Bathroom Fouls

I just got out of the first floor men's room in Henderson, the one that was either a) originally a women's bathroom, b) built before the invention of urinals, or c) designed by someone unaware that men generally stand up to pee.

Anyway, I go in there for just that purpose and gag as I walk in. Some kid is in there dropping a hellacious deuce. This is the kind that you drop in your roommate's bathroom because you might need to use yours in the next 6 hours and because you enjoy seeing him suffer. This deuce would be considered vandalism in 19 states.

So then the guy does something I was totally unprepared for: He exits the stall before I leave the bathroom. I could be off here, but if people are coughing as you walk in, you don't want them to be able to attatch a face to the damage.

As a refresher, the basic men's room rules:
1. Never use a urinal directly next to another guy unless you have no other options. The farther away you can get, the better.
2. Newspapers are to be folded once and tucked in the space between the stall door and the wall. Do not leave with the paper. Do not place it on the ground. This usually gets it wet, thereby keeping anyone else from reading it.
3. If a deuce in on the loose, leave it in a remote bathroom with low traffic. Possible exception: If you have some kind of contest going on with your coworkers/classmates/roommates or you have a bone to pick with somebody.
4. No grunting, groaning or otherwise audibly letting your relief be known. Know that if you do this, everyone else in the room is entitled by law to mock and exaggerate your noises.
5. Flush. Twice if necessary.
6. No whistling. Maybe this was OK in 1952. Not now. There are appropriate times to whistle -- when looking at an engine or new paint job, at a woman in a skirt, at a basketball game -- while wizzing is not one of the acceptable times. It's creepy and makes everyone wonder what's making you so jolly.

Why Men Don't Buy Underwear

As one of two men in class, I feel there are certain things about my gender I should explain to the overwhelming majority in our class.
Maybe this is some form of civic duty. Maybe this is just me writing about underwear.

Let's move.

Anyone who is living has probably noticed that men tend to ride the same pair of boxers for years on end. Essentially, our only requirement for underwear is that it form a protective barrier between our zipper and our manhood.

Thus, we stick with our boxers until they can no longer serve this function, which usually means the underwear has disintegrated, become a part of the atmosphere and been carried away by a nitgogen molecule which, if it is a male nitrogen molecule, has given the boxers particle a quick sniff and put it on.

Women, of course, find this repulsive, which is the only reason men every buy new underwear. In fact, men would probably still be living in caves, walking around naked and communicating in well-timed scratches and gutteral noises if women did not demand a basic level of civility from us.

We go to dance clubs because girls go do dance clubs. We clean our bathrooms because girls like clean bathrooms. We buy fancy shirts with stripes and buttons because girls like fancy shirts with stripes and buttons.
(Incidentally, we buy pink polo shirts and pop the collars because we're homosexuals and other men like pink polo shirts with popped collars. But that is neither here nor there.)

I think, to varying degrees, women are aware of this phenomenon -- that we spend a great deal of effort solely to make ourselves presentable to women. This it seems would make for an empowering feeling, particularly for women being pursued by multiple potential suitors. On the other hand, I have no idea what it is like being constantly approached with bad pickup lines, offered free drinks and insincere compliments and asked for "dates," although, as a man, that sounds fantastic. I think that's what it's like being in a rock band, which explains why so many men, who would never touch a piano or a trumpet, want to play guitar.

If you're waiting for some profound point to come out of all this, you probably have not yet realized this blog is being generated by a mind barren of profundities.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some underwear shopping to do.

From Where Bitches Come

They appeared to be friends, these kids. Maybe they were related. There were five of them, black kids aged about 10-12, crossing 8th street in Topeka.

A girl, the portliest of the bunch, was on a bike while three of the others walked.
"Slow down, you fat bitch," came the holler from the short, skinny kid on foot.

The girl didn't even react.

Maybe by now, by 12 years old, she's been called a fat bitch so many times it doesn't even faze her. Maybe she's not really a bitch, either. Maybe she's a perfectly sweet girl who is also fat.

