that read, "Stop Starring at My Ass." I had to clarify with my mom that she didn't have a typo in her email. I think "Stop Staring at My Ass" is odd enough by itself since the person is almost certainly seated. "Starring" though brings it to a whole new level. Just like Nate Dogg and Warren G, if you know what I mean (and I know a couple of you will at least).

Driving on the 10W in Santa Monica, I spied "SM NATV." "Ha!" I said aloud, and that's more than enough to earn a coveted spot in a FUF.

That afternoon on the way home, I saw a frame that bothered me a little bit: "I am Spending My Kids' Inheritance." I appreciate the correct apostrophe usage (provided there are multiple children), but that's just a weird thing to flaunt. How do the kids feel about that, ya think? I'm trying to think of a situation that would make that cute instead of weird, and I've got nothing.

Lastly, I saw a short and sweet bumper sticker that summarized what everyone around it was thinking: "The 405 sucks." It had a period too, and that finality made it a lot better in my eyes.

So that's it for this week, gentle readers. Thanks for hanging on. I'd like to once again ask you to please send in mis-heard song lyrics to ptklein@gmail.com for an upcoming post (or two). So far, I haven't been exactly flooded with messages, but I wouldn't mind the occasional deluge. Then I can refer to things as antediluvian, and that's always been a goal of mine. Have a great weekend, everyone.

**UPDATE** Please vote in the poll on the top right. Maybe I'll add those from time to time for more shits and giggles.

A little misunderstanding

Today is not only Thursday, mis amigos. Oh no, it is much more than that. Today will turn into tonight, and tonight is the first night of my new bowling league. How rad is that? That's right, "rad." I keep meaning to bring "tubular" back, but then I pass over it for words like "ridunkulous" or Dave's creation, "retardiculous." I'm actually a little nervous about bowling because I just got a new ball, and I used it for the first time yesterday and ripped a nice piece of skin off my thumb. Wish me luck. Thank you.

This week's super unofficial theme has been "problems in communication." At least the last two days have been about that. Well today is no different. I have two other tales in that family of thought, and they have every right to be heard. Isn't that what America's all about anyway?

Here we go. I'll call story one "The Channels." Good title, eh? I've known my friend Greg my entire life because our parents were friends before we were born. While there are countless benefits to that kind of closeness, there are some interesting side effects. Here's an example: During our freshman year at UCSB, neither of us had a car there with us. My lovely girlfriend (who was promoted years later to lovely wife status) did though, and being from around the same place as us, gave us rides down to L.A. every once in a while. One Friday morning, I told Greg the following: "Amber may want to leave a little earlier today if she can get a haircut appointment in L.A., so just make sure you're ready." An hour later, I had a message on my answering machine from my mom. She said, "I just talked to Roberta. You're not coming down now this weekend because Amber has a doctor's appointment in Santa Barbara? Call me." The message had gone through the channels, and that was the result.

Normally, the game of Telephone only works when there are many people involved and the message is easily confused. That's what was weird about the above situation; there were only four of us involved and two were aware of the real message. This has happened many times, and Greg and I always laugh as we decode what the other probably said to his respective mom. The other interesting thing about the channels besides the mixing of messages is in the blistering speed in which news travels. When Greg was getting his results after taking the California Bar, I was waiting anxiously with my phone in my hand. It rang, and I quickly answered to find that it was my mom and not Greg. "Oh, I was hoping you'd be Greg," I said. "Oh, he passed; he didn't call you yet?" "That's great! No, he - oh wait, he's calling on the other line." I hung up and got the other line. "Congratulations, man!" I said. "What? Thanks. How did you know?" he asked. I told him that my mom just told me, and he was very confused because he had just told his mom 30 seconds before. In that brief window, she had called my mom and my mom called me. They're crazy fast with that stuff.

It's not a perfect science by any means. I remember hearing one day that a relative of Greg's had gone to the hospital in the middle of the previous night, and I called him to see if there was any news. The only news was that he hadn't heard a single thing about it yet, and he was pissed off at his parents for not telling him. Oops. I can understand why he was upset; after all, he majored in Communication.

The second story in the "problems in communication" series is from about a year and a half ago. Through my work, I was at a premier of sorts for a movie at a film festival. I was sitting with two gentlemen who happened to be a couple, and we were chatting about all sorts of stuff. None of us had any idea what the movie we were about to see would be like, and that dominated our conversation. One of them brought up Jake Gyllenhaal somehow, and I smiled and nodded. The other then said something to me that sounded like, "To see the movie..." I said, "Yeah..." as I waited for the rest of the sentence. "What did you think of it?" he asked. I then realized that he was asking "Did you see the movie?" and that "the movie" was "Brokeback Mountain."

The right thing for me to say in that moment was, "Oh, I'm sorry, I misunderstood you. No, I haven't seen 'Brokeback Mountain' yet but I've heard good things about it. Have you seen it?" Instead though, for reasons still unbeknownst to me, I said, "Loved it." "Really!" he said, excited by my response. "Oh yeah," I said, "The acting, the cinematography - all of it was just so well done." Meanwhile, the only thing I kept thinking was, "Please don't ask me any specifics. Please don't ask me any specifics." His next question was probably predictable: "Can I ask: are you straight?" "Straight? Yes, me? Yes, I'm straight." "And you loved it?" he asked. "I can appreciate a well-done film regardless of the subject matter," I said. I quickly tried shifting to other gay and lesbian movies I've seen, throwing out any and everything I could in hopes that one would stick. One did for a minute ("My Beautiful Launderette" with Daniel Day-Lewis), and then the movie mercifully started and my blood pressure went back to normal.

That one was all my doing, and I have no excuse for my decision to lie about the movie. It would've been so horrible to have to admit that I hadn't seen it a few minutes into the conversation that I get a pit in my stomach just thinking about it. Oh well, live and learn. The moral of today's story: Only admit to loving something once you actually know what it is. Stick to that, and you'll be ok out there, kiddo. See you tomorrow for another FUF piece. Please send your every whim to ptklein@gmail.com, and I'll greet the emails with a smile. I have a nice smile, so you really should consider it.