Thursday, July 02, 2009

All she had to do was read my LAST POST

I got an email today. I feel the pressing, urgent need to post it in its entirety.


Hi Emily,

I work with Charmin bathroom tissue and I wanted to send you an email about Charmin Ultra Soft's partnership with HGTV's designer Frank Fontana. I would love to send you a free kit that has a demo of how much you can save by using Charmin Ultra Soft instead of the leading value brand, as well as fun decorating tips from Frank Fontana of HGTV’s “Design on a Dime.”

Charmin Ultra Soft is designed with absorbent cushions that allow you to use less versus other leading brands. Charmin Ultra Soft is so soft and absorbent that you can use seven sheets of Charmin Ultra Soft versus 28 sheets of the leading value brand. Please let me know if you're interested; I would be happy to send you a kit! Enjoy your day!

Yours,

Virginia

You think I should write her back?


Hi Virginia,

I suppose it is no coincidence that you are offering me a chance to get better acquainted with two things I choose to write about on my website quite often: toilet paper and HGTV. I actually know EXACTLY who Frank Fontana is, Virginia – I even know the names of his two little design helper cronie-type people RIGHT OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD. He's kind of cute, don't you think? Well, okay, so he's not exactly my type, but he has really thick hair, and I definitely prefer thick hair to the alternative, in case you were wondering. (Were you wondering?) )(Don't answer that, Virginia.)

Anyway. It's not that I don't appreciate your offer, in fact, I might actually take you up on it because I cannot for the life of me figure out what toilet paper... I'm sorry, BATHROOM TISSUE and Frank Fontana could POSSIBLY have in common and I am dying to see if some of his decorating tips are toilet paper-based. The only thing I can come up with is festive streamers, but then again, I'm not the one with a television show, am I? Otherwise, I am not sure I understand the connection between Frank and Charmin except for the generalized penny-pinching concept. Are you with me on that? I mean, I know you're the PR person and you probably aren't supposed to admit it, but surely you have a BRAIN, Virginia, so I'm just going to assume that you see my point.

Here's the thing: I'm kind of... well, for lack of a better word, I'm BOYCOTTING Charmin. I refuse to buy it, and I have been for MONTHS. I've written about it MANY A TIME. And I'm encouraging everyone I know to do the same, until they do away with those animated bears as spokespeople. I don't know whose idea those bears were in the first place (I swear I'm not blaming YOU, Virginia, but MY GOD could you TRY to do something about that?) but I'm not sure if anyone out there finds them sweet and charming. I'm afraid most of us find them hideously unsanitary. Bears who crap in the woods and have the sense to wipe themselves with something other than the leading value brand could surely, SURELY find a stream or puddle in which to wash their hands, could they not? Also enough with the gratuitous shots of bears bending over. Animated or not, it's not a position I generally enjoy seeing.

I guess that's the long way of saying that the answer is yes; that I would like to get your little kit, but that I cannot guarantee IN THE LEAST that I will use it for good.

Yours,

Emily

Friday, June 19, 2009

More unrelated nonsense because I suck at posting anything else

One: The other night, Dave politely pointed out to me that lately, instead of speaking directly to him when I'm bothered by something, I've taken to blaming “someone” or “no one.” As in, “Why is no one doing the dishes?” or “I wish someone would take out the trash.” And my personal favorite, “WHY ISN'T ANYONE HELPING ME?” He pointed out that there's only one person in the house I could POSSIBLY be talking to, unless I know something he doesn't, like maybe that Lucy is capable of dragging our 50-pound trash can around the side of the house, or that Asher can unload the dishwasher. Unfortunately, Lucy still craps up her back every morning and Asher often refuses to lift his own spoon to his mouth, so it turns out I AM talking to him, in this ridiculous nonsensical way. Why can't I just say, “Why aren't you doing the dishes?” or “Why didn't you take out the trash?” I DON'T KNOW. I can't explain it! It's like I want to complain about him right to his face but I also don't really want to hurt his feelings, so I've given him the option to decide if I really is him I'm talking about. (It is.)

Two: Lucy got her six-month shots yesterday. The nurse was nice enough to encourage me get her head and arms threaded through her one-piece outfit before she plunged two needles into her chubby thighs, but it didn't matter, because do you know what? I am more naturally inclined at efficiency than I am at motherhood. Poor kid was lying there sobbing on the exam table, and I BUTTONED UP THE LEGS OF HER OUTFIT before I picked her up to soothe her. My brain worked fast enough in those few seconds for me to realize that if I dressed her before I picked her up, I wouldn't have to lay her back down and WASTE TIME AND ENERGY DOING IT.

