Another unnecessary update

Ok, yesterday was the day. I had been thinking about it ever since I gagged on some yogurt like gunk. $302.00 and two weeks later, I was handed my mouth guard. It didn’t fit. After 25 minutes of shaving and tightening and adjusting, it sort of fit. As well as any piece of plastic specially molded for your teeth can fit anyway. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I think I thought it would fit better than it did.

I had a 7 AM dentist appointment. When you’re lucky, you’re lucky. I tried to wear the guard on the drive to work to get used to it and in case I was in a car accident. In my last car accident, I chipped a tooth. With this bad boy, that worry would be gone. Or so I thought.

There were a few things I wasn’t ready for. When I wear the mouth guard, it’s a lot harder to close my lips together. That’s something I had taken for granted. I also wasn’t prepared for the saliva build up. I don’t know if it’s because I had this new thing in my mouth activating my saliva glands, or because I had never had a plastic tray to catch the saliva that would otherwise drip down in my mouth. The mouth guard lasted about 3 minutes.

I pretty much ignored it for the rest of the day. As much as I wanted something to give my speech a lisp, I just wasn’t comfortable bringing the guard out in front of everyone at the office. The last thing I want to do is make them all jealous and I can’t really afford to have someone steal it from me right now.

Last night was my first night with the guard. I paid too much for it to not wear it, so I put it in before I went to bed. It was pretty annoying and I found it a little difficult to sleep, but I knew it would be awhile before I got used to it, so I decided that I just needed to suck it up. I woke up a couple of times and wanted to pull it out, but I knew I had to get used to it, so I dealt with it.

When I finally woke up this morning and decided it was ok to take it out, I was greeted with a pleasant surprise. I had no idea how the guard would affect me, but I was not prepared for what happened next. I put the guard back in the case and as I did so, I went to clench my jaw. Much to my amazement, I couldn’t clench. Not only that, but my jaw was also exceptionally sore! On both sides no less!!! I was ecstatic. I had to wait two weeks, and it cost me over $300.00, but they had found a way to make my jaw feel worse than it ever had!

It was totally worth it. If you’re just too comfortable when you sleep and you need something in your mouth to annoy the crap out of you so that you can have that restless, unfulfilling, empty sleep that you’ve always wanted, I highly recommend getting a mouth guard.

I’m lost…

Last night was the last episode of ABC’s Lost that we’re going to see for approximately 3 months. They have decided that after two months of the show, we need a 3 month break. Why only have one giant cliff hanger a season, when you can have two?

I’m not really sure I’m following the logic on this. I had heard they were going to make some changes about the show based on grievances viewers had over the sporadic schedule of the last couple seasons. This is what they came up with.

I question this because while I’m not quite prepared to give up on the show, I know many people that are. They are fed up with the schedule. And even more than that, they are fed up with the way the stories are being doled out every episode. It seems as though for each question they answer, they raise a couple dozen more. You don’t even care about what you just learned because now you’re going to spend the next couple days without sleep trying to answer the new questions you have.

I’d go into more detail, but I don’t want to ruin the show for anyone that had the foresight to just wait for the shows to come out on DVD. But suffice to say, the way I saw Alias fall apart, I can only imagine that it’s a matter of time before Lost jumps the shark. I don’t want it to, but it seems almost inevitable. I think I mentioned in the past that I hate the cliffhanger more than anything. These are popular shows. We’re going to watch them because we like them. Why must we have cliffhangers??? I’m going to come back next season. Why must you torture me for extended periods of time?

I don’t really watch enough TV to know, but do they jerk viewers around like this on all the other shows? What gives?

I consider myself a listener and a thinker.

It is with alarming regularity that I remind myself as well as the rest of the world what buffoon I really am. The situations always start our simple enough. I’ll be performing some regular everyday activity. This is usually my first mistake. I think I get sucked into the comfort of the situation and inadvertently trust myself to carry on like I’m actually capable of being a normal human being.

Today was no different. The situation in question was myself driving around performing a few errands while on lunch. I chose the cell phone as my medium for broadcasting my ineptitude and my girlfriend as the unlucky audience.