Doesn't matter. She's a bitch not because she's a bitch, but because she's fat. And maybe she hears this enough times she starts to believe it. And maybe when she's 16 or 20 or 35 she's finally given up trying to be nice, because it never mattered. She was always just a fat bitch. So that's what she's decided to become.

Maybe this is from where bitches come.

Hello, my name is Shithead. I hate my parents.

I'm not kidding. I mean, MY name isn't Shithead. My name is Tully, which may or may not be more bizarre than being named Shithead. But I just finished reading Freakonomics, a book in which an economist studies all manner of cultural things from a statistical, economical perspective.
I'm not going to give you a book review here (in short: pretty eye-opening data combined with middling writing), but I had to bring this up.

One of the things this guy studied was whether having a very black-sounding name has an effect on life success (his conclusion: people with black-sounding names are less successful than those without, but the names are merely a symptom of the reasons this is true, rather than the cause). In his research, he came across a little black girl named Shithead, pronouced shuh-TEED.

What name could possibly be worse than Shithead? Would Assclown be worse? Dumbbitch? I just don't know how you top that.

The more I type Shithead, the more preposterous it seems. Can you imagine the first day of every class that girl ever goes to?
"Ricky ... "
"Here."
"Rachel ..."
"Here."
"Shi ... um, is it ... Shhhhhhhhiiii ... I don't want to mess this up ... "
"It's Shuh-TEED"
"Ok (whiping brow in relief)."

If I was Shithead, I would make the guy say it every time. No way I'm bailing anybody out on that one.

And how soon after your 18th birthday are you at the courthouse changing that puppy? Do you camp outside the doorstep the night before? Do you have a celebratory bonfire to burn all recollections of Shithead?

Boggles the mind.

My Communication Problems

In my Coms class, we took a survey to determine our communication styles, the results of which indicated that my communication style most closely resembled that of sedementary stones.

I am not arguing that I am a poor communicator. My ex-girlfriend can attest to that. Then again, she is a smelly pirate hooker, so let's not listen to her. Anyway, my point is, I know a lot of people who would have scored really well on that survey who I would not describe as being good at communicating.

Take my ex-girlfriend, for example. She would have aced the opennness, friendliness and non-verbal portions of the survey. Of course, this is a person who once talked for 33 minutes into my phone as it rested on the seat next to me. All I had to to was pick up the phone about every 6 minutes and say "uh huh," then set it back down. Is flooding someone else with totally worthless and uninteresting information the trait of a good communicator? I think not.

One of my roommates would have scored incredibly well on the test as well, particularly the friendliness portion. He is also a pathological liar. If you have known this guy for longer than 6 months, you know this. So every time he opens his mouth, you're wondering what percentage of what he's saying will be true. Everything he says is undermined by himself.





Out.

The Frosh

My earlier post about spotting freshmen was born of my relationship to this kid I sit next to in Chem. 101. And let me just get this out there right away: I can't stand this kid. It's to the point that I dislike him so much, I actually look forward to coming to class, just to see what new thing I'll hate about him that day.
I'm actually taking notes on this guy. He's like a case study or something.

First of all, we're three weeks into class now, and have been sitting in the same spots every day. Yet every time I walk into class, his bag (which must weigh 35 pounds) is sitting on the floor in such a way that I cannot pull my chair out. Every day, it's this way, and he continues to place his bag in the same spot every time, wait for me to attempt to pull my chair out, then move his bag to the other side, which -- and this must be a light-bulb moment for him every time -- is on the aisle. And I'm not even going to theorize why he, or anybody, would show up more than 2 minutes early to a 9:30 class. That's a little more than my mind can handle at this point.