Three: So my mom took my cat to get a haircut last week. (Long-time readers might remember my cat, who went to live with my parents when Asher was born and she no longer had a room all to herself to hide in from my husband. To say they that Dave and the cat “didn't get along” would be a big fat lie. They absolutely DETEST each other.) Anyway, she's a long-haired cat, but she's old, and she likes to lay in one place all the time, so she gets these big mats in her fur because she can't take care of herself as well anymore. Anyway, the groomer always asks if she should comb them out, but that would be absolute TORTURE, so we usually just have them shave them off. I mean, she's 14 years old, she ain't entering any Miss Feline Virginia contests any time soon or anything – no one seems to mind if she looks a little patchy hobo kitty. Except this time, I guess she was extra matted, because they went ahead and SHAVED HER ENTIRE BODY. Except for her head and a little poofy fuzzball at the tip of her tail. My mom told me they call this a “lion cut.” A LION CUT. I was going to take pictures and post them here but then I actually saw the Lion Cut in person and I just... I just can't. It's horrifying. She actually stopped eating for about four days after the procedure and I'm pretty sure it's because she saw herself in the mirror and WANTED TO DIE.

Four: Lucy poops without fail every time I put her in the car seat, so I've changed her in more retail locations than I care to count. It surprises me, though, that the best place I've ever changed a diaper is PetSmart. It's clean and the changing table is always stocked with liners and no one is ever in it, probably because no one hangs out there for hours like we do. The worst is a restaurant called Glory Days in Herndon, Virginia, where the little plastic changing table was installed THREE FEET ABOVE THE TOILET. And I had to change Asher there, when I was hugely pregnant with Lucy (two days before I gave birth, actually) and it was the most awkward diaper change ever, since his butt was at SHOULDER HEIGHT. I can't imagine I was very thorough.

Five: I threw away my scale. Not because I was developing obsessive and unhealthy habits or anything; more because moving it ½ an inch could result in the immediate loss or gain of up to 10 pounds. I consistently weighed more standing to the left of the toilet than I did on the right, and if I ever found that I didn't like the readout, all I had to do was shuffle it a little closer to the sink and hop on again. I started to get this feeling it wasn't particularly accurate, and then one time just for kicks I moved it onto the carpet and watched the needle settle happily at 230 pounds. TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY POUNDS. I'm really glad I had a general idea of what I weighed before I bought that scale in the first place, otherwise the world would be a really, really depressing place. Should I be surprised since that scale cost me $7? I mean, what do I have to spend to get a relatively accurate reading? Or at least a CONSISTENT one? And don't tell me more than $7. I FIGURED THAT OUT ON MY OWN.

Six: So the butt-wiping bears are out, and now we have to eliminate Kleenex Cottonelle from our toilet paper rotation too. I just can't think of any reason to support a brand whose website asks you to take a pledge to be kind to your behind. TAKE A PLEDGE. And! And! Then you're supposed to SUBMIT your Summer Butt Pledge to the website, so everyone else who goes there (how many people can that POSSIBLY be, EXCLUDING BLOGGERS) can vote on whether your butt is going to have a great time this summer. I would be ALL OVER THIS if it was supposed to be funny, but it is not supposed to be funny. Not when people are pledging things like, “Walk more to relieve backside pressure.” (OMG are 90-year-olds supposed to be using the Internet?) “Don't eat so much chocolate.” (Don't use such crappy grammar, either.) And my personal favorite: “Lotion for my cheeks, then Cottonelle for private parts, with a follow up Cottonelle wipes for extra cleanness.” (I... I don't even know what to say, except PLEASE IS THERE SOMETHING BETTER YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR TIME.) (As in, are you really spending that much time on a toilet paper website? And also, LOTION ON THE CHEEKS? I'm MYSTIFIED.) I read through these for a while before I finally saw one that made me laugh, and in a Finally, Someone Gets How BIZARRE This Is kind of way. Thank you, anonymous Cottonelle commenter from Oregon: “I will switch to taking my temperature orally.” GENIUS!

Seven: Ok, fine, here's a picture of the cat.