I was driving down the road when I noticed up ahead about half a block that the right lane was closed. As I was currently driving in the right lane, I thought it prudent to move over into the left lane. As I neared the section of the road where the right lane was closed (as was marked by several flashing lights and a couple of big work trucks), a silver Honda CR-V, still in the right lane and quickly running out of room, was almost refusing to quickly move in front of me, in spite of the room I was graciously allowing them to move into my lane in front of me. In a moment of frustration, I announced to my poor girlfriend on the phone, “I wish this person in the CR-V would learn how to drive! Preferably right now!”

At this point, I was still concealing my inherent buffoonery quite well. It was only a matter of time before that would end. My sweet, loving girlfriend, only trying to sympathize and be the best, most supporting girlfriend she could be while on the phone said, “What do those letters even mean? I think all of Honda’s letter named cars are acronyms.” This is where I chose to unveil the mask and show her what I’m really made of. I replied, “I have no idea what those numbers mean.”

“What?” she said. Apparently the cell phone gods made an attempt to save me by having the connection momentarily break up. Undaunted, I repeated slowly and clearly, “I have absolutely no idea what those numbers mean.”

She is a good woman. She just moved past it and proceeded to come up with various possibilities for the letters “CR-V.” CRossover Vehicle was her submission. I decided it was a Compact Recreational Vehicle. Turns out we were both sort of right. Most explanations of the CR-V call it a crossover SUV. The European literature on the auto calls it a Compact Recreational Vehicle, while Honda sources call it a Comfortable Runabout Vehicle.

For now, I’ll be referring to it as a Crappy… Road… Variable (?)… whatever…

Mark your calendars…

It’s that time of year again. I know it’s that time because HR has put up little signs on all the doors. We’re a pretty simple minded folk at my office, so if they didn’t cater to our special needs with little fliers on all of the doors, we probably would forget why we came into the building in the first place. Without my nameplate, I’d probably forget where I sat too.

I will openly admit that I have no formal training in layout and design. I didn’t study it, I don’t have a degree in it, I don’t even qualify as an amateur. But when I saw this little sign this morning, I just shook my head. I’ve taken the picture at close enough range to be able to read everything on there, but imagine yourself about 10 feet back of this. What’s the initial information that you gather from it?
Just so we’re clear, there is a second door that you pass through on the way into the building. The first one is the difference between being inside and being outside. There is a short hallway. If you go to your right, you can go up some stairs, but if you continue on straight, there is another door to pass through. I’ve been working at this office for about three and a half years now. On Monday, for the first time I can recall, the second door was closed. Several people ran head first into the door that day.

Borderline

I recently mentioned to my girlfriend that I was a borderline germophobe. After a brief moment of pure, unadulterated laughter, it was kindly explained to me that I am far from borderline, I am, in fact, way off the deep end. And while I still maintain that washing your hands 38 times a day is neither excessive or compulsive, I will accept that I have an aversion to germs and dirtiness in general. I will not apologize for it though.

I can’t recall if I’ve mentioned it or not here on the blog, (I probably have, but I’m not going to do any research, that’s what the research department* is for and it’s high time they earned their money.) but one of my biggest pet peeves is people that do not wash their hands after using the restroom. I consider it to be the filthiest room in any complex or house simply due to the nature of that room. Filthy things happen in there… dirty, disgusting, filthy, albeit necessary, things. To not wash your hands after doing ANYTHING in that room is inexcusable in my book.**

One of the biggest mistakes a person can make (also noted in my book) is to wash their hands, dry them off and then use their now clean hands to open the door to exit the restroom. Given the tremendous number of individuals that do not wash their hands after using the restroom, you have now negated any had washing that may have occurred and are now contaminated with filth once again.

With that in mind, I offer up “Jon’s guide to hand washing in a society filled with non-hand washing, filthy mongrels.” I suppose if I had more time and talent, I would have given that some fancy font or something, but this is like a low budget indie film, it’s good because it sucks. (or so I like to think.)

