Almost a Medical Question

There is a website out there called Poop Report. I guess this should come as no surprise as there seems to be a website for just about everything these days. I’ve no idea what I was Googling for when I ran across the site, but I found something there that makes me laugh each time I read it; it’s a nurses response to a question submitted by a reader.

IF the thought of there being a website called Poop Report troubles you, turn back now.

Here goes… a question for the Poo Nurse.

An Old Spice Parody in support of marriage equality.

You’ve all been there.

You go away for the weekend, decide to stretch it out for a week, your blog explodes, you don’t realize if for days, when you do find out it’s down you can’t fix it remotely. You finally get back to the server and find it’s kicked out an error message and is awaiting your command to do some disk checking.

When the checking is done all is well. And that’s good as you have bigger problems.

While you were gone the company’s ERP package went south and even though you were able to coordinate some repairs over the weekend – from 1200 miles away – there are still some ill effects and it’s taking all your time to fix. So much time, in fact, your only opportunity to write about it comes as the server is doing a 45-minute process you’ll need to repeat at least once more.

Ah well.

Life’s still good.

This is apparently just over a week old but somehow I missed it. Writing for The American Spectator, Ben Stein said:

"The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say “generally” because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work. They are people who create either little utility or negative utility on the job. Again, there are powerful exceptions and I know some, but when employers are looking to lay off, they lay off the least productive or the most negative. To assure that a worker is not one of them, he should learn how to work and how to get along — not always easy."

Reading this bothered me a bit as there is something I like about Ben Stein. I’m not sure what it is, but no doubt Ferris Bueller comes into play somewhere.

I read the above blurb first on a website that was not at The American Spectator. While trying to track down the original posting I found it a couple of times more before making my way to the source.

At The American Spectator I found the whole post. The offensive bit above was just a small piece of a larger article Mr. Stein penned (or typed, or whatever).  As a matter of fact it was point two in a in a series of three where point three read:

3. Simple habits of prudence will almost save the day, even in a bad recession. People who have meaningful savings, insured retirement plans, diversification of assets, people who do not buy what they cannot afford, people who do not simply assume the money will materialize out of thin air for their next purchase, people who add and subtract and see life plain, these people rarely get in desperate trouble. It is amazing how old-fashioned habits of buying modestly and living within one’s means, and planning for bad times as well as good times, can get one through earth shaking events.

I’m not defending Ben Stein. God knows our politics differ by about 180 degrees. Still, the several sources I came across that mentioned point two made no mention of point three which, I think, contains several useful tips — you know, if it were rewritten so that is wasn’t so much an observational piece as a piece on giving financial advice.

Not surprisingly, Stein got beat up in the blogosphere for his comment. A few days later he put down a few more points on the subject. The first two points were:

1. I have a small circle of friends and acquaintances. Their experiences may be totally different from the experiences of the rest of Americans.

2. Within that small circle, the persons who are long-term unemployed are generally, with some exceptions, lacking in good work habits or substance abusers or difficult to be around because of personality problems or have not bothered to learn new skills or are wildly unrealistic in what kinds of jobs they will accept.  They are fine people and I like them but they are troubled. This apparently has a lot to do with their economic situation.

I don’t know if he is backtracking. I don’t get that feel from the article, but I don’t know a lot about Ben Stein’s character past what I see on commercials for eye drops.

It would have been helpful had the other websites I visited gone into more detail about the American Spectator posting. Snipping small bits of an article (or tape or video) just to make someone look like a total wanker is unhelpful.

I don’t like it when Fox News does it.

I don’t like it when the non-insane do it.

(This is not to say Ben Stein is not a total douche. I just don’t know. You’d think Ben would be smart enough to suppose that the massive number of new layoffs might have caught a boatload of people that fall into his “exceptions” category… but maybe he’s just clueless and not douchey.)

I found out about this at J-Walk blog.

According to the I Write Like website, and depending on the post, I write like:

Mark Twain

Margaret Atwood

David Foster Wallace

Stephen King

Dan Brown

The last two analyses came from posts at my other blog. I thought the Stephen King bit caught the tone of the post I snipped rather well.

Well… there was a crash. And then a slow recovery. But, we’re almost back.

And a bit about my vasectomy…

I don’t buy a lot of condoms these days as I’ve had the magic operation. (And it was awesome! I went to the doctor on a Friday, he painted everything between my navel and knees iodine-purple, I got a shot, there was some snipping, and I was sent home to spend the weekend holding a bag of frozen peas on my sore spots. I’m pretty sure peas are used so that, just in case one gets out of the bag and works its way into a man’s underwear, as he digs it out he’ll be provided the opportunity of seeing just how much bigger than a pea his testicles are and he’ll think to himself, "Sure, you guys are no-longer baby producers, but look how much bigger than peas you are!" Really, this can be the only reason, especially in Ohio, that peas are used. We don’t grow a lot of peas here so, basically, we’re using an imported frozen vegetable to provide comfort to our wounds — physical, spiritual, and manliness-wise — when frozen soy beans and/or corn would be better for the local economy. Of course, both of these vegetables are larger than peas. Ice cubes from the tray are way too big.

Generally speaking, let’s try to keep in mind that introducing anything from the freezer to that region of a man’s body is going to lead to some shrinkage, so the smaller the frozen item introduced is, the better.)

Again, I don’t buy a lot of condoms. And, as I think back there are only a couple of condom-buying experiences that stick out.