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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Seven Quick Takes two whole hours early

Dudes, I am rusty at this blogging thing. RUSTY, I tell you. I feel uninspired, unenthusiastic, incapable... all things that are easily remedied by just throwing myself back into the thick of things and writing more than once every two weeks. In my defense, life is starting to normalize. I can't believe it took SIX WHOLE MONTHS with two offspring before I finally started feeling like everything wasn't going to spiral out of control at ANY MOMENT, but AT LAST, here we are. Lucy is now sleeping at night (I don't expect it to last, but I do expect to use this time to catch up on my enormous sleep deficit, and for the most part, our days are predictable and routine and I know how to cope. We even finally got around to being the last people in the free world to see Slumdog Millionaire a couple of weeks ago. In other words, I don't have any more excuses. But to ease myself back in, I've decided to jump on the Seven Quick Takes bandwagon (which started here) and post seven completely unrelated paragraphs of utter ridiculous random nonsense every Friday.

One: Have you seen that Smirnoff Ice commercial where all the hot, young adults are sliding down a giant industrial slip n slide in their underwear and making what the voiceover guy insists are “awesome memories” or something? It makes me bitter. I don't have any slip n slide memories. Because when we were kids we never got to use the slip n slide because, according to my parents, “it killed the grass.” Thanks, mom and dad, for choosing your LAWN over your CHILDREN.

Two: Hambone and I are stuck in this terrible Catch-22 where he really needs to exercise because he's fat but he's too fat to exercise with me. When I take him on a run, he ends up behind me at the very end of his 20-foot retractable leash, looking for any excuse to stop and catch his breath. And inevitably, so I don't hurt his feelings what with the whole 20-feet-behind-me thing, I end up running slower, and slower, and s l o w e r until I'm running all Chariots of Fire-style, in SLOW MOTION which means I'm pretty much actually GAINING WEIGHT while working out. Also, he needs to stop eating Asher's leftover breakfast, lunch and dinner, but that is a useless paragraph for another time.

Three: Television is so utterly craptastic in the summer that we are actually watching some show where giant catfish eat people in a river in India. It's not actually very interesting; in fact, we've spent zero time discussing the giant catfish and 15 minutes discussing why mustaches seem to be so popular among Indian men.

Four: New butt-wiping bears commercial insists that you only need seven sheets of Charmin to do what it would take 28 sheets of the other leading brand to do. I'm sorry, WHAT NOW? Who needs 28 sheets of ANY BRAND of toilet paper to do ANYTHING? Let me tell you something, people, if you need 28 sheets of toilet paper to get the job done, then you might want to consider seeking MEDICAL ADVICE. Or Brawny. Also, Dave very helpfully pointed out that in the demonstration, they squirt the infamous Blue Testing Water directly onto the roll and then unroll it to show us how many sheets it leaks through. Which, according to Dave, is stupid and annoying because no one is actually wiping with the roll. And if you are, well, please stop doing that. We unroll and THEN we wipe. Amateurs. (I just went to the bathroom and used four sheets of toilet paper. Does that seem like a lot or a little to you?)

Five: Now that we've had an explosively funny pee post, don't you think it's time we move on to Number Two? Good! Because DO I HAVE A STORY FOR YOU. Things it involves: Rottweilers, unsafe drinking water, Davy Crockett (the old Disney movie), and a bathroom with a toilet and a bathtub that are VERY VERY FAR APART. (See where you can get with THAT.)

Six: I was at Target a few weeks ago and was standing in the baby section holding up a little one-piece outfit for Lucy and a woman with two young kids in her cart stopped next to me and said, “Oh, I can't stand outfits like that for babies; I think it shows too much skin and that skin is just for Mommy and Daddy, you know?” I mean, LADY. It's a ONESIE, not a lace teddy. God knows what that woman does whenever a Pampers commercial comes on and someone is gently stroking a naked baby butt to indicate how gentle the product is to sensitive skin, but my guess is that she calls the authorities. This is the same woman who went on to say, “Oh, your baby has such pretty blue eyes. I guess she got them from her father?” And I said, “Actually, no, we both have brown eyes,” and she said, “Ohhhhhhh,” and gave me a look that clearly conveyed her disappointment in me for having relations with the mailman. And then I left. BUT NOT BEFORE I BOUGHT LUCY A SLUTTY OUTFIT.

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(AFOREMENTIONED SLUTTY OUTFIT)

Seven
: It was a three-plus-year hiatus, but last weekend Dave and I were finally able to catch Todd Snider live again. If you ever get the opportunity, seeing him perform in person is worth every single penny you pay. And truth be told, it's never very many pennies anyway, since he's a FOLK SINGER, who sings with a guitar and without shoes, but it's the most enjoyable two hours you'll ever, ever have. The man is brilliant and wonderful and amazing and very possibly high and also totally Number One on my freebie laminated card and has been for YEARS. Trust me on this.