First, lets go over some of the basics. Any decent public restroom has a good supply of paper towels. I much prefer the newer, fancy motion sensor paper towel dispensers that give you a new sheet with the wave of a hand. No physical contact with the dispenser is required and us germophobes really appreciate that. Nothing disappoints me more than those stupid blow dryers. They are possibly the most useless invention of all time. Not only do they do an exceptionally poor job of drying your hands, but has anyone ever flipped one up to dry off their face? The words, “Amazingly Pleasant” will never ever ever be used to describe that experience. Plus, you’re touching filth everywhere… pushing the button to get the air started, fiddling with the directional nozzle, and ultimately, opening the door to leave the restroom. In the long run, you’ll want to make sure you know the vitals of any public restroom you may come into contact with. To help you out with that, I’ve come up with a little acronym to remember anytime you go into a restroom. Use it when you enter a new restroom for the first time and then think back on it every time you encounter an approved restroom on your roster. It’s a little something I like to call… S.S.S.S.D.D.T.T&U.

S – Stalls. You’re going to want to know the stall situation in any restroom. How many are there, what kind of condition are they in, do the doors swing out or do they open in towards the toilet, is there a handicap one (often times they like to make these stalls just a bit too small, and accidentally making contact with any of these filthy walls is just not acceptable. If a handicapped stall is available, it provides the best chance of avoiding any contact with the horrifically contaminated walls.) and of course, how does the locking mechanism on the stall door work.

S – Sink. You’ll want to know the sink situation as well. How many are there, do they have twist on twist off faucets or the timed, push down and get a little water, or the must-constantly-hold-down-if-you-want-any-water-at-all type. What kind of water pressure do they possess, has anyone stuck gum under the tap?

S – Soap. This is a good thing to know. Most places are going to have some sort of liquid soap dispenser, you’ll want to know if it’s scented or unscented. You’ll also want to know if they have that amazingly cheap, sand like substance that’s supposed to be soap but really only succeeds in taking off a layer of skin, which, I guess, is some level of clean, but it’s also some level of pain. I avoid this prison style soap whenever possible.

S – Sanitary. Every restroom is inherently filthy and thus unsanitary, but there are varying degrees of sanitation. They range anywhere from high class restaurant all the way down to subway terminal in the “neglected” part of town. It’s up to the individual to decide what level they will allow themselves to drop down to.

D – Drying Apparatus. I briefly mentioned this earlier. You’re going to want a restroom that supplies itself with some sort of paper towels. Be it with the magic motion sensing dispenser, or the traditional hand crank method, or the upside down tissue style dispenser. The aforementioned air drying apparatus is unacceptable, as is the recycling, semi-cloth, non-removable, filth-rag I’ve come across occasionally.

D - Door. Always important to pay attention to how the door opens. You’d rather be able to push the door open on the way out rather than on the way in, but this is a bit of a rarity. You’ll also want to note what kind of handle you’re working with, do you twist it or grab it.

T – Toilet Paper. Keep yourself apprised of the TP situation in any restroom. One simple rule: You can never have too much.

T & U – Toilet and Urinal. Always pay attention to the current state of the facilities. (ladies, you can ignore the urinal. But if you happen to see one of substandard condition, feel free to let your male friends know. Also, please stay out of the men’s room.)

See how easy that is to remember? A 7 year old prodigy could do it.

I’ll now give you a quick, step by step guide to washing your hands with the following conditions: Reasonably clear restroom with a crank handled paper towel dispenser, liquid soap (unscented), twist on, twist off faucet and a door that must be pulled from inside the restroom to open. For our purposes, we’ll assume that you’ve been in a restroom before and have completed your main task, and now have only the hand washing left to do.

Step 1: with your currently unclean hands, give the paper towel dispenser a few cranks, leaving a small section of paper towel hanging down. DO NOT TOUCH this section, leave it hanging there for now.

Step 2: turn on the water and set to the desired temperature.

Step 3: get your hands wet.

Step 4: dispense soap onto your hands and begin to lather and clean.

Step 5: rinse off your hands, but DO NOT TURN OFF THE WATER. Do not even touch the faucet handles. Leave the water running for now.