Here's a brief timeline (yes, I've been writing this stuff down):
Aug. 28 -- The professor brings up an article in the Capital-Journal. The Frosh goes, "more like the Crapital-Journal." Good one.
Aug. 28 -- The Frosh sends and receives no fewer than 14 text messages in a 10-minute span. May I remind everyone that it is 9:45 a.m.? Who is texting you at 9:45 a.m.? And why haven't you ended this relationship yet? SIDE NOTE: The Frosh uses both thumbs to type texts, and can do it without looking. This is a sick, sick human being.
Aug. 31 -- Discussing propane, the professor brings up Hank Hill. The Frosh chuckles at the mere mention of Hank Hill, adding "good show."
Sept. 7 -- To nobody in particular, but loud enough anyone in a four-desk radius could have heard him: "I gotta leave in about 5 minutes." Fantastic, dude. Glad we all know that. He ends up leaving for a "doctor's appointment" 20 minutes into the 1:20 class period. Evidently, he still hasn't realized that this professor hasn't taken attendance since the first day of class. Before leaving, he drops this on me:
"Do you take good notes."
"Occasionally."
"Can I get the notes from you next class?"
"Yeah."
Evidently, Einstein here also has not realized that the professor's lectures are basically word-for-word passages from the text book. And if you think I'm NOT taking this kid on a wild goose chase with my notes, you don't know me very well. There will be so much extraneous information in there, he'll think he's reading a Chuck Klosterman book.

Ok, I'm done now. I feel better.

How to spot a freshman

This time of year, I find that it is particularly easy to determine who on campus in a freshman. Of course, there is no redeeming value in being able to do this, which explains why I have taken an interest in it. Virtually everything I know is totally useless information. I digress.
The Top 3 ways to spot a freshman:
1. Self-conscious facial expression -- Freshmen always look like they're unsure of themselves, like they're worried they wore the wrong shirt and everybody is whispering about it behind their backs. Plus, a freshman may or may not know where he is going at any given time.
2. The extra 5 minutes in front of the mirror -- This shows up more dramatically in girls, who for at least the first semester of college, coordinate their clothing abd spend 25 minutes doing makeup and relocating individual strands of hair. By the time they graduate, they're curling out of bed 10 minutes before class, throwing on their "good" sweat pants and slamming together a pony tail.
3. The stupid questions -- Two days ago, The Frosh (see previous blog) leans over to me and says, "Do we have to ask to go to the bathroom, or just get up and go?" I, of course, said, "Dude, you can't leave the room under any circumstances. They take this stuff seriously in college."

Guys+Girls=Friends? Not really.

A girl I know told me she didn't understand why she couldn't seem to maintain friendships with guys. She said, at some point, the guy would want something more, she would reject him, and the friendship would basically end right there.
She was torn about this, wondering if there was something inherently unfriendly in her.
She was way overanalyzing it.
The answer, women, is this: Guys will never pursue friendships with girls. If a guy make an effort to talk to or spend time with a girl, he either has romantic feelings for her or wants to have sex with her. We are pretty satisfied with our male friends. We have to act differently around girls, and we don't want to do that unless we're getting something out of it.
For those reasons, girls just don't make good friends for men. We have to eliminate a minimum of 65 percent of our conversation topics when girls are around, we can't expell gas, we have to exhibit the most basic forms of civility. It sucks.
This is not to say we cannot have female friends. Guys will tolerate female friendships for the following reasons:
1. The girl is your buddy's girlfriend -- Often times, mixing girlfriends and bros is like mixing Al Franken and An Coulter, but if the girl is a relatively reasonable human being and doesn't require constant attention, we can be friends.
2. We're still in the interim period between meeting and, um, whatever is going to happen thereafter -- The interim can usually last no longer than a couple of months, at which point the guy will have either ruined it by being too pushy or have given up for lack of positive signs.
3. You've known eachother forever --If you went to grade school, junior high, heck, even high school together (assuming you saw eachother almost every day during that period), friendships are acceptable, although the girl should know that the guy is probably making a move on her at some point. In this case, rejection won't end the friendship.
4. The guy is gay -- This is a whole 'nother blog altogether.