I remember the first time I bought condoms (of course). I’d gone to visit a young lady at another college and I wasn’t even sure I’d need condoms … but I wanted to have them and not need them rather than need them and not have them (and as I sit here, 25 years later, without a 24-year old offspring, it seems to have been a good move.) I went to a drug store not too far from the university to make my buy. I didn’t know what to get and was afraid that when my date went to introduce me to her just-returning-from-work roommate it would be the coed who I’d made the purchase from. When I went to pay for the condoms (Trojans, unlubricated and maybe with a powder of some sort on them … they were very dry and this was the last time I bought unlubricated condoms) I nervously fumbled the money out of my pocket and spilled it across the counter as I choked on whatever I was trying to say ("double bag this, please," perhaps).

The next time that sticks out was May 1986. I know the month because I was in Columbus working 18-hour days. One night after work I was in a King Kwik (probably) and was the only patron. I still hadn’t gotten past being nervous when I’d buy condoms and figured since I was the only person in the store it was a good time. "Is this all?" asked the guy behind the counter.

"Yea. No! Wait! Let me get another box." As I retrieved the additional box I wondered how I’d sounded and felt that some more explanation was needed. "It’s not that I think I’m going to get incredibly lucky over the next couple of days … but I figure they’ll keep until I need them. "

The guy laughed and I was able to pay him without throwing bills or change all over and behind the counter.

About half a mile up the road is a gas station/convenience store. It used to be a Citgo station back before Citgo quit selling in Ohio. [Citgo, I believe is Venezuelan-owned and the president of Venezuela is, of course, Hugo Chavez. You may remember Hugo Chavez as the man Pat Robertson wanted to have whacked and as the man who compared Bush to the devil (which really doesn't narrow things down all that much, but he did it in front of the UN).]

Now it’s closed.

Not long after I started stopping there I was standing in line and sort of checking out the things behind the counter. There were the tobacco products, lottery tickets and, of course, soft-core porn DVDs.

The DVDs caught me off guard. I’d been in the store dozens of times and I’d never seen them. They weren’t displayed in an in-your-face manner and I wondered if they ever sold any of them. Despite the fact I sometimes make reference to Ron Jeremy I really don’t know all that much about porn (except for the fact that, like most guys, I like it … and I say that just for effect, Mom … if I liked it I’d probably know more about it) but it seemed to me, based on the titles, that this was probably B-level soft-core porn; not your high level hard core stuff. I doubt that any of the titles would have been a current-day Debbie Does Dallas, Behind the Green Door or Deep Throat (which I think are hard core titles, but, for all I know, are pretty tame and available behind the counter at United Dairy Farmers and In-N-Out Burgers all across the country). 

Wait, I did see a really bad copy of Debbie Does Dallas about 22 years ago. This, if your porn-history is as bad as mine, is the porno flick that doesn’t start with a young guy delivering pizza to a group of women having a candle party.

Anyway, months passed. One day I noticed the porno DVDs were gone from the Citgo. The guy behind the counter didn’t know where they’d gone but said he was never aware that they’d sold any of the movies.

Now, as I’ve said, the Citgo station is closed.

I don’t know that the two are related… but I don’t know that they’re not.

Is your sending cease-and-desist orders to other restaurants over their use of the word footlong supposed to give me a warm and fuzzy feeling about you?

Nobody else can use the word footlong to describe a sandwich, per your attorneys, because you invented it?

What?

This makes you look like a gigantic tool. And while the tactic is, I’m sure, supposed to gain or keep customers or something, it’s making you look like a bully.

What’s can we expect next? Crush videos featuring Jared?

You didn’t come up with the word footlong. It’s been around a good long while.

As for using strong-arm tactics as a customer-keeping strategy – good luck with that. I’ll be getting my 12-inch sandwich fix at Jersey Mike’s, Quiznos, Penn Station or one of the half-dozen or so mom-and-pops I drive by each day.

I lived in an apartment complex several blocks away from my friend Alan. Between our apartments was that of The Girls. The Girls actually lived in two apartments and collectively were: Big Carol, Little Carol, Big Vicky, Little Vicky, Diane, Lisa, and another woman whose name I forget (and I really feel bad about forgetting as Alan and I spent a lot of time at the girls’ apartment).

It should be noted that Big Carol was an average sized girl, Little Carol was on the petite side, Little Vicky was average sized and Big Vicky was on the plus edge of things.

Lisa, Diane, and The Other Girl all seemed about the right size for their names but, as they were just a sample of one, it’s hard to know.

Our story will focus primarily — well, only — on the apartment made up of Lisa, Big Carol, and The Other Girl. I believe Diane lived with them as well but, people, this was a long time ago.

They were all on cuties, pleasant, and tolerant of Alan and me.

If I had daughters I would want them to grow up as I believe Carol, Lisa, The Other Girl and Diane, did. Not necessarily sheltered, but not so worldly that it would make a father worry too much about what his daughter was up to. It was not uncommon for me or Alan to say something that would make Lisa turn bright red and start fanning herself with her hand. And it isn’t like we were doing Lenny Bruce material.

Alan and I were harmless as far as boys went — certainly by The Girls’ standards anyway. About once a week we’d find ourselves in the girls’ apartment in the evening, having a beer or two, and watching television with them. When they got tired they’d all go up to their bedrooms and ask us to lock up when we left. (Lisa and I had briefly, and casually, dated earlier in the year, but by this time we were all buddies.)

So. What do we need to take away from this?

• Alan and I had a group of female friends who trusted us enough … thought we were harmless enough … that they’d let us hang in their apartment after they went to bed.
• If I had daughters I’d want them to be like these girls. That is, not one that I’d expect to say something like, “A Jell-O bath?! Count me in!”

Which made what happened all the more surprising.