Step 6: detach the previously cranked paper towel and use as a barrier against the filth to now crank out as much paper towel as needed to properly dry your hands, then toss that small section into the trash. (the reason for this is that all too often, the filthy non-hand washing folks will enter the room, be filthy, not wash their hands, but still grab some paper towels for whatever reason. Basically, this is a safety catch-all to make sure that your clean hands are not exposed to filth.)

Step 7: dry hands but DO NOT THROW AWAY THE USED PAPER TOWEL.

Step 8: using the paper towel as a barrier against filth, turn off the faucet, but DO NOT THROW AWAY THE PAPER TOWEL.

Step 9: once again, using the paper towel as a barrier against filth, open the restroom door, use your foot to hold the door open while you toss the now used and partially contaminated paper towel into the trash. (in an ideal situation, the trash can is right next to the exit, but if it is not, never fear, this gives you an excellent opportunity to practice your old, wet, filthy, paper towel basketball skills.)

Step 10: leave the restroom feeling as clean as you possibly can.

Well, that about wraps it up for today. Tune in next time where I teach you how to block out thoughts of a disgustingly unclean janitor putting those paper towels in the dispenser in the first place :)

*The research hopes you will accept it’s deepest apologies as they were unable to get to this request what with the holidays (Veteran’s Day) fast approaching.

**It should be noted that my book is not well publicized and has a decidedly low readership.

Another Sunday in Paradise

When you’re 29 years old and living at home, it’s pretty safe to say that you’ve got it made. You’ve made all the right decisions in life and have put yourself into a position where you can afford to pay spiders ridiculous amounts of money for rent. I’ll ask all of my readers to please hold their jealous rants from the comments for now and try and focus their envy on something more productive like corn husking.

As if that wasn’t enough, I’ll further incur the wrath of the internet by telling you all that for the past week and a half, and for the next week and a half, I’ve had the place all to myself since my parents went on vacation. Since I only work 9 or 10 hours a day and have an hour commute each way, when you subtract the 6 hours a night that I sleep, that means I’ve got a solid 6 or 7 hours a day where I can do whatever I want with the place. Sounds pretty sweet right?

Yeah, that’s what I thought too until I found out that my list of activities is as follows:

1. Spend multiple hours cleaning up several pounds of cat hair left on the furniture and carpet by Spencer the cat. It’s really not that bad though because I only have to do it maybe once every other day and it only takes 2 or 3 hours…
2. Clean up all the kitty litter that Spencer that cat thought looked better outside the box rather than inside, with all the other litter. I guess this one isn’t really a necessity though, I mean, who really has a problem with stepping on partially used kitty litter with their bare feet right after they step out of the shower?
3. Two words: Cat. Vomit. It would seem as though Spencer has a binging problem, which is followed up by the more problematic purging issues he has. I guess I’m being kind of petty about this one though because at least 25% of the time he pukes on the kitchen floor rather than the living room carpet. And it’s really my fault in the first place for putting too much food on his plate.

I realize that most of those tasks sound pretty glamorous*, but once you get past the fact that your life is dominated by cat maintenance, you don’t feel so lucky any more and the star struck feeling you had before really wears off.

*Upon rereading this post, the author noticed that some readers may think that he doesn’t like cats or that he resents Spencer in some way. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Spencer and the author first met a little over 4 years ago. Spencer was a small, flea infested kitten running across the street and nearly getting hit by a car. The author was a young lad ridding his bike. Spencer dashed under a Ford Explorer in a nearby parking lot after his near miss in the street. The Author spent the next 45 minutes trying to coax him out of the wheel well of the Explorer. It took awhile, but Spencer was lured out and brought home where he has lived a happy life chasing bugs and generally harassing the other cats in the house.

The new landlord

Throughout my childhood, there were certain phrases spoken by my father that came across more as a mantra than anything else. My sisters and I heard these so often as kids that it’s hard to imagine a world where those phrases don’t exist. I heard them so much in fact, that after years of repetition and exposure, no matter how absurd they sounded, they became a kind of truth. While I imagine a fair amount of those sayings were not uncommon to the rest of the world, there is one that comes to mind that probably didn’t make the rounds.