Monday, June 01, 2009

And the winner is!

Dude. DUDE.

Just... DUUUUUDE.

Reading through 122 comments about urination can get to you. Not in a bad way, more in a way where everywhere I go, I can't help but imagine that someone has probably peed there. Parking lots, grocery stores, playgrounds, THE CAR STOPPED NEXT TO ME AT A RED LIGHT... someone has already peed there or is currently peeing there, and it's entirely possible that the peeing they're doing is into a cup or a diaper or a jagged tin can.

Dumpsters? You peed there! Train tracks? Yes, there too! Off boats and porches and mountainsides? Uh huh! In the subway station? OF COURSE YOU DID.

My original intent was just to select a winner using a random number generator. Which I did, and which I can't figure out how to get a screenshot of (am very bad with technology can only type and press PUBLISH) but that is all to tell you that you'll just have to TRUST ME that the person who wins the three-pack of Go Girl devices fair and square is Parsing Nonsense! Erika, just email me and we'll figure something out. (That's code for “I'll get your mailing address and will use it in a responsible way.”)

But then I thought, GOODNESS, there were SO MANY OTHER GOOD PEE STORIES, so I decided we need to award someone a Go Girl for Best Pee. But how do we choose? I loved Heidi's story about her mom sliding down a highway on a frozen pee river, and MKate, who peed in a SUBWAY STATION, in the presence of ANOTHER PERSON (MKate, you are a brave one), and of course Nichole, whose drunken refusal to pee in a pool cost her her two front teeth and the subsequent $4500 required to fix them. But wait! There was also L in Texas, who has Medically Necessary pee emergencies and who once spent $59 for the privilege of using a toilet and Becky, whose pee dripped through her parents' ceiling, and daysgoby who peed in a field in the dead of night and was subsequently inappropriately touched by a cow.

And of course, Karen, if we do this again and have poop stories, I THINK YOU MAY BE A CONTENDER.

I thought about holding a vote, but it was mentioned so many times by other commenters that I have to assume that if we held one, Heidi T would win it. So Heidi T? Email me! I'm sending you a Go Girl, too. You may keep it or give it to your mom. Send me a photo of that touching moment should it occur.

Thanks for participating, everyone. That was a really entertaining week. We'll do it again as soon as I find another product that's worthwhile enough! (Suggestions always welcomed, just email me.)

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Have I no boundaries?

*Comments are now CLOSED! Winner has been chosen and will be announced on Monday!*

We went to a local festival on Monday. It was your usual festival: vendor booths, high school dance troupes, carnival rides, funnel cakes, and me, SWEATING THROUGH MY PANTS.

OMG you guys, I mean, yes, it was hot out, and there was no breeze and it was muggy and humid and people were packed into the carnival area where Asher wanted to ride some rides, but there is really no excuse for the fact that the back of my pants looked like I'd sat directly in a puddle. I am not talking about a little spot or two. I am talking a wet spot roughly the size of, oh, say, a TOILET SEAT. When I started suspecting what was happening, I asked Dave to take a look and he busted out laughing and said something very supportive like, “DUDE, that is REALLY BAD,” and then I couldn't stop looking at the backs of OTHER people's pants to see if anyone else was maybe having a similar situation but it turns out that NO ONE WAS, not even people who were wearing jeans; not even people who were GROSSLY OVERWEIGHT. Just me! I was the only one wandering around with overzealous under-butt sweat glands! I suppose it didn't help that I was wearing khaki-colored capri pants made out of this ridiculously thin material that shows even the tiniest hint of moisture. But that fact was only comforting to ME, the only person who knew that because she had access to the tag in the back of the pants. It's not like I could walk up to people and explain that this sweat situation looked especially bad because of the cotton/polyester blend I was wearing and not because I'm a sweaty sweaty HOG of a person. I swear! I'm JUST LIKE YOU! I don't usually DO THIS!

As we were leaving, we walked by a news crew. I kept on walking with my head down, certain they were filming my backside so they could air it later during a story about the oppressive heat with the caption, “Local Woman Sweats Aggressively Through Pants.” And then I turned around to find my husband attempting to photograph my unfortunate situation with his iPhone and I was NOT AMUSED.

I had to get that out of the way before I get to the next thing on my list, which is that I have acquired a revolutionary product that I cannot believe never existed before now and simultaneously, that I cannot believe even exists at all. And what YOU will not believe is that my brother's mother-in-law bought it for me. I do not know if he is comfortable with that, but I don't plan on asking.

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It's a device to help women pee standing up.

STANDING UP. I know! FRIGGIN INGENIOUS. Although, the product seems to have been designed with outdoorsy people in mind. Chances are slim that I'm going to need to pee while paddling a canoe or something. (I mean, if I am on a canoe? It is SUMMER and I can get in the water to pee. Who canoes in cold weather? Besides OUTDOORSY PEOPLE?) (Actually, that's not even true, because it takes me an hour to loosen up enough to pee in the ocean, so I cannot imagine the Performance Pressure I would be under if I had to climb out of a canoe and pee while possibly holding up the rest of the canoe party.) (Would only canoe as part of a canoe party; canoeing alone just sounds like a good way to get exhausted and lost.) But I have been in many many bathrooms where a product like this would have come in very useful! And not to mention certain OTHER COUNTRIES, specifically the ones where the norm is squatting over a big dirty hole in the ground. SHUDDER.

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What does make me laugh is the web site. “The feminine urination device that lets you go anywhere.” And there's a photo of a girl taking a picture of the Taj Mahal and I'm inappropriately picturing her realizing she needs to go while she's on a guided tour and whipping out her pink peeing aid and letting it go up against a wall. And then she sighs happily. There should be a subtitle: “The female urination device that lets you go anywhere. NOT THAT WE ARE ADVOCATING THAT. For Pete's sake, do not urinate on the Taj Mahal.”

Anyway, so let's have a contest! I will send the winner a THREE-PACK of Go Girl disposable urination devices, to pee with or just to freak out your friends and family. All you have to do is leave a comment telling me the weirdest place you've ever peed or HAD to pee (the entire story is welcome, if you feel led). (I would have a hard time choosing between that dumpster in Buckhead and a train in Switzerland, where the bathroom was just a little room with a toilet that opened up DIRECTLY ONTO THE TRAIN TRACKS. All that fresh mountain air, whooshing right up onto my naked behind.) I'll randomly choose a winner on Saturday.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Wait, did someone ask for pictures of my kids?

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Monday, May 18, 2009

I had to publish this now, because I have this New Post I'm working on that will BLOW YOUR MINDS

Back in my public transportation days, I would take an express bus from a parking lot close to my house to a Metro stop, where I'd take a train into the city. The express bus was usually a 15-minute journey, which was a good thing, since many mornings people were packed into them like sardines and most mornings I was late to the bus stop which made me one of the sardines who had to stand for the entire ride. The other good thing about the bus was that it was authorized to take the express lanes on the highway, so we rarely dealt with traffic or backups.

What would happen was the bus would get close to the little railroad crossing arm that separated the regular lanes from the express lanes and a sensor on the bus would alert the little arm that the bus was coming and then the arm would raise up and the bus would never have to slow down. I never second-guessed this technology. You can clearly see where this is going.

So one morning I'm standing in a packed bus, looking out the front window as best I can so I don't get motion sick and barf all over someone in a suit and an important-looking government badge, when I see that we're hurtling at top speed toward the little railroad crossing arm and the little railroad crossing arm is NOT GOING UP. And yet we're still moving! And the railroad arm is still down! Still down! STILL DOWN and the bus driver is clearly trusting that it is going to go up in time and then all of a sudden he realizes it isn't and he slams on the brakes and we go from 55 miles an hour to an ABSOLUTE STANDSTILL and no one but me seems to be aware this could even possibly happen because they've all got their noses buried in the Washington Post business section and so everyone standing in the aisle falls into a jumbled heap on the bus floor and briefcases are thumping into people's heads and elbows are jamming into people's ribs and FEET ARE STOMPING ON PEOPLE'S BACKS and the most awkward part is that after everyone stands back up, no one says anything. No one laughs, or cracks a joke, or swears at the bus driver for putting our lives in danger; even the bus driver HIMSELF doesn't say anything. No, we just stand there, silently, like the icy, soulless Washingtonians we are, and when I get to work everyone in the break room wants to know why I have footprints on my back. Oh, because I fell down in the bus and someone stepped on my back but I don't know who it was because no one helped me up and no one apologized either. No one apologized! AFTER STEPPING ON MY BACK.

Another time it was snowing when I got on in the morning and so it wasn't long before traffic was completely deadlocked, because this is Washington, DC, and even though every other winter we get a decent snowstorm, no one seems to remember anything about driving in it except that maybe they should PANIC and so I stood on that packed bus for MORE THAN AN HOUR, in the same spot, while we went nowhere. And ok, so don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of person who expects men to give up their seats for a lady anymore (a pregnant woman or an elderly woman, however, YES PLEASE) but how about just giving other people (women AND men) a chance to sit down for a moment or two since you know they've been standing for a very long time? And I know, standing isn't usually that big of a deal (it's called working retail) but this was standing in a crowded area, where the most movement I could get was shuffling my feet a little; it's not like I could move around or stretch or UNLOCK MY KNEES. But everyone who was sitting kept their noses buried in their newspapers and books because it was the best way to pretend that others weren't suffering around them. So I stood there, getting angrier and angrier because DUDE, my LEGS HURT and I'm going to PASS OUT from the fatigue of being wedged between all these people and also the steamy steamy HEAT with the winter coat and the mittens and the hat and the wool scarf and then WHAT DO YOU KNOW: the man next to me says, “Would you like to sit down?” And I smiled at him and said, “Oh, no, I'm fine. Thank you, though.” And then I had no one to be angry at but myself, because suddenly it was my own damn fault if my back gave out. Lesson: I ANNOY EVEN MYSELF.

Then one afternoon I left the office a couple of minutes late, so I was booking it to catch the train when I tripped in front of six lanes of traffic and fell on a grate. A GRATE. Which would have been bad enough, what with the six lanes of traffic and all and the fact that I haven't tripped and fallen down at full speed since JUNIOR HIGH, but what made it infinitely worse was that this particular grate wasn't flat, it had raised notches on it, like this. My casual Friday jeans were torn open at the knees and the skin was hanging off the heels of my hands and I was bleeding and did I mention that skin was HANGING OFF MY HANDS? My knee wounds weren't too obvious, because my jeans were soaking up the blood (yum!) but I was about to get on a crowded train during Friday afternoon rush hour, which meant I was most likely not going to be able to get a seat. The alternative was going to have to be to hold onto the poles with my raw, bloody hands or plant my feet as wide apart as I could get them and attempt to maintain my balance by holding my arms out and swaying along with the train. In other words, I was going to have to be the person that all the normal people went home and told their significant others about later that night. And I worried about this, a lot, in the moments before the train arrived, and then when the train did arrive, it was like the nightmare came true. I stood, trying to hold myself upright by clutching the pole with my fingertips and, when I could manage it without looking like some kind of pervert, also by squeezing it in between my bloody knees. For FORTY MINUTES I did this. And when the train would stop? I would hold my hands up in the air, ELEVATING THEM, to stop the bleeding. And although I suspected that I was the lone Crazy Freak on the train, it wasn't completely obvious until an entire seat opened up right beside me and after I sat down – EVEN THOUGH THE TRAIN WAS STILL PACKED LIKE A SARDINE CAN – no one had the nerve to sit down beside me.

This is totally unrelated, but about a month after I had the incident with the grate and the bleeding and the social outcasting on public transportation thing, I went to the doctor for a sinus infection and after she wrote me a prescription for an antibiotic I said, “You know? I tripped and fell a few weeks ago, and my knee is still really sore. Would you look at it and tell me if I should get it x-rayed or anything?” AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE DOCTOR SAID? She said no, that I would need to call and get another appointment for someone to look at that. Which I know, is probably a stupid insurance coding thing or whatever, but OMG SERIOUSLY? All I wanted was for someone to look at it and tell me, hey, it's probably fine. Or, you know? Maybe you should have it looked at by a Knee Doctor or something. But she looked me RIGHT IN THE EYE and said no, make another appointment. Is that not the most RIDICULOUS thing you've ever heard? RIDICULOUS, especially when I sat in the waiting room for 40 minutes and then the exam room for another 30 and they want me to COME BACK and do it ALL OVER AGAIN? I decided I would come back if my leg fell off instead. AND THEN I WOULD SUE.

(My leg never fell off.)

(I would like to hear your public transportation stories, because I know yours will trigger more of my own memories. I don't hold onto memories well. As evidenced by the fact that I just watched an entire episode of My First Place on HGTV that I didn't realize I'd seen before until I was 27 minutes into it. THE SHOW IS ONLY A HALF-HOUR LONG.)