“Spiders are our friends.” That’s what my father brought us up to believe. When either of us small, innocent little children (and we were always innocent. I don’t think a single one of us ever did a bad thing in our entire lives) shrieked in horror over a creeping, crawling, hairy abdomened beast of a spider, my father was always right there to tell us not to worry, spiders are our friends. I can’t recall a single instance where this ever calmed one of us down.

The next series of events was duplicated many times in our house. The child would continue to cry, my dad would continue to explain the many blessed benefits of arachnids, and my mother would come in with a tissue and dispatch the little critter. It never ended well for our “friends.”

I can recall the first horrific moment in my life when I uttered that same phrase to a friend of mine in the exact same intonation as my father. I can only speak for myself, but the majority of my 20’s have been spent doing two things: Trying desperately not to turn into my parents and turning into my parents. I’m not sure what the aversion is. My parents are good people and I get along with them very well, yet for some reason, it remains one of my main goals not to turn into them. I’m failing miserably.

All life goals aside, I seem to have, willingly or not, subscribed to the theory that spiders are indeed our friends. I’m not sure if it’s a side effect of that mantra growing up, or some other complex series of events that I can neither recall or explain, but I’m against killing of any kind, hated bug or human being. Killing is killing and I don’t like it, nor do I practice it. So with that in mind, I have a tendency to be a lot more lenient with the various insects and or arachnids that occupy the same living space as I do. I prefer it if the critters stay outside though, and I will do whatever necessary to remove the bugs from the inside and place them outside if such a need may arise.

The other day, I saw this.

At first I thought it was pretty impressive. Decent sized web, must have taken awhile to put it together. I can respect that sort of craftsmanship. Nature often does impressive things. I wonder about strange things sometimes, so when I saw that, I wondered what the spider that made it looked like. Then I wondered how many bugs had been caught in that web. Then I wondered if I could ever get caught in that web. Then I wondered if a leaf ever got caught in the web and when the spider came out to check on it, he was disappointed because he wasn’t a vegetarian. Then I made some careful mental notes about the exact location of the web because my ability to walk through spider webs is exceeded only by my fear of walking into a spider web when the spider itself is directly in the middle and would consequently end up on my face. You see, while I consider the spider to be my friend, I still do not like it to crawl on my face. I don’t like it to crawl anywhere on my person, but my least favorite place to have it crawl is on my face. If given a pop quiz that said, “Where would you least like to have a spider crawl on your person? A) Your shoe. B) Your Hand C) Your face. Without hesitation, I would answer C.

As luck would have it, one of my previous question was answered last night when I came home. It was late. It was dark. I was alone.

I’d rather not get into the exact details of what happened next, but suffice to say, my wallet will be quite a bit lighter on the first of every month from here on out and this guy’s wallet will be substantially heavier. (Let’s not get into where his wallet will be, or the fact that it’s probably not legal for him to just show up and start charging me money, it’s a bit of a moot point considering the level of creepy that he exudes. And if you’re thinking you could take him, you might be right, but the two behind you in the shadows… good luck with them.)I’m sorry dad, but you were wrong. Spiders are not our friends; they are our landlords.

PSA

I feel that I have a certain responsibility in this world to make it a better place. I think that there are a lot of selfish people in this world that don’t practice that ideal. I look around and I see a world full of kids with a tremendous sense of entitlement. Every generation is becoming more and more egocentric. They are only concerned with what’s best for them. They don’t take the time to think about how their actions will affect those around them. If someone else has to endure hardship because of their actions, they just think, “Sucks for them. Glad it wasn’t me.” And they move on, even though with very little effort, they could have spared that person a lot of grief.

I grew up with the mindset that if you can help someone out, you should. And not because you’ll get something out of it, or because that person will owe you something later, you do it because it’s the right thing to do. That is it’s own reward. I genuinely feel good about myself when I’ve taken the time to make someone else’s life a little easier. I’m not even concerned with good karma; I’m just concerned with doing what is best for the community.

With all of that in mind, I offer this up to the internet and all the people it may reach (all 5 to be exact): Please do not watch The Puffy Chair.* Nothing good will come of it.

*I offer up this exemption: If you are mood to excuse yourself from the abilities to both see and hear, this is the perfect movie to help you through the process. Just moments into it, you will be more than ready to do whatever it takes to alleviate your mind from the pressures related to those two senses.

UPDATE

Had a follow up appointment with my Maxillofacial Surgeon today. I believe his goal was to end the appointment in record time. I was inside his office for approximately 90 seconds… we spent the first thirty catching up on exactly why I was there in the first place. After a bit, he remembered that I was the little sissy boy complaining about not being able to fully clench my jaw. He spent the next thirty seconds laughing. The final thirty seconds were spent by him explaining to me that my condition was chronic, would most likely happen again and that he wasn’t going to do anything about it right now.

I was immediately relieved. I was terrified that this would be something I could fix now and forget about for the rest of my life, but now I can rest easy at night knowing that at any moment I could slip back into the horrific nightmare that is TMJ. He said it was most likely cause by some bleeding in the joint. Another victory, I thought to myself. Learning that my joints are capable of spontaneously bleeding internally is probably a lot like learning you’re pregnant. It’s scary and exciting all at the same time. I guess I wouldn’t really know about the pregnant thing though because every time I’ve suspected something, the doctor has always informed me that I am not, in fact, pregnant. And yes, hearing that news always makes me a little sad on the inside.

Fortunately for me, the news about my joint is true, and no one can take that away from me. I can’t wait to get my mouth guard from the dentist next week. I’ll be like a proud father the first time my joint inexplicably starts bleeding after I start wearing that mouth guard to sleep. I will openly mock the dentist at that point. Even if it is 3 am, I will call him up and let him know that the $302.00 I spent on this glorified plastic replica of my teeth impressions was totally worth it since I can now call him a quack. I will declare it open season on any and all Dental insult jokes, and he will have no ground to stand on. It will be exhilarating.

In the mean time, I leave you with this picture. It’s the exit sign at the Maxillofacial (yes, I could just say Oral Surgeon, but I think they’re pretty proud of the fact that they have a fancy name for people who pull teeth out for a profession.) Surgeon. I’ve never seen a sign quite like it before. The first time I saw it was right before I was about to have my wisdom teeth taken out. I cannot say why, but I felt a little uneasy. Then they knocked me out.

The world according to an Oreo…

Life isn’t fair. We take this statement and accept the words, but we never truly accept the meaning. We know that life isn’t fair, but we seem to be absolutely sure that at least for ourselves, life should be fair. And in some cases, we feel that the abundance of “bad luck” that has befallen us requires some divine intervention of good luck like winning the lottery to make up for all of the crap we have been put through. This is our idea of fair.

I like to think of myself as a pretty even keel kind of guy. I take the good with the bad, I roll with the punches. Sometimes everything goes my way, and other times, nothing goes my way. That’s life. It’s not fair, but we were never promised that.

But still, even with my current attitude, there are certain things that happen in life that just seem like too much. No one deserves to have something that horrific happen to him or her. You’d have a hard time trying to convince even the most optimistic person that a curse of some sort was not in play.

Recently, I’ve been struggling with the path my life has taken. I’ve slipped out of the groove and fallen directly into the rut. Everything came together in a moment of clarity today when I was trying desperately to salvage some joy in the day by putting all my faith in a package of Oreo cookies. Perhaps that was my first mistake. When I pulled out the first cookie and saw the following, that’s when I knew that the groove was long gone and I was deep inside the rut.
The true pain of this cookie can be seen in the amount of “white stuff” I was given. No, I was not completely denied, but in this instance, I really feel like no white stuff would have been preferable. If you were a waiter or waitress, and you spent 3 and a half hours serving a family of 15, and after handing them a bill for $450.73 and they wrote you a check for $451.00, wouldn’t you rather receive nothing at all instead of $0.27? I think